Spoilers: All of the Andromeda series in general, "Pride Before The Fall" in specific.
Summary: Rhade does some thinking about his encounters with Peter.
Disclaimer: "Andromeda" and related characters and situations are the property of Tribune Entertainment. No money changed hands and no copyright infringement is intended or implied.
Feedback: Yeah. Definitely tell me what you think. I'm not too sure how I feel about this one, but it's been knocking around in my brain and it needed to come out.
Author's Notes: This is sort of a gap-filler but not exactly. I'll let you come to your own decisions. And all of the opinions that Rhade is espousing about himself in here…yeah, I don't agree with him in the slightest, but he's feeling a bit hard on himself at the moment.

Telemachus Rhade had no idea whose quarters these had been when this ship had still been the pride of the Commonwealth with a full crew. Whoever they had belonged to, it was only the bathroom he was interested in. It took a lot to make a Nietzschean throw up. Funny how that thought just made him want to hurl again.

The Progenitor. He'd met the Progenitor. Most Nietzscheans would love to be able to say that. Most Nietzscheans would kill for the chance.

He'd beat the snot out of the Progenitor. That would definitely get him killed if the word ever got out to any pride. It didn't matter that he hadn't known it was Drago Museveni at the time, or that Drago Museveni wasn't even his proper name. Unless Peter was the name that wasn't real…and he'd just assumed while he was in the Seefra system…which was entirely possible…who cared! One way or another, he'd beat the Progenitor—the Creator of the Nietzschean Race—so badly that he'd almost unmade himself.

Yeah, that had felt pretty weird. Not painful, but definitely weird.

Rhade got up and went over to the sink to run some water. It wasn't a big surprise anymore that the whole "warrior-poet" thing hadn't worked out. With a guy like Peter as the originator, how could they have expected to come up with anything but a flawed destiny? It was no wonder the Nietzschean prides were bent on destroying one another. It was no wonder that there were places like Earth, occupied and subjugated, with thousands of Harpers who would never be able to escape. They were born, they would live, and they would die, crushed beneath the feet of his race thanks to Peter and his self-absorbed, arrogance.

He tried to wash the bitter aftertaste of vomit from his mouth. No, Nietzscheans weren't a superior race. They were just a different version of the same old humanity. A prettier veneer on all the same flaws.

Rhade ran a towel over his face to get off the excess water. The Progenitor was just the first of his problems, he mused, tossing the towel back on the rack. Beka was a whole other and completely separate issue. The Matriarch. Not of his pride, but of everyone's. And it was Beka. Beka wasn't a wise leader, although she was a decent captain, an excellent pilot, and a frighteningly skilled "salvager". Rhade could barely stop himself from laughing as he tried to imagine her doing anything that resembled what the Majorum Matriarch did every day.

Nope. He couldn't picture it. Beka was too Beka. But she was Matriarch. That changed things. Honestly, what was he going to call her now? He couldn't call her "Beka" anymore, that was for sure.

This called for a drink. Quite possibly several.

"I thought you were giving this up?" said a quiet voice.

Rhade looked up from his alcohol to see Trance Gemini standing before him.

"Yeah. After today, I'm getting off the wagon," he replied. He looked at the bar and realized he wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten in there. He remembered the trip to Seefra. He'd taken a slipfighter, because there was no way he could have faced Beka.

But on the bar, he was definitely drawing a blank. It wasn't Harper's bar. He had no real idea which bar it was. "Getting off the wagon a lot, apparently. How did you find me? I can't even find me." He thought for a moment and then said, "I wonder where that phrase comes from? 'Off the wagon.' It's kind of a weird phrase."

Trance smiled and sat down. "I guess I'm just unusually motivated."

"Why?" Rhade asked.

Trance looked at him as if she were a bit surprised he'd even ask that. "Because I'm your friend. Because Harper was worried about you but Beka wouldn't let him look for you because he has to go over every inch of the Maru for explosives. Because Dylan didn't even know where to start looking for you, and because Andromeda couldn't find you. She tried, you know," Trance told him.

Rhade looked at his drink and then decided not to take another swallow for that moment and said, "I see. That's a lot of reasons. Can't Andromeda check over the Maru for explosives?"

"She can, but Beka wants Harper to double-check Andromeda's findings. I think Peter affected her more deeply than she lets on," Trance answered him.

Rhade frowned and looked away. "As a Nietzschean, I should hate Peter for hurting the Matriarch."

Trance frowned. "I've been meaning to ask you: did Peter come to see you at all, while he was here?"

"Why would he do that?" Rhade shrugged, curious what Trance was up to.

"I don't know. You are one of the few Nietzscheans in the Seefra system and you're the only one that knows Beka. He would probably be more interested in you than any of the rest of us," Trance pointed out.

Rhade looked Trance straight in the eyes and found himself telling her the whole story of what had happened in his room and the fight later in Harper's bar.

