A/N: Okay, life has finally calmed down enough for me to get this part out. Stupid chaotic life.
Thank you guys so much for the reviews and even the nagging. I love it all and my ego is nice a full. :^)
So here's chapter 25...It's angst loaded, long and hopefully good. Again, sorry for the wait. Hope it was worth it.
Enjoy!
Chapter 25
Trance and Rommie had insisted on keeping their engineer in medical for one more day of observations, but in reality it was really only Rommie who watched over the traumatized Harper. The golden warrior still could not bring herself to face the person she helped beat to a bloody pulp and the person who tortured her. The closest she got was standing outside the closed doors of medical and trying to will them to open with her mind. But her nerves failed her at the last moment and she went running down the corridor to the soft sounds of sobs.
Andromeda and her ship made flesh just watched as their crew crumbled apart even more: Beka barely left her quarters and only did so to pilot. Dylan was either trying to persuade the others to see Harper for who he really was or trying to get to the boy in order to do god knows what to him. Trance kept herself busy trying to comfort Beka or by falling apart herself. This left only Tyr and Rommie to help the ever worsening Harper. True, he had kept his promise to Tyr, but the human had found other ways to punish himself for the horrors he believed himself to have committed.
Currently, only three days after being released, Harper was finishing up his fifth case of Neubayern Weisbrau.
"Crap," he slurred as he sucked the bottle dry and then threw the now useless object across Machine Shop 17. It hit the wall with a crash and send shards of glass raining down onto the already glass covered floor. There, the newest victim now laid in silence along with all of it's other deceased brothers.
Harper pushed his aching body up and stumbled as his world suddenly turned into a blurry, spinning mess. He'd barely eaten or sleep since returning to his quarters. Tyr would come in almost hourly to check on him and Rommie still kept constant surveillance on her suicide prone engineer. They did all they could, but neither could force him to eat nor order him to face the hellish nightmares that came with sleep.
He slowly staggered his way across the chaos filled room, somehow remarkably not tripping over the three uncompleted warning beacons that littered the floor. He couldn't even bring himself to finish the simple task of creating the beacons. Normally it would have taken him minutes, but now, the sweet craving for escape via alcohol was always taking precedent.
As he fell into his workbench, he once again regretted making that stupid promise to Tyr. His hand had just happened to land right next to his nano-welder, his nano-welder that could so easily end his misery. For minutes he eyed the tool as his mind raced with ways to make his death look like an accident.
While his mind was battling it's self for what seemed like the thousandth time today, a buzz filled the room. Someone was at his door. He figured it had to be Rommie or Tyr seeing that no body else had come to visit him since being released. They were all smarter than the Nietzschean and the android. Well, not true, one day Harper had hear Trance crying outside his door and then heard her retreating footsteps. The drunk mudfoot responded by grabbing yet another beer and downing it in minutes flat. Harper had hear Dylan outside his quarters many a times, but it was usually in a yelling match with Tyr. All the boy could make out was "monster", "off my ship", and "kill him". Harper really wished Tyr would just let Dylan have his way. But as always, Harper was never that lucky.
Still staring at the nano-welder, the door chimed again. He knew it couldn't be Beka since he hadn't even heard from her since he cowardly left her on the table to die. Maybe she really was dead. Maybe they had been lying to him, realizing that he would not be able to handle the truth. His hand neared the welder as that thought grew in his mind.
Once more the door yelled for Harper's attention. He really didn't want to face Tyr or Rommie right now. Rommie would always come in and try to comfort him, him the monster. But according to her, he was no monster, at least that's what she constantly told him. Harper decided he would have to try to fix her broken logic circuit at some point. How could he not be a monster?
All he wanted was to be left alone to drown himself in his lovely collection of Neubayern Weisbrau, but now, almost every hour Tyr or Rommie would come buzzing at that door. If it wasn't Rommie's speech about how she needed Harper to stop drinking than it was Tyr's speech about where there's life there's hope, blah blah blah. Both would yell at him as he rebelliously downed yet another bottle during their lectures. He was just so sick of it. Why couldn't they just come out and say what they really meant. That they needed him to make the damn beacons or to fix the ship. Hell, why couldn't they just admit that they needed him around to make themselves feel superior. Oh look at that pathetic kludge, ain't you glad you're not him.
