I don't own Andromeda, Tribune et al. do.

Set right after the end of Opposites Of Attraction.

Running Scared

I think that it was for the first time that I completely let my guard down . By the Divine, at least I hope it was for the first time. But I might be wrong. I know they all knew how much it affected me when we almost lost you to flash, the Bokhor, to Tyr, to the Abyss... Those times when you stumbled, fell, when you were not by our side... I freaked out, and I know it, but I never freaked out the way I did today.

At first I think that I must have felt something for Marita. She said we'd been together for 300 years. That's more than twice my life-span, and I doubt that I could ever be together with someone, some... thing (even something of a... goddess?) for so long without at least some attachment, not even under such awkward circumstances as the ones we experienced. I think I felt something for her. Even now. Because, you see, I knew her - I knew how she thought, how she would act, and why. And from the beginning I knew that she would try to go after you. And tried to prevent it. And failed.

And when I nearly lost you - I just lost it all. I should have pleaded, promised, lied to her. Do anything to please, to appease her, but I... I just got mad. I cannot recall to have ever gotten that mad before. Not with Rhade, not with you - not even with Peter. She was killing you, and all I could do was threaten her, throw all I knew about tactics overboard and try to shake some sense into her. But you don't get to shake sense into a black hole. Predictably it was a stupid, stupid move.

I've always been afraid to lose anyone of you. I still am - but that's at least half a lie. Because the truth is: most of all, I'm afraid to lose you. I tried to tell you, once, but by the time I had mustered up enough courage you were no longer there to listen. And then we found out that we actually had already lost you to the Spirit of the Abyss... Well, almost anyway. Had I lost you then... I couldn't go through something like that again, Beka. I can't.

It's been a long, long time since we last sat together like we do now. I hear your voice, I see your smile, I hear myself apologizing for the way I yelled at you when you got back. It's just been once too often that we nearly lost you because of me. You almost died today because you had the courage, the skills, the heart and brains to give me back my life. You understand, you laugh, but there is sadness hidden in your eyes. Are you thinking of all you gave up for me? The adventures you would have had with Rafe, the fun you had with Abel, the... Are you thinking of Tyr? Is it still hurting? It must be. It's still hurting me, so I can imagine what it must be like for you. I wish that there was something I could do about it...

And here I go again – lying. There is something I could do about it. And that I won't do. Not ever. Not while things are still the way they are. Not if I can help it. And God knows I still can.

„God"! Do you believe in God, in the Divine, Beka? I have once, or so I think, while Rev and I were both heading into... Ha! Come to think of it - we were heading into Marita. Well, something like her... Oh yes, I think I did have faith in the Divine then. I don't think I still do, though. But back there on that ship I prayed. I prayed like I had never prayed before: to get out of there, to get back to you. I promised, hell – I've sworn that should I make it back, I would tell you, Beka. And now I know that I probably never will. I wish I could explain...

I sometimes sit at night alone in my quarters, imagining myself explaining everything to you. See, it's really simple, Beka:

Before the Fall I used to talk about love the way one talks about the weather. I don't think that before Sara came along I had really ever seen love in bright daylight, that I knew anything about it... I might have thought about it, like one thinks about some distant rumor or other; but if I hoped for it, then without really believing it to be something real. But then she came and then...

Then she disappeared. And every part of me that had ever been beating, living, feeling went on strike - and love became just another one of those issues to be put on hold, to be dealt with later, to be looked into closer at some other time.

You see, at first there were all of you to be dealt with. A blurry, shady mass of people, lives mixed together and trapped in bodies that kept rejecting one another, overburdened with all the sorrows of this splintered universe you lived in, sorrows that had seemed to have missed all other shoulders to rest upon. All of you pretending to be breathing the freedom of the wide, open spaces, of an eternity of time, of - nothing at all, really. All of you so eager to spread your wings and fly, none of you knowing where to. And then me, caught up in between your darkness and mine without so much as a box of matches, running towards a morning that kept withdrawing further and further away. The longest night of all. Love had no place in that! Places where there is love are sometimes at night, but never dark, you see...

Slowly I started to see you all sharper, clearer. An overgrown, scarred boy with dark dreams of vengeance, a loving, gentle monster, a mirage talking in riddles, a clown with the most brilliant eyes and mind and soul - and then a walking, talking, fighting, awesome living doll. The only one still blurry, still not getting clearer was you. And I still don't know when I finally noticed. I just know that one day the whole of you was there, abruptly, all of a sudden - as if popped up out of nothing... And then I knew it all: your chagrin while standing at the heart of joyous celebrations, your radiant, infectious and always a bit bashful smile. Day after day so strong inmidst of all your frailties, so bravely facing all your fears... It took me quite a while to identify you for what you really are, because... well, you see, Beka - the princesses that populated my mother's fairy tales... they didn't look quite like you and were... a lot less crazy!

I wish I'd known you sooner, I wish that I could have taken the scenic road leading from my life to my dreams... I wish I hadn't gotten tied down from time to time by some chain or other... in yet another bed... I wish I would have spared you - and me - some wrinkles, but I have not - and now it's not the time to try.

I don't have an architect at hand to build us happiness, build us a road to it. I wish I knew how to make it walk straight ahead to you, but I don't. There is no plan I could present you with. But step by step I'm trying to get closer to you, even though I still seem to be talking to you in riddles – if at all; but when I do, when I do find the words, their colors are suddenly a lot brighter because they shine through you.

Before I met you, Beka, I thought to know myself quite well, but then it all came crashing down – and I would have done so too, had it not been for you. But you were there and so I simply threw everything I had in front of your door and caught myself in your arms. You said that, whatever happened, I never shed a tear. I did, I still am, Beka, but when I do, it's a... bohemian one, because no matter what my head might tell me, my heart starts wandering off when I think of you, knowing too well that my dreams are still hesitating to take the shape of your body, although time and again they smile at me, in spite of me, against all better knowledge, against all better judgement...

Do not hate me, Beka, just because I feel utterly unable to promise what you wish for. It's because I probably want it all for you, from you and know that I won't get it. All I could really offer would be some silent phrases similar to these, that I'd let roam on you. Would it be enough, Beka? Would you give me the time to move closer to you, beyond that?

I'm afraid to ask, because I think that this would hurt you, somehow... How can you understand that after all those years I still need time to find my own footprints in this universe of yours; that by dint of having searched for you I managed to get scared of myself...

I'm afraid of myself... I think that's it, Beka. From the very beginning you started to tame me, and I started to dump off one by one the withered shadows of my past, and yet it's five years later and I am still afraid. Of what? Of you - sliding, pouring too much future between my skin and my whims, of losing myself somewhere on your shores. Simply of admitting that everything is still enclosed in all of those maybes that send me capsizing around you. Afraid of myself... And yet, I place my 'old boy'-image firmly in the centre of these wretched maybes. And still have a thousand questions to ask my heart, my head - and you. There isn't much more to understand here, Beka.

Yet that's not what you want. You wish for much more tender words... and me, I just keep talking about myself... But do consider this: with things the way they are – there is more commitment to be found in my unwillingness to confess that I need you more than I need myself, than you will find in all of those love poems, those tender words you want... And as long as you don't know it, as long as I'm not telling, I can live with that and keep the dream alive that maybe one day... maybe...

Maybe there'll come a time of incomparable days, starting with perfect mornings to which I will wake up under the brightness of your eyes, laughing about a secret joke that just the two of us will share...