Title: Such Shattered Perfection
Author: gotmilk
Disclaimer: I own nothing belonging to Roddenberry. Please don't sue me, I'm just a poor college student.
Rating: PG-13
Season/Spoilers: Season five tag to "So Burn the Untamed Lands."
Summary: After the events of "So Burn the Untamed Lands," Beka and Harper come to terms with the shattered remains of their friendship.Author's Notes: I saw "So Burn the Untamed Lands" and was quite surprised how much I liked it (compared to previous episodes this season). There was one thing that bothered me in the episode, however, and it has been an ongoing annoyance: the relationship between Beka and Harper. Oh, wait… I mean the lack of relationship. The plot bunny called, and I obeyed.
Enjoy.
Such Shattered Perfection
"Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem."
-W. Somerset Maugham
Beka Valentine glided the overcrowded Maru into the belly of the Andromeda Ascendant and landed it in the warship's open cargo bay. She shut down the engines and felt the ship settle beneath her, resting once more on familiar deck plating. Beka unfastened herself from the safety belt restraining her to the seat and opened the bay doors. She sat back a moment and sighed, glad the day was almost over.
Beka was sure the refugees were now being herded onto the Andromeda by Dylan and Rhade. All of the people were going to stay aboard Andromeda for a few days in the extra crew quarters until the High Guard captain could find them somewhere to relocate. Dylan seemed to be terribly friendly with one of the Seefra-8 girls, not that it surprised Beka much, and she wouldn't be too surprised if the young woman got a personal tour of his quarters sometime soon. She laughed to herself. The man drew women to him like… an uncaffeinated Harper to Sparky Cola.
She paused her thoughts, draw back to that name.
Seamus Harper. The engineer who was now currently restrained in the engine room because he'd attacked Rhade. Dylan believed his illness was the same one the Surog were suffering from after exposure to the Seefra-8 crystals' poison. From what Rhade had said earlier, the poison left the body deformed and crippled and then began infecting the individual's mind. Hence, Harper's attack on him. Somehow in his meddling with the crystals the Earthling must have injured himself and not told anyone.
Beka had seen a few of the severely poisoned Surog enter the Maru, but besides the hideous lesions and scarring, the emptiness in their eyes had to have been the worst part. She shuddered at the thought of them staring at her. Blank eyes that could have very well been Harper's. Valentine supposed she had better go back to see him, make sure he was still restrained properly.
Dylan had commed Trance on their way back to the Andromeda, telling the golden alien they'd be bringing Harper as well as some of the other Surog into Med Deck for further treatment. Trance had protested of course, saying that she didn't remember much about medicine. Dylan just told her to go into the ship's medical database for help and trust her instincts with the rest. With the computer's assistance Trance had been able to synthesize an antibiotic able to ease the symptoms of the infected and the Surog's oil would do the rest. The Andromeda would also be able to offer them pain medication for the sores if nothing else.
Valentine stood up from her chair, stretched a second, and made a beeline for the engine room. She'd barely made it out of the cockpit when she ran into Doyle. Literally that is. The usually observant android had turned a corner and smacked right her, forcing Beka back a step.
"Sorry!" Doyle amended, eyes abnormally wide. "Trance said Harper was sick. I came right here as soon as I heard."
Beka nodded. "Yeah, he's in the engine room. Dylan said to leave him there until we could get all of the Surog off the Maru and Trance could get them something for the poi-"
Before Beka had even completed her sentence, Doyle had rushed past her. "…son," Valentine finished slowly, staring at the retreating blonde figure. "Okay then."
She followed Doyle's path into the engineer room and found the robot on her knees next to Harper.
"Harper?" Doyle called, gently touching his face. "Can you hear me?"
The engineer groaned a bit and moved his head but still seemed to be out of it.
"Why is he tied up? When did he get sick?" Doyle asked, though hadn't bothered to turn to Beka. The captain was silent and the android repeated herself, carefully enunciating each word. "Why. is. he. tied. up?"
