AUTHOR: Kristen Kilar chickadee_from_3@yahoo.com
TITLE: Hidden
RATING: PG, I guess…
DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, I don't own Andromeda, the ship or the show, or any of her characters. I promise to return them all when I'm done playing.
ARCHIVE: Just ask, I'd love to give permission.
SUMMARY: Harper clears things up.
SPOILERS: Straight up through "Machinery of the Mind", everything's fair game.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: A lot of things about S4 have been bugging me, so I decided to let Harper clear them up for me. In the process he also cleared up some of the previous seasons – thanks, Harper! This is my first published Drom fic, so please R&R.
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I grew up on the streets.
My crewmates know that.
Really, they do, I've told them, Beka's told them.
But they don't understand it.
They look at me, this scrawny kid wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a toolbelt and cracking jokes, and they forget that I grew up on the streets.
They forget that I've been tortured, that I've killed for food, that I've lied and cheated and stolen and sold myself, all in the name of survival.
I don't blame them for forgetting.
Really, I don't.
And I'm sure as hell not going to remind them.
A lot of times I like it that they don't remember where I come from.
It gives me an advantage.
It means that if it ever comes down to a fight within our little crew, they'll underestimate me.
And before you ask, I don't expect or want it to come down to a fight.
But I'm a street kid.
I know how important it is to be prepared for any event.
So, in the interest of being underestimated in the event of a fight, I give my crewmates what they want.
A smart-mouthed, wise-cracking engineer obsessed with chicks and surfing.
I hide under this facade, I hide in the open, and nobody ever suspects.
Except Beka.
Maybe.
Sometimes she looks at me funny and I think that maybe she knows I'm hiding.
But then the look disappears, and she doesn't call me out on it, and I think maybe she doesn't know after all.
That hurts.
I wish she knew.
She's been my best friend for so many years.
She knew me when I didn't hide behind this facade.
When the street rat beneath was laid bare for the universe to see.
Why doesn't she realize that I'm still here, hiding underneath this glossy grin?
Then I remind myself that I'm hiding for a reason, and try to stop minding so much that Beka doesn't notice that I'm hiding.
I used to slip up sometimes.
I used to mess up and let the hidden me resurface.
I used to stop hiding and let my crewmates see me, for a couple seconds, an hour, as much as a day sometimes.
Well, not anymore.
Not since Boston.
Not since Brendan.
My cousin died fighting for freedom for Earth.
My cousin died because Dylan broke his promise to me.
That bugs me.
That bugs me a lot.
It hurts.
It gets under my skin and stays there and hurts.
You know what the worst part is?
Dylan never apologized for abandoning the fight.
He never freakin' acknowledged the sacrifice my cousin and so many other Earthers, so many other street kids like me, made.
I guess he figured that since I was back to my 'normal', joke-machine self within a week, it didn't bother me.
It still bothers me, but I hide that like everything else.
I hide a lot of me.
Trance hides, too, but she hides in the shadows, and everybody knows it.
She doesn't hide the fact that she's hiding.
Does that make sense?
Everybody knows Trance is a mystery.
Everybody thinks they know me.
Sometimes I envy her.
Then she gives me that look, like she's got the weight of the whole universe resting on her shoulders, and I don't envy her anymore.
Trance...
Back when she was purple and tailed and sweet and innocent, I screwed up, stopped hiding, showed her who was hidden under the facade.
I don't have an excuse for that.
It wasn't for survival reasons.
Yeah, Gerentex was threatening and blustering and attempting to torture us.
But I've survived worse and I could've survived him, too, without letting go of my facade.
I was greedy.
That's all I can say about it.
I was greedy, I wanted Gerentex's fortune for myself, and I came out of hiding to accomplish it.
And what did it get me?
People shooting at me.
That shocked, horrified look in Trance's eyes.
Beka threatening me.
Beka bleeding from her eyes in the slipstream core after she tried to strangle me...
I went back into hiding as soon as we left Gerentex behind, certainly before we got back to the Andromeda.
Trance apparently forgot about my revealed self almost as quickly.
That hurts, too.
Trance knows a lot.
A lot more than she'll ever let on.
About the universe, about the future, about us.
But she doesn't seem to know that I'm hiding.
Sometimes I wish that she thought I was important enough to realize that I'm hiding.
From everybody.
From her.
Even from Beka.
Then I remind myself that I'm hiding for a reason, and force myself to stop caring whether Trance realizes it or not.
I hide a lot.
I hide my genius.
Laugh all you want.
I know my crewmates think I'm joking or bragging or being egotistical when I tell them I'm a genius.
That's the best way to hide.
I tell them the truth and they think it's a joke.
The fools Shakespeare wrote about had the right idea.
Always tell the people in power the truth, but always tell it in a riddle.
I use more of my genius than I should, especially working on weapons to use on the Magog worldship.
If any of my crewmates looked at the work I've been doing, really paid attention, they'd realize I'm smarter than I let on.
Even Rommie doesn't pay close enough attention to realize.
I build the weapons myself, so nobody outside the crew has a chance to realize the genius I'm hiding.
Maybe, even if my crewmates paid attention, they wouldn't notice anyway.
