Title: Don't Say It!
Author: Kristen Kilar — chickadee(underscore)from(underscore)3(at)yahoo(dot)com
Season: Early to middle season 1
Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly.
Spoilers: None
Summary: A harmless bit of fluff. To say more would spoil it.
Rating: G
A/N: In honor of Beka Day, my demented little fic. Unbetaed, but short and sweet.
Beka was in a bad mood.
She stalked to Command Deck to relieve Tyr of duty.
When he saw her enter, he smirked and opened his mouth.
"Don't say it," she warned before a syllable could escape him.
The smirk was replaced by perplexion. "Don't say what?"
"You know exactly what I mean, Anasazi. Don't say it."
Tyr shrugged. "Fine. But you should know the A/P valves are malfunctioning again."
"Sure, great, whatever."
The big Nietzschean stared at the first officer in some confusion before shrugging and leaving Command.
Beka let herself smile a little bit.
At least he hadn't said it.
Dylan showed up a few hours later to take his shift, and found an irate Beka Valentine glaring at him.
"What did I do?" he asked self-consciously.
"Don't say it."
"Er...what?"
She just glared at him.
He raised his hands in surrender. "All right, fine, I won't say it."
"You'd better not," she scowled.
"I won't."
"Good." She swung herself gracefully out of the slip pilot chair and stalked out of Command.
Dylan watched her go in bewilderment.
Trance entered just as Beka vanished into the corridors. Dylan looked at the purple girl, who, after all, had known Beka longer than he had. "Any idea what's going on with her?"
"What do you mean?" Trance asked.
"When I came in, the first she told me was 'Don't say it'. Did I do something wrong or is this just a Valentine quirk I'll have to get used to?"
Trance's forehead wrinkled and she looked confused. "I don't know."
Dylan sighed.
This was going to be a long day.
"Don't say it," Beka warned Andromeda.
The hologram stared at her. "Excuse me."
"I mean it, Andromeda. Don't you dare say it."
The AI looked put out and said, "All I wanted to tell you was that Harper has asked if you'd like to eat dinner with him tonight, if you have time."
"Sure, sounds good. But still, Andromeda—don't say it."
"Fine. I won't." Andromeda frowned and vanished.
Beka scowled and continued her stalk towards the Maru and her CD collection.
She encountered Rev leaving the Maru.
"Don't say it," she warned him.
"Don't worry, I had no plans to," Rev said, clearly amused, and left her alone. He knew better.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully—Beka successfully managed to hole herself up in the Maru with blaring rock music and no other people.
Until dinner with Harper.
Under normal circumstances, she liked eating dinner with Harper. The Maru crew rarely had time to sit down for a meal all together since joining the Andromeda, and she missed it. Her crew was her family.
But today wasn't normal circumstances, and she wondered why she'd agreed to it.
She was relieved to find, when she got to the mess deck, Harper his normal hyperactive self. He'd already gotten two meal from the autochef and as soon as he saw her started rambling at high speed about upgrades he was planning for the Maru.
She was relieved, but nevertheless interrupted him to warn him anyway. "Don't say it."
"What? Me? Never. Don't you know me at all, Boss? Anyway, I was thinking about the sublight engines, and..."
Beka ate and listened to Harper talk and felt relieved. Maybe she'd get through today without having to listen to anyone say it.
The old friends finished eating just as Harper was finishing a detailed explanation of how he intended to upgrade Andromeda's weapons systems. Beka told him to have at it and started back for the Maru to spend the rest of the day.
"Hey, Boss?"
She turned back. "Yeah, Harper?"
He had that mischievous smile that almost always meant something bad. "Won't you be my Valentine?"
Beka screamed.
Happy Beka day, everyone!