But what was worse than the lies were those damn looks of pity Rommie gave him every time she saw him...those knowing looks of pity. Harper knew she knew about the scars, but he still wasn't' sure if she had sussed out how he got them yet. Knowing the processor he build into Rommie, she had.
The door whined yet again for Harper to answer only to be followed by angry yelling and pounding from the person on the other side. "BOY! OPEN THIS DOOR THIS INSTANCE!"
It was Tyr.
Harper sighed as he gave up trying to will the nano-welder to slice his head off and stumbled over to open the door for his guest. The door opened, flooding light into the darkened room. A large silhouette of a man created a menacing shadow over Harper's tiny frame. "What d' ya wansh?" Harper slurred angrily as he stumbled before the towering Tyr.
Tyr responded by pushing the rank smelling human out of the doorway as he marched into the mess of a room. Shattered bottles laid everywhere, piles of dirty clothes grew in every corner, and gadgets and uneaten meals lined every available surface area.
"Lights, eighty percent," Tyr ordered the ship. The room brightened considerably to reveal more of the chaos that hid in the safe darkness of the shadows.
Tyr turned to face the swaying drunk. "Mr. Harper, I thought I told you to clean up this mess and to cease with the drinking." He paused as he notice the full crate of beer that was half hidden under a pile of some unrecognizable objects. "Where did you get this?" Tyr kicked the crate, "I thought we confiscated all of your liquor."
Harper just gave a twisted smug grin. "I have m' ways." He nearly fell as he tried to stand up straight in his most cocky manner.
Tyr just looked at the boy in front of him and shook his head. Harper's haunted blood shot eyes rested glazed over in their sockets as heavy dark bags hung beneath them. To finish out the look of misery was the shallow, sunken in cheek bones of starvation. Harper was obviously trying to find a loophole out of his promise to Tyr.
Tyr spoke as he was now accustomed to speaking to Harper, in a calm, collected yet caring tone. "Child, what will it take to get these demons out of you?"
"A nice loaded gauss gun," Harper replied hauntingly sober.
Tyr gave a good stern look. "Keep that talk up and I'll have you strapped back down in medical before you can even say Neubayern Weisbrau"
"Phtt...Whashever," the boy slurred out as he stumbled back over to one of his littered corners. "Just gimm' th' stupid lecsher an' leave m' alone."
Try sighed as he propped himself up against the cluttered workbench. "Harper," he paused unsure of the right thing to say to the depressed being. He refused to give up on the little mudfoot, he would not let these new demons get the best of this stubborn, irritating child. "Have you even tried to sleep?" he finally asked in an exasperated sigh as he massaged his forehead.
The sulking man gazed down at the floor. "No, I'm quite sashisfied with my nish waking nightmares, tank ya very mush."
"Would you like some sleeping pills I believe there are some that produce a dreamless sleep." Tyr was worried about the engineer's heath. He still hadn't fully recovered from the Buzz withdrawal and this constant lack of sleep was not helping. Tyr began to question the boy's release from medical...maybe he really did need to be strapped back down.
Harper just stared as his fidgeting boots as he chewed on his lips, mulling over Tyr's offer in his foggy mind.
"Shall I take your silence as an affirmative?" Tyr questioned.
The depressed man kicked a nearby half broken bottle and watched as it clinked it's way across the room. Dreamless sleep sounded like a nice change. He figured it was as close to death as he could get with Rommie and Tyr watching him like a hawk. " 'Kay," he mumbled.
"Good," Try nodded with approval. It was a start. "I believe they have to be taken with food," he lied, "I'll stop by the mess hall and grab you some on my way back with the pills, okay?"
"Fine," Harper mumbled like a pouting child.
Try began to walk out of the room when he felt Harper's smiling eyes on the back of his neck. He stopped his retreat, turned around and walked over towards the half hidden crate of booze. "I almost forgot these," he smirked as he picked up the crate and left behind a pouting boy.
"Stupid Nietzschean," Harper hissed after Tyr was well out of hearing range. He started kicking any object that dared to lie near his feet. That case Tyr just walked out with was his last stockpile of booze. Harper figured he would have to try to somehow sneak out to go on a rescue mission for his beloved beer later. He would rather face a pissed off Tyr than face his new reality sober.
