To clarify just in case someone's a tad confuzzlepated... everything after Beka convinces Harper not to liquor himself up good is what didn't happen but could have. Enjoy! (and remember the smilies... )

Day One of the Jog Down Memory Lane



"But, boss, it was a tragedy of truly… tragic proportions! I think… no, I know ol' Vexpeg would've wanted us to remember him by getting falling-on-our-asses drunk!"


Rebecca Valentine rubbed her right temple and rolled her eyes. She caught a glimpse of herself in one of the Maru's few shining clean surfaces and gave a double take, still unused to her golden tresses. For the eighty-seventh time that day, she pondered returning to her former red or possibly trying a darker shade. The thought of Beka Valentine the blonde just unnerved her.


Firmly, she pointed her mind back at the conversation with her ship's engineer. She would not turn into one of those women who constantly fretted about their hair (or clothes or makeup) to the exclusion of everything else. "Yeah, I don't think one of your suicidal drinking binges is really what Fred would've wanted. He hated them enough when he was alive." The short man, also blond, with constantly roving blue eyes, protested this description of his all-night flirtations with alcohol poisoning, but Beka bulldozed right over him. "No, Harper, that's what they are, and one day you'll wake up in some cargo bay with nothing but some mutant strain of triangulum measles and an… excruciating hangover, or you won't wake up at all." One of her pet peeves was when people spoke of "waking up dead", and she was careful never to use that nonsensical phrase. "Don't tell me you've forgotten Malkier."


She didn't like drudging up the memory of that once-thriving space port any more than Harper liked hearing it, but if he sabotaged this job, he would envy the former inhabitants of that drift. "I know, I know, eleven hundred people kicked the can in the same night—"


"'Kicked the can' because someone slipped a little too much perytine-8 into the Weissbrau," Harper bristled at the insinuation of any conceivable flaw of his latest find and most beloved brew to date, but Beka ignored him. "and the only reason you're not several thousand ashes floating in space is that Trance miraculously discovered… something to counteract the drug, and frankly, I don't think doctors knew about that cure at the height of the Systems Commonwealth."


At hearing her name, a blur of purple rushed in from Beka's bathroom, nearly delirious over the size of the faux-porcelain, clawed-feet bathtub. "What? Oh, that. I wish I had been able to get to the rest of those poor people in time." Trance lowered her eyes, and, for a moment, Beka thought she saw a shine like tears under long eyelashes.


She laid a hand on a velvet-covered shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. "But you did get to Harper in time, and I was serious when I said no one else could have pulled that off."


Harper caught the look Beka shot him over their shipmate's head and nodded vigorously. "She's right, Trance. You're almost as genius as I am, except with…non-mechanic things." The girl was new to the Maru's crew, but already they'd experience Trance's…skill with machines. Beka almost winced, reminded of the coffee-maker incident. "It was incredibly lucky that you found me at all."


Trance's unusual complexion darkened a shade as she blushed self-consciously and shrugged. "I got thirsty."


Stranger things had happened, and maybe the tailed girl had a regular habit of padding down to seedy taverns at three in the morning. "Well, I'm glad you did. Now, help me convince Harper not to drink himself into a blind stupor tonight. If we have to leave here at an ungodly hour again because he's racked up yet another tab he can't pay…" Her expression spoke volumes, more than enough even for Harper.


"Harper…"


Under the eyes of both women, he surrendered. "All right, all right. Besides, the dancing girls here are noted several times in, uh, a 'zine I used to read." He trailed off, suddenly aware of twin raised eyebrows focused on him.


"Hmph. Well, these girls won't take anything but thrones, so by all means, go and spend all three in your pocket."


Harper rejoiced at the permission to blow his latest earnings on a busty blonde who wouldn't remember him an hour after he left, but Beka had one condition. Trance would have to accompany him on his spending spree, to make sure he didn't accidentally lose his way and wander to the bar, or he'd be staying home with only the late-night holodramas he could afford to keep him company.


"No offense to her purple pixiness, but I can't take Trance to Madame Boom-boom's House of--"


"Harper! I don't really want to know what witty yet obscene name Miss Boom-boom gave her strip club. Either you bring Trance along, or you can cozy up with whatever Spice Broadcasting is offering in your price range."


Trance had opened her mouth to object to Beka's plan, but now her eyes widened. "I always thought that was a cooking channel."


Harper choked, and Beka couldn't quite stop a snort of disbelief and amusement from escaping her. "One of their…presentations probably does have cooking."


The engineer shook his head. "No, cooking in the buff can be highly dangerous, and they wouldn't want to…" His authoritative tone faded as he realized to whom he was expounding his hard-earned knowledge. He muttered something, and a faint blush overspread his pale features, temporarily bringing them some color. Beka had months ago given up trying to put some meat on the kid's bones; he'd be scrawny if he spent the rest of his life wrapped in swaddling and fed with a silver spoon on a planet that had never even heard of Nietzscheans or the Magog.


Harper combed his fingers through his A.G. defying blond spikes, and, tossing Beka one last reproachful glance, sighed melodramatically and called Trance, now inspecting her most recent purchase: a purse that closely resembled some sort of unbearably soft and cuddly creature.


Shaking her head ruefully, Beka turned from the pair and stared morosely at the flexis strewn over the small table in from of her without seeing any of them. Yesterday, Rev had departed for a spiritual retreat or mission, and this would be the first time she was without his steady support and gentle counsel since Bobby's final good-bye four weeks ago. Four weeks, six days, and eight hours. She half-heartedly scolded herself for her inability to forget her long-time boyfriend, but after all, theirs had been the longest (and most tumultuous) relationship she'd ever known. At least she could now honestly say that were he to return at that moment, she would find the strength to tell him to leave and just how over they really were. She might—and probably would—stay up half the night regretting it, but she would tell him off.


"Not the time to be reminiscing, Valentine. You've got some exciting finances to decipher!" Sadly, her upbeat tone wasn't enough to convince the rest of her that she really did want to spend the night alone, forehead scrunched and eyes squinting as she calculated precisely how much she owed Petite Nabou, the unlikely name of one of this galaxy's scuzziest parts dealers. She knew the amount would just depress her. "All right, we'll compromise. Go down to the bar, order yourself a nice virgin something, make sure Harper doesn't lose Trance and wind up one step from the bright light, and try to work with these unholy numbers."


She considered the offer. "Deal. But no dancing with strangers."


Beka sighed. "Well…unless they're really cute."


"Fine." And that disturbing conversation with herself was over.


The night passed uneventfully. Beka was asked a few times to dance, but by no one good-looking enough to pass the 'really cute' muster. She sat in a table near the corner, muttering imprecations at the flexis before her and resigning herself to the San-sa-Samba she hadn't ordered. Occasional glances toward the loud, insanely packed par revealed no Seamus Harper, and she progressed farther on her accounts than she had expected. Contented, she returned to her rented room around one o'clock, her exit noticed by a single man several tables away. Dark eyes had watched her all evening and had nodded approvingly at seeing her sober and productive. If the person the eyes had belonged to had been one of those requesting her presence on the dance floor, she might have accepted, had she not picked out the bone spurs lying flat against black leather bracers.