Chapter Six: A Start

Summary: Dylan attempts to figure Trance out (with limited success). It's basically me re-writing the last scene of Andromeda.

AN: The last chapter! However, I will write an epilogue. Enjoy!

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Life,

Mysterious life,

Where we're moving around, Dancing the rhythm of life,

And Time,

Mysterious time,

Where we're counting the hours and days, Till the end of all time,

Where I'm feeling the change,

And we don't know why,

Choose one direction,

Just one more time,

Don't say I'm thinking too much,

If you see what's behind,

And these are mysterious times.

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Trance shifted slightly from foot to foot. While her face was a mask of calm indifference (it was unsettling enough being back on the Andromeda after all this time, without letting it show) inside she felt unease growing. While she was doubtful that Dylan would outright throw her off the Andromeda... she knew she was going to have to make this good.

Looking out over the stars from the observation deck, she had a sudden terrible longing to see Rev Bem again. A few wise words, if nothing else, would have been a comfort at that moment. She wished she had had a chance to get here before he had left… but it couldn't be helped now, she supposed.

But the stars were also reminding her of Beka, and that was something she couldn't bare to deal with just then.

So she turned away and looked back over the observation deck instead. A safe enough view. Pretty, she would have called it. And, Trance had to admit, a part of her still took pleasure in it's aesthetic appeal… it had been so long since she had had anything… pretty… to look at.

The plants reminded her of hydroponics.

Hydroponics… now there was a thought. Aside from her memorial plants, she hadn't set eyes on anything green since the demise of the Andromeda… all this shrubbery was just so strange feeling. It was giving her an eerie sense of deja vous.

Turning away again, she wrested her elbows on the balcony rail, wrested her chin on her fist, closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, listening with wonder to the clarity of her future vision, the soft rustling of realities shimmering in and out of existence all around her, a constant glimmering around the edges of her vision…

It felt so… hopeful.

And Trance wouldn't loose it this time. She wouldn't make the same mistakes. She couldn't. Because if she had to watch it collapse again, she didn't think she'd ever be able to cope. 

"Ah, the wonders of the cosmos."

Trance blinked up. She was not surprised she hadn't sensed the approach of the captain. With all these new futures to listen to, it was going to take a little practise before she could focus on the relevant ones again.

Slowly, Dylan approached the front of the observation deck, to lean against the hand rail, arms folded, staring out over the vast expanse beyond. He glanced at her. "It's a sight to behold."

Trance averted her eyes, and Dylan noticed she seemed suddenly very interested in her fingernails, looking anywhere but the stars. "Sometimes," was her reply, "but I lost my need for beautiful things a long time ago."

"I see." Dylan continued to look out at the constellations, as if the answers to all his dilemmas were held solely in those tiny, shiny lights, and if he were only too look closely enough, he might just be able to figure them out.

Trance was going to take some getting used to, that Dylan realised. Her manner was cold and detached, her stance was rigid and alert, and everything about her screamed 'wounded worrier'. Here was a person who had fought tooth a nail for everything she held dear, fought hard and long, struggled day and night for victory, and lost. She was older, wiser, tougher and far more dangerous, that much was certain.

But of anything else, Dylan was unsure.

Deciding it might be best simply to cut to the chase, he spoke up. "What am I supposed to do with you?"

Trance, who had arranged herself into what Dylan recognised as the 'at-ease' position of the old high-guard, made an ever so slight shrug of her shoulders. "I don't know. Keep me around, I hope."

Dylan looked down at his folded arms not looking at her. "I'm trying to think of a persuasive reason to do that… but I'm having trouble."

"Because you don't trust me." It was a statement, not a question. No trace of hurt or betrayal that he would say such a thing. Only cold, bare fact.

For the first time, Dylan looked up at her properly. "Trust is something you earn."

"Then give me a chance." Simple, short replies. Dylan realised with a somewhat unsettling feeling that she was perfectly aware of what he was going to say long before he said it, and she wasn't even attempting to hide the fact any more.

He sighed, pushed himself off the hand rail and turned to face her. "I always knew you had your own plans. But I also knew that your plans and mine were basically the same. Peace, order… a better universe…"

Something glimmered in her eyes. Perhaps the vaguest hint of a smile. "My goals haven't changed," leaving the unspoken, even if I have, to hang between them, cloudy and uncertain, for a few moments.

Dylan continued. "Beka says the future you came from was a bad one, one where things went wrong and you came back to set things right."

Trance didn't flinch at the mention on Beka's name, although it brought back that unpalatable mixture of grief and guilt. "So?"

Did that sound defensive? Dylan couldn't tell. She was so unreadable. A glacial coolness radiated off her, impermeable. But he thought he might just have succeeded in hitting a nerve…or perhaps it was only his imagination. But never mind. He had one more important question to ask her.

"So tell me how saving Harper and loosing Hohne does that? How does that… 'set things right'?" Dylan asked.

This time he definitely thought he saw something flare, just behind her eyes, like a volcano erupting miles beneath the ocean, so that only the slightest tremor registered on the surface. Was that anger? Pain? Defiance? Yet when Trance spoke she sounded as cool and calm as she ever did. God dammit, she was hard to read!

"I don't know if it does. To tell you the truth, I didn't save Harper to change the past or the future. For all I know I made things worse" Trance's temper had indeed flared. How dare he? How dare he try to make her feel guilty for saving Harper! How dare he question her motives!

She was going to have to be careful. It was getting harder and harder to keep her anger in check. Combine that bottled emotion with the grief of Beka's death, clamouring for her attention, and Trance knew she was going to have to let off steam soon or wind up killing someone.

"Then why?" Dylan demanded. This really was confusing. Hadn't she come back here to save the future… or… present or… something that would involve her caring about making things worse?

Trance shrugged, and stood a little straighter, lifting her chin slightly. Now that was definitely defiance. She was challenging him to second guess her. "For the one reason that does matter. Because Hohne is a stranger and Harper is my friend."

Dylan blinked in surprise. Now that was interesting. Of all things, he had not expected an answer quite so… simple. Yet, he supposed, he couldn't argue with her logic. She had obviously been through a hell of a lot to get here. Seeing Harper dieing again, (for Dylan was sure it must have happened to her at least once already), perhaps was just a little too much after all that effort.

"Huh…" he muttered, turning back to look out over the stars again. "Well that's a change, anyway."

Trance quirked an eyebrow, ever so fractionally. "What?"

"Honesty." Dylan replied, with a slight smile.

That something glimmered in her eyes again. Amusement? Her lips twitched, as if she were attempting to smile but had long forgotten how to. "But it doesn't answer your question, does it? About what to do with me."

"No." Dylan agreed, "it doesn't. But it's a start."

Trance was definitely smiling at him, in that weird, not-smiling kind of way she had. Dylan was already starting to categorise her facial expressions. She was a hell of a lot harder to analyse than she had once been, and he had to look a lot harder to glean any kind of facial expression off her at all, but he was starting to see her reactions, miniscule though they were. A single twitch of her eyebrows could mean perplexion, an ever so-slight tightening of the jaw signified anger, and that dim glimmering in her eyes was the unspoken smile she seemed no longer capable of showing.

Trance glanced up towards the stars for the first time, and the glimmer in her eyes grew. Around her, a thousand whispering realities shimmered from nothingness to something-ness and back again, and futures good and bad sung the soft song of the Unknown, of chaos, or life, of optimism.

"It's a start." Dylan repeated.

Trance only let the corners of her mouth turn up slightly. He had no idea how right he was.