They're not physicists, after all.
I taught myself how to read while I was on the streets.
I taught myself math.
I taught myself engineering.
I stole knowledge like I stole food.
Because I was hungry for something other than to eat.
All my life, I've needed to know things.
How things work.
Why society runs like it does.
I learned how to survive on the streets, then set it aside.
Once I knew it, it was irrelevant.
Instinct.
I knew intuitively how to get enough food and shelter and protection to survive.
Survival wasn't enough for me.
I wanted to know what the spacers, the lucky people who didn't grow up on slave planets, were taught as children.
Once I taught myself to read, it was easy enough to figure out how to get hold of everything else I wanted, needed, to know.
The spacers who passed through the Boston spaceport would abandon flexis or real books.
I searched these for the tiniest speck of information.
The ubers dumped everything.
I'd steal things, figure out what I could from them.
And all the time, I was learning what I needed to know to help my survival.
I learned how to speak or at least understand, not just Common, but the ubers' language, and the chinheads' language, and the bugs' language, and the different dialects the spacers spoke.
I might not speak the languages well, but I know them well enough to know when I'm in danger.
When I was off the planet and Beka got me my port, it was stunning.
Suddenly I could download information, learn more without having to steal the knowledge, satisfy the constant hunger inside me.
It still wasn't enough, though.
I was still hungry for more.
Then that Perseid attacked me in the Maru's airlock, and it was like a light went on.
Finally!
I wasn't hungry anymore!
I knew things.
Knew everything!
The nagging mysteries disappeared, and I understood, and the constant ache vanished.
Then the knowledge disappeared.
I abandoned it.
And the hunger came back.
And I'll never fill it.
I hide that, too.
But that's what makes me sure I am a genius.
That I'm always hungry for more information.
I'm not saying my crewmates think I'm stupid.
I know they think I'm smart.
Just not as smart as I really am.
That, I don't mind.
I spent my childhood being told I was stupid and dirty just because of where I was born.
Being considered sharp-minded but not quite genius doesn't offend me.
Actually being a genius helps me hide.
It really does.
It helps me remember what I'm lying about.
I really don't lie as much as I could.
In the beginning, on the Maru with Beka, I lied a lot more.
She knew I was lying.
But she also knew why I was lying.
So she didn't press me.
In the beginning of our time on the Andromeda with Dylan, I evaded more than I lied.
I'm good at evading.
Good enough at it that my friends usually didn't realize I was evading their questions.
They still think they know a lot more about me than they really do.
If they ever stop and look at what they really know about me, they'll realize it's not very much.
But they won't look.
I don't have to evade or lie so much anymore.
They don't ask so much anymore.
That doesn't bother me.
Now I'm lying.
It does bother me.
It bothers me a lot.
Then I tell myself that it just means I'm good at hiding, so good they don't see any reason to keep asking.
It still bothers me.
Just, not so much.
I'm not the only member of the crew to hide.
Like I said, Trance hides in the shadows.
And the others hide, too, to a lesser extent.
I see more than they give me credit for.
I'm always hiding, and I know when other people are, too.
Dylan hides his guilt.
He didn't used to.
He used to take on guilt for everything.
Guilt for stuff he had no control over.
Now he acts like he's been absolved of everything.
I think that's more annoying then when he thought he was responsible for everything.
He still feels guilty, I can see that, but he hides it now.
Beka hides, too.
But she hides pain.
Part of the reason she hides her pain, I think, is because she doesn't want to inflict it on the rest of us.
Me, especially, I think.
She knows I have enough pain of my own and she doesn't want to inflict more on me.
But I see it anyway.
And I know her and I love her and she's my best friend even if we don't act much like it most of the time anymore.
And so it hurts me.
I wish she'd stop hiding and tell me.
It wouldn't hurt me anymore than it is now, and it'd lessen the load on her shoulders.
Tyr hurt her a lot when he left.
And when Tyr resurfaced, Dylan hurt her even more when he asked her to do...what he asked her to do.
I could've killed Dylan for that.
The other part of the reason Beka hides her pain is because she's proud.
She doesn't want to admit that she's as human as any of us.
Why not?
I see a lot, but I've never understood that kind of pride.
Who else?
Rommie hides.
She hides how useless she feels.
And how hurt she is that so many people call her a machine, a robot, a computer, an artifact.
She's been acting more like a computer than herself lately, and I think I'm the only one who notices.
That makes me sad.
Dylan's known her longer, he should realize she's not acting like herself.
Beka and Trance girl-talk with her all the time, why don't they see that she's behaving different?
But I think I'm the only one who sees.
Tyr hides, too, all the time.
Hid.
All the time.
I guess he's not hiding anymore.
I guess he showed his true colors at last.
But before he left.
He hid all the time.
I saw.
He didn't think I did.
He didn't think any of us did.
But I saw it all.
He hid everything.
He hid his loyalties.
He hid his plans.
Hell, he even hid his skills.
He pretended to be a lot worse with machinery than he really was.
Not as good as me, but good.
I didn't mind that he hid that.
I was upset when he left.
More than I showed.