"He attacked Rhade," Beka finally answered coolly. "I didn't have any sedatives on board and Dylan thought this would best until we reached the ship. He uh, used some of the Surog medicine on Harper. He said it would start helping to counteract the poison. I don't know when he began to show symptoms. He was acting weird of course… but I didn't think anything about it at the time. I didn't even realize he was sick."
Doyle lightly brushed Harper's sweaty hair from his face and stood up, coming nose to nose with Beka. As artificial as her eyes were, Doyle had an iciness and anger in them that Beka would call nothing less than human. For a tense moment she though Harper's creation would strike her, but Doyle just stared until eventually moving past Beka to a supply cabinet.
She dug around a moment before pulling out a pair of archaic metal cutters and walked back to Harper. Doyle slipped one sharp edge under the strap holding Harper to the bar, careful of his wrist, and cut the duraplastic. Harper's hand dropped to the ground and he moaned a bit as she freed the other. He slumped forward into Doyle's waiting arms.
"Dylan said to wait!" Beka protested, her throat dry.
Doyle shot her another look and said, "I don't give a damn about Dylan's orders. I think he has a fever and he needs to get to Med deck."
Wrapping one arm around Harper's waist, Doyle lifted him to his feet. He managed to stay standing but his head lolled against the avatar's lower neck and shoulder. Half dragging, half carrying the blonde engineer, Doyle proceeded towards Beka.
"You're in my way," Doyle said callously.
Beka suddenly felt cold, her throat tightening up. What was happening to her? She managed to step out of the robot's path and Doyle proceeded past, her precious cargo clutched tightly to her.
Doyle stopped though and turned slightly, her face in profile.
"Harper used to tell me stories about the great Beka Valentine," she said slowly. "The Beka Valentine who was the best space pirate to ever fly a ship, the one who was like an older sister to him, the one he could always turn to, the one who could always tell when he was lying to her without even trying."
She paused, taking a breath that her artificial systems didn't even need. "And then Beka Valentine showed up on Seefra-7 and she was nothing like the woman in those stories. This new person ignored the friend she once told she'd do anything for. She let him get beaten up in bar brawls without blinking. She used his skills without so much as a good word or a thank you afterwards. She didn't care that he'd spent three years in hell, just wishing that one day the great Beka Valentine would return to save him."
Beka felt her mouth open, though nothing but terrible silence came out. Doyle didn't bother waiting for her to speak, however, and turned from the pilot with Harper in tow. Within a few seconds the two were gone and Beka was alone on the Maru. She stood for a moment, staring at the empty corridor and then sank to the metal grating beneath her. Every emotion that she had held back for the past three months came rushing back to her. Doyle's words stung like a slap to the face.
And then Beka Valentine showed up on Seefra-7 and she was nothing like the woman in those stories. She didn't care that he'd spent three years in hell nearly alone, just wishing that one day the great Beka Valentine would return to save him…
What had she done? Who had she become? She'd spent six months alone and angry on the Maru at Dylan for… everything. When she'd been reunited with him and Rhade the anger had dissipated for a time, replaced by her utter relief. But then days had passed and she'd gone on, used to being alone, used to feeling nothing but anger and hatred and loathing. Not just for Dylan but for this Devineforsaken place she now found herself.
And then after a few weeks of being back in civilization, primitive but nevertheless civilization, they'd found Harper and what was left of Rommie and the crew was together again. Together but broken, each piece fractured in some way or another. When she realized that they wouldn't fit together anymore, something within her just snapped and she detached herself from them physically and emotionally.
She began working as a salvager again, throwing herself into her job, returning to Seefra-1 a few times a week for a drink and a card game. Sure she'd helped Dylan in a few situations but it was always for a sum of money or a piece of the loot. She had become distant, cold, and detached. She was dependent on no one and cared only about herself and the amount of profit at the end of the day.
She had become the old Beka Valentine.
The woman who was still bitter about her father's death and the debts he had left her. The woman who wouldn't let anyone in, not even a deadbeat boyfriend who never really loved anything but her body and the free ship that came with it. She was the woman whose life had yet to be changed by a dirty, diminutive boy from a rinky-dink backwater planet named Earth.
Beka felt a sob escapes her lips.
