They're not mine.
Post The Fair Unknown
Pretending
They had dropped Maya off and were now on their way back to the Andromeda, the supplies they had purchased safely stored in one of the cargo-bays, the last decision point already a while behind them and – after the exit from slipstream – still a lot of time on their hands: typical for her, Beka had made it to the rendezvous a lot earlier than foreseen. All they had to do now was waiting.
Loosening the safety-belts, Rebekkah Valentine jumped up from her seat after securing their position and made for the crew's quarters, relieved and at the same time a bit tense: she'd sent Dylan to bed a while back and he had left without any attempt to argue with her, admitting he was tired. She hoped that she would find him more rested now. And, maybe, also a bit less... lost.
He'd been that way ever since they first had come across Uxulta. His excitement at the beginning had soon given way to an uncharacteristically doubting, insecure demeanour lingering somewhere in-between hope and hurt. Later-on the hurt had intensified, doubled by anger and even more insecurity; and the more puzzled and furious Dylan grew, the more lost he struck Beka, like a child excluded from the family-photo without being given a proper reason why. Later-on, when they had at long last admitted to themselves that Ral Parthia had been cut off from slipstream just like it had previously happened to Tarn-Vedra, he'd wrapped himself in silence – and stayed that way ever since.
No, nothing had changed, obviously. Entering the tiny mess that formed the core of the Eureka Maru, Beka found Dylan seated at the small bar, blindly staring at a bottle of water he held in his hands, looking almost desperately in need for something a lot stronger to drink than that; and just as lost as before. She sighed.
"Hey!"she greeted him, exaggeratedly cheerful.
He lifted his gaze slowly and sketched half a smile that never made it all the way to his eyes, though.
"Hey!" His voice sounded coarse. "Are we there?"
"Yep," she confirmed casually. "There's no sign of the Andromeda yet, though."
"There wouldn't be. We're at least four hours ahead of schedule."
"If we're lucky..." she joked, rolling her eyes, "and they're having Tyr fly. If it's Harper... Why, we might be here for days!"
He chuckled lightly in a distracted manner, as if he did it more to acknowledge her attempt to cheer up the atmosphere rather than out of genuine amusement. For an instant Beka scrutinised him, furtively but thorough, and sighed again under her breath, making sure though that he didn't notice. She clasped her hands:
"Right! What shall we do now? You hungry?"
Dylan stood up and pushed himself away with both hands from the bar.
"Not really. But I've made us some sandwiches, just in case," he announced, producing from a cupboard two plates and a foliage-covered tray with a small hill of bread and whatever he had found stored in the Maru's fridge on it. Beka's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Go fish!" she muttered. "Say, you're quite handy to have around..."
He nodded.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you all along," he said. "But in view of our latest encounter, maybe your idea of my... usefulness was more accurate than mine, after all," he added, his face darkening again.
Beka let it pass. Later, once they had finished their frugal meal and cleared away the plates, a conversation still failing to develop between her attempts to find a topic and Dylan's monosyllabic answers, she finally decided to take the bull by the horns.
"So tell me, have you come to terms with... you know, Uxulta and... the rest?..." Some euphemism, she thought, to describe the fact that after losing almost everything he'd thought of as home, he's now found himself evicted out of the last remnant vestiges of it, too.
He had his back turned on her, busy storing away the cleaned plates into a cupboard, but she noticed his shoulders stiffening a bit, whether in surprise or anger Beka couldn't say. His gestures though remained as calm as before – and after turning around with one of his customary, fluent moves, that seemed weirdly settled somewhere in-between a staccato grace and a lazy crispness, his face showed nothing but a mild trace of curiosity.
"What's this?" he inquired, holding out a small, silvery ball to her that he had found next to the plates. She smiled, not insisting, and picked the ball from his hand.
"A holo-album," she said. "I think that my whole childhood on the Maru is stored in there."
"Really?" Dylan's interest seemed to spike up. "Can we have a look?" Whether it was for real or just a way to dodge her questions about Ral Parthia, Beka didn't know, but she suddenly decided to cut him some slack and give in. At least he was talking now.
She nodded and pressed a key. The air above the ball flared up – and then a slide-show began: her mother and her father, Sid, a very small, very serious Rafe, a minuscule her, already all cheeky, but red-haired, some group-shots on the boarding-school she'd been on for some odd years before the money ran out, showing her standing next to a boy with a cocky smile she obviously found disconcerting enough to pull faces at him, then some years later her again back on the Maru, running about the ship inventing stories she would star in, in which she overcame all evils, saved the universe, pretended to be a lot of pompous, strong heroines who were, every single one of them, sophisticated and cool - and had a mother. So many memories, so much life it seemed almost impossible to fit all in the small ball or in the familiar, blue-grey gaze the holograms displayed. And then, all of a sudden, the eyes in the still very young face grew old and knowing – and the games stopped. Dylan bit his lip.
"The games..." he ventured. "The... the pretence... Pity it stopped so early, it seemed you had so much fun with it."
