A/N: As always, I love the reviews! Thanks so much! Here is the next part, the healing can begin...or can it? And don't worry, we still got a good 8 chapters to go.

Enjoy!

Chapter 23

Three days later, Trance was still by Beka's side, but this time she was urging Beka to crawl out of the safety of the bed.

"Beka, come on, we need you to get your muscles moving again. All the fractures have healed, the bruises are fading and the...um...other...um, injuries are well on their way to recovery. You need to get out of bed." Trance pleaded as she pulled on Beka's firmly grasped covers.

Beka just laid curled up in the bed with the warm safe sheets encased tightly around her wounded body. She was in her own little cocoon and was unable to face her new world. A world where she had threatened the crew with death, where she had beat her little brother, and where said brother had brutally tortured her. She could still see his face as he slammed the hammer down on one of the spikes, driving it deeper into her body. She pulled the covers tighter around her.

"Come on Beka," whined Trance as she continued to futilely pull on the blue comforter.

"Go away," the cocooned being responded in a mumble.

"No, get up!"

"No." The covers moved their way up to encompass Beka face as well.

Trance had had enough. She reached for the sheets and yanked them with all of her hidden strength. The fabric went flying across the room along with Beka who hit the floor with a thud and a groan. The concerned friend walked over and kneeled down to her cowering comrade. "Look, I know how much you hurt. We are all hurting and we all need each other to recover. We need you Beka."

The freighter captain looked over to her mysterious golden friend. She wanted to tell Trance all she felt, all of her fears, all of her anguish, but the words just couldn't find their way to her mouth. Tears built up behind her eyes, but like the words, they would not fall.

The perceptive Trance could see the glazing over in the shunned away eyes. She drew herself closer to her troubled friend and put her arm around her. "Please Beka, work with me. We will get through this. Trust me."

Beka's eyes widened in anger as Trance spoke those last two little words. Trust me. Harper had said those words to her on many occasions and where did that trust get her. On a bed, being brutally tortured, that's where. She put her trust in him, she believed him all the time he would freeze up and cower behind her while she protected him But he never really needed any protection! He used her, he lied to her, he let her risk her life thousands of times when he could have easily protected them. Hell, he took out three thousand Pythos single handedly...literally! And now Trance was telling her to trust her! Beka's eyes started to bulge with the rising pent up anger.

Then, a second later, it burst.

Beka roughly pushed Trance off of her and jumped off the floor. "TRUST YOU!? TRUST YOU!!?? I don't even know you! What species are you Trance? Huh? What's the matter, can't answer! What are you? Why are you gold? You've never answered any questions! I know nothing about you! Trust you? How? Trust you...ha...that's rich," Beka mumbled the last part as she began to wobble on her unsteady legs. She steadied herself with her hand on the nearby wall.

The shocked Trance had just processed the rant and was getting to her feet. 'At least she's out of bed now,' she thought. She walked over to her still fuming friend. "Beka, how can you say that? I've never let you down and I never will. We're family Beka." She reached her hand out her boss.

Swatting away the hand of friendship, Beka continued to yell. "FAMILY!! My family is dead or insane. I've been betrayed once by family and am not gonna be hurt again! Families are for suckers. Now just go, go and leave me alone. I'm sick of you and your goldenness." Beka turned her back on Trance only to feel the traitor's hand grasp her shoulder.

"Beka, please, we're..."

Trance's sentence was cut short by Beka's fist making hard contact with her golden jaw. A loud crack filled the otherwise silent room.

Still standing, Trance was cradling her wounded mouth in her hand while the stare of death radiated from her eyes and landed squarely on her attacker. Beka returned that gaze.

Complete silence engulfed the room....

********

Up in command, Dylan was morbidly searching through the records of the encounter with the Pythos. He flipped through images of the boarding, of the explosions, and of the smiling face of his once trusted friend, until finally he came across what he was looking for: The ship's records of the days of torture. Unfortunately, the only recordings were of the sounds radiating out of medical and flowing out into the hallway where Rommie's sensors were still active. Dylan activated the file.

Tyr begging for the little man to stop.

Trance crying and screaming in pain.

He heard his voice yelling in anger.

Beka desperately screaming for help.

