I don't own Andromeda.
Set after "Harper: Delete".
Being Dylan Hunt, Seamus Zelasny Harper Or Something In-Between
In the silence of the lonely command deck, Seamus Zelasny Harper was for once blending with the mood, keeping his mouth shut while supervising Andromeda's smoothly running operations.
"So quiet?"
The ship's hologram appearing next to him almost startled him.
"Rommie, don't do that!"
"Do what?" the hologram teased him playfully. He threw her a curious look.
"Hey, you're pretty naughty tonight. What's up?"
She smiled at him fondly.
"Nothing. I'm just..." She hesitated – not an usual for her.
"Yeah?" Harper urged her to go on.
"I'm just happy that you're all here, with me, safe and..."
"Ahh..." the engineer said, understanding. "The aftermath of File D getting to you, too?"
The hologram nodded, her face a little grave. The young man smiled at her with sympathy.
"Tell you what, Rommie: why don't we take a look at your recordings of the entire mission, hm?"
"Why should we do that?" the ship queried slightly doubtful. He shrugged.
"To... chase away the fears?" he offered. "Like, I don't know, like... like whistling while walking through dark forests?"
"I'm a warship, Harper, I'm not afraid in dark forests," Andromeda's avatar, stepping through the doors to Command and coming nearer, informed him. He threw an arm across her shoulders, as soon as she was near enough for him to do so.
"Yes, you are. Come on, humour me..."
With an indefinable, yet unmistakingly warm expression Rommie scrutinised him, then sighed.
"Very well, Harper, let's do this!"
/
They were laughing out loud for at least the tenth time while watching the files: Beka's distraction of the Nietzschean guards, Rommie's impersonation of Caleb's son and now Dylan virtually lying to Melea by telling her the plain truth while flirting with her.
"The guy is unbelievable..." Harper panted, leaning over his console. Rommie threw him a faked curious look.
"Are you proud of him or envious?" she inquired in a teasing undertone.
"Both, I guess," the young man admitted. "What?" he then asked, noticing her surprised expression.
"Come on, Harper, you don't really envy Dylan," the avatar told him incredulously. He couldn't help but stare at her.
"What do you mean?" he wondered, just as incredulous as she had been. "Of course I envy him. Dammit, Rommie, don't you know how many times I wished to be him?"
"Be him?" she repeated, obviously not understanding. "Why would anyone wish to be someone else? Why would you, of all people, wish to be someone else?"
He swallowed, dryly and uncertain how much of a compliment this was actually supposed to be. Her expression though clearly revealed that she wanted an explanation.
"Well," he drawled, "maybe not someone else entirely, but... me in different, you know what I mean?"
"I... can't say that I do," Rommie confessed.
"Well," he began anew, "I'd like to be much taller, for instance. Or rich. Or just be me and somewhat more like Dylan. I'd like to have had his childhood and upbringing. I'd like to have seen Tarn-Vedra. Maybe then I'd be as cool as he is...
"Harper, no one is as cool as Dylan... Not even Dylan. This whole 'being laid-back' thing is nothing but an act," Rommie disagreed.
"He might not be as laid-back as he used to be in the old days, before you two went through the Fall. But he certainly is more so than anyone else I ever met. Oh yes, Rommie, I'd like to be like this: everybody's darling, everybody's hero...
"Harper, you are everybody's darling, you save lives just as he does, you restored..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know..." he dismissed the android's objection, "but you have to admit that Dylan is a little bit more everybody's darling than me – or anyone else I know, for that matter. And I mean: why not? Just look at him! Who wouldn't like to have hair falling naturally the way it should and even greying in a becoming manner, and be sexy and... and... have you..." he ended, somewhat helplessly and blushing.
"But you do have me, too."
"Yeah," he admitted, "but he does have you a little bit more, right? And you love me, but him you love more, don't you?"
"Harper, he is my captain..."
"I know," the engineer sighed, "and he is great and smart and cool... And I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve it, but... He's got the largest suite onboard and an army of Marias at his disposal to keep it clean, and in there an art collection, and an enormous bed, and the hottest chicks in the Known Worlds falling all over themselves to get into it..."
"He keeps his quarters tidy all by himself..."
"See?" Harper replied. "My point exactly. I mean: doesn't that strike you unfair? The largest quarters and he doesn't even need help with it."
"Seamus, don't you think you're exaggerating things a little bit?"
