Part 4
For a few moments Beka and Harper had simply splashed around in the calm water, ducking each others heads under, and play fighting with gusto, before they both stopped to take in the area around them. "This water truly is amazing," Beka was forced to admit, it had felt so warm and soothing for the ten minutes she had been immersed in it.
"Didn't I say so," Harper boasted, and began to swim away.
Beka reached out and grabbed hold of his white tee shirt, preventing him swimming too far, before playfully beginning to try and wrestle it from him.
"Beka!" Harper protested loudly with a smile, as he tried to stop her efforts.
"You really don't need this on, Seamus," Beka grinned, as she gained an upper hand and managed to slip his shirt away from one of his arms. For all of Harper's struggles and wriggling, he was making Beka's job easier and finally she was victorious, as she snatched the shirt for over his head and waved it above her own. "Victory for Valentine!" she proclaimed, as Harper tried in vain to retrieve it. "Next, the pants," Beka declared.
"Hey, no fair!" Harper complained before rapidly moving away, and Beka had to admit that she had never pegged Harper as such a strong swimmer before now, but he could sure move through the water when he was in danger of losing his pants, as well as his shirt.
Giving chase, Beka wasn't quick enough to stop Harper leaving the water, and he was already putting on his boots again by the time she emerged from the water. Feeling the sharper chill of the air now against her wet skin, Beka reached for her boots and jacket, before throwing Harper's wet shirt at him.
To her surprise, as Beka got back to her feet having put her boots back on and then slinging her jacket over her shoulder, she noticed that Harper had just slung his own shirt over his shoulder. "You're not putting your shirt back on?" she questioned as casually as her voice allowed.
"No point, it's soaked and so am I," Harper offered calmly. "We better get back and get our dry clothes," he suggested with haste.
Beka picked up the rest of her stuff, and quickly moved beside Harper as they began their trek back to camp. "You were right, that was fun," Beka conceded, as she ran her hand through her hair and away from her face. The water had washed away all the grime, and actually made her feel fresher and more ready for the trek ahead of them.
"You just wanted to see me naked," Harper teased now, and with a smirk.
"Did not," Beka protested with a grin.
"Yeah, right, says the lady who was reaching for my pants, whilst I might add, holding my tee shirt victoriously just a few minutes ago," Harper gestured to the soaked shirt that he had slung over his shoulder, sounding a lot more like his usual self now. "You're lucky I didn't try to do the same to you," he added.
"You know I'd kill you if you tried," Beka stated confidently.
Harper just smirked, and they walked in silence for a while, before Beka turned to Harper again. "You miss being planet side don't you?"
Harper frowned, and then smiled. "What gave it away?"
"I don't know, your insanity over the past twenty-four hours, maybe?" Beka mocked. "Staying out in the rain, running off into a storm and then swimming with your clothes on," she further added but Harper said nothing, and just nodded his head in agreement with her observations.
After a few moments, Harper looked at Beka again. "Thanks for getting me out of the camp breakdown, I always feel like a little kid trying to help those two Goliaths with the heavy stuff," Harper finally acknowledged. "I only asked to go on this mission so I could see this forest, visit this place, I don't know why, it's not like I ever saw any forests on Earth."
"Maybe that's why you wanted to come here?" Beka questioned.
"I think it was initially the promise of the storm," Harper admitted fondly. "I used to watch so many cool storms back home, but I could never be a part of them, not like I was able to with the storm last night," Harper enthused excitedly now. "I used to just watch the ones of Earth, under cover, and wonder what it must feel like to have rain and wind crashing down on you, without the threat of losing your skin and your lungs."
"I guess you also couldn't go out and dive into a local river, or walk around without a shirt on, either," Beka pointed out, seeing the almost relaxed state that Harper was in now as a result, they were both still dripping wet from their dip.
"Walking around the Boston ghetto without a shirt on?" Harper gestured with mock horror. "That was like an open invitation for an uber to either beat you so they could sign their name on your unmarked skin, or hump you senseless, depending on their orientation," Harper stated, his voice lacking amusement now, and growing with bitterness, as his disgust became apparent.
"I didn't mean to bring back the bad memories," Beka quickly stated, sensing she had killed his mood once more.
"It's ok, Beka," Harper responded softly. "Maybe I've never mentioned it before but it is ok to ask me about my past, or remark on it, I'm not as weak as you make out I am, I can talk about this stuff and be ok about it."
"I don't think you're weak, Harper," Beka was quick to correct him.
"Feels like it sometimes," Harper offered, as they reached the clearing before the camp.
"I was accused earlier of being a mother hen," Beka sighed. "Harper I don't mean to mother you, but as your captain, you understand that I only have your best interests at heart, I mean we've been through so much together and I don't like seeing you get down on yourself, or hurt."
"I know," Harper agreed, as he scuffed his feet along the dirt of the forest floor. "In some ways it's nice to be mothered, spent a large part of my life being the one to lead or having to look out for myself, its kind of nice to have someone do that for me again, and I never really expected anyone to want to do that for me again."
