Once again my muse is M.I.A.: I haven't been able to write in days.
Chrysalis, part 11
Harper sat bolt upright with a gasp, sweat pouring off of him.
Trance was immediately at his side, "Are you ok?" He nodded, trying not to hyperventilate, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Man, that was some trip." Dylan almost ran over, "What happened? You where in there for almost 5-muinets after Andrew was thrown out of the link."
Harper nodded, finally getting his breathe back, "I got through and found Rommie: She's ok." Dylan visibly relaxed, "Dose she know what's going on?" Harper shook his head, carefully removing the probe from his data port, "She says she doesn't, but she thinks it isn't anything bad. We didn't have time to go into any further details before the storm hit."
Dylan blinked, "Storm? What storm?" Harper tried to stand, but his legs refused to hold his weight, and he almost fell to the flour. Trance grabbed him, her surprisingly gentle touch holding him up, "Sit." Harper sat back on the bed, "Sorry. We where in a VR replica of what she said was the Royal gardens on Tarn-Vedra: it was all grass and trees, with mountains in the distance. A storm appeared out of nowhere, and I got pulled out as the link collapsed."
"The mountains," Dylan asked, "What colure where they?" Harper scratched his head, "Purple, with white snow on the top." Dylan's mouth was dry, "And the path was…" "Crushed marble." Harper jumped in, finishing the other mans sentence for him. Trance looked at the two of them, "What dose that all mean?" Dylan sat down on the bed next to Harper, "He just described perfectly a place that I have known my entire life, yet there is no way he could have ever been there." He turned to Harper, "Did she say anything else?" Harper nodded, "Yes, but it was only for you." Trance nodded, getting the message, "I'll go and see to Paul." She walked off across the room to where the infant was laying.
Harper took a deep breath, "Rommie really doesn't know what's going on, and she's not even sure if she'll survive it, but she gave me a massage for you: she said to say that she loves you, and I wouldn't trade her time with you for anything." Dylan nodded, and walked off without saying a word.
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Again Dylan found himself sitting alone in the small room, his eyes on his wife's unmoving form. He stood and walked across to her bed, and sat on the edge, "I can't remember the last time I told you how much you mean to me. I don't think love even begins to describe how I feel about you: you have always been the one person I could count on, no mater what. You are the rock that I clung to when all else was lost. You are the part of me that never gives up, the part that never has second thoughts. You are the better half of me. I need you Rommie. Come back to me."
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Harper was slightly apprehensive when he reached the doorway: the two Nietzschean Lacers looked about as friendly as a Magog invasion, and having grown up on Earth, his fear of them was already instance. The senior of the two looked him over, then nodded, standing aside to let him through. Harper closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment: when he had first met Charlemagne Bolivar, he had assumed that the Sabra-Jaguar Pride where all talk and no trousers, but some of the troops they had provided where as big as Tyr. Dylan was asleep in his chair, his head resting on Rommie's bead. Harper sighed before shaking the other man's shoulders.
Dylan woke with a start, "Huh! What?" Harper sighed, "We've finished the repairs to the slipstream drive, and our friend the Ambassador is getting very uppity about moving on." Dylan nodded, " And still no proof that Robert Masters is a Genite agent. Ok, let's go: maybe the authorities on San-Ska-Re will be able to find out what happened. Is Beka in command?"
Harper nodded, "We're good to go." Dylan walked across to the com-unit, "Andromeda, give me command." There was a bleep followed by Beka's response, "I take it Harper gave you the good news." Dylan sighed, "Yes. There's nothing more we can do here without starting a diplomatic incident. Let's go." Beka sounded understandably angry, "Setting slipstream co-ordinates for the next transfer point. And in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Slipstream."
Andromeda lurched as her slipstream drive opened a portal and hulled her into the null-space that made faster-than-light travel possible.