Still taking out his frustrations on the poor innocent objects on the floor, Harper neared the half built beacons. He took a swift hard kick to one of the larger pieces and it went flying across the room, hit the far wall and shattered into a million pieces. The holographic personality of Andromeda shimmered into existence just in time to receive a second piece of the beacon through her abdomen. She shimmered as it hurled through her body.
"That was uncalled for Harper," she responded like a mother reprimanding a misbehaving child. Her hands were even in the familiar hands on hip position.
"Go away," he muttered.
"No Harper, we are going to help you whether you want it or not. That was the deal, remember?"
Harper just grunted as he plopped himself down on one of the chairs made of clothing in the corner. "You wanna help me? Get me m' beer."
Andromeda-light replied with an angry glare. "How does letting you die of alcohol poisoning help you?....No, wait, don't answer that," she added at the end with a sigh. She knew what his answer would have been and really couldn't stand to hear him beg for death anymore. She was growing increasingly worried as the days passed and her little engineer showed no signs of improvement, in fact, he had gotten worse. More self destructive, more hostile, more bitter and even more stubborn. Each day, he was turning the light level in his room darker and darker, seemingly hoping that the encroaching darkness would swallow him up.
"Harper, will you please talk to us, any of us. We are all worried. You need to let us help you. Please," she begged, knowing full well that it was hopeless. Even before this incident, Harper's mouth was always closed tight about anything that was really bothering him, now it was sealed shut.
The hologram looked down at the sulking boy being engulfed by the pile of clothing and rags. His head was hanging down and his eyes were locked on a small puddle of beer that was glistening in the light. He was more likely to go over and start licking up the puddle than he was to open up to her.
"Fine Harper," she sighed. "Go wallow some more." She took one last sad look at her once vibrant crew member before she fizzled from view. Trying to act as a psychologist was not really in her programming.
Harper sighed as he began banging his head on the hard paneling behind him. 'Damn-it, why couldn't they just kill me. Why did they have to save me from the withdrawal death?' he pondered silently to the bounding beat of his head. He still couldn't understand why they wanted him around so badly. Were Tyr and Rommie really that dense? Couldn't they see the threat he was to their safety? The other did, but those two boneheads just didn't get it.
The pounding got louder as he threw his aching head up against the paneling harder and harder. Louder and louder it got until his rhythm was interrupted by a loud bodiless female voice, "HARPER! STOP IT!"
"Fine! Fine!" he yelled up at the ever watchful AI as he did as he was told. Returning to simply sulking, he yearned to feel some sort of pain, to be punished in someway for the heinous crimes he had committed to his friends. Unbeknownst to him, that punishment was currently sprinting towards his quarters, constantly racing through a very persistent hologram.
"DYLAN! STOP!" Harper could hear muffled through his closed door.
The next thing he heard were the keys on the keypad for his door being furiously pressed, then the door hissing open to a ragging Dylan who was charging right towards his dark little corner.
"Get out!! Get off of my ship you murderer!!" Dylan screamed as he rushed Harper and grabbed the smaller man by the filthy shirt, lifting the light body of the boy well off the ground. Harper simply responded with a blank stare.
"What the hell's the matter with you, you sick freak?!! Don't you see what you've done to Beka?! To Trance!? They are close to tears almost everyday because of the atrocities you committed to them!!" The angry man hurled Harper across the room. His still healing body slammed into the workbench with a sickening crash. The sound of hundreds of gadgets and tools accompanied the larger noise with a shower of smaller crashes as the objects blended seamlessly onto the cluttered floor.
Once more the hologram tried to stop the enraged captain the only way her non-corporeal body could. "Dylan, please, stop it! You're hurting him! That's not your rage, it's Fex's. Please stop!!"
Dylan did stop, but only to give a command. "Privacy mode, Captain override, Alpha Bravo Niner."
"Privacy mode engaged," the ship responded professionally but with a hint of regret and sadness. The hologram disappeared from view and joined her sister in damning their programmers as they tried to alert Tyr and Rommie to the fight raging in Harper's quarters.
