A/N-it's been more than a month and for that I am very sorry. I promise the next chapter should be up shortly (I have three stories floating through my head but I think I can get them all written.) Special thanks to Parisindy for giving me her opinion about this chapter before I posted it. If anyone wants to play Beta for me or just give me input into my stories please email me at lauriena82@yahoo.com.

I promised I would never do this but read one day it's on my author's profile and it's my favorite story I have written and it has half the reviews of my other stuff. Sorry commercial is over.

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Understand we'll go hand in hand

But we'll walk alone in fear

Tell me

Where do we go from here?

Buffy the musical

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The knocking had finally stopped. I turned down the music to listen for the telltale sounds of Trance and Rev being up. I didn't hear anything but I waited until I was sure the whole ship was asleep. I wandered down to the main room. The table was clean, no dishes in the sink, no signs of dinner. Trance must have cooked. She was very neat when it came to dinner. Harper always left a pile of dishes when he was done. It was like he didn't see messes. Growing up in a trash heap what did a few dishes or unwiped table mattered. It was just a Harper thing.

How many Harper things were now parts of the Maru? The engine room now had perfectly cleaned tools next to the piles of spare parts. No useful thing was ever thrown out. Harper and I never really agreed with what was useful. He thought any part could be reused, cleaned and refitted. I thought that if it was broken it was garbage. Food was the same way. I never cleaned out the frig well he was awake. Even when the food was molding Harper hated throwing it out. He was so frustrating to live with at times. So why was a so worried about him?

I went to hit the wall but stopped. If I didn't wake up the whole ship I would still have a dent in the wall for Harper to repair when he got better, if he got better. I didn't know how to tell my best friend that he might not be able to use his hand again. People can switch their dominate hand but would Harper have to? I mean after his arm healed would he be able to do all the welding, cutting, and repairs that he did before with his left hand. He must have been working on the pipe when it blew for it to do that kind of damage his arm. It could have been his face though. His arm may have taken the damage instead of his face. I didn't know weather to be grateful that he wasn't dead, sad that he may be crippled or mad that this all shouldn't have happened in the first place.

I don't remember getting up but I now stood at Harper's door. It was open and Harper sat looking at me. Had I opened the door? Why was I standing here?

"Hi boss,"

"Hey Harper, Harper about before… I wanted to say…what I mean is…"

"Boss you where right, I knew I needed to get out of there and I didn't. I thought I could fix the problem."

"But Harper I shouldn't have yelled…. I was…. What I mean is…"

"Boss it's nice to have someone who cares, Trance helped me see that."

"She is wiser than me."

"Well that doesn't take much."

"Watch it buster."

Some how the smile we shared in that moment helped more than the words I couldn't seem to find.

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By admitting our weakness we show our true strength; hence the paradox of being human.

First Wave

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Author's ramble-Oh and I haven't checked but I am pretty sure Harper is right handed, but for this story he is left-handed. The reason is simply that he reminds me of some of my friends and my father (who are all left-handed). Although most theatre technicians I have met are lefties, engineer/techie both can rewire a light in 5 sec and use whatever they have to make something work.