A/N: Mary Rose got married. She asked for some ficsinvolving... well, the things Mary Rose likes - and to go it all the way. Her lovely husband, however, likes something else, namely Harper/P-Trance, better. But as long as the two of them are happy together... Anyway, it will for those reasons have to be not exactly a WIP, but still longer than just a one-shot.

Disclaimer: I don't own Andromeda

Beginning right after The Things We Cannot Change.

Long Distance Run

I. For Starters...

1. Attempting Patience

What's he doing? Didn't he listen? On Shintaida, didn't he understand what I was trying to tell him? Do I really have to spell it out for him? Maybe I have to.

Hell! It's been close, so close! We came within an inch of losing him. I look at him lying here, struggling for words to thank me... ME! I try to interrupt him, tell him that I was anyway going to try and retrieve the Maru. He looks at me with this earnest and slightly challenging look in his eyes, the one that says 'Cut the crap!', whenever his inbred politeness prevents him from speaking his mind out loud. It's Tyr he should be thanking. What Tyr did for him, how he did it... I'm indebted to Tyr for the rest of my life for it.

He says, he already thanked Tyr and that now's my turn. That we did it together and that we both risked what we value most to help him, that he knows and is grateful for it... He's only partly right. Indeed, Tyr went against all instinct, put his life on the line for Dylan in the most un-selfish, uncharacteristic way for a Nietzschean. But me...

Does he really not know – or not believe what he is, what he's become to me? I search his face, unbelieving. He can't be that obtuse, that clueless, that naiv. And then I know I'm right: he isn't. But he's weary, scared and still too bruised to deal with it right now.

Very well. I won't tell him. Not all, anyway. And I won't expect him to tell me anything, either. But I have to make him understand once and for good that I know where we're standing, how far we've come together. He shied away on Shintaida – and then was saved by the bell. But there's no bell to save him now. I won't bother him too much, I will give him all the time he needs, but he has to know that as far as I'm concerned it's all about him now, has been so for a while.

I remember well the quiet, dispassionate contempt for Dylan Charlemagne was hiding under his suave, persuasive manners, his fake deferent praise of him barely able to conceal what he was really thinking: that he had come to us forced by circumstances, to strike a deal with this guy set on changing the universe with nothing but an empty, albeit powerful ship and a crew built up barely two years ago from a mud-foot from Earth, some foolish girlie of unknown origins, a proselyte monster, a Nietzschean from an extinct and thus inferior pride and a female pirate. That he would strike the deal and bid his time for the first opportunity to prove that a pact with Nietzscheans is not worth the paper it's being written on and stab Dylan in the back.

The fool! Archduke Bolivar, mighty Sabra-Jaguar ruler, tamer of the shrew (or so I hope for his sake), yet still blinded by the usual Nietzschean arrogance, unable to see what was right in front of his nose: that beneath Dylan's starry-eyed, child-like beliefs in ideals, there is a vein of steel, a deadly determination to see his will come true.

He's given up too much for it to be any different. He sacrificed his personal happiness to go on fighting for ideals that to restore and protect he perceived as his duty. Those ideals that only months ago used to always shine in his eyes. And when they did, when they do... Harper's right: when his ideals still glow in his eyes every now and then, I could drown in them.

But ever since the worldship Dylan has started selling parts of his dreams, putting his ship and his life on the line and sacrificing to reality most of those ideals he had pursued without concession, lifeline or net. He stared into the fangs of the Abyss and refused to run from the challenge, picked up yet another fight and accepted to put his high-flying dreams on stall and take care instead of the dirty business of keeping this universe alive.

And ever since he spends his time struggling on and on, with one system after another, never missing any ever so remote chance of bringing in yet another ally, going through talks, battles, duels, treaties showing no fatigue, no discouragement, no doubts. Beware, ladies and gentlemen – and Mr. Bolivar! One day it could blow over, and then it might take you all down.

He goes to the farthest, most insignificant races, explains the facts to the most obtuse and the most enlightened, bullies them, threatens, charms... He walks through palaces and sits down in huts, urges us all to make profit that he then spends on others. He cheats, he lies and he protects them with his own life if necessary. There is not one thing he wouldn't do to forge his alliance against the Magog, to keep those fools alive. Whatever it takes to lead them to victory: Dylan's got it all.

And me... I love him for this uncompromising respect for life, for his compassion for all things sentient... and for the dare-devilish, cocky, insane way to go about it as well as for the witty, graceful ease with which he moves in for a kill whenever he's convinced himself that something is threatening to extinct life. I must have loved him for a long time already, but during the past few hours, while I sat out there waiting for Trance to stabilize him, clutching his uniform jacket to my chest, burying my face in it to hide from the fear, I finally admitted it to myself that I do and that I will follow him in all of his struggles.

I won't burden him with the knowledge that every time I think of him when he's not around, I have this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I have to tell him that – although I know that one day there might be a fight, a battle... or a woman he won't come back from – I'm with him to the end.

I watch him. He's scared, oh! so scared of the things I might tell him! He tries to be brave, looking at me wide-eyed, and when he finally smiles and thanks me once more, awkwardly and clumsy, yet trying to appear casual and at ease... He sounds just like a country-boy from some back-water planet hitting the big drift and all fancy places for the first time in his life, trying to get his head around it all and act... cool and unimpressed. The imposing, awe-inspiring last one of the High Guard - desperately wishing that it would be in concordance with his dignity to disappear under the blanket and stay there until I'm gone. So... cute...

Relax, boy, I won't bite – not unless you ask for me to do it! I take mercy, smile and turn around, leaving him to his musings.