Dylan charged at Harper's conscious but crumbled form on the floor and grabbed the unresponsive man by the throat. "FIGHT!! Say something!" Dylan yelled, disturbed by the complete lack of response by his victim.
Harper just hung limply from Dylan's grasp on his neck, wishing the air would leave his lungs faster. He wanted to thank his captain for finally doing what the others were too weak to do.
"Arg!" Dylan growled as Harper remained noncombatant. He dropped the smaller man to the ground, letting the color return to the boy's paling face before he began to furiously kick him. "Damn you! Why did you ever come on board, you murderer! You torturer!! We trusted you! We risked our lives for you...you trader!"
Kick after kick was delivered to Harper's face and torso. Newly healed ribs cracked under the intense impacts of Dylan's boots. A hard kick to Harper's encased arm produced a loud gasp of agony.
"Go on, scream out in pain, beg me to stop just like we begged you. But you didn't stop did you! You kept on hurting up, kept cutting us more! Do you know how much that hurt!? DO YOU!?" Dylan yelled in complete ignorance as Harper took each kick without more than a yelp. He was finally getting some of the punishment he felt he so desired.
The yelling man kicked Harper's still healing encased arm over and over again. "Go on scream! Scream you monster!" As Dylan's leg readied for another kick, Tyr burst through the doors with anger burning across his face and fury in his eyes.
"Step away from the boy, NOW!!" Tyr ordered through clenched teeth as the veins on his forehead budged out even farther. The Kodiak could feel Stolic's impression fueling on his rage, but at the moment Tyr really didn't care and welcomed any rage that came his way.
Finishing his interrupted kick, Dylan turned to greet the growling, poor mislead protector of the monster. "I'm doing this for us, for the Common Wealth, hell, for the Universe. We don't need this...." he motioned towards the small, bloody, beaten, lump of flesh crumbled on the floor, "this monster in existence." He spat on Harper's unmoving form at his feet.
"You ignorant, stupid, naive boy scout!" yelled Tyr. "You just can't get it through your thick skull that he saved us, that he is still our friend, that he did everything for US!" He slowly stepped closer to the equally fuming captain.
"FOR US!? He massacred those Pythos for us? He smiled over their vial deaths for us? No, Tyr, I think that was for him! For his revenge. And you want to tell me that he tortured us for us. How logical is that, huh!? No Try Anasazi, I think you're the one who just can't get it through your thick skull. He is a psychopath, a murderer, a torturer, a liar and a traitor! You have to let him go. Can't you see what a monster he is!?" Dylan emphasized his point with a swift kick to Harper's bloody face. The lump of flesh on the ground recoiled and struggled to bring his one good arm up to shied his face. A whimper whispered out of his swollen mouth.
That did it. Try lost it. He charged Dylan, throwing him to the ground. Both large muscle bound men exchanged punch after punch. The testosterone lever rose exponentially as the fight raged on. Rommie was racing her way through the corridors trying desperately to reach her battling crew before she permanently lost one. She finally made it as she burst into the war room.
She first spotted Harper curled up next to the collapsed workbench. He was a mess; bloody, bruised and barely conscious. Only small groans could be heard from his crumbled body. Then Rommie spotted the main event, the two men brawling in the center of the room.
"STOP IT!" She yelled as she raced over and yanked Tyr off of Dylan. She easily picked up his huge body and threw him across the room as if he was a rag doll.
Dylan jumped up to race after his escaped fight partner but was interrupted by Rommie as she picked him up and threw him to the other side of the cluttered disaster area of a room.
"I said STOP!!' she yelled as the entire ship seemed to quake from the power of her voice. "Can't you see what you're doing!? You both think you're saving the crew, doing what's best for all of us, but you're both just destroying us more!! Look at him!" She pointed to the whimpering boy curled up on the floor and then turned to face Dylan. "He is not a monster. He is a human, he is Seamus Harper, your friend, your collogue, your family. He is the same person who you've fussed and worried over so many times. And he did save you. He doesn't deserve this. Dylan...he deserves your help, your friendship," she ended quietly.
But the captain still didn't get it and responded with a huff and by rolling his eyes. Tyr in turn responded with an angry growl.
