See Prologue for Ratings and Disclaimer.

And here we are with another Belizean update! I actually was going to post this last Sunday when I had a few hours back in town, but unfortunately the guy that does the virus checks on disks wasn't around and I couldn't use mine here without it, despite the fact that the last time I used it was in the same net cafe. Oh well. It's here now! Hope you all enjoy it, I personally love the reviews. You guys really make my weekends!

Any and all mistakes are mine alone.

PART EIGHT - Round Two

Beka wandered the corridors, her initial anger diffusing into simple frustration. And guilt. Yes, they got him back, and yes, she understood that here had been reasons (and she used the term oh-so-loosely) for his imprisonment and subsequent torture that were beyond any of their faults, but still she felt responsible.

She had been reluctant to admit it the past month because it would have meant yet another loss, but Beka - upon the onset of relief after he had been found - had finally acknowledge her friendship with Rhade, even if it was only fledgling. The point of the matter was that she had let a friend down, was essentially the reason that friend had been in a position to be taken, and…well…it was frustrating!

She wasn't too surprised to find herself outside of Medical, and if she was honest with herself, it could very well have been the unconscious reason why she'd stormed out on the others. She wanted to reassure herself that he really was okay, at least physically - from what she'd seen, the mental aspect would likely need some work. And as selfish as it may have sounded, Beka hoped the reassurance would make the feelings of guilt go away.

As she wandered past the threshold, her eyes immediately caught sight of the closed door to her right, the entrance to the Andromeda's morgue. Beyond that partition, she knew, lay the crew of the Majalla's Heart.

Good riddance, she heard her head exclaim. And her heart was inclined to agree. What they'd done to her crewmate, her friend…there wasn't a string of profanity long enough to brand them with. Beka shook those thoughts from her mind and moved further into the room, wanting to find the object of her worried thoughts.

They'd moved him, but he wasn't hard to point out. First off, there were only a couple other crewmembers acting as patients, and they were all up and about, probably just in for routine check-ups or something equally as mundane - what you would expect from a ship with a population of a small town. But what really helped to define his location was the equipment.

She could remember reading her "trashy" novels from ancient Earth. In a few overly-dramatic scenes there'd been someone hospitalized in severe condition while their family watched on. Often the authors had filled the pages with the family's horror at the sheer number of machines attached to the person, and the beeping and blinking of dozens of lights.

As Beka drew closer to a motionless Rhade, she began to empathize with those characters. He wasn't actually hooked up to too many machines, but in her opinion it was still too many. And they didn't beep, which was definitely a plus. But they blinked, a lot. Apparently, no matter what millennium you were in, blinking lights and banged-up patients went hand in hand.

She got closer to him, and noticed that he'd been cleaned up even more since she last left. It made him look ten times better. Unfortunately, considering what he'd been like only a few hours ago, ten times wasn't saying much. He was sleeping, though, but rather restlessly.

Another of the Andromeda's crew, one Beka could remember only in passing, was apparently functioning as his nurse.

"How is he?" she asked the woman - Asher, she thought her name was - as she came to a stop at the foot of the bed, arms crossed.

"Ma'am," Asher greeted, and Beka tried not to roll her eyes. "Compared to how he was when you first brought him in, he's improved quite a bit. Many of his smaller injures and breaks are almost healed."

The First Officer nodded, but didn't look up from the prone form. "And the larger ones?"

Asher sighed. "Those will take awhile yet, and there were, frankly, quite a few more."

"I noticed."

"Trance was able to reactivate many of his nanobots, and inject more into his system, but his body can only tolerate so many. They've begun to stabilize him. Right now all we can do it to keep him comfortable, try to up his nutrition and immune levels…." Beka noticed the sudden distaste in the medical officer's voice as she continued, "They didn't much care what happened to him, so long as he didn't die on them."

Beka did her best to keep her voice neutral as she answered, "Of course they didn't care, they spend a month torturing him."