Dylan's heart broke for his crew. Then anger filled the shattered organ. How could they protect HIM! Him, the one who made them endure unthinkable pain. Him, the one who made Trance and Beka cry out in anguish. Harper could have found another way, he should have found another way. How could a sane person even fathom doing what Harper did to his friends?

He was staring intensely at the paused recoding of the empty corridor outside of medical when the command doors suddenly hissed open. The burst of sound broke Dylan out of his rage induced trance. He spun to see who had interrupted his solitude.

Tyr. Great.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be protecting your favorite mudfoot?" he said snidely to the larger man. His mind still boggled over why they all were protecting Harper. At least Beka was on the right track, avoid the psychopath.

Tyr replied with a cold glance, then turned and walked over to one of the command consoles. "I came to see if there have been any intercepted messages from the Pythos. Not that's it's any of your concern."

Tyr began to bring up the data he required but a nagging voice in the back of his head wouldn't leave Dylan' comment alone. It was rather unsettling, very un-Tyr like. The great Kodiak shook that thought from his head, but the need to reply to the High Guard's comment still itched at his mind. He spun around to face the sulking captain. "And he is not my favorite mudfoot, but he did risk his life for ours and has proven himself to be a valuable asset." He spun back around to concentrate on the console.

"He's a monster, that's what he is. I've heard what he did you to, what he did to all of us. Here maybe you've blocked it out. Let me remind you." Dylan punched in a few commands and soon Tyr's begging and screaming filled command. "Gee, you sound like a weak little girl." Dylan was trying so hard to get the others to understand what Harper really was and if goading them was the only way, then so be it.

Spinning around one more time, Tyr faced the human, but this time with anger in his eyes. "No one calls the great Tyr Anasazi out of Victoria by Barbarous a 'little girl'!! How dear you, you pathetic, lowly, kludge! I am Kodiak!! KODIAK!! No one, and I mean no one, talks to me like that!" Tyr yelled as he approached the equaling angering Dylan.

The top of Dylan's thermometer flew off as mercury streamed out of his head. "You treacherous bastard!! You will pay for that! I'll greatly enjoy ripping every limb from your body!" Dylan roared as he rushed towards Tyr. Tyr sped up the encounter by racing towards the other man. Soon fists were flying, lips were bleeding, noses were broken and ribs were kicked.

Fifteen minutes later, Dylan laid unconscious on the floor of command while Tyr was crouching next to him, gasping for air.

Through his hazy mind, his own voice echoed. "No one calls the great Tyr Anasazi out of Victoria by Barbarous a 'little girl'!! How dear you, you pathetic, lowly, kludge! I am Kodiak!! KODIAK!! No one, and I mean no one talks to me like that!" His right eyebrow arched skyward as the words filtered through to his brain. Who the hell had said that? Did he say that? How could he say something so...so...whinny, so bratty......

Tyr's eyes grew wider as a light bulb sparked in his mind.

Silently he stood up and rushed out of command. Behind him he left the unconscious Dylan bleeding onto the nice newly cleaned deck plates. Rommie was not going to be happy.

*************

Under the bright lights of medical, Rommie still hovered over her sleeping engineer. He hadn't so much as moved an eyelash over the past eleven days. She would have mistaken him for dead if her highly tuned hearing wasn't picking up his heart beating or his lungs drawing in air.

Taking a damp towel, she whipped off his brow, hoping that the sensation might cause some movement in the catatonic man. It didn't.

"Oh Harper, if only you could see how much you mean to us. How much you hold this crew together." Rommie was unaware of the full truth behind her statement which she would learn later when she was once more cleaning the blood off of the command's floor.

She brushed a stray strand of Harper's unruly spikes off of his face. "Please, Seamus, we need you....I need you..." She paused. "I...I love you Seamus," she whispered as her pile of emotions from the past few days finally collapsed. Her upper body fell with the overwhelming emotions and her sobbing dropped onto Harper's chest. Slowly, a small puddle of tears grew on Harper's white medical garb.

Then it happened.

Rommie stopped in mid-sob as she felt it. A very slight movement originating from the body below her.

Quickly she pushed herself back up and wiped away the all too human tears. Once her vision was clear, she stared down an the innocent looking face.

His eyelids were fluttering.