Mostly I just gave my crewmates what they wanted; a bitter, wise-cracking engineer.
But I really was upset.
I liked Tyr.
Even with everything I knew he was hiding from me.
From all of us.
Is that weird?
He treated me like maybe a brother.
I still think that's freakin' hilarious.
A big Nietzschean who would've been Alpha of his pride except for fate, treating a little kludge street punk like me as a brother.
He didn't act like any other Niet I ever knew.
Not that I ever knew the ubers on Earth all that well personally.
But he acted different.
He acted more like the ubers on Earth when we met up with him again.
Not the same, but more like.
I think that was more of an act than when he was onboard and hiding, pretending to be our friend.
Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but I believe it.
When I went down to the planet to talk to him.
So Beka and Dylan could talk in private.
We laughed a little.
We joked each other.
Like old days.
I miss that.
He acted like the Tyr I knew.
But the way Beka described her encounter with him, it didn't sound like he was acting like Tyr.
Maybe he's dead.
Who knows?
That universe's rules are too weird for even me to figure out exactly.
If he's not dead, and he comes back, maybe he'll act more like the Tyr I knew.
There's no harm in hoping, right?
Telemachus Rhade.
The new guy.
Gaheris Rhade's genetic reincarnation.
He's hiding something, too.
But I don't know what yet.
When I know him a little better.
Then I'll know what he's hiding.
Maybe he'll realize I'm hiding.
I hope not.
If somebody has to, I'd rather Beka or Trance did.
Somebody I've known longer.
Somebody who knows me.
Telemachus is nice, I think, he's a good guy, I think, but he doesn't know me.
'Cept a stranger might be better equipped to realize.
'Cept maybe nobody will realize I'm hiding.
And sometimes I hate hiding.
That doesn't mean I'm going to quit and come out for good.
I'm a street kid.
I know sometimes you gotta do stuff you don't like.
I haven't stopped hiding in a while.
Do I love Rommie?
Yeah, but not in the way everybody thinks I do.
I created her physical body.
She's like a daughter to me.
When I flirt with her it's teasing.
Like a grown man flirting with his six-year-old daughter.
I'm a little more exaggerated than that, but the feeling behind it is the same.
If she ever took me up on my flirting, I'd have to run a few diagnostics and figure out why she was acting so weird.
She's in love with...
Captain Terrific.
Dylan betrayed me and my cousin and all our brothers- and sisters-in-arms.
I act like that doesn't bother me.
Dylan teases me about my taste in women.
I act like that doesn't bother me.
In all the time I've been on the Andromeda, exactly four women have responded positively to my flirting.
According to Gerentex, at least, Andulasia wanted to kill me and steal anything I might have.
Hey.
I'm a street kid.
I'm used to that.
Satrina was an agent of the Abyss, sent for the database I was hiding in a sun.
Lyra just wanted some amusement on her 'vacation'.
Kor-Kovo was possessed by the Abyss and wanted to cut open my head and remove the genius from my brain.
Whatever.
It doesn't bother me.
I intentionally go over-the-top with my flirtations so only a few woman will take me up on it.
It's part of my facade, it helps me hide.
Recently I came close to having my cover blown.
The High Priestess what's-her-name looked at me and told me my past.
"In a world gone wrong, then simply gone, your mind was your refuge. Your mind has never seen its worth."
I made some random wisecrack.
Beka and Dylan were there, but they didn't realize.
I don't blame them.
Human beings are, by nature, self-centered.
Self-involved.
And the Priestess had enough sense, enough sympathy, not to tell them that I was hiding from them.
I'm grateful to her for that.
Not many people would keep my secret.
Beka would.
I think.
We're not as close as we used to be.
That doesn't bother me.
Now I'm really lying.
It bothers me a lot.
She's my best friend, but lately she turns to everybody else in the crew for advice before me.
I love her, she's my captain, she's like a sister to me, I'd kill for her, I'd die for her, but we barely even talk anymore.
That thing with Dylan's fling Molly and the cyborg guy and the Magog worldship.
Forgot all those elements and it was the best thing that happened to me in a long time.
'Cause for me and Beka, it was almost like old times again.
Figuring out how to get the big score and going after it.
50/50.
Like old times.
We talked.
I miss her.
I think she misses me, too, even if she doesn't realize it.
I'm gonna keep reaching out to her.
Dylan said he saw me die in that weird VR game.
He said that in the game Beka almost killed herself because of it.
I don't think she'd do it.
I hope she wouldn't do it.
But it's nice to think that I might still be that important to her.
I'll keep hiding.
Until the end comes and they underestimate me and I show them why they're wrong about me.
Or until one of them realizes I'm hiding and calls me out of my hiding place.
I hope it's the latter.
These people are my friends, I don't want to fight them.
I don't need them, I can survive just fine without them.
But I love them.
I want to stay with them and help them.
And maybe I could survive physically but I'm not sure I could survive emotionally if I had to fight them.
I'll keep hiding.
And silently hope Beka realizes.
'Til then, I'll help all of them as best as I can without coming out of hiding.
After all, they're my best hope of escaping the Magog invasion.
This is Seamus Zelazny Harper, signing off.