Set right after To Lose the Faithful Lightening.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Andromeda. (Had I owned any of it, TLTFL would never have seen the light.)
Fool
He came rushing in to Obs Deck, as fast as he could in his state still weakened from the tortures the children on the old High Guard station had submitted him to, his monk's attire waving like a red cloud around him.
"Beka!"
She swirled on her heels, turning around to face him, quickly coming nearer with arms outstretched to support him, should he stumble.
"Rev! What are you doing here? Why are you not in bed?"
He gasped a little out of breath and gratefully accepted her sustaining arm, letting her lead him to the bank in front of the panorama window.
"Beka, we need to talk!" the Magog pressed out, worry evident through the exhaustion in his voice.
"Okay, slow down, we'll talk. But why didn't you call me?" the blonde asked him, concern written all over her face.
"Would you have come before..." He hesitated slightly, but then continued in a challenging tone: "...before seeing Dylan?"
Beka's arms dropped alongside her body and she stepped back from him, throwing him a weighing look.
"Is it that urgent?" she asked him, sounding no less challenging than he had.
Still fighting for his breath, he nodded forcefully.
"Okay." The Maru's captain sighed. "Go on, what is it you want to talk about?"
"Dylan." The Magog's blue, gentle eyes were searching her face and he felt at least one of his hearts sagging in his chest when he saw her jaws tightening, her chin pushing forward in a characteristic, aggressive move.
"There is nothing to talk about Dylan," she replied in a hostile voice. "All there is left is to talk to Dylan and then get us all the hell out of here..."
"Beka," the monk told her, hoping that the calmness in his demeanour would somehow help to make her relax a bit, "I don't think that this is the right moment..."
"Ah, but you see, Rev, that's where you're wrong: this is the perfect moment and the perfect place – and I am in the perfect mood – to have some really, really honest words with him. In fact, I think that now is exactly the right time to say to him everything I've been longing to tell him almost from the very start."
"He made a mistake, Beka..."
"Rev, this is not about making a mistake, this is about it all... HIM being a mistake, you know! I don't know how I could have been such a fool to agree to sign us up with him. He is such a walking monument of naiveté, it almost makes me want to puke. I watch him, listen to him deliver all those pretty speeches about rights and laws and justice, and I can't figure out for the life of me whether it's him or me running a high fever and acting deliriously. All I know is that every word he's uttering to me just feels like biting with new inlays on aluminium foil, each of his high ideal sounding about as fresh as your breath smells in the morning..." She stopped and drew her breath in. "I'm sorry, Rev, I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay, this is not about me," Rev Bem waved the insult off. "Beka, I know you're upset and angry and that you think that Dylan..."
"Of course you know. Hell, you almost died to gain that knowledge, didn't you?" she exploded anew. "But you know what? I could live with that – and with all of the above, if at least he wouldn't be so righteous, so stiff, so damned... correct and boring! Yet when he is not driving us all into some life threatening situation, he is about as exciting as camomile tea. Good grief, Rev, Harper's collection of old coins from Terra is more interesting than the entire life this guy's led up to now; I mean, just about every Perseid librarian has had more life experience than this overgrown baby with nothing but a huge ship and an even bigger ego..."
„Beka, I know that Dylan has much to learn and that this life is nothing like anything he knew. Nonetheless, he is our chance at a new life, a better one that he will just have to forge out of the ruins of his former life, and I hope that this next life of his..."
"You know what?" the blonde shot at the Magog, interrupting his thoughts, "there is no previous life and present life and next life. There is but one life – and whenever someone messes with mine, I kind of tend to take it personally. If he thinks of right now as his next life, so be it. I just hope that in my next following life I won't meet him again..."
"Beka," the monk tried again patiently, "you're just furious and not making much sense. I'm not saying that he is anywhere near perfect. But he is a good man and he deserves a chance to try out what he wants; maybe he's right, maybe we will find a path to a more relaxed..."
"Ha!" the pilot exclaimed, "around him I feel about just as relaxed as when I'm waiting for Trance to check on my teeth..."
