Author's Note: Chapter 3 is better than this one, I promise. I've tried to fix this up, but I still don't think it's good, just to warn you. And my attempts to italicize text with HTML have shown up on my comp half the time, so I'll leave them. Any text with i/i around it should be italicized. I think that's all. On with Chapter 2!
'Patience is a virtue.' Rev has told me that a million times, and it is still a bunch of crap. Patient people sit around and do nothing all day waiting for whatever they want. I took action and got what I wanted a lot faster. Except when I waited for Beka. Pushing her was a bad idea, especially after that whole flash thing. She'd been clean for a long time, but there was still the need. It was always there, pushing at the back of your mind. I knew that need better than anyone else on the crew would ever know.
Boredom was driving me off the walls. I even started cleaning up my room that looked like a disaster area. I picked up a photo album from near my night stand. I plopped down on my bed and opened it. Declan, Siobhan, myself and a couple of other relatives stared at me from the page. I was only about eleven, maybe twelve in the picture. It was one of the few things I'd taken with me when I left Earth. I turned the page. This time it was a picture of my early times on the Maru. Beka and I were on a beach on Infinity Atoll. The pages all held memories leading up to today. The last page was the single picture of Lise I had. I bit my lip and closed the album, putting it deep in my nightstand drawer. Not something I really felt like looking at.
"Let's see, Harper. What is there to do now?" I asked myself. I came up with absolutely nothing. "Y'know you're pretty slow sometimes for being a freakin' genius. There's gotta be something I can do...music! Rommie, play Harper selection number...38, whatever that is."
Drive by Incubus began playing. I hadn't heard it in a while, just a random number I had blurted out. I leaned back on my bed and listened to the lyrics.
Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can't help but ask how much I'll let the fear of uncertainty take the wheel and steer
It's driven me before
And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
But lately, I'm beginning to find that I should be the one behind the wheel
Weirdness alert. That's exactly how I'd been feeling for months on end. I let the fear of uncertainty take control of my life, keep me from doing everything I wanted to do. Everything I knew I needed to do...
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
I'll be there
I shouldn't fear the future, the consequences of what I've gotta do. I'll be there whatever happens. Things are sometimes bad, but they always get better. They even turn out for the best sometimes...
So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
Will I choose water over wine
And hold my own and drive
It's driven me before
And it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around
Lately, I'm beginning to find that when I drive myself
My light is found
Yeah. This driving yourself and light thing was definitely important. Even though it did sound like some stupid Wayist thing Rev would tell me when I was doing some major soul searching...
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
I'll be there
Would you choose water over wine
Hold the wheel and drive
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
I'll be there
The song got me really thinking. About some things I wasn't ready to face yet. Things I didn't know if I'd ever be able to face. The quickest escape I found was cleaning. I cleaned like I never cleaned before for hours, even dusted and organized shelves. There inevitably ended up being absolutely nothing else left to clean. I was left a total mess, quite the contrary to my quarters themselves, pacing and mumbling to myself like some psychotic weirdo.
My mind began wondering back to the pain, and I pushed it away. It was my birthday, and I didn't need this crap. I wondered when Beka would arrive and decided it would have to be soon. I hurried off to Hydroponics. I picked her a nice boquet of roses, irises, daffodils and other pretty flowers. Yes, Beka would like the pretty flowers. No woman didn't like flowers, except maybe Elsbett, but she wasn't a woman. She was iall/i Nietzchean. I returned to my quarters and grabbed the long vase off of a shelf that I had found during my cleaning spree. I filled it with water and put the flowers in it. There was nothing to do, but I couldn't let my mind succumb. I glanced around my quarters at the furniture. It needed some rearranging. I could do that.
"Let's see now. I could use the folding table in my closet in the middle of the room as a small dining table and put the flowers on it. And move my bureau over there to the wall by my bathroom. And all of the shelves should go along the back wall by my closet. Then, I'll have a lot more walking space." I pushed all the furniture to its new location. Combined with the strange neatness of the room, it looked like my quarters belonged to a woman. All I needed now were fake flowers and pink lace doilies everywhere.
