Passing Dalliances
Disclaimer: As usual, I nothing belongs to me, I wish it did, but sadly it doesn't.
Spoilers: Major spoilers for Shadows Cast By a Final Salute.
Status: Complete.
Summary: Tyr's untimely departure has created quite a stir with the crew, especially Beka.
Author's Notes: Well, I finally broke down and wrote it. I guess I had to get it out of my system. Here is the aftermath of Tyr's goodbye.
Beka couldn't believe he was gone. Practically she understood, but emotionally that understanding didn't do a bit of good. It hurt and that's it. No way to coat the wound, no fast healing and definitely no way to tell anybody why she was in all sense grieving for a relationship that never happened.
She knew that all of them expected what was wrong. Rommie had even approached her after seeing their little conversation. Oh what an incident that had been. Wound still raw and simmering, she hadn't been able to talk.
"I just want to help Beka."
"I'm sorry Rommie, but you don't understand. It's not your problem, it's mine and I'll deal with it the way I always do."
"And which way is that? By running in the opposite direction?"
She had stormed off after that, not able to say anything in her defence. Three days later she knew that she should say something to Rommie; apologize for being so hostile at the time, but everything she got up the courage to say anything, something always came up. Whether it was another ambassador asking Dylan what he was going to do with his rogue Nietzschean or a Minister trying to get information out of them, there always seemed to be some interruption so she couldn't talk with anyone.
Anyways, if she could what would she say, "sorry guys, but Tyr left and there is a big gaping whole in my heart right now." They would all look at her like she had gone of the deep end. No matter what their claims to the contrary. No matter Harper's claims to the contrary.
"You're not the only one who misses him Beka."
"Oh, really."
"Yeah. The big guy had a special place in my heart also. He's helped me out in so many different occasions that I don't think I'll know what to do next times we're hip deep in shit. It'll be scary."
Slowly it had seemed like members of the crew had searched out her to unload their grief and anger. Trance came trying to talk, being very reminiscent of her old self. Suddenly all the mysticism and all-around-strangeness of the new Trance was gone leaving a vulnerable girl lying in its wake. But like the rest, Beka had managed to turn her away after a few sentences leaving Beka feeling worse. Trance had come with her proverbial hat in her proverbial hand and she had turned her away at the door. Some friend she was.
Dylan was the only one that still hadn't come to her. In a way that hurt more than having to deal with everyone else's pain on top of her own. Dylan might have been the only one to really understand what she was going through. Yet he had locked himself in his office claiming he was trying to figure out what to do now that the New Commonwealth Fleet was destroyed. In some ways she knew he was hiding just as deep as she was, only he had that nice safe cloak of "official business" to wrap himself in and shelter himself with.
Suddenly, all the grief and pain that had built up in her exploded and Beka screamed. She looked around her quarters on the Andromeda and found a gift Tyr had given her. An expensive, delicate, breakable gift. Using all her might, she chucked it across the room and felt no alleviation in grief as it shattered across the wall. It wasn't fair none of this was fair. They hadn't spent three long years to have history repeat itself by one of their own. And Dylan was hiding once again. Granted the first time his hiding had been enforced, but this time he was doing it of his own violation when they need him the most. When she needed him the most.
With her back turned to the mess and her shoulders and breath heaving in the effort to control her anger and pain, she almost missed the opening hiss of the doors. She turned around and saw Dylan standing there, as if her anger had called to him. He looked down at the shattered glass and cocked an eyebrow while trying to smile. It didn't quite make it to his eyes.
"The glass and wall got into a fight, the glass lost," she said trying to sound unbothered. It didn't work.
"I know it's hard right-" Dylan tried to say before she cut him off.
"Hard? Hard was the amount of work he so careless destroyed." She said her anger gearing up for another fight. But he wouldn't have it.
"I'm not here to fight you. You've been doing enough of that with everyone else."
"So you're here to scold me instead?" Beka said unbelieving. Dylan who had been hiding from everyone was about to tell her to not get angry. It was simply unbelievable.
"No, I here to try and figure out how to get through this. Because I tried by my self and nothing worked."
That confession made Beka stop and look at Dylan. He looked as haggard and sad as the rest of them, and here he was doing what she had wanted for the last three days. Coming to comfort and talk to her. For the first time since Tyr left, Beka swallowed her anger and sat down on her couch defeated.
"I don't know what to do." Beka said after a moment's pause. " I'm grieving for a person that's not only not dead, but has quite effectively become our number one enemy. How could he do what he did and not know the effect it would have on us?"
"I really don't understand either." Dylan admitted sitting down beside her. "All I can guess is that Tyr decided this was the right course of action for him. You know Tyr, it all comes down to -"
"Survival," they said at the same time.
They sat like that for quite a while. Quietly, realizing that they didn't need the actual talking, but the comfort the other's presence gave them. They drew on the silent understand that they were probably the ones who understood Tyr the best and that this was what he did. He was a survivor with his main allegiance to himself. Anything else was merely a passing dalliance.
Eventually, Dylan got up and headed out the door. Beka went over to where the broken glass lay lying dejectedly on the floor and tried to scoop it up. There was no way to fix it, like her relationship with Tyr, but life moved on however painfully. The New Commonwealth was on the brink of another war, and she was caught in the middle, but she would do one thing, one thing in memory of what could have been. She would survive.
The End
Please, Please, Please Review!