I don't own anything Andromeda.
Set right after Delenda Est.
Updating Profiles
The door hissed discreetly, revealing a smiling Beka Valentine, who swiftly approached his table after she had helped herself to a cup of coffee. Dylan Hunt smiled back and rose slightly in greeting, only to be motioned by his XO to sit back down.
"At ease, soldier! Good morning," the young woman greeted him, gently placing the cup in front of her on the table. "May I?" she then asked, indicating the chair next to her.
"Of course," he quickly replied while wiping his mouth discreetly with a napkin he then threw next to his tray. "How are you? You look... amazingly well-rested..." he then complimented the blonde.
"You don't," Beka told him, throwing him an examining glance.
Dylan shrugged, grinning broadly.
"I was the one reading, you just had to listen... And fell asleep halfway through the damned thing, mind you..." he then joked, fake reproach in his voice.
"Sorry, it's your own fault: your voice was, even when you read loud the most disgusting things, rather... lulling and you have an extremely comfortable shoulder, " she shrugged, a lopsided grin lurking in a corner of her mouth.
"I know." He chuckled lowly, seeing her surprise. "Nah, it's all right," he brushed it all aside. "It was bound to happen..."
"... So thank you," she continued, not taking his words into account. They had spent the night together in Hydroponics, after their latest encounter with the Derivas both reluctant to be on their own, both tired and on the edge, killing time and apprehesion together by going through an old English play highly recommended by Tyr. A brief silence descended upon the table, the two of them for the first time that morning eyeing one another seriously.
"No need," Dylan then smiled, shaking his head lightly. "I... I wasn't too eager of making it through the night on my own, either."
Surprised by his confession, Beka kept her distance at first, but then bent forward.
"Was it... was it that bad down there?"
"You didn't read the report?"
"No," she admitted with a slight hesitation. "Haven't been up to it so far, I'm afraid..."
Dylan nodded, then reached for his coffee. Watching him intently, Beka nipped at her own cup. He really looked worn down, tensed, seemed even a bit short-tempered. For a moment she asked herself whether it would indeed be such a good idea to bring up the matter she had actually come to see him about. What if Dylan knew already everything they needed to know? What if she was just imagining things, still under the stress caused by the Derivas, the Abyss, the Magog, whatever? (After all they all had their plate rather full with things to be stressed about.) Or worse: what if there was nothing to worry about, and by talking to Dylan she'd be causing unfounded suspicion and even more tension for him - for them all? But then she threw her own objections anew overboard: what if Dylan hadn't noticed, what if he didn't know anything, what if she had good reason to...
"So," she cut the silence short so abruptly that he almost flinched, "did you make it through?"
"The whole play?" Dylan asked her.
Beka nodded, deciding to take this slowly.
"Oh yeah..." he sighed.
"And?" she inquired lightly. "Did anyone survive?"
"Just two, I'm afraid," Dylan said with a grimaced smile.
"Ssssss," Beka hissed through her teeth, revealing her white denture in a lopsided grin that curled even her nose up. "Out of how many...?"
"Sixteen. There are sixteen characters altogether," Dylan acquiesced, sounding mockingly pained.
"And only two of them make it through alive? Phew... Some choice of late night reading, but then again, that's Tyr to you: always concerned with the well-being of his fellow crew-mates, striving to broaden our intellectual horizon... even at the expense of an untroubled sleep," the pilot's voice showed a hint of amused resignation.
Andromeda's captain chuckled softly, only to then fully burst out in laughter.
"He gave it to me, saying: 'My dear Captain, I've seen you lately in Hydroponics, bent over yet another overly optimistic and hence utterly useless play of Shakespeare's. Tell me, what insight do you hope to gain from something bearing a title like All's Well, That Ends Well? Isn't it obvious by its very name that it can be nothing but a children's tale? You may want to stop wasting your precious time on such nonsense. Here: I brought you something more accurately depicting reality as we know it...'" Dylan, still laughing, managed to explain to Beka, delivering an accurate enough imitation of their weapons' officer's aloof manner to cause his XO to dissolve into a laughing fit, as well.
After wiping her eyes, Beka took another sip from her mug.
"And," she then continued, "who are they?"
"Who are what?" the still smiling man asked, a bit puzzled.
"The survivors, silly! You know I missed the end."
"Oh yes!" Dylan acknowledged. "They're Titus' son and grandson..."
His first officer nodded pensively.
"Figures..." she then said in a quiet tone.
The captain eyed her with curiosity, maybe somewhat bewildered.
"What do you mean?" he then asked slowly.
Beka shook her head.
"Nothing. Just that it is very likely for a Nietzschean to like a tale of rape and murder that ends with the survival of a... feral pride..."
"An honorable feral pride," Dylan stressed amused, raising his index finger. But this time Beka didn't join him in the banter. He frowned. "What?"