The door chime rang. I hurried over to the door. It was Beka, as I had expected. "Oh, hi, Beka! I got you some flowers." I grabbed the vase and handed it to her.
"Oh my god. What did you do with Harper?" she asked, obviously in shock.
"I just decided to clean and rearrange everything. Y'know make a change."
Her eyes narrowed. "You're a nervous wreck. What happened?"
"Oh, I'm just fine. Nothing happened," I lied. I couldn't hide the fact that I was freaking out from anyone.
"You look like you could use something to drink," she commented.
"Yeah. Good idea! I'll go get us something. What do you want?"
"A beer."
"Can do. I think I'm gonna have some of this tea stuff Rev gave me. He said Wayists drink it when they meditate. Whatever it's made of, it's supposed to 'separate the mind and body' or something like that." I grabbed a beer and poured some of the greenish powder into a cup of hot water. It looked really gross, and I wasn't sure if I would be willing to actually drink it once it was stirred up.
Beka sat down on my bed. "It's so weird in here without the huge mess."
I handed her the beer and stirred my tea some more. "Yeah. I kinda miss the mess, actually." The thoughts began to return. I took a sip of the tea and about spit it out everywhere. It tasted like mud and grass. Even grosser than I had initially expected.
"Is that tea any good? It smells like a bog." She crinkled her nose as she looked at it.
"Tastes even worse than a bog. Absolutely disgusting," I said as I downed the rest of it in a big gulp. I hoped it would be worth it, chase away everything pulsating through my mind. My body immediately started relaxing, and my mind, too. It felt like I was floating. Very good. Definitely worth the taste.
"Each to his own. Your birthday's almost over."
"Got another hour." My mind started nagging me about what Beka had come here to talk about, her tone when she asked about dropping by.
"Did you get everything you wanted?" She was leading to something. I could just feel it.
"Yeah. The presents were all good."
"Other than the rocky start, was there anything bad about it?" Definitely leading to something.
"Not really." I wondered how long it would take to get it out of her.
"I suck at all this indirect leading into what I wanna say."
'You read my mind,' I thought. "What are you trying to say?"
"I have something else that I'm willing to give you. We were both very fond of Lise, and I know that you found that data rod in Med Deck recently...I found it right after you mentioned four dash seventeen to me for the first time. If you want to have her child, I'm willing to be the surrogate mother."
Everyhing my thoughts had been forcing on me. Everything I had been running from. Oh my god. This wasn't what I was expecting. I wouldn't cry in front of her. Chicks always cry when guys cry. I wouldn't show her my pain. I wouldn't tell her about the wounds she had just ripped open. But I didn't know what I would do, for that matter. Babies are a big responsibility. I'm as immature and childish as they come. Beka told me that herself. How does a 'kid' take care of a baby, be a good daddy? Not that I didn't want to be one. Because somewhere in me, there was a paternal instinct. Somewhere in me believed that this baby would make everything that hurt about Lise stop hurting. Somewhere in me, there was a need for this. More than a need even, something there is no word for...
"Harper?" Beka asked.
"Wow..." I half-whispered.
"I'm sorry. It was a bad idea that I even brought this up."
Incubus began forcing its way into my mind. 'You must drive and take control. You must obey the part of you that wants that baby.' I had no choice but to listen to it. "No, it wasn't a bad idea. Just a little bit of a shock for me."
"I didn't mean right now, either. Whenever you're ready for this."
Funny thing was I did feel ready. Not just because of Incubus and all that, either. I blamed the Wayist tea. Wayist acted drugged up when they meditated, and I had proof of it. I felt drugged up. "That is such a generous gift to give. You've really thought about it?"
"Yeah. Ever since I found the data rod myself. And I know this is something I want to do," she assured me. Assurance I didn't want. I wanted her to tell me that she was wrong, and that children are a bad thing for guys like me.