Asher nodded slowly. "My honest opinion? Even despite being Nietzschean, it's a miracle he made it through. Most wouldn't have lasted as long."

Beka suppressed the urge to shudder, at both Asher's words and at the memory of her first encounter with said Nietzschean, back on the ship of death. "Yeah, well," she muttered to herself, "We'll see how his mind holds up."

Realizing Asher had heard her words, Beka turned to her and flashed a grin, trying to lighten the mood. "Not that there's much to lose, anyway."

Asher gave a light chuckle, more for her benefit. "Well, the few times he's woken up he's been lucid, as you saw for yourself the first time." The medical officer's tone turned sombre as she added, "He'll have more than his share of demons to work through, I'm sure, but we all have faith. He's strong, he's proved that already."

Beka just nodded, focusing back on her friend. It appeared as if he were already starting to "work things out" - she could see movement beneath his closed eyelids, his face tensed in a frown.

After a few seconds of silence, Asher turned back to her superior. "Well, my shift is actually over. Was there anything you required?"

"Uh, no," she replied, pulling herself from her thoughts. "Just checking up. You head on out, I'll probably do the same in a few minutes."

"Okay. I believe Trance will be back shortly, if you need anything. Good night, ma'am." Asher then turned and walked off to finish up her last-minute duties.

Beka watched her crewmate for a few minutes more, then decided it would probably be a good idea if she went and got some sleep - it had been a very eventful and draining day. She was about to leave when she heard a faint sound.

Turning back to Rhade, she strained her ears and heard the sound of mumbled, unintelligible words, and as she looked closer she could just make out the slight movements of his lips.

She moved to the head of the bed and tried to make out what he was saying, something obviously a part of his dream. It was too muffled to understand, but she thought she caught a word sounding an awful lot like "death."

It was then she realized the eye movements had become more rapid, his facial muscles bunched even more. He started moving in his sleep, and it was clear to Beka that his dream had turned into a nightmare.

Unsure of what to do, she placed a hesitant hand on his shoulder, being careful to avoid any of the injuries she could see, and those she couldn't. "Rhade," she called softly.

He remained in the throes of his nightmare, only after she called his name twice more did his eyes snap open with a sharp intake of air. His eyes darted around, confusion on his face, before he finally recognized where he was. He relaxed against his pillow.

"Bad dream?" Beka asked light-heartedly, removing her hand from his shoulder.

"Mmm…something like that," he replied, bringing a hand to massage his temples tiredly. She noticed the wince he attempted to conceal, but noted happily that he was speaking clearer and easier now.

Rhade's hand pause its ministrations as he looked at her in sleepy confusion. "What are you doing here?"

Beka, not prepared at all for the question, fumbled for an answer. "I was just, uh, I was going…" she gestured to the door and took a step back, as if to leave.

The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slowly - a welcome sign despite her embarrassment. "It was simply a question."

She hesitated, and then grinned despite herself. "Right." She stepped back up to the bed. "The crew's just worried about you."

"The crew."

"Yeah."

An uncomfortable silence followed, compelling the first officer to speak up. "So…feeling any better?"

He thought for a moment. "That is a relative question."

"Right."

"However," he continued, attempting to sit up. Beka moved to help him, but before she could he had collapsed back against the sheets, breathing hard, his face contorted in obvious pain. She started to say something, but he beat her once again. "Relatively speaking…much better."

Rhade looked over at her, catching her failed attempt to hide her amusement at his words. "Sorry," she responded, not even trying to sound serious. He rolled his eyes.

Another silence descended. Rhade looked away momentarily, and when he turned back, his expression had sobered. "Well, I am sorry."

She gave him a strange look. "For what?"

"For earlier, in the…on the ship."

"Rhade, it wasn't--"

"I was not in control. I almost hurt you, and I'm sorry." Seeing she was about to protest, he insisted. "Please Beka, do not fight me on this."

She sighed. "Alright. So long as you accept mine."

His confusion returned. She clarified. "For blowing up at you. Before you were taken."