Circuits began to buzz all through her, her mouth hanged open as a gasp escaped her body. In a nanosecond she back down near his face, caressing it with her hand. "Can you hear me Seamus? Come on wake up."

Unlike the others, he didn't have the steep wall to climb out of, he only had a few black curtains to push aside. Through the window dressings he could hear Rommie's muffled voice calling his name, pleading, begging, choking on unshed tears. He couldn't stand to hear his creation in so much pain. So, regrettably, he pushed the curtains aside and was blinded by the light.

"HARPER!" Rommie shouted with joy as the human's eyelids finally opened fully to reveal the confused blurry blue eyes.

Confused eyes turned to shocked eyes as realization fell upon him. Then, the shocked eyes turned away, hiding his pain from the women above him. He turned his anguish filled face away from the light. He was searching once more for the dark.

He had remembered everything.

"Harper?" Rommie asked in concern. "Come on, talk to me." No answer, no movement. "Everyone's awake and healthy. You did it, you saved them all. You saved all of us." She reached out to his face, trying to simply make contact with him and pull him back, but he recoiled from her hand as if it was coated in deadly acid.

Quickly and silently he began to move. He violently ripped out all of the IV tubs from his arms and neck, pushed himself up and swung his weak legs off the bed. He even tore his left arm from the sling that hung from his neck. Through his numbing emotions, he didn't even register the waves of pain that came from every movement from the newly repaired arm.

"What do you think your doing!?" Rommie yelled as she tried to grab him and force him back down. He simply swatted away her gentle prodding arms like they were annoying flies.

With trembling arms, he pushed his minuscule skeleton-thin body off the bed and his feet hit the floor below. This was a mistake. As soon as he let go of the bed, his body rejected the idea of free standing and crashed forwards into a nearby cabinet.

Through the sounds of crashing instruments and flesh, Rommie raced to his side. She picked him up and steadied him, distributing his pathetic weight between his feet, the counter and herself. "Harper! Talk! What in the empress's name do you think you're doing?" She yelled and pleaded with the still eerily silent motor mouth.

Again, his only response was movement. He ripped his arm away from Rommie's balancing grasp and steadied his weak body along the counter. He pulled himself farther down the rows of cabinets, constantly moving away from Rommie. Then he stopped, opened a drawer and began to rummage through the cluttered, instrument filled space.

Rommie raced once more up to the wavering, paling man. "Harper!" She yelled in his ear hoping to at least annoy him. The unresponsiveness was really beginning to worry her.

Suddenly, the sound of clinking metal stopped as he ceased his searching. He had found his treasure and was holding it up in front of his glazed over, smiling eyes.

It was a nice sharp shinny scalpel.

"NO!" Rommie yelled as she realized what this was all about. She tried to grab the knife but the desperate Harper kept blocking her efforts.

He tried to navigate the knife to his wrist, but she blocked it. Then to his neck, but again the android blocked his attempts. It was a stalemate, the power of desperation verses the power of engineering.

Harper cursed himself for building her with such fast reflexes.

The weakened Harper soon tired and slowed down enough for Rommie to grab his arms as she threw him to the ground. She straddled his thrashing chest and held his arms above his head, making sure to be gentle to his still healing arm. Her circuits yearned to hear his nasally voice comment on the position they were in, but only grunts of struggle escaped his tightly pursed lips.

"SEAMUS ZEALANZY HARPER! NO!!" She yelled at him as if he was dog. "You will not kill yourself. I will not allow it! Especially after all the hard work I put into keeping you alive in the first place!!"

Harper continued to struggle under her body for a few minutes as Rommie remained on top of him, bearing her angry stare deep within him. Finally he gave up, stopped wiggling and used his weak and raspy voice. "Who asked you?"

"What?" Rommie's eyebrows went up in confusion.

"Who asked you to save me!? I wanted to die. I was counting on dieing. The only way I was able to do..." his face paled even more, "what I did," more color drained, "was 'cause I knew I wasn't gonna have to live with myself. So please, let me go. You'll be happier if you just let me go." He finished with his face turned way from Rommie's worried and heart broken eyes.

She released his wrists, grabbed and threw the scalpel back up on the counter, and like before, took his face in her hands and forced it towards hers. "Seamus, I can't imagine how much you hurt, but we will get you through this. You saved us, now let us save you. Please don't give up after you've survived through so much." Her mind flashed back to his hidden scars, to his secret, to their secret. If he could survive that, than he was strong enough to survive this. And this time he had his friends, his family to help him through. 'He will make it,' she reassured her doubting self.