She hesitated a bit, reluctant to end the easy-going mood she in fact knew them both to literally be thirsting for. But then she cleared her throat:
"I don't know if you know, but... I meant to ask you something..."
He leaned back in his chair, his teeth digging slightly into his lower lip, his eyes suddenly serious – and on the brink of cautiousness.
"Sure... Ask away..." he ventured, sounding not very convinced that he really wanted that, though.
"After the first mind-games the Derivas played on us, you know: showing you Sarah, making me think you were calling for me to help you..."
"I know..." Dylan cut in sharply, his tone clearly urging her to skip that part and move on. Beka swallowed.
"When Tyr finally made it to Command..."
"Yes...?"
"He said, he'd seen his son..."
There was a sudden jumping in Dylan's jaw muscles, one that Beka – staring unblinkingly at him – didn't miss. His eyes widened, trying to hold their own against the XO's blank gaze.
"Yes," the blonde nodded then calmly. "I thought so. Freya's child?"
The man remained silent.
"Dylan, answer me."
He shook his head lightly in a mute refusal.
"Those are not my secrets. It's not for me to tell..." he finally offered.
Beka watched him intently, then blew up her cheeks in an annoyed manner.
"Dammit, Dylan, this is Tyr we're talking about…"
"You once made it painfully clear to me that all of you have your own agendas…" he insisted, stubbornly.
"But most of our agendas involve touching some cash, getting us some well-deserved r&r, normal stuff, you know. While Nietzschean secret agendas usually target more something like supremacy over the universe and more than once nearly got us all killed…"
Andromeda's captain looked down on his tightly clasped hands. Knowing that she had struck a nerve, Beka waited for him to finally make his mind up and come clear. That there was a story there to hear: that much had become obvious the instant she had seen him avert his eyes from hers. Funny, she thought, how he cannot lie to us, not even after all this time…
"Okay," Beka conceded, "those are not your secrets. I respect your loyalty to Tyr, to the word you probably gave him to keep silent about this. But what about your loyalty to us, to me?"
He lifted his head, staring at her baffled.
"What?" It sounded outraged.
"We are your crew, I'm your XO; I know you THINK you can foresee all dangers, prevent all bad things from happening, I know you thought it through, but Dylan: what if you overlooked something? Are you sure, are you really sure that I don't need to know?"
He weighed her pensively – and slowly, almost imperceptibly she could see a pained look creeping into his eyes.
"Dammit, Beka, do you know how bad it really was on that planet? They had hung up Rommie like a piece of freshly slaughtered cattle. And they were feeding their power-source on her." He closed his eyes briefly before continuing in a still voice. "There was a bridge over a gauge filled with melted lava several tens of meters below it; a very narrow bridge – of which one of them almost managed to throw me off. I was hanging there, while that guy was stamping on my fingers. Had Tyr not come…" His voice trailed off, but then he swallowed harshly, concluding: "I would have died down there yesterday had it not been for Tyr."
She nodded.
"I have never doubted that he is our friend," she then told him in a gentle, soft voice. "Nor do I ignore that you are his friend – probably the best one he's ever had. Or will have."
"But?" Dylan inquired after the objection noticeable in her voice.
"But Freya was his wife, Dylan…" Beka said quietly.
"That was a mistake, nothing but a stupid, silly mistake," he replied obstinately.
The pilot shook her head in sadness.
"No, it wasn't. That's one possibility we ruled out from the start. You said yourself that Tyr doesn't make stupid mistakes."
He withdrew slightly into his chair's back, shaking his head lightly.
"No," he said firmly, not to confirm, but to block off her words. Silence fell. And then, pressing imperceptibly quivering lips tightly together, he shook his head anew, more vigorously. "No," he finally repeated, his tone even stiller.
Leaning back herself, Beka Valentine crossed her arms loosely over her chest.
"You're sure?"
"Yes," Dylan insisted, his eyes holding their ground against hers. She contented herself to look back at him, steel-blue digging with calm perseverance into his livelier colored, brighter gaze.
"You sure?" she asked anew.
And then he blinked. Wavered. And finally averted his eyes.
Neither could have said later how long a time they spent in silence, Beka continuing to muster Dylan straightforwardly, while he kept looking almost everywhere but at her.
"His wife, Dylan," the Maru's captain said in the end, her voice now as still as his had been, "and an entire pride. Her pride. Ultimately his son's pride, too…He killed them. Killed them all."
Reluctantly, slowly, his head turned anew towards her.
"I know," he whispered.
"Well?" she threw in, after giving him one more second to let it sink in.
"He said the baby was killed, as well." The words left his mouth as if he had to drag them out by force one by one.
Fixing a point above his head, Beka dug her teeth into her lower lip.
"And do you believe him?"
