A:N: This chapter's a bit more serious than the other ones. More character interaction, less humor. Sorry (?).

Chapter Ten: Mixed Emotions

Beka awoke to find two, observant, dark brown eyes staring down at her intently.

"Hi Rhade," she mumbled, sitting up a little.

He did reply, instead, he kept his gaze steady upon her. Beka looked at her hands and tried to ignore his lingering eyes unsuccessfully. The way he was scrutinizing her made her feel like a bug under a microscope. Beka Valentine was no bug.

"Would you quit that?" she asked, a bit more coldly than she had intending.

Rhade kept staring at her, but Beka note that his expression had changed from a somewhat dazed one, to a regular, Rhade, ready-and-alert expression. Beka found it strangely comforting.

"Mind explaining what you're doing here...and what I'm doing here?" asked Beka casually.

Rhade leaned back, pulling himself away from her and replied, "You fainted in Command, so I brought you here. Trance just left for a minute, she asked me to watch you."

"She asked you to watch me, not bore your eyes through my skin," Beka snapped, simply for the sake of all that had happened over the past few days.

"I take it, you're angry."

"Did your Nietzschean senses tell you that too?"

"My Nietzschean senses tell me everything. I'm superior, just ask Harper," Rhade gave her a rare smile that hinted that he was joking.

Beka's lips quirked a little, as if she was going to return his smile, however she kept a straight face.

"Since when did my life start getting so screwed up?" Beka asked, staring into the crisp white sheets that covered her waist and legs.

"Beka, sorry to break it to you but—"

"Yeah, yeah I know, my life's always been so screwed up," Beka nearly smirked at her interruption, "It's a shame though...I always did pride myself on not falling in love with Dylan Hunt for the five years I spent on this warship."

"I suppose that's in the past now then?" asked Rhade quickly, his gaze razor sharp.

"I...I'm not sure," Beka replied, pursing her lips in thought, "...He's a good kisser though, I'll tell you that much...I suppose though, he's had a lot of—"

"Practice," Rhade finished for her with a wry smirk on his face inspite of himself.

This time, Beka did smile.

Harper and Trance had traveled down to Machine Shop 17 about an hour ago. The engineer was busy coaxing his hair into sharper-looking spikes while Trance simply rocked on the balls of her feet, unable to find anything else to do with herself. A rare and uncomfortable silence hung between the two of them, which was so unusual that it scared them more than they cared to show. Harper, despite his regular Harper-like exterior had Beka-centric concerns running through his head. Not only was he worried that she would rip him to shreds if she ever got bored again, but also because he and Trance had left Beka alone in a room with Rhade. Harper knew prejudice was wrong, he also knew that Beka was perfectly able to defend herself...except maybe against a super-crazy, freakishly over-infatuated Dylan Hunt. Still, he had been very hesitant to agree to Rhade's offer to watch over Beka. Why had he agreed to that again? He wasn't quite sure. Harper felt like slapping himself.

Did the engineer actually believe that after the recent events directly concerning Beka's state of mind and—more specifically—her love life, the blonde pilot would actually want to get involved in a relationship? With a headstrong, sell-absorbed Nietzschean no doubt. Harper winced when he realized what a hypocrite he was being. He was the one who'd wanted Beka and Rhade to admit their feelings for each other in the first place, and now he was having second thoughts, particularly about Rhade and how much the Nietzschean could really be trusted. Harper thought on the subject a bit longer and then began to ponder upon why he really wanted Beka and Rhade together.

He glanced over at Trance, who was stacking microchips one on top of the other, then he looked down at his hands. Harper had been worried about Beka. Ever since...well, ever since forever, he had been worried about her. But he'd gone into his subtly-over-protective-hyper-caring-Harper mode right after Tyr left.

Harper's gentle features immediately etched themselves into a concentrated glower at the thought of the long-since-dead Kodiak. Damn that Tyr. Even in death, he still managed to find his way back to torment them all. Perhaps Beka more than anyone. Sure, he'd been Dylan's friend, trusted friend and that had meant a lot to the Captain...but Beka was the only one who'd really had an intimate connection with him. Like the one Dylan had once had with Sarah, and in a few ways, probably still did.