"Okay," he admitted, "maybe not relaxing. How about inspiring?"
"Inspiring? Rev, he is about as inspiring as winter on an ice-planet. I feel as thrilled watching him stumble along the universe as I feel when watching Harper's stupid female mud-fights from Cascada!"
She jumped up from the bench, where she had taken place next to the Magog only seconds before and began pacing again, an unpleasant memory clouding her already darkened features even more.
"The last time I did something as smart as signing up with Dylan, I ended up finding out that I was smuggling missiles that had been stolen from the Dragans to help some mud-feet who couldn't pay for them. Seriously, Rev, the fellow has the insight of Alice in Wonderland talking to the Mad Hatter. I've seen shopping lists more carefully planned than Dylan's schemes to restore his precious Commonwealth."
"Okay," Rev Bem acquiesced, "then why don't you tell him that, but in a quiet, friendly way over a glass of wine?"
"Oh yeah, that would be fun," Beka said in derision. "Sit down with Dylan, sip on some precious Commonwealth wine turned sour and try to talk some sense into Mr High Guard! I might of course," she added sarcastically, "shoot myself in the knee, that might prove even more fun!"
„Beka, Dylan is..."
„What? A gruelling pain in the ass? The most vulgar cliché of a white knight that ever saw the light of the Known Worlds? You bet!"
„That's not what I wanted to say," Rev fell in, this time letting a small growl in his throat accompany his words. "Dylan is naiv, inexperienced and probably too straight for his own good. But he is also well-meaning, honest and a fast learner. Give him a chance, Beka! He is a smart guy!"
"Well, that's your opinion. I happen to think him to be the exact opposite of 'smart. He thinks he's smart – and thinks this to be enough. Time and again he's pleased with making it through yet another death trap, if only just, but this is lunacy, Rev: making it just and being content with it means only that the guy is nuts for not realising that his luck will run out eventually. And the worst part of it is: I know he means well, I know that. It's just that I can't turn a blind eye to him confusing luck with skill, superior weaponry with strategy and some High Guard regulations with a proper style of command."
"Beka, the bottom line is..."
"The bottom line, Rev, is that Dylan is confusing not only a lot, but simply too many issues at once. He's got no clue, but offers an opinion on all things, has some banality or other to add to no matter what happens to be going on and at times makes even Gerentex look like a frikking genius. I really would rather not ever see him drunk, for he is sober a sight mortifying enough already. And I'm putting this nicely!"
"Beka, that he is confused and troubled is not..."
"Dammit, Rev, he isn't just troubled, he is... not there! Somehow his brain must have stayed in that black hole when I pulled him out of it."
The monk sighed, beginning to suspect that there wasn't really much he could do to appease her. Still, he had to try some more. Maybe a different approach...
"Beka, the Divine..."
"Yeah, I know," she fell in, "the Divine says 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,' but who the hell is supposed to be held responsible in the very end, hm? Because I strongly suspect that even the Divine will find so much poverty in spirit hard to bear in the long run!"
„Beka, please, give him just one more chance, have patience, only for a little while longer..."
Thank Heavens I'm a Fatalfa, Rev thought more than just a little distraught by the futility of his endeavours, that way I don't really have much pride left to throw overboard when it comes to begging... Annoyed, she threw him a mean look, but then seemed to somehow give in and sighed.
"Oh hell, Rev, don't do this to me! Not this defeated expression..." She stopped, thoughtfully chewing on her lip. "Okay, fine! Be that way! One chance, but just one more chance, that's all!" she then conceded, turning around and storming out of Obs Deck, literally plunging around the next sharp turn, only to bump right into Dylan, who was leaning on the bulkhead, a bitter, hurt look in his eyes. It stopped her dead in her tracks, but then she threw her head back and looked at him through narrowed eyes, hissing sharply:
"Oh, there you are! Didn't anyone ever tell you that eavesdropping is a bad thing and can get you hurt? No? Well, one more lesson, I guess. And since you heard it all: I don't mean to hurt you, but I do mean it though, so please, please Dylan, do take all I said personally!"