"I think this is a now thing. I don't wanna be like fifty when my kid's just finishing growing up." Incubus was screaming in my mind, speaking for me. Ironic how a song about taking control yourself was taking control.
"We'll talk to everyone tomorrow," Beka said.
"Talk to everyone? Isn't this just something between the two of us? I mean won't they be trying to stop us because they think children don't belong out in space or something?" I was afraid. Not just afraid--terrified. Terrified at what my mind was doing to me. Terrified that I was accepting it, even agreeing with it. Who in the hell was I becoming? This sure wasn't the Seamus Harper I knew.
"I don't know, to be honest. But I think they'll trust our judgment." There she went with that assurance thing again. It had to die.
"What if they don't...then what?" I wanted to fight it to the end. No more assurances.
"Well, there's always the Maru. It is my ship, and we got along fine on it before..." Nothing killed it. It was maternal or something like that.
"No, I wouldn't do that to you. You like it here a lot. And I do, too." Dylan hadn't liked children since our little incident with them. Maybe I could bring that up.
"You're getting ahead of yourself. We should just take it one step at a time." I was beginning to let the assurances coax me into a false sense of security. But I liked it. Wouldn't fight it anymore. The fear still lingered, though.
"You're right. Should we tell the whole crew or just Dylan?"
"Just Dylan to start out with. He's the one that ultimately makes decisions like this."
"Are you scared, Beka?" I needed to know that it wasn't just me.
She was silent for a moment before finally admitting, "A little bit."
"There's gonna be so much to think about...but I need to take it one step at a time, as you said." My mind was racing with questions that even the assurances didn't calm. It felt like an entire rush hour of traffic was playing bumper cars in there.
"We both need to take it one step at a time." She seemed to be reminding herself not to be like me.
"This means a lot to me, Rebecca. Thank you. You really are a true blue best friend." I gave her a long hug. She said nothing, and I respected her silence. This was all so overwhelming.
"You are, too, Seamus...you are, too," she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper.
It calmed my racing mind, the fears towards what might happen, everything that was going through me--even Incubus. It left me still wanting this child, though. It was all that needed to be said, like that last line at the end of a long drama. A part of me wanted to cry and then turn the television off, but this was real. And it was only the beginning...
'Patience is a virtue.' Rev has told me that a million times, and it is still a bunch of crap. Patient people sit around and do nothing all day waiting for whatever they want. I took action and got what I wanted a lot faster. Except when I waited for Beka. Pushing her was a bad idea, especially after that whole flash thing. She'd been clean for a long time, but there was still the need. It was always there, pushing at the back of your mind. I knew that need better than anyone else on the crew would ever know.
Boredom was driving me off the walls. I even started cleaning up my room that looked like a disaster area. I picked up a photo album from near my night stand. I plopped down on my bed and opened it. Declan, Siobhan, myself and a couple of other relatives stared at me from the page. I was only about eleven, maybe twelve in the picture. It was one of the few things I'd taken with me when I left Earth. I turned the page. This time it was a picture of my early times on the Maru. Beka and I were on a beach on Infinity Atoll. The pages all held memories leading up to today. The last page was the single picture of Lise I had. I bit my lip and closed the album, putting it deep in my nightstand drawer. Not something I really felt like looking at.
"Let's see, Harper. What is there to do now?" I asked myself. I came up with absolutely nothing. "Y'know you're pretty slow sometimes for being a freakin' genius. There's gotta be something I can do...music! Rommie, play Harper selection number...38, whatever that is."
Drive by Incubus began playing. I hadn't heard it in a while, just a random number I had blurted out. I leaned back on my bed and listened to the lyrics.
Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can't help but ask how much I'll let the fear of uncertainty take the wheel and steer
It's driven me before
And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
But lately, I'm beginning to find that I should be the one behind the wheel
Weirdness alert. That's exactly how I'd been feeling for months on end. I let the fear of uncertainty take control of my life, keep me from doing everything I wanted to do. Everything I knew I needed to do...
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
I'll be there
I shouldn't fear the future, the consequences of what I've gotta do. I'll be there whatever happens. Things are sometimes bad, but they always get better. They even turn out for the best sometimes...
