Chapter 13
Everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends.
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand.
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
From Everybody Hurts by R.E.M.
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'Harper open the door.' Silence, no answer. She knew he must be hearing the little blips, but he did not want her in his quarters. Well… tough!
'I don't give a damn if you don't want me in there, Seamus. If you won't let me in I'll go over your head to Dylan and then he'll know that there's something wrong too…'
The door slid open, and Reb was standing there, arms folded, a strange, lopsided smile on his face.
'Get out of my way, tiger, I want to talk to the adult in charge,' Beka growled at him. His smile faltered for a second, and he stepped aside to let her past. Harper was sitting on his bed, haphazardly throwing clothes, wires, random things into his bag. His lucky rabbit foot was slung around his neck on a leather strap and he was wearing a suede jacket that he only ever wore on shore leave. 'Don't tell me… you won a romantic holiday for two on the sunset drifts,' Beka guessed, half-serious.
'Hey, such a quirky sense of humour is wasted here, you should go one stage,' Reb called sarcastically from behind her. She ignored him, walked forward and pulled Harper up by the back of his jacket and made him look at her. 'What in the Divine's name do you think you're doing, kid?'
He refused to look at her. 'Don't, Beka. Don't say it. Just back off, OK? I'm going to leave, I have better things to do, and I'm not really needed here anyway.'
'Not needed? What the hell gave you that idea? Harper, without you this ship will shake its bolts off, you can't go, now sit down, unpack that bag and be reasonable…'
'No!' The word came not from Harper's mouth, but from behind her. She turned furiously on Reb, whose eyes were glazed and had a half-mad grin plastered over his face. 'He's ours! You had your chance. It's gone. Face it, you can't stop him from joining us on the Deepwater!'
'The Deepwater? What… you're joining the Deepwater…?' Beka was at a loss for words.
'No,' that word again, but this time it wasn't Harper or Reb, it was a collective cry from the doorway. The rest of the crew, Lise, Bren, Yuna, Gret and Zak, were standing there. Bren's hand was on his gun, Yuna's eyebrows were drawn tight together, Zak was looking uncomfortable and Gret and Lise had their arms folded disapprovingly. 'He's not coming. He doesn't want to and you know it, Reb,' Yuna went on. What you've done here is disgraceful. I would rather we didn't complete our mission than have you spawn a race of deceit and misery from this.'
Reb's jaw was hanging slightly open. 'What? But… I did this for us! We can get to Earth using slipstream, we won't have to wait 40 years to get there.'
'Did WHAT?' Beka yelled. 'What the hell have you done to Harper? Why does he want to leave?' She was furious and confused. Reb looked at the floor sulkily.
'Didn't do anything,' he muttered. 'Was your Captain. He called Harper a kludge… said he didn't need him…'
'Oh give it up, Captain,' Bren sneered. 'We've seen the footage of that little scene, the unabridged version, not the carefully censored bit that you showed Mr Harper here. You tricked him into saying that.' He turned to Harper. 'I've got to know your Captain a little, and he would never say that normally. But Reb can be damned manipulative when he feels like it. I guess it's the cloning process that makes us all have that little bit of darkness where the bulb flickered for a moment in the cryo pods.'
'Bastard!' Beka screeched at Reb, striding forward and slapping him hard across the cheek, striking him for the second time in a week. His head turned with the blow, and he twisted it back slowly. There were tears in his eyes: angry, hurt tears.
'I didn't mean it,' he mumbled. 'I'm not a bad person. I wanted help. I didn't want to have to wait to get to Earth. I don't want to have to be old when we get there…' his voice trailed away. He was looking at Harper warily, because Harper returned his gaze with open fear and hostility. Beka turned, saw her friend too, and frowned.
'Harper what's wrong?' she asked him.
'Clone…' Harper breathed, face twisted, eyes bulging. 'You're a monster! You're not human! None of you are! My God, to think I ever began to trust you!'
'Now Harper there's no need for that,' Beka scolded him. 'They can't help it if they're a little… different.'
'Monster!' Harper shouted again. He fumbled for his gun, raised it, and pointed the shaking barrel at Reb.
Reb remembered last time. Hurt as he was by Harper's comments, courage and faith in Harper's naivety and bad aim brought a complacent smile to his lips.
'Come on, Seamus. You and I both know that you are not going to pull that trigger.'
Harper fired.
Reb's shoulder exploded in a splash of torn tissue and harmonically splattering blood. The force from the bullet hurled his fragile body against the wall. His neck snapped forward and then slashed back, crunching into the wall. His eyes rolled back into his head as he slid into unconsciousness. This was fortunate; he did not feel the impact as he bounced off the wall and slammed to the floor, breaking three ribs, jolting his heart, and piercing his lung. His last thought spat out from his mouth with the blood. 'Angel…'
Harper's lips trembled into a weird smile.
'Harper…' Beka whispered. 'What did you do?'
That sick smile spread until it threatened to split his face in half. 'I missed.'
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That's all for this chapter folks!
Myriad thanks to following shiny happy reviewers.
Darkness Amber - Hope this answered a few of your questions. Hehehe!
VegaKatt - You shall wait no more! Dylan was a bit outta character, I guess, but I was working on the assumption that even the best of us can have our little moments when provoked.
Fwe - Go you! I take pride in this crap (mainly because it means I can procrastinate over maths homework). Poor Reb... I think I made him much more of a bad guy than he was in the series... oh well, at least he's had his comeuppance now.
squid109 - I think this qualifies as the missile hitting the fort... or perhaps the other way round. Hmmm...