"I nearly beat him to death, Trance. He could have beat me more than he did, but he just left. I'm not too sure what Dylan did. It was getting a little hazy there towards the end," Rhade finished, "but whatever it was, I think Peter won their competition, even though Dylan won the fight."

"Really?" Trance asked.

"Yeah. Dylan won the fight, but he couldn't kill him," Rhade sighed. "Couldn't kill him because that would have killed me, and it would have killed every Nietzschean who ever lived. It would have rearranged all of history, in fact. Gaheris Rhade would never have betrayed him, Harper would be free and on Earth. The Andromeda might not even exist. Everything would be different."

Trance looked at the glass he had. "Are you sure you're drunk? You don't seem drunk."

"Nietzscheans…don't seem drunk even when we are unless we're very, very drunk," Rhade explained. "I am only a little drunk."

"Oh," Trance nodded. "In any case, that must be quite something. The Progenitor wanted to help you. You must feel special."

Rhade stared at her. "He was insane! How can that make me feel special?"

"He was insane, I'll give you that," Trance agreed. "But think about it. This is Seefra. Nobody wants to go out of their way for anybody else unless they have to. It isn't done and it isn't safe to try. You don't help other people unless they can help you back. But you had nothing to offer him and he was going to try and…what did you say he said? 'Fix your life?'"

"Because I am flawed." Rhade snorted, self-deprecatingly. "I haven't been acting much like a Nietzschean."

"He doesn't know that," Trance pointed out. "Nietzschean culture hasn't yet been invented for him."

"Then he's just crazy," Rhade told her, downing the rest of his drink. "Clinically insane. End of story."

"I don't think so, Rhade," Trance mused. "Even people who are truly insane have motivations for what they do, irrational and illogical though those motivations may be. He had to have a reason for going to see you."

"What possible reason could he have had, Trance?" Rhade asked, deciding he must be more drunk then he thought, because he wasn't getting mad at Trance for pushing this. "There's nothing I could have really offered him. I certainly wasn't going to help him get to Beka and he knew that. Other than explaining some of the bare minimums about Nietzschean culture, I couldn't give him anything, Trance. What are you getting at?"

"You are a Nietzschean, and because Peter is Progenitor, that effectually makes you his child. I think he wanted to help you because you are his son," Trance explained. "I think that, in his own way, he loved you."

Rhade stared at Trance for several seconds, blinking in astonishment. The frightening feeling that was starting to creep over him had everything to do with the fact that what Trance had just said made a certain amount of sense. "But Peter was crazy. The Progenitor was crazy."

"Even crazy persons can love," Trance said. She sighed. "Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But no culture, no matter its origins, has ever been entirely bad. No culture has been entirely good, either, but even in Peter, I think there may have been some good. I think he cared for you." She got up. "I'm going to go let everyone know you're alright. I won't tell them where you are, if you don't want me to."

"Thank you, Trance," Rhade nodded. "Could you tell me where I am?"

Trance grinned and told him the way back to his house.

The whole walk back, Rhade was thinking. Trance's comments had made far too much sense for him to be comfortable. The Progenitor coming to him out of concern. The idea was laughable. Once upon a time, he'd been somebody. Now, he was just a no account drunk who was lucky to have the friends he did. He was nobody that anybody should want to help.

And yet, his mind was drawn back to his own sons. He missed his beautiful children so much that it was like a hole in his heart. They and Jillian had been his joy and the light of his days. His two boys had been rambunctious beyond belief, but even when they deliberately disobeyed him, even when they were at their most rebellious…hadn't he still loved them? Hadn't he done what was necessary to help them when they'd needed it? Even when the trouble they'd landed in was a direct result of their disobedience, that had never changed the fact that they were his sons.

If that had been what Peter was after, then Rhade couldn't help but be a little proud. Even before Nietzscheans had existed, Nietzscheans had cared for their children. What's more, he'd had the Progenitor himself reach a hand out to him at his worst moment and offer him help.

None of this changed the fact that Peter was insane, of course. Dylan wasn't what was wrong with his life, and not even the Progenitor could bring Jillian, his boys, or his baby girl back from the dead. But Peter was right when he said that, as things stood right then, Rhade's life was incomplete.

But it changed some things. A little. Maybe he'd been right when he'd told Tyr Anasazi that the Progenitor wouldn't shoot a blind prophet. Maybe the Nietzschean race wasn't so disgusting as he'd been thinking it was since Command that afternoon—even though there was no excusing some of the things that had been done by them. Maybe he wasn't as bleak of a creature as he'd been thinking he was.

And now he was home. He looked around his apartment, which was a mess. The remnants of his fight with Peter still littered the floor and the mirror was in pieces everywhere.

Rhade looked around, sighed, and began cleaning up. The Progenitor wasn't there to help him fix anything now, but Peter had made Nietzscheans to be strong. He'd help himself.