Dylan shook his head. Her eyes returned to him.
"Why not?" she demanded to know. "Dylan!" she motioned sternly, when he didn't answer immediately. "Why don't you believe him?"
"It was all just too… I don't know… tightly fitting, convenient… I mean Tyr was… He was devastated, really…"
"You mean: the way he was after Medea?"
Dylan threw her a piercing look. Was this where it all came from?
"No," he then continued. "It was… It was nothing like anything I've ever seen before – or after. Nothing I would even have thought possible with Tyr. It was awful, Beka, heart-breaking… I… I broke out in tears when he was through with his story…"
The pilot looked at him, slightly surprised. He shrugged, an embarrassed, bleak smile on his lips.
"I had not slept in three days while searching for him… And I still think that he was genuinely… shattered…"
"So then, why don't you believe him?"
"He had been MIA for all this time. But had no valid explanation for it. And Freya WAS dead, and I believe that in some twisted, Nietzschean way Tyr had really loved her, so maybe that was enough for his inconsolable grief. Besides…" He hesitated.
"Besides…?" the woman pushed him forward.
"Tamerlane… That's his name, Tamerlane…" Dylan inserted. Beka rolled her eyes. "Anyway," he then continued tiredly, "Tyr said he had proof that the boy was the reincarnation of Drago Musseveni…"
"He made a mistake that led to his own son's, the Nietzschean Messiah's death? And Tyr let that happen?" A sharp, short snarl escaped her. "Hardly."
"My thoughts, exactly," Dylan acquiesced. "I just can't reconcile the bits and pieces of all of this with each other…"
For a few, brief moments they just sat in silence, both sipping at their meanwhile cold, stale tasting coffees.
"Oh well," Beka then said, "it is actually a lot less problematic than I thought. If Tyr is just hiding the child away," she shrugged, "then it might even be a slight advantage for us that he's not onboard the Andromeda Ascendant. And as long as the Dragans have those stupid remains of Musseveni, that Tyr needs to prove his claims beyond the shadow of a doubt…" Her gaze dropped on Dylan, who was staring at her blankly. Beka's face fell, her shoulders sagging forward. "The Dragans no longer have the bones…" she concluded, her tone a little hopeless.
Dylan nodded silently. She sighed.
"Tyr?"
"In a way…" he admitted.
"What way? He either has them or not. He can't have them 'in a way'…"
"Remember when he went AOL? On Midden?"
"Together with my ship? How could I forget that?"
"He had crashed there after stealing the bones from the Dragans." Under the outraged look that hit him, Dylan Hunt almost shrank back into the chair. In a swift move, Beka leapt to her feet.
"And you knew that? All this time you've known that? Dylan…"
"I didn't know from the start. I learned only much later about them…"
"When?" Planting both hands firmly on the table, Beka leaned forward, almost looming above him.
He was almost cringing under her furious gaze.
"The Nietzscheans who were chasing us back then, on that ice-planet… They had insinuated something, but as Tyr refused to enlighten me, I decided to wait some more for him to come clear about it to me. But then…" His voice trailed. Clearing his throat, he continued abruptly: "On Acheron we… we went into a trap Chuchulian set out for Tyr. He told me everything, offering to spare me – and the convoy – if I gave him Tyr… and the bones…"
With an angry snarl Beka withdrew from him, resuming her pacing.
"You should have made the deal!" she threw at him.
"Beka, you don't mean that…"
"Oh yes, I do mean it. Dylan, he's painted a bull's eye on us by bringing those bones aboard."
"I know," the man admitted quietly. "I… I came up with a plan to… somewhat neutralize the…"
"What plan?" she interrupted sharply.
"I locked Tyr out. He… He no longer has access to the bones."
She stopped her pacing immediately, turning around to face him, arms hanging down and her mouth slightly opened.
"THAT is you plan?" she scanted. "While Tyr makes us a target for the Dragans, you make yourself a target for Tyr? Dylan, that's not a plan, that's suicide."
"I made it clear that I might, under certain circumstances, let myself be persuaded to give them back to him. Until then we… share custody of them."
"Dylan," Beka stressed forcefully, "Tyr doesn't take too kindly to sharing things he considers to be his own with others. As a matter of fact, he does not take too kindly sharing even things that aren't his own, really…"
"Beka," Dylan said, rising to his feet, "we've been fighting, laughing, crying, sharing our food, sleeping under the same roof for almost three years together." Closing in on her, he took hold of her shoulders and shook her gently, but determined. "I HAVE to believe that this means something to Tyr…"
Her eyes searching his face softened, noticing the serious, intense expression on his tired features. Gripping herself for his arms, she squeezed him tightly, affectionately.
"Yes, I know," she told him warmly, "and I am sure that it does mean something to Tyr. The only question is though: does it mean enough?"