This new person just ignored the friend she once told she'd do anything for. She let him get beaten up in bar brawls without blinking. She used his skills without so much as a good word or a thank you afterwards. She didn't care that he'd spent three years in this hell nearly alone…
Doyle's words held a truth in them that scared Beka. She had seen all this happening these past few months and done nothing. She had rarely talked to Harper, and even when she had it had only been about superficial things. She hadn't asked him how he was. What it had felt like to be trapped in a place that was Earth, just minus the Magog attacks.
He'd come to her later, after Dylan had found him on Seefra-7, just wanting to talk. She'd blown him off, too angry to worry about anyone else's problems. A few weeks later he'd tried to open up to her again but she continued to be distant, telling him she had to get to a job and leaving without saying more than five sentences.
By the time he began working at the bar he had stopped trying to make real conversation with her. His words now consisted of liquor choices or some new machine he was working on. Never about how he was feeling. And then there he was, on the Maru again and she'd been completely oblivious to him being sick.
Ten years ago she would have prided herself on calling his bluff. She would have been able to sense a problem before the first rash showed up or the coughing came. The signs of the crystal poisoning had been there but she had blatantly ignored them all. She'd noticed how strange he'd been acting, how out of it he had seemed, and just associated it with lack of sleep and Harper being… Harper. She'd been so concerned with fixing her ship that…
Beka felt tears building and pooling, waiting to fall. When the first one eventually streaked down her face she didn't even realize she was crying. The only thing she could feel was the numbness spreading through her body.
Harper felt unbearably hot and couldn't figure out why. His first thought as he came to consciousness was that he had died and had gone to hell for all the wrong things he had ever done. His next thought considered this, but he then realized that hell probably wouldn't provide him with soft blankets and definitely didn't smell like antiseptic. So not hell… but a close second. Med Deck. Which, to his disgust, meant he was either hurt or ill. One guess was as good as the other.
He managed to open one eye slowly, still well aware of how hot he was. A hand squeezed his and he turned to his left carefully. Long blonde hair filled his vision and for a moment he thought… but no, it was Doyle. The android was standing next to him smiling.
"Hey," she greeted. "Welcome back."
Harper swallowed. "When… when did they install a… sauna in Med Deck?"
Doyle smiled and put a hand on the side of his face. "Your core temperature is up, Harper. You were poisoned by the Seefra-8 crystal when it cut you. The medicine the refugees supplied has stopped the poison from spreading and is slowly counteracting it. However, you developed a fever because your immune system is a little different than the Surog people. Trance thinks once we can get it down, you'll be okay."
"I remember," Seamus said slowly, licking his lips, "getting hurt by the crystal… and then trying to help Beka fix the Maru. After that, it's all kind of a blur."
"The poison effected your mind," Doyle informed him. "I'm so sorry I didn't realize you were sick, Harper." She looked down at her booted feet.
Harper raised his eyebrows. "W-what? How could you?"
She took a cloth that had been lying next to him and dabbed at his forehead, still not making eye contact. "I was there when you were hurt. I should have checked up on you."
"You couldn't have known," Harper said softly, still surprised by her loyalty towards him. "You can't check up on me after every scratch."
Doyle put the cloth down and finally looked at him. "Why did you hide being sick from me?"
Harper swallowed and looked up at the beams high above him. "Because… because I don't like people to think I'm weak just because of a stupid immune system. I thought… I thought it would get better."
The avatar squeezed his hand and he looked over at her again. "Harper," she said gently, "I'm supposed to protect you and I failed."
He smiled and squeezed back. "You can't protect someone who doesn't want to be helped, Doyle."
She smiled a moment and said, "I can try."
Doyle gripped his hand and ran her free one over his forehead, brushing back the disorderly hair. "You should sleep. Trance administered an antibiotic that should help fight the last of the infection and the fever."
Harper nodded and closed his eyes. However, he opened them a second later. "I thought Trance forgot how to be a doctor?" he asked out of curiosity.
She shrugged, wiping his forehead with the cloth again. "It's Trance. Didn't you once tell me that no one knows how she does things, they just know she does them?"
