And finally: Dylan

Waiting for the click

Rhade had even asked him to join him and the girls, but he had refused flatly. He can't leave right now. He hasn't heard the click yet. The click in his head that makes all of it go away. He hasn't heard the click and wishes he wouldn't need that long (so much longer than the Nietzschean) to push himself aside. And wishes he wouldn't have to do it again alone. But he hadn't dared to ask him to stay longer. He hadn't dared to see the contempt on the dark face, the sardonic gleam in those Nietzschean eyes. Nor does he dare to leave, to turn around and face her before he's heard the click.

Before he came here tonight, he had sworn to tell him, to talk to him and ask him to forget all that could be forgotten, even if not forgiven. To forget how much time they'd spent misunderstanding each other, to not waste more hours on asking themselves how all of this could have happened. And most of all forget the many, many times they spent killing their own resolve and courage with mighty blows of 'why?s'. But then he didn't do it.

It would have been better to just stay tonight onboard the Andromeda. Since he had found her, he hadn't done it often. He should have stayed with her. But he can't do it. He is too tired to spend yet another night painfully missing Rommie, crying in the dark like a scared, lonely child longing for his home, longing for his ship, talking to empty walls, hiding himself away from her memory and still catching glimpses of her, of her smile in his mind, hearing her voice's echo ring through deserted corridors, feeling himself become a shadow of himself, a shadow of her shadow.

It ends every time in an exhausted sleep haunted by countless nightmares that send him running like a madman to Command, where there is... nothing. No-one. Just Trance. Who waits for him with big, warm, lonely eyes, a small, desperate smile on her empty face. He doesn't want to hide himself away from her, but he can't stand the blankness of her gaze. He then always tells himself that nothing is lost yet, that there is still hope, that many old volcanoes, that everyone thought dead, had been known to find again their fire. And that the lands they burnt often prove themselves more fertile than before. Looking into Trance's eyes he stubbornly keeps reminding himself of some enchanted sundown he had spent somewhere planet-side, watching the red and the black uniting the skies. Only to then remember that there is no sundown on Seefra.

No, everything is better than another night on the Andromeda Ascendant. Even though he knows that chances are pretty high for him to end up here, getting drunk with Rhade, freezing under Beka's gaze, hoping for the click to happen before he loses it all, before he stands up and walks over to her, falling on his knees, making a fool of himself, begging her to forgive him for having let her go, for having wished her back. Even that is better. Or so he thought before.

But now that he is left alone with his empty glass and her eyes in his back, now that the click refuses to happen, he knows he had been wrong. And begins to order drinks more and more in a hurry, desperately fencing off the urge to just go to her and take her in his arms and promise... everything: that he'll explain it all, inventing a new language just for the two of them, one she'd understand, telling her about people splitting up only so they can come together again, asking if she'd heard about this guy who died from not being able to see her anymore. Swearing that should he ever leave her alone again, it'll be just to find her pearls of rain on this dry, dry world, where it never rains, and to fight off the darkness she fears that much, so he'll always see her frame bathing in nothing but bright sunlight. And that from now on, no matter where they'll be, in which universe, he will spend all his strength building her a fief, in which life will rule supreme, of which she'll be the only queen.

Downing his last drink, he raises his head and sees her standing up in a swift move. For a brief moment their eyes meet in the mirror. And then she turnes around without a further glance. And then he hears the click.