"It didn't stop. Not really," Beka said. "I just began to pretend at different things: like being one of those strong, big, responsible women with which the little girl I still was bore no resemblance at all; but it gave me the strength I needed to believe in myself."
"But you were still so young. At that age I was still terrified that no-one outside my family would ever want to have anything to do with me, venturing on to the world's outskirts only to keep going time and again back into my mother's arms, from where I could safely pretend that nothing bad would ever happen to me..."
For an instant, Beka held her breath, thanking everything she had ever heard of being suspected to rule the universe that they had come across that holo-album. Maybe - maybe - he was coming out of the safety the solid shell of cold silence so unlike him seemed to provide – and that she so much hated.
Unaware of her thoughts, he shook his head, as if in mute astonishment, then cleared his throat.
"What came then?"
Beka shrugged.
"Oh well, you know... The first scratches that seemed to be there to stay, the first frissons and wonders I couldn't identify, some more pretending that I actually knew what went on... The usual. The first nice boy on a drift, who was interested in me – and who caught my fancy..." she elaborated readily, carefully avoiding to let the talking dry out, eager to get back on the firm ground of the approachable Dylan she was accustomed to.
"What was it like?" he jumped to the bait. Yes, she thought with satisfaction, hook, line and sinker.
"Brief. His mother didn't approve of me…"
"Stupid cow," Dylan muttered with conviction. Beka laughed up: okay, now that was not exactly in keeping with the Dylan she knew either, but still better than the way he'd been so far.
"Pretty much, yeah," she concurred. "But my first flight alone at the helm of the Maru followed shortly thereafter – and I forgot all about him, you know... After all, from then on I could pretend that I was this kick-ass pilot and really, really cool chick, who could take them all on. " Her voice trailed off and she shot him a look as openly curious as his was. "What about you?"
Dylan smiled in a somehow introvert, slightly embarrassed manner.
"Oh, eventually I too went on from pretending that my mom would always keep me safe to pretending that I was this tough guy who could go everywhere and handle himself and all others just great," he admitted.
"Oh, one of those..."
"Yep," he nodded with an apologetic grin. "One of them… I trust you had your fair share of those fellows, too?"
"Oh yeah, plenty of them. Before I joined your crew, I used to... collect them a bit," Beka confessed, sounding slightly self-conscious. "I took'm in, used'm, then withdrew in time to make sure that they'd have no reason to stick around and would leave again on the next drift, where I could look for more lips to kiss that I needn't remember the name of..."
"No white knights?"
"Oh yes, of course white knights. Nothing but white knights – all of them!"
Dylan sighed.
"You're very good at this... pretending-game…"
"You're not?"
"I... used to be… Later. After graduating and joining the High Guard and finding Sarah and getting the Andromeda, I looked about me and… pretended I deserved all this, and that I was all grown-up and capable and the guy who always had it all together. I'm not so sure anymore..."
Gently, Beka placed a hand on his arm, smiling.
"Maybe you should try this pretending-game of mine again," she suggested in a calm tone. "We could play it together, you know..."
"You think so?" he smiled back at her. "What would we be playing at?"
"How about you would be this great captain of a big, bad warship, restoring the Commonwealth? And I'd be your just awesome first officer?"
"That could work," he conceded, his smile deepening. "I think I'd like that…"
"Attention, Eureka Maru!" a pleasant, dispassionate voice interrupted them, while a small monitor came to life, showing Rommie flanked by Tyr on a familiar bridge. "This is the Andromeda Ascendant. We'll be reaching rendezvous point in 20 minutes. Since I'm not late, you must be early."
"Hello, Rommie!" Dylan answered. "Nice to see you. Yes, we were early."
"How come?"
Dylan twinkled at a Beka who was standing up to leave for the cockpit.
"Well," he answered his ship, "you had Tyr at your helm, and me – I had Beka..."
From behind Rommie, Tyr growled lowly in greeting.
Jumping to his feet to follow Beka, Dylan grinned.
"Hey, Tyr!" he said, unapologetically. "Nice to see you, too."
She landed the Maru with a very gracious, if unnecessary, elegant sway.
"Show-off," Dylan murmured, knowing perfectly well that the manoeuvre had been a lot more skilful than he would have managed. Beka grinned.
"Just pretending I'm the best pilot there is..." she laughed at him.
Laughing up, he pushed himself away from the back of the pilot's chair and headed for the exit. But there he hesitated, his eyes lingering on the small monitor next to the doors, that showed him Rommie, Trance and Harper coming up towards the Maru. From the side, Beka saw a corner of his mouth twitch almost imperceptibly and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him forward.
"Come on," she urged him softly. "We've got some pretending to do..."
Dylan looked down into her eyes and smiled, his face betraying the conscious effort to chase away some last, remaining shadows from his mind.
"Like what?" he whispered, bowing to her ear.
"Like... we'd be the grown-ups..." she answered, straightening herself and opening the doors with a wide, cheerful smile blossoming on her lips. "Hi, everbody! How have you been?"