He tried to brush it off. "I had forgotten all about it." It wasn't exactly true, but the last thing he wanted was for her to beat herself up over it.

"Still," she insisted, "If I wasn't so stubborn, this wouldn't have happened."

Rhade frowned, unknowingly bringing a hand to gingerly finger the bandages on the opposite wrist. "I do not want to hear that you have blamed yourself for this."

She didn't say anything. He sighed.

"What happened was a combination of chance and ill fortune. I'm certainly not happy it happened, but I never once blamed you, Beka." He was completely truthful this time.

"Yeah, well I don't blame you for…earlier. So it's only fair."

Rhade raised an eyebrow, but couldn't hold back the grin for long. She matched it.

"Very well," he replied with a yawn, closing his eyes. "Who am I to stand in the way of your self-admission of stubbornness."

She shot him a look just as he opened his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, get some rest, smartass. I'll come by and see you tomorrow." She turned to go.

Rhade's eyes followed her movements at that. "It's okay," he called after her, believing that she felt obligated. "You don't have --"

"I'll see you tomorrow," she asserted.

Rhade watched her leave, not sure what to think. Finally, he resigned himself to never figuring out that woman, and quickly drifted off to sleep.

Beka rounded the corner out of a Medical and found Trance leaning against the bulkhead. She stopped short - the golden girl had the ghost of a smile aimed at her.

"Trance?"

"Looks like you calmed down." Trance pushed away from the bulkhead and walked toward her friend.

Beka made a face and looked down. "I should, uh…I should probably go talk to Dylan."

Trance nodded. "Probably."

"Alright, I'll see you later." Beka started to walk away, but Trance just stood there, watching and waiting. The human woman stopped and turned back to her good-luck charm, concern filling her voice.

"Uh, Trance? He is going to be okay, right?"

The enigma looked down for a moment to gather her thoughts, then looked up at her long-time friend, expression sombre. "His body, even some parts of his mind, have already begun to heal. But he can't do it all himself, he will need his friends."

As Beka listened to her friend's words, she thought she saw a momentary flash of…something…cross that golden face as it stared back at her, something she couldn't interpret. It was followed by Trance's next statement, "Some more than others."

Beka wasn't sure she wanted to know what that meant.

"Right," was all she could say in reply. Apparently the look of concern hadn't completely abated, however, because Trance continued.

"Rhade has been through a lot," she paused and looked away, adding in a lower tone, "Certainly more than he has ever known himself." When she looked up, she had yet another indefinable expression moulding her features. "But he has survived them all."

Beka was even more confused now, but tired to laugh off the strange vibes she was getting from Trance. "Well, it's good to know he keep's his Nietzschean word."

Trance flashed a not-so-convincing smile. "I guess so."

Neither woman spoke for a few tense moments. "Right," Beka broke the ice, "Well I'm gonna…" she gestured behind her, down the corridor.

"…Talk to Dylan," Trance finished for her, more of a statement than a suggestion.

Beka made the look again. "Right," she hissed out, clearly not enjoying the reminder.

Trance nodded. "Goodbye." Beka shook her head and headed off.

Trance stood in the corridor a few moments longer, eyes trained on the opposite bulkhead, but looking much further away than that. A million thoughts, possibilities, and actions - and consequences - both past and future, clouded her mind, being classified and categorized and reclassified, over and over again. But a past action, one that had led to a series of present consequences and posed a series of possible futures, all as equally uncertain in their likelihood and outcome, continued to invade her thoughts.

Sighing, she resigned herself to her patient waiting in Medical. Worry about the man now, she told herself as she walked to her post, Worry about my meddling in his destiny later.

To Be Continued...

Jade Rhade - If you look at my homepage link, you can see what I'm talking about. Don't have any Andromeda vids (yet - that's the next project, hopefully out sometime late June, due to my status as "not in the same country as my computer"), but I have come across several, including Rhade vids...unfortunately I don't remember where, but you can probably search for them easily enough.