Set right after FALITMW
Don't owe any of this.
Non-Expectations
Beka Valentine was sipping at her glass of white wine, very pleased with herself. The relaxed, casual Dylan Hunt sitting across the table, savouring the excellent dinner and exquisite wine and admiring the sunset on Sinti 4 with her was a far cry from the gloomy, irascible, impossible to live with captain they had 'enjoyed' over the past couple of weeks. Had anyone asked her a month ago, she would have sworn that the High Guard officer was genetically incapable of such a somber mood.
Luckily however she had done it! She had managed to bring him out of the depression that was tearing at him - and his crew's nerves in consequence - and bring back a smile on his face. Thanks to her and her audacity the Perseids had reconsidered their wish to withdraw from the Restored Systems' Commonwealth. And now Dylan was celebrating the event with Beka, looking as happy as she had ever seen him. More than that: short time after their second glass of wine he had finally opened a small gate in his fence and had started telling her about Tarn Vedra. It was for the very first time that he did it of his own free will, without some event or other cornering him and forcing him to share something of his past with someone of his new crew.
As she sat there, his stories shaping in front of her wide opened eyes a world so full of beauty, peace and security that she could hardly believe her ears, the conversation slowly moved from his home planet to his dreams of a New Commonwealth. And ever so slowly Beka felt the comfortable, sunny feeling she had inside leaving her, and melancholy setting in in the place left vacant.
She could not believe it. He meant it! He really, really meant it! Oh, she had from the very start presumed that there was honesty in his wish for a better life for them, a better fate for the universe, peace, justice, prosperity and security for all - and so on and so forth, as an annoyed Tyr would undoubtedly have put it. She had however also assumed that behind this genuine wish of Hunt's were also a certain lust for power, an urge to turn back time and a not insignificant need to escape the reality of what had happened to him. But as she sat there facing him, looking into those eyes radiant with hope, listening to the soft flow of his voice glowing with passion, Beka suddenly realized that - even if there were such motives hidden underneath his ideals - they were not important in comparison to the loyalty he held for his beliefs.
It made her feel sad and tired. And old. In fact, she felt as if - compared to him - Trance, Tyr, Rev, Harper and herself were almost ancient, inhumanly wise beings guiding a defenseless fragile life through an universe that lived by the supreme credo that taking candy from babies was a good thing. She knew that she was staring at him incredulously and struggled in vain to compose herself. Who would have thought that this amazing amalgam of skill, talent and experience designed to create the perfect... perfect what actually? Warrior? Protector? Leader? Officer and gentleman? Whatever clichéed perfection the Commonwealth had meant its soldiers to be, it had obviously endowed them with a solid fundament of an innocence totally unfit for the universe Beka knew. It was an endearing trait - and scary.
„What?" Dylan had stopped talking and was now looking at her with uncertain eyes, a small, shy smile adorning his lips.
„What do you mean?"
„You're looking at me as if I were some kind of... freak?!"
„What?... No! NO!" Beka denied forcefully, fighting back the emotions she feared her face might show.
„Well, what is it then?"
„It's just... I have never seen a child so big, Dylan!"
She saw his features darkening. She knew that her reply sounded more than awkward, but still felt that her answer had been more merciful than what was actually really on her mind: the almost crushing knowledge that - in what still lay ahead of them - no matter how fairly he fought, how hard he struggled and how well he succeeded, this part of his soul would not make it through, and that with it the last vestige of a better world would be lost forever.
„You think that I am childish?" Dylan asked in a slightly pressed voice.
„No, not childish... A child. That's not quite the same. You believe so strongly that everything is basically both good and possible. They don't go well together, those two notions, you know?" Beka carefully stated.
„What if they do, and what if it's just that so far no one ever tried to make them fit together?" he stubbornly insisted.
„From you told me previously you already tried in the old Commonwealth!" She looked at him, still puzzled. „Tell me..." she then ventured in a cautious tone, „have you really never thought the Fall to be a possible option, never expected any of this to happen?"
Dylan stared at her, clearly not understanding.
„Expected any of this to happen? No, of course not," he replied, strongly stressing his words.
„But did you never have the feeling that this script of yours was too smooth to be true? That sometime somewhere someone will decide to change some lines in it?"
He frowned, opened his mouth to answer her, but didn't. Instead he took a sip from his glass. And then he frowned some more. When realization finally dawned on his face, Beka almost felt her heart twitch.
Staring into the sunset, his eyes gazing blindly at some far away horizon, Dylan shook his head.
„They didn't change some lines. They threw away the script and gave me an entirely new book." His eyes returned to her face. "To answer your question: no, I never would have expected this. I never would have expected myself in this, playing this part. I never would have thought that I'd be expected to follow anything else but the original script, that I'd be expected to read not the lines, but what stays written inbetween them."
There was a slight amazement, bitterness and a faint trace of anger in his voice. His eyes though still shone brightly, looking at her straightforward.
Beka reached across the table and gently placed her hand on his, squeezing it gently.
„I am sorry, Dylan!"
„Don't be," he said lightly, his hand squeezing hers back. „There are far more things I never would have expected. Not all of them are bad..."
She raised her eyebrows, smiling.
„Like what?" Beka asked him.
He withdrew his hand and reached for the wine glass, toasting to her lightly.
„Like you, for instance, Beka! For all I know from my previous life before the Fall, someone like you would have been inimaginable then. You see, the world before the Fall was not so perfect, after all!"
She laughed and toasted back. Slightly touching his glass with hers, Beka grinned at him:
„So what are you saying? That you've lost a universe and... gained me? And think you made a good deal? No offense, Dylan, but I think that in terms of doing business, you should really keep out of anything involving a return on invest!"
„Agreed," he nodded lightly. They drank to each other. And then they moved on.