"Seamus, maybe you don't realise it but you do need someone watching your back most of the time, you're a trouble magnet," Beka teased, and then smirked. "Is that why you make it easy for me to be seen as mothering you?" Beka smiled now, as she awaited his response.
"Maybe," Harper smiled as well. "Just remember that when I need to, I can actually survive for five minutes without you, I mean I haven't died yet, have I?"
"More luck than judgement," Beka mocked him now.
Harper then lightly laughed. "You know another reason why I wanted to come on this mission?"
"So much that you practically had Dylan tearing his hair out until you finally broke him, and he agreed?" Beka questioned. "No, tell me."
"Because the place we're going to is called Eden," Harper avoided Beka's gaze, as he stared ahead and continued walking.
"Why do I know that has some connection to Earth?" Beka asked, genuinely trying to remember the source.
"The Garden of Eden," Harper informed her. "An old Earth myth, dating back to when time began, and I guess when Earth looked a bit like this place."
"What was so special about it?" Beka asked.
"It was perfect, so the story went, the place of creation," Harper simply answered. "Just like this place, I guess I just had to be able to live life and say I had visited Eden," he laughed some more, sensing the ridiculousness of his reasoning.
"Technically, its full name is Edenia," Beka reminded him.
"Known locally as Eden," Harper was quick to point out. "A cut off community of nearly two thousand people who exist within high walls surrounding their settlement, keeping the threat of the universe away."
"Why they want to join the commonwealth is beyond me, seems they have enough protection of their own, their community live within a fortress," Beka idly remarked, as they saw the camp in the distance.
The communicator suddenly crackled into life in Beka's hand, and Dylan's voice was heard. "Where are you?"
"Turn forty-five degrees and you have your answer," Beka responded, and they both smiled as they saw Dylan turn, spotting their approach.
"Nice to see the captain is alert," Harper remarked, as Dylan began to approach to meet them.
"Beka, Harper," Dylan greeted, looking at the still soaked humans. "Good to see you two have been taking it easy, whilst the hard work was done."
"Freshened up," Beka simply responded.
"The chance to would have been nice, but right now we need to get going," Dylan ordered. "Your packs are awaiting you, and Harper put your shirt on, we don't want you getting sun stroke."
"With these trees?" Harper scoffed, seeing little of the sky with the looming branches above them.
"Just look presentable, we'll be reaching Edenia today if we make good progress and I don't want the first impressions to be a bad one," Dylan stated.
Harper considered Dylan's words, before responding. "And me wearing a shirt will make the difference?" he asked confused.
"Trust me," Dylan grinned, with amusement.
"Are you insulting me?" Harper had to ask, unsure, but reluctantly he still put the drying garment over his head to put it back on.
Rhade walked past. "That's better," he simply said, leaving both Beka and Dylan to suppress their laughter.
With annoyance Harper made a point of picking up his pack and walking on ahead, the others soon followed.
"He seems ok," Dylan remarked, keeping his distance as he walked beside Beka.
Beka nodded her head. "We went for a swim; I think it cleared his head."
"I'm glad," Dylan offered.
"We should keep an eye on him, the only reason he wanted to come on this mission was because of an old Earth tale about a place called Eden," Beka relayed. "Hardly a solid base for volunteering for something we're still not one hundred percent sure about."
"The Garden of Eden, I should have guessed," Dylan acknowledged. "I can see why this place has flipped him so much now."
"Garden of Eden, wasn't that the place that according to the story, humanity was born?" Rhade caught them up, catching the conversation. "I hope Harper's not getting any wild ideas about starting his own strain of humanity."
"Who knows," Beka smiled. "But that's why he's here."
"Well so long as we remember why we're here," Dylan pointed out. "These people want to explore and be integrated into the known worlds, and we need to find out why a cut off community suddenly want alliance with the Commonwealth."
"Something definitely is not right," Rhade agreed. "And we have to figure out better transport to this place, if it does open its doors to strangers."
"A two day hike, without any form of space wide communication is not convenient, agreed," Dylan stated. "But at the moment, it's the only way we have, so let's not hold it against them."
"I hate planets, Dylan, I deserve my grudge," Beka offered pointedly, and then looked ahead to Harper's back. "You know, Dylan, you're right, Harper is pretty able on this terrain."
"The original monkey boy," Rhade commented, seeing Harper moving effortlessly over the different levels of ground, avoiding the natural pitfalls that could easily have caused him to stumble. "He's in his natural environment."
"Rhade, his natural environment is the slums of Earth; nothing like this didn't you hear anything he said last night?" Beka snapped lightly.
"I was just joking, Beka," Rhade defended.
"Just don't, ok?" Beka returned. "Not when it comes to stuff like that, not whilst Harper is flipping like he is."
"Beka's right," Dylan agreed. "Try and keep your hobby of aggravating Harper to a minimum whilst we're down here."
"Most of the time he starts it," Rhade felt the need to point out.
"Well don't encourage it then," Dylan countered. "We need things to go smoothly down here, this planet could be a great outpost for the commonwealth and we do not want to jeopardise anything. These people are close knit, and untrusting of strangers, but they approached us so we need to show a united front."
"Maybe mention that to Harper before we get there?" Rhade advised, as they continued walking.
TBC