He smirked but didn't respond again. Instead he lay back, coughed a bit and tried to sleep even with the uncomfortable heat in his body. As he slowly drifted into unconsciousness, he hoped for dreams full of snow and ice cold Sparky Colas.
Beka spent two hours alone on the Maru contemplating the person she had become. The Seefra System had changed them all, but the transformation within herself frightened her the most. She had pushed away those she cared about, including someone she had once promised to do anything for. She didn't remember when she had told Harper that, possibly after some misshapen adventure they'd been on had gone awry. He had trusted her once to never break that promise… but she had.
The real question was whether or not he'd ever forgive her. She had finally opened her eyes to her selfish behavior… but would apologies be enough to salvage what they had had? She loved Harper like any brother, probably more then own biological one. She didn't want to be the woman she had been before him again. The resentful person who lived life from day to day, emotionless to most everything going on around her. She had at one time considered him to be her foundation, the base underneath all that had kept her together after Bobby. Had she ever told him that? She had always supposed he knew… but did he?
Beka wiped her face and stood up, determined to change things. She didn't expect this to be a quick process, quite the opposite, but she was set on mending the friendship one step at a time no matter the cost.
The walk from the Maru to the Andromeda's infirmary felt like miles, but when she finally arrived at her destination she paused outside the door, her resolve wavering. What if he didn't want anything to do with her? What if he… hated… her? Lost in her fears she didn't realize the doors had opened until she stood face to face with Doyle again. Beka instinctively took a step backwards and the robot followed. The door hissed shut behind them.
"What do you want?" Doyle asked coolly. Her earlier anger seemed to have dissipated but that didn't mean it wouldn't flare up again.
"I'm sorry," Beka blurted.
Doyle narrowed her eyes a moment. "Excuse me?"
"I mean, about Harper… I'm sorry about how I treated him," she bumbled out. Beka paused and forced herself to stare at the being across from her. "I've been selfish these past few months. I was so damn angry at being alone and drifting for so long that it never occurred to me to even think about what the others went though."
The android crossed her arms. "So what? This is supposed to just make up for everything?"
Valentine shook her head, anger swelling in her chest. "Look, I admitted that I've been an asshole as of late. But damnit… I LOVE Harper! I can't imagine my life without him. Even when he's gotten on my last nerve, even when I just want to lock him away to shut his insistent babbling up, I LOVE him, okay! I don't know if he'll be willing to hear me out, let alone forgive me, but I have to try. It's the only thing I can do. You can hate me all you want Doyle, but I'm not here for you."
There. It was done. She'd spoken her mind to the avatar and could only hope for the best.
For a moment Beka thought Doyle would retaliate with sharp words of her own, but the striking blonde just stared at her a moment before stepping away from the Med Deck doors.
"Welcome back Beka Valentine," Doyle said and turned her back on the space pilot. She quickly disappeared down the corridor as Beka watched in shock. One obstacle conquered, here came the toughest one.
Beka fisted her hands a second and released them, willing her body to calm down. She put a hand up to the door controls and they opened to reveal a nearly empty medical bay. The only occupied bed was at the far end of the room. Harper's bed. She took a step inside.
"Courage, don't fail me now," she muttered.
The rise to consciousness was easier this time. While earlier he'd felt like he'd been roasting like a Thanksgiving turkey, Harper now felt like he was on a slow boil instead. Less hot, but nevertheless still too warm for his tastes.
Speaking of tastes and turkey… he was kind of hungry. Harper groaned at the thought and finally awoke fully. A hand squeezed his and someone said something he couldn't quite make out. He leaned towards the voice.
"Doyle?" he asked, his voice raw.
"No."
Harper's eyes flew open and he stared in shock at his visitor. "B-Beka? What are you… ? Why are you…?"
Something flashed in her blue eyes. Concern? Guilt even? Surely not, he pondered. Things were still a bit fuzzy but he was almost convinced it was her sitting there.
"You're… here?" he questioned.
"Yeah, Harper, I'm here," she answered softly.
"Look, I know I was supposed to fix the Maru and everything," he babbled, lifting himself up a bit on the bed, "and I tried, I did, but I couldn't think straight. I promise as soon as I can I'll go back and…"
A hand suddenly covered his mouth. His blue eyes narrowed and he tried to look at the hand, albeit his eyes crossed in the effort. He resorted to looking up at the appendage's owner.