So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
Will I choose water over wine
And hold my own and drive
It's driven me before
And it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around
Lately, I'm beginning to find that when I drive myself
My light is found
Yeah. This driving yourself and light thing was definitely important. Even though it did sound like some stupid Wayist thing Rev would tell me when I was doing some major soul searching...
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
I'll be there
Would you choose water over wine
Hold the wheel and drive
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes
Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there
I'll be there
The song got me really thinking. About some things I wasn't ready to face yet. Things I didn't know if I'd ever be able to face. The quickest escape I found was cleaning. I cleaned like I never cleaned before for hours, even dusted and organized shelves. There inevitably ended up being absolutely nothing else left to clean. I was left a total mess, quite the contrary to my quarters themselves, pacing and mumbling to myself like some psychotic weirdo.
My mind began wondering back to the pain, and I pushed it away. It was my birthday, and I didn't need this crap. I wondered when Beka would arrive and decided it would have to be soon. I hurried off to Hydroponics. I picked her a nice boquet of roses, irises, daffodils and other pretty flowers. Yes, Beka would like the pretty flowers. No woman didn't like flowers, except maybe Elsbett, but she wasn't a woman. She was iall/i Nietzchean. I returned to my quarters and grabbed the long vase off of a shelf that I had found during my cleaning spree. I filled it with water and put the flowers in it. There was nothing to do, but I couldn't let my mind succumb. I glanced around my quarters at the furniture. It needed some rearranging. I could do that.
"Let's see now. I could use the folding table in my closet in the middle of the room as a small dining table and put the flowers on it. And move my bureau over there to the wall by my bathroom. And all of the shelves should go along the back wall by my closet. Then, I'll have a lot more walking space." I pushed all the furniture to its new location. Combined with the strange neatness of the room, it looked like my quarters belonged to a woman. All I needed now were fake flowers and pink lace doilies everywhere.
The door chime rang. I hurried over to the door. It was Beka, as I had expected. "Oh, hi, Beka! I got you some flowers." I grabbed the vase and handed it to her.
"Oh my god. What did you do with Harper?" she asked, obviously in shock.
"I just decided to clean and rearrange everything. Y'know make a change."
Her eyes narrowed. "You're a nervous wreck. What happened?"
"Oh, I'm just fine. Nothing happened," I lied. I couldn't hide the fact that I was freaking out from anyone.
"You look like you could use something to drink," she commented.
"Yeah. Good idea! I'll go get us something. What do you want?"
"A beer."
"Can do. I think I'm gonna have some of this tea stuff Rev gave me. He said Wayists drink it when they meditate. Whatever it's made of, it's supposed to 'separate the mind and body' or something like that." I grabbed a beer and poured some of the greenish powder into a cup of hot water. It looked really gross, and I wasn't sure if I would be willing to actually drink it once it was stirred up.
Beka sat down on my bed. "It's so weird in here without the huge mess."
I handed her the beer and stirred my tea some more. "Yeah. I kinda miss the mess, actually." The thoughts began to return. I took a sip of the tea and about spit it out everywhere. It tasted like mud and grass. Even grosser than I had initially expected.
"Is that tea any good? It smells like a bog." She crinkled her nose as she looked at it.
"Tastes even worse than a bog. Absolutely disgusting," I said as I downed the rest of it in a big gulp. I hoped it would be worth it, chase away everything pulsating through my mind. My body immediately started relaxing, and my mind, too. It felt like I was floating. Very good. Definitely worth the taste.
"Each to his own. Your birthday's almost over."
"Got another hour." My mind started nagging me about what Beka had come here to talk about, her tone when she asked about dropping by.
"Did you get everything you wanted?" She was leading to something. I could just feel it.
"Yeah. The presents were all good."
"Other than the rocky start, was there anything bad about it?" Definitely leading to something.
"Not really." I wondered how long it would take to get it out of her.
"I suck at all this indirect leading into what I wanna say."