"Maybe," he shrugged, "Still I could do with being smart, tidy and hot..."
"You are."
"... and tall and strong and handsome and always fit as a fiddle..."
The doors to Command opening interrupted him again.
"Come on, Beka, you're blowing this completely out of proportion..." A loudly arguing Dylan Hunt came in in a hurry, obviously on the run from Andromeda's first officer, who was hot on his heels.
"I'm blowing this out of proportion? Well, as long as it's not one Nietz or other blowing you out of existence. Dylan, you weren't running, you were crawling at a snail's pace through that damned forest. You are appallingly out of shape!"
Andromeda's captain shrugged embarrassed, throwing furtive glances over at his ship's avatar and his engineer, who were both opting for a decidedly uninvolved look.
"Well," Dylan smirked, "I was... kinda busy. I mean we're operating with a skeleton crew, we are a weapons' officer short, we..."
"Excuses!" the woman cut him short. "Fact is, now that Tyr's gone there is no-one left around to challenge your testosterone, so you're letting yourself go. You're not busier than me, I'm sure you must have some spare hours to squeeze in some working-out..."
"Whenever I tried, something came up. Besides: there always seems to be someone or other in those gyms."
"Oh yes," Beka mocked him, patting lightly against his stomach as she would have done with a horse, "someone or other is always in those gyms, and that someone clearly isn't you."
He moved out of her reach.
"Really, Beka, you're treating this as if it were the end of the world," Harper decided to come to his captain's rescue. "So he got a little out of breath..."
As moves went, drawing her attention on him wasn't one of his smartest.
"A little out of breath?" Beka echoed, clouting Harper lightly. "You should have seen him. He was wheezing like an Umbrite walrus or like... like you after those push-ups – come to think of it," she added with a softer expression, the shadow of a smile lurking in her eyes. But then she frowned again: "Only: you did fifty of them, while Dylan was panting like an overweight steeplechaser after not more than a 1 km-run through pretty flat terrain. This may not be the end of him, but if it goes on like that, it might lead to it..."
"Well yes," the Terran agreed, "but if it's just the beginning..."
"Everything starts with a beginning!" Andromeda's XO informed him. "It's just one hair falling out that leads to a bald head, a small crack in a wall bringing down a house in the end, hangovers begin with just one small glass of champagne and it takes only a short blackout in a planet's power-supply to cause a baby-boom..."
"A baby-boom isn't exactly the end of..." the young man interrupted.
"This isn't about baby-booms," Beka snapped. "This is about everything bad having to start somewhere with something..."
"Like man's initial troubles all started with a woman..." Dylan muttered behind Beka's back, while attempting a fake motion to strangle her. Observing Harper's eyes drifting away from her, Beka spun around on her heels with a grimace, catching a glimpse of Dylan's gesture, who had however the presence of spirit of letting his hands drop down in a hurry.
"Do you want to join the conversation again?" she admonished him severely.
"Nope," he answered with a most disingenuous smile.
"Good, then get your butt to the next gym."
"Beka..."
"Now, Dylan."
He sighed deeply, locking eyes with Harper before letting his head drop to his chest.
"I tried, boss," Harper attempted to comfort you.
"I know, Mr Harper, I know. Thanks anyway."
"Male bonding, how lovely!" the Maru's captain snapped ironically, rolling her eyes. "Dylan, get going!" Beka ordered again, this time pushing him slightly up the ramp and out of Command.
/
"On the other hand, Rommie," Harper said casually, as soon as the doors to Command closed again, sounding as if nothing had ever interrupted their previous conversation, "if I were Dylan, everybody would always expect me to be the best in every situation, I would have Beka constantly breathing down my neck, and boy, does she have the pants on when it comes to him!"
"She's having the pants on when it comes to you, too," Rommie pointed out maliciously.
"Yeah, but while my shtick's to be cute, Dylan's to be impressive. Hmm..." he added in a pensive tone. "I can still be cute with her in bossy mode, but did he just struck you as particularly impressive?" He shook his head with a grin: "You know what? Maybe it's not so hot being Dylan, after all. I mean: with Beka permanently checking my every damned move, pointing out my every flaw, and independent l'le ole me having to forever do what she tells me..."
"You know," Rommie laughingly inserted, "you might have a point there. I'm sure that there are plenty of times when Dylan thinks: 'Wouldn't it be great if I could just be... Harper?'"
"You think so?"
"I bet."