Harper's glare subsided a bit, and he went back to work playing with some piece of machinery and the world melted all around him.

Trance pouted a bit when her stack of microchips fell over, making a gentle clattering noise. To her surprise, Harper neither noticed, nor did he react. Trance sighed and began to clean up the mess. Once the chips were piled neatly into a little box, Trance turned to Harper.

"I think I'll go check on Dylan now," she said.

Harper's only reply was a simple nod of the head, and he did so without even looking at her.

Trance left the Machine Shop and began to walk steadily down the familiar hallways of the Andromeda. While she walked, she thought on the past events of the days.

Oh how on Earth had things turned so catastrophic?

It wasn't supposed to be this way...

"Hello Dylan," she said, stepping into Command and staring at the Captain, who had his eyes fixed onto a console.

"Hi," he had to look up at her just to recognize her voice, "Trance. How's Beka doing?"

"She's fine," Trance went to stand beside him, "She's awake now. Rhade's with her."

"I see," Dylan replied, turning back to the console, "Is there something you wanted to speak to me about."

"Umm...not really..." Trance shrugged, "How's Rommie?"

Dylan looked up at her again.

"Rommie?" he said quizzically.

"Yes you know...Rommie."

"Oh...right, Rommie, yeah...I think she's okay," Dylan said shaking the cobwebs from his brain simultaneously.

"You think?" Trance emphasized the second word.

"I spoke to her earlier...she was a bit..." Dylan held back a little, then he remembered who he was talking to, "...confused."

"Confused? I think you're confusing 'confused' with 'upset'" Trance said quietly.

"Maybe," Dylan's tone grew a little harsh, "But I'd say that I'm a bit more upset right now than she is. I was probably drugged into going insane over Beka, I did things to her that I can't even remember, Rommie's gone alien on me, Rhade looked about ready to kill me and you and Harper...I still don't know what my feelings are for—"

"Beka," Trance interrupted, "Do you love her, or not?"

"It's not that simple. You can't just decide to love someone...it takes a little..." Dylan's voice trailed off.

"Why not?" was her answer, "I love you. And Andromeda, and Harper and Beka and even Rhade. You're my Captain and they are my crewmates and I love you all. Just like I loved Rev and Tyr to a certain point as well."

"But that's friendship, that's a different sort of love..." Dylan argued solemnly.

"But what matters that it's love, right Dylan? I should think you of all people would know that the most," Trance said in a little more than a whisper, "You need to make up your mind."

And then she was gone.

Dylan stood alone in Command, slowly processing what she had told him. Trance always did seem to have a wider outlook on things.

And very rarely was she ever wrong.

"Feel better?" asked Harper.

It had been an entire week since Beka's fainting spell in Command, and after Trance's urging, Harper had finally worked up the courage to face Beka again.

"Harper, I was on my feet three hours after I fainted," said Beka with a touch of coldness as they sat in the Mess Hall together.

"I'm sorry I didn't come talk to you earlier…" he hesitated, "…And I'm sorry that I wrote the love letter…I…I didn't think it would cause so much trouble."

"Yeah, well, it did, and now I am completely filled to the brim with mixed emotions which is exactly what I've been trying to avoid for the past five years," said Beka grimly.

"Well…" Harper got up from his seat across the table and sat down next to her, "You might feel better if you talked about it."

He placed a cautious hand over hers and then when she turned and gazed at him, he shriveled down a bit, half-expecting her to whack him across the face.

His fears disappeared when Beka gave him that old, familiar grin.

"Oh Seamus," she ruffled his hair, "Never could stay mad at you for more than a few days."

"Does this mean you forgive me for writing that letter that drove Dylan crazy for you?" asked Harper with wide eyes like a child who'd just seen his Christmas presents earlier than he should have.

"Yes Seamus, I forgive you," Beka rolled her eyes, put her arm around him and pulled him closer in a friendly hug.

