I don't own anything Andromeda.

Set during or shortly after So Burn the Untamed Lands, when they for the first time agree to work together again for someone else's benefit and do 'the right thing' in the end, although it hurts their own interests, when on Seefra they're coming together as a crew again and 'doing causes'. It's a bit of a ‚choose your own'-fic: everyone of them could be saying this to any of the others, really.

Back now

I know that it's not easy to see someone you love so fragile for so long. And I know that it's not only my past frailties, but a lot of things I've done - and omitted - that brought about some of this coldness in your eyes.

I know all that and maybe!... maybe you're right, maybe I really did betray you, betrayed my own beliefs. I certainly belied myself on lots and lots of things. But you see, ever since we got stranded here I just couldn't make up my mind anymore about what it was that I really wanted to do, to be, to become. But then again: when does one ever really know something like that?

It's funny though: through all the misery and loss and hard feelings I still always let you keep your place within my heart, in spite of me so often wanting you to just move out of there. Sometimes I even felt the urge to send you packing and help you along with the bags. Yet in the end I never made you leave, you never left of your own free will, I stayed stuck around you... and now it looks as if we could go back to where we started before Seefra, before Arkology, before... Before.

Had someone cared to ask me previously to Seefra: I never would have thought that something could affect us the wayour splitting up did, before we finally managed to meet again (in Hell, as I might add). I always used to think us so strongly knit together! And the strange part is: somewhere deep inside I still think of us that way – too strong to fall apart, to quit, to leave, to no longer be there for one another.

Come on, what do you say? How about we start talking to each other again? I mean: really talking. It's not as if everything has already been said and done between us, you know. This silence we've been stuck with for so long... We deserve better than that. You'll see, once we make it through this all, I know it'll get better. I will never fail you again – and I will find the strength to love and make you feel loved. I will love you again, I promise.

Oh, there still will be other difficult mornings, rude awakenings and words spoken in anger, the future will still hold all those unnecessary traps we lay out for each other, meant mostly as mere jokes, and in the very end doing nothing but harm. But there will also be those bursts of laughter, of joy, the silent understanding once more proving to be stronger than our hurt, stronger than us even, all those rare, precious moments when we find the courage to admit that we love and are loved in return – and that in the end this is all that really matters.Granted, there were maybe not enough of those moments, but they WERE there, I know it, I felt it and I know that you felt it, too. Ultimately I think that they are more important than all the things I did or didn't do, that hurt you.

I know that I've been gone, absent even when I was standing next to you, I know you doubted me, but if you can find in yourself the strength to trust me again just one more time, I promise to never again get lost on my way to you.

Look at me! I'm back, I'm here now, even though it might have taken me a while... I'm late, but you and I, we still share the same story!

Just look at me, please, look! I'm standing here now, maybe a little clumsy, maybe too stiff, immobile – but here anyway, and I'm trying hard to make the words you wanted to hear from me leave the chest in which I had shut them away for so long. Don't tell me it's too late. It never is! I'm here now, I made it back to you, and yes – I promise that I will never ever leave you alone again. I swear!

I'm here. I'm here to stay. And all you have to do is to still want me by your side, want me along... I'm back! Tell me you do still want me.