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Beka awoke to a dark shadow looming over her. She tried to bring the image into focus, but before she could manage to convince her eyes to function properly, a roiling sensation in her stomach hit her head-on (well…). Tearing the sheet away from her, it never even crossed Beka's mind to check her state of dress before bounding to the bathroom she vaguely remembered from the previous night (luckily, she was decent for watching eyes).


Her stomach settled just enough that she wasn't physically ill, but all she could do now was to curl up weakly around the toilet and moan. Tyr followed her and filled one of the cheap, bubbled glass cups by the sink. He knelt in front of her and offered the water. Without a word, she took it and pressed the cool glass to her forehead. "What the hell?" she croaked. "I cannot possibly be hungover, nor can I possibly be pregnant." She looked up suspiciously at Tyr. "For several reasons, I think." He returned her stare without expression. "I know, I know. But what the hell is wrong with me? Sugar was never this cruel to anyone."


Tyr laid a hand against her cheek, then her forehead, and a flicker of concern passed like a cloud over his face. "No, it wasn't."


Beka discovered she'd emptied the glass and held it out for a refill. Tyr complied with her unspoken request, but this time he tasted the contents cautiously. He nodded and handed it to her.


Had she the strength, the blonde woman would've widened her eyes at this. Did he think she'd been poisoned? "People do hate me, Tyr, but they're all to lazy to do anything about it."


He examined her face and eyes closely, and she mentally forbade herself from flushing. She concentrated on the crystal clarity of the glass and the tiny points of light reflected and refracted in the water.


"Stand up."


"Mmm… don't wanna."


Tyr trailed his hands from her elbows to her palms and stood, pulling her up with him. She glared feebily but found herself perfectly steady on her feet. With an imperious gesture that would've irritated Beka at any other time, he motioned for her to finish the water. "I think you've contracted a mild fever, not unusual after spending time in the crowded, unsanitary common rooms of Albuquerque Drift."


A smile that ordinarily would have sparkled with laughter crossed Beka's pale mien. "Gee, Tyr, you almost sound like you don't like crowded, unsanitary common rooms, and that just wouldn't be the ever-friendly, social butterfly I've come to know over the past few days."


Tyr readied a withering reply, but Trance chose that precise instant to burst in through the room's back door. "Is she okay?"


Beka nodded, but it was Tyr who answered her. "She's likely no worse than your charge at the moment, though I do predict she'll be feeling unwell a few days longer than Harper."


Trance looked over her shoulder at the doorway. "Okay, then I should get back to him. He's a little louder than Beka."


Beka frowned and peered at Trance. "Trance, how do you manage not to be in the least hungover after last night? I'm pretty sure you downed more of those 'pretty umbrella drinks' than Harper."


Trance replied with a mysterious little smile. "I told you, alcohol doesn't affect me that same way as you guys." She trotted off, and Tyr led Beka back to her narrow mattress and threadbare sheets. A few feet from hers, another bed sat, neatly made and seemingly unslept in.


"Trance and I decided last night to request two double rooms so she could care for your engineer this morning and I you, as I had begun to notice your illness last night."


She raised an eyebrow. He had actually deigned to coordinate matters with 'the purple girl'? "I'm glad to hear you're all getting along so well." It was impossible to suppress the question in her voice.


Tyr considered telling her that he'd had to work on countless occasions with various undesirable characters on whom he might wish to practice his mercenary skills, but he decided that would imply he felt that way about her crewmate and chose not to. Beka defended and protected her crew like a Nietzschean would her family; regardless whether he felt animosity toward Trance Gemini or not, he certainly would be unwise to indicate he did. "I've often found it… useful to intimidate people to achieve my ends, but Trance Gemini possesses… a different sort of persuasion which proved quite effective in bartering for our rooms."


It took a moment for Beka to decipher the Nietzschean's vague allusion, but she laughed when it finally hit her. "Let me guess—she looked at the clerk with those big, brown eyes and sniffled about her sick friends, and the guy couldn't very well say not without looking like an utterly heartless bastard."