"SothendoyoualsoforgivemeforlettingthatnativeSeefranratlooseintheMaru?" Harper blurted out in one almost incoherent sentence.

Almost.

"You did what!"

Rhade and Trance watched Beka incase Harper in a headlock and rub her knuckles into his skull.

"You can tell they've been through a lot together," Rhade commented with a bit of amusement in his voice, "She's almost as good at that as I am."

"Right…they're like brother and sister," Trance giggled when she heard Harper's feminine squeals and yelps for mercy, "Which one is the sister though, is still questionable."

Rhade gave what Trance assumed to be Nietzschean-code for 'Ha'.

"She's doing much better," Trance noted aloud, changing the subject.

"I know," Rhade replied softly.

Trance looked at him, slightly shocked.

"What?"

"N-nothing I just…I just didn't really expect that you'd agree with me," Trance mumbled.

"I thought you knew how to expect everything," Rhade pried and leaned in a little closer to her.

"Not everything," Trance admitted and began to walk off, "If I did, Harper would be in the headlock."

Rhade stared at her disappearing back, the strange reddish-brown dreadlocks bounced behind her. Rhade shook his head in slightly amusement mixed with misunderstanding and turned to walk to where Harper was now rubbing his neck and head in pain and Beka stood with a triumphant smile on her face.

"That's what you get for meddling with matters of the heart, don't do it again," said Beka.

"R-right," Harper said.

The blonde little engineer looked up and saw Rhade staring down at him.

"She's right," Rhade shrugged, "Never again."

"Uh huh," Harper gulped and stumbled past him, out of the mess hall.

Rhade and Beka now stood together in a familiar silence.

"You know, I thought you were actually going to hurt him," said Rhade, breaking it.

"Naw…not too bad at least, he means too much to me," Beka admitted, sitting down, she motioned for him to join her.

"I figured," replied Rhade.

"Did you now? How?" she inquired with a sly smile on her face.

"Oh it was quite simple. He's not dead yet, so…" Rhade's voice trailed off and he returned her smile with one of his own.

Oh that smile.

Beka peered closely at him. His head was turned to the side, showing off his fantastic profile to her.

Oh no.

Beka blinked and then brought her eyes downcast. Not so soon, not after everything that had just happened so recently with Dylan. Beka scolded herself for even thinking of Rhade in any way other than a platonic one. As much as Beka liked to tell herself that the whole Dylan-incident had not affected her at all, she knew deep down it had. It had shown her how close she'd grown to the do-good Captain and that scared her. Beka didn't like to grow too close to anyone. She'd learned first hand what it was like to lose someone she loved, it happened to her throughout her life constantly, it always seemed like gloom and misery was out to get her.

And then she met Harper. And then Trance and Rev Bem. And soon there was Dylan and Telemachus Rhade and Rommie and…Tyr.

Beka scowled at the thought of how she'd felt for him then, and the exact opposite of those emotions which she held for the majority of the Nietzschean race. It was at that exact moment that Rhade turned his head to look at her and she almost burst into tears.

She couldn't see Telemachus Rhade anymore. Instead, she saw Tyr Anasazi, that loathsome, lying, betraying bastard who'd nearly dragged her into hell along with himself. And soon, Tyr's harsh and uncaring face turned into Dylan's soft, compassionate one. A face that had once stared up with her with uncontrollable lust running through it's darkened blue eyes.

And that when it hit her.

That's all it really had been. Lust. That's it, just lust. That's all he had acted upon.

The problem was that Beka couldn't tell what emotion had caused her to respond to him slightly.

"Beka?" Telemachus' face was his own again, and he stared down at Beka in a way she had never seen him look at her before.

Beka was taken out of her reverie like a baby snatched from it's mother. She felt like she was going to cry.

"I-I have to go…" Beka stood up and began to walk away from him but just before she left she turned around and looked at him pleadingly, "There's something I need to figure out."

Rhade nodded and then she left, leaving behind her a trail of loneliness that may just about have started to fade.