'You read my mind,' I thought. "What are you trying to say?"
"I have something else that I'm willing to give you. We were both very fond of Lise, and I know that you found that data rod in Med Deck recently...I found it right after you mentioned four dash seventeen to me for the first time. If you want to have her child, I'm willing to be the surrogate mother."
Everyhing my thoughts had been forcing on me. Everything I had been running from. Oh my god. This wasn't what I was expecting. I wouldn't cry in front of her. Chicks always cry when guys cry. I wouldn't show her my pain. I wouldn't tell her about the wounds she had just ripped open. But I didn't know what I would do, for that matter. Babies are a big responsibility. I'm as immature and childish as they come. Beka told me that herself. How does a 'kid' take care of a baby, be a good daddy? Not that I didn't want to be one. Because somewhere in me, there was a paternal instinct. Somewhere in me believed that this baby would make everything that hurt about Lise stop hurting. Somewhere in me, there was a need for this. More than a need even, something there is no word for...
"Harper?" Beka asked.
"Wow..." I half-whispered.
"I'm sorry. It was a bad idea that I even brought this up."
Incubus began forcing its way into my mind. 'You must drive and take control. You must obey the part of you that wants that baby.' I had no choice but to listen to it. "No, it wasn't a bad idea. Just a little bit of a shock for me."
"I didn't mean right now, either. Whenever you're ready for this."
Funny thing was I did feel ready. Not just because of Incubus and all that, either. I blamed the Wayist tea. Wayist acted drugged up when they meditated, and I had proof of it. I felt drugged up. "That is such a generous gift to give. You've really thought about it?"
"Yeah. Ever since I found the data rod myself. And I know this is something I want to do," she assured me. Assurance I didn't want. I wanted her to tell me that she was wrong, and that children are a bad thing for guys like me.
"I think this is a now thing. I don't wanna be like fifty when my kid's just finishing growing up." Incubus was screaming in my mind, speaking for me. Ironic how a song about taking control yourself was taking control.
"We'll talk to everyone tomorrow," Beka said.
"Talk to everyone? Isn't this just something between the two of us? I mean won't they be trying to stop us because they think children don't belong out in space or something?" I was afraid. Not just afraid--terrified. Terrified at what my mind was doing to me. Terrified that I was accepting it, even agreeing with it. Who in the hell was I becoming? This sure wasn't the Seamus Harper I knew.
"I don't know, to be honest. But I think they'll trust our judgment." There she went with that assurance thing again. It had to die.
"What if they don't...then what?" I wanted to fight it to the end. No more assurances.
"Well, there's always the Maru. It is my ship, and we got along fine on it before..." Nothing killed it. It was maternal or something like that.
"No, I wouldn't do that to you. You like it here a lot. And I do, too." Dylan hadn't liked children since our little incident with them. Maybe I could bring that up.
"You're getting ahead of yourself. We should just take it one step at a time." I was beginning to let the assurances coax me into a false sense of security. But I liked it. Wouldn't fight it anymore. The fear still lingered, though.
"You're right. Should we tell the whole crew or just Dylan?"
"Just Dylan to start out with. He's the one that ultimately makes decisions like this."
"Are you scared, Beka?" I needed to know that it wasn't just me.
She was silent for a moment before finally admitting, "A little bit."
"There's gonna be so much to think about...but I need to take it one step at a time, as you said." My mind was racing with questions that even the assurances didn't calm. It felt like an entire rush hour of traffic was playing bumper cars in there.
"We both need to take it one step at a time." She seemed to be reminding herself not to be like me.
"This means a lot to me, Rebecca. Thank you. You really are a true blue best friend." I gave her a long hug. She said nothing, and I respected her silence. This was all so overwhelming.
"You are, too, Seamus...you are, too," she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper.
It calmed my racing mind, the fears towards what might happen, everything that was going through me--even Incubus. It left me still wanting this child, though. It was all that needed to be said, like that last line at the end of a long drama. A part of me wanted to cry and then turn the television off, but this was real. And it was only the beginning...