"Say something Harper, say you'll try, say you'll give life a chance, say you'd like me to stay on top of you forever. Say anything. Please." Pain, fear and sorrow filled her pleading voice.

Below her, Harper laid motionless. His face blank as he stared up at the ceiling above her. Not a single sound came from his mouth.

*******

The door flew open to Beka quarters as Tyr marched in. "We have to talk," he spoke urgently.

But only silence came from the two women in the room. Eyes locked in combat, hands rolled into fists, both ready to pounce on the other. Five minutes had passed since Beka first hit Trance. Neither had moved an inch.

Tyr stood near the doorway, watching the battle between wills as curiosity filled his face. Then, the raised eyebrow of confusion fell as a wave of enlightenment rushed through his mind. He strolled over to the girls and took the dangerous position of standing inbetween them. "Excuse me ladies, but we have an important issue to discuss."

The eyes remained locked as the snarl grew harsher on Beka's face.

Tyr continued on, ignoring being ignored. "If you haven't notice, we have all been acting rather unusual since we've woken. I have a theory as to why. But first, I must ask a few probing questions." He turned his head to face Beka. " Have you been feeling extra domineering, extra violent?"

The snarl was replaced by pondering lips. She was trying to think back, to analyze the thousands of chaotic feelings of the past few days. After a long pause, she answered, "Yes, actually."

Tyr nodded in approval and turned to face Trance. "What about you? More violent thoughts...feelings?"

This time it was Trance's turn for her snarl to turn into a pondering grimace. Same pause, and then the answer, "Yes."

Their battle gazes were dieing off as Tyr's questions were distracting their thoughts.

Tyr, once more, nodded in approval. "I just came from a lovely boxing match with our idiot of a captain. I even...um," Tyr was blushing in shame under his rich dark skin, "I yelled at him...like a child in a brawl. Since when do I do that?" He looked towards the girls. The angry gazes were gone, replaced by confusion as to where Tyr was going with his logic. He continued. "But, who do we know that would yell like a child in a school yard fight? Who would be insulted over the tiniest thing?"

Tyr tossed up the ball and the girls hit it out of the park. "Stolic," they gasped out in unison.

A long pause of silence followed as the ball flew out of the field.

"Oh my..." Beka sputtered out.

"Do you really think...." Trance questioned almost more to herself.

Tyr was kind enough to finish her thought. "...That a small part of our invader's personality somehow imprinted themselves into our minds....Yes, yes I do."

Another long pause filled the room as the consequences of this new information filtered through their overworking brains.

Suddenly, the group's epiphany was rudely interrupted by the ship hologram flickering into view. She said nothing, but just stared in saddened silence at the group before her. She had heard what they were discussing and was fascinated and horrified by it, but there was another urgent message they needed to hear.

"What is it Rommie?" Beka asked as she leaned up against the wall. The battle with Trance and the new shocking knowledge had exhausted her still weakened body.

The light-made-woman spoke in an even tone. "I have good news and bad news."

"Did you overhear us?" Trance questioned thinking it was about their disturbing theory.

"Yes I did and we will get to that next, but you need to know this. The good news is that Harper finally woke up." Mixed expressions filled the crew's faces. A small proud smile tugged at Tyr's lips, a mix of happiness and regret filled Trance's face, and dropped head of complete despair came from Beka.

Tyr realized the others were in no state to ask, so he stepped up and asked, "And the bad news?"

The hologram's face looked down as she answered. "The bad news is....well, he's not exactly the same Harper we had three weeks ago."

********

Back in medical, Rommie stood with her back turned on the one occupied bed, preparing the last dose of Harper's withdrawal medicine. As she drew up the liquid into the hypo-spray, she just stared aimlessly at the draining bottle that held the drug. She was completely numb, all of her emotional circuits were burned out.

Behind her, in the bed, laid the source of her numbness. Awake and silent laid Harper, strapped arms and legs to the bed, the same way he had strapped down his victims. His blank face stared up at the ceiling as he wished and prayed that somehow sweet death would still find its way to save him.

TBC.......