Rommie heard the Nietzschean's growl and spun to face him. "Oh no you don't. You're not helping either. Constantly wanting to punch Dylan's lights out, even if he is begging for it, is only pushing us all farther apart," she paused to look at to still snaring, growling men and sighed. "What is wrong with you men?"
After a minute of silence and battle stares, Rommie gave in. "That's it! Both of you go to your quarters!" The two stood there surprised at her motherly order. "NOW!! GO! GET OUT! If I see either of you fighting, trying to start a fight, or even look at each other funny, I will active the auto-defense system on both of you. NOW GO!!"
Both men jumped back from her outburst and sulked out of the disheveled room, trying to avoid each other's death stares.
Once they were gone, Rommie went to Harper's side and gently turned him over onto his back. "Andromeda, get Trance!" She yelled to herself.
"Already did, she's on her way," the voice from nowhere responded.
Rommie began to smooth out her patience's unruly hair. "Harper, are you ok? Talk to me."
Groaning he broke out of her caress, rolled over onto his stomach and struggled to push himself up on his hand and knees. He cradled his re-injured arm up to his injured ribs. "Go away," he ordered as he spit out some blood.
"Seamus! Lie back down! You've got broken ribs, your arm is badly damaged again and you have a concussion."
"I deserved it," he mumbled as he tried to stand up without much success. Luckily, Rommie caught him before he caused more injuries to his already battered body.
"No you didn't. Now stop thinking that way and lay back down and wait for Trance. She'll be here in a minute."
Harper let out a sad, sick laugh mixed with a bloody cough. "No she won't. She'll make it to the door, see me, the monster, and wisely turn and run away. She's a smart girl."
"Harper! Goddess, will you stop talking like that! You are not a monster! Do I need to make a recording for you? Repeat after me...'I, Seamus Harper, am not a monster.'"
Harper just stared up at her with annoyance.
"Fine. But what will it take to convince you?" Rommie begged.
Still Harper remained silent.
Rommie sighed and buried her head in her hands. She didn't' know what to do. All she could do was watch as her crew fell apart in front of her. Her sprits lifted slightly as she heard Trance approaching. Trance always rose to the occasion, maybe she would overcome her fear of Harper now when he needed her the most.
The avatar's hopes shattered as Trance stood quivering just outside the open door. Her eyes were locked onto Harper and were filled with fear, regret, sorrow, and shame. "No...can't...s-sorry," she whispered as she dropped the medical kit, turned and fled down the corridor. Her soft sobs could be hear as she retreated.
"See, smart girl," Harper smirked in between painful coughs.
"Damn it," Rommie hissed as she got up to fetch the dropped medical kit. She returned to Harper who was sitting on the floor and began trying to treat his wounds. She brought up a hypo spray to his neck only for it to be greeted by his swatting hand.
"No, go away," he said as he tried one more time to stand up. This time he made it up onto his wobbling legs.
"Harper, get back down here! You need medical attention!"
"Fuck you, majority rules baby. Beka, Dylan and Trance want nothing to do with me, so sorry, you lose. I'm gone," he hissed as he stumbled his way out of the room.
The now alone Rommie couldn't take it as tears began to pour down her face. Her hologramatic self appeared before the sobbing machine. "We have no choice. We have to do it," the light being said with hard kindness.
Rommie looked up at her shimmering self with bloodshot watery eyes. "But...I need them together, they have to stay together...I promised," she choked out between sobs.
"They are not 'together' now. It's the only thing that might work. It's the only chance we have to save them."
Rommie sat silently as she mulled everything over in her head Her various selves had been discussion options to save the crew from themselves ever since they were all back online. They had tried everything and now had only one more drastic plan left. She knew they had to put it into motion before they permanently lost one of their crew members.
"Okay," she agreed reluctantly. "Inform Tyr. I'll go get Harper, he couldn't have gotten to far in the state he was in." She pushed herself off of the ground with an artificial grunt and grabbed a special hypo spray from the kit.
"It will work Rommie," the hologram said reassuringly to all of herselves.
Rommie just nodded sadly and began to chase after Harper.
"It has to work," the lonely hologram said sadly as she blinked out to inform Tyr of his roll in the plan to save the crew of Andromeda from self destruction.
"It has to."
TBC....