Tyr smiled at the memory. Among his own people, he'd never seen anything like it, and few had ever though to play the sympathy card on a Nietzschean mercenary. But all the girl had had to do was look up at the nervous, embarrassed innkeeper, bat her eyelashes as if blinking away tears, then avert her eyes to the floor and talk in a quiet, mournful voice—seemingly to herself—about the only people who had ever accepted her, who had taken her in with open arms and were now sick and finally she could do something to help them, if only she could get another room for them… Tyr wouldn't have been swayed by her sorrowful demeanor—he wouldn't have wavered for a second—but he did half-believe her grief until they were well away from anyone else, and she'd smiled widely and cooed to a nearly-unconscious Harper, "… and do you know why I got away with it? Because I'm cute!" Beka was in her room at the time, uneasily asleep for the moment, and now Tyr related the story to her.


She chuckled appreciatively. "If she's with us when we leave, twenty thrones says we won't be paying for that extra room."


Tyr shook his head. "I will not take that wager." His eyes twinkled. "The last time I accepted, I lost over fifty thrones buying Lancers on the Job, and you ended up sick in bed." He leveled a finger at her in mock disapproval, and Beka did her best to look abashed. The façade didn't hold long; she ultimately failed to fight back a grin.


Suddenly, a cramp seized her around the middle. Tyr dashed the few steps forward to her bed and sat down beside her when he saw her clutch her sides reflexively and squeeze her eyes shut. "Do you wish a glass of water, or perhaps another dose of pain-"


Her eyes flew open, and she sat bolt upright. She winced as another cramp gripped her. "Another dose? Tyr, what did you give me??" Her gaze was clear and intent despite the obvious pain she felt.


He looked at her, more than mildly surprised by her fervor. "A completely harmless tablet of cetamine. I dissolved it in a glass of water when I returned with Trance." He chose not to mention that the girl had explicitly warned him against dosing Beka with drugs of any sort. He had assumed Beka suffered from some kind of drug intolerance Trance hadn't the time to explain specifically. Cetamine was one of the few medications that was perfectly safe for any human or Nietzschean with even a mediocre immune system, though it was good for little beyond mild pain relief.


Beka closed her eyes again and exhaled. "I guess cetamine's all right, if you have to give me something, but unless I'm dying or soon to be so, you don't have to give me anything."


"Later I will be sure to ask you why you desire to experience pain unnecessarily, but now, I believe Trance and I must conduct another conference on the health of our crewmates and how we plan to improve your and Harper's condition."


Beka was almost touched by Tyr including himself as a crewmate—almost, but she very seriously wished he had not taken it upon himself to medicate her without her consent. He disappeared into the next room, and Beka spent the next few moments gathering her strength to wobble over in the direction he'd left.


With one arm still holding her side and the other supporting her against the door frame, Beka somehow managed to stand upright and even glare at Tyr and Trance in a very respectable captain-like manner as they discussed Harper, herself, and what to do with the pair.


"Sorry to interrupt your tea-party, but it is customary for the captain to be included in conversations about said captain and crew's health and future courses of action."


Tyr and Trance both looked sincerely surprised that she had exerted herself to claim something so trite as her authority as the Maru's captain in a situation involving the Maru's crew and herself. "Um, in case you've both forgotten, that captain would be me… Beka Valentine. Ringing any bells? Anybody?"


"Oh, Tyr was just telling me how you're doing, and I was telling him about Harper. He'll be okay pretty soon, I think, but Tyr and I both think we should get you back on the Maru, Beka. It's probably just a cold, but…" Trance looked up at Beka, worry plain on her lilac face.

Damn the big brown eyes. Good thing it doesn't work when Harper tries it. "All right, well, what do you think, Tyr? Are you feeling equally paranoid?"


Tyr looked at her flatly. "I agree with Trance. After our encounter with the T'dalimar, I am in no mood to take unneeded risks with your health."


Beka rolled her eyes. "I see. It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you." She looked from the towering Nietzschean to the dimunitive… Trance and gave up. If those two agreed, maybe there was something to their suspicions after all. "Fine. Tyr, you pack up Harper, I got me, and Trance can go settle our bill."