"Waaf?" was his muffled reply.
"Harper, just… shut up and listen," she replied. "I've been an idiot. Okay, a major idiot, who doesn't deserve anything but contempt."
His eyebrows raised in confusion. "Humfh?"
Beka continued, ignoring his attempts to speak. "I know I've been distant since we got to the Seefra System. No wait, distant is definitely an understatement. I've been downright foreign. See, I just realized that I'd become who I used to be… before you Harper. I just cared about myself because it was easier that way. I felt something when you told us how long you had been here, but I pushed those feelings away."
She swallowed, looking down. "I didn't want to worry about someone else. Seeing you sick and talking to Doyle made me realize that today. I once promised you I'd always be there for you, no matter what. I broke that promise three months ago. I know you might not be able to forgive me and I accept that. But I want to let you know that… I think I've found myself. Thanks to you once again. I love you, Harper, even if you can't say the same about me anymore. I always will."
That said, she dropped her hand expecting the worse. Harper licked his lips again and leaned back a bit. Small beads of sweat were dripping from his forehead and his face had been hot under Beka's hand. Harper sat silently staring past her not saying anything.
A minute passed. Then two. Beka was getting nervous and shifted in her seat. She had dropped his hand when she'd first began her confession but noticed it was now balled up in a fist next to this thigh. "Harper?" she tried.
It was his turn to silence her. "Just shut up a minute, Beka, okay? Yeah, you've been an idiot. I can't explain to you how much I missed you when I first got here. All I could think about was the Maru being blown apart, you aboard it. That's the last image I saw of you. For three years that played in my mind."
He smiled sadly. "And then one day you and Dylan and Rhade and Trance were just… back. I didn't show it, but I was ecstatic. I thought my hell would be better now. After all, you were all there with me. But it wasn't better, Beka. Dylan didn't trust me after the pheromone incident, Rhade was being more broody than usual, and Trance… Trance didn't know me from Drago Musevini. But you were the worst. You sounded like the person I had known, you even dressed like her but you weren't. As soon as you had the Maru fixed you were gone again and again, showing up randomly over the next few weeks. I missed my friend, Bek."
Beka carefully put a hand over his fist. "I'm here, Harper. A little worse for wear… but here."
"You say that," he cried, voice raising, "but can you promise that you won't suddenly change your mind next week? That you won't be remote again, off doing whatever without a care about any of us?"
Beka eyed him carefully, taking in every detail. "I can only promise to love you, Seamus," she said sincerely. "No matter how far away I try to fly I'll always have that. I'm sorry I can't promise you anymore."
She stood up from the seat she had taken next to him. "It was so easy when we first met for me to say I'd protect you from the Magog or the Nietzscheans. I never thought in a million years I'd have to protect you from myself."
She tried to smile but failed and turned away, back to the doors, back to the Maru, and back to her salvage jobs.
Before she had taken two steps a hand shot out and grabbed her arm, holding her in place. She turned towards him slightly.
"Wait," he said, his still fever-bright eyes holding her gaze.
She stared back, doing just that. Waiting. For a moment she thought he'd let go but he didn't. Instead Harper simply said, "I love you too, Bek."
Beka Valentine knew his words didn't mean complete forgiveness, but it was a beginning. They had plenty of time to work on the rest later.
She took his hand and walked back to her seat, plopping down. He squeezed her fingers and they both smiled at one another. He looked worn so she told him to rest some more and he complied and lay back, never letting go of her hand. As his breathing evened out she took the piece of cloth next to him and wiped his brow gently.
Beka was almost convinced the engineer had fallen asleep when he pulled on her hand again. She learned forward and he opened his lips slightly as if he had something important to say.
"Beka, I just wanted you to know," he whispered sleepily but firmly, pulling her close to his lips, "that if you ever cover my face with your hand again, I won't hesitate to lick it. Capeesh?"
-El Fin
So? Should I throw in the towel on this writing thing? A review is the only thing that can tell me...