This was written as a christmas pressie for my fellow Cosmic Castaway - Jill, and she had kindly allowed me to share this here.
I had to start watching Atlantis to write this story, managed to catch only two so I hope you enjoy! It's a cross over between Andromeda and Atlantis - a 'when Harper met McKay...' story, as requested by Jill!
enjoy!
Meeting of Two Minds
Harper was busy. Yet no one on board the ship seemed to grasp this concept until he'd snapped at just about everyone.
"There's only one engineer on board at last count, Trance, why don't they get that?" Harper continued to fume, a few good hours later as he tried to work. The purple pixie just sat there, content to listen, pleased that Harper had yet to send her away the same way he'd sent everyone else packing.
"Fix this, fix that, I'm just human, just an engineer for freaks sake," Harper raged, engrossed in his work and Trance now suspected he was just ranting to keep himself motivated. Something appeared to be jammed deep within the physical mechanism of the engine coils, and he was putting all his weight behind shifting it.
"Damn!" Harper quickly stumbled back and rolled his shoulder a few times, as if in pain as he paced the deck away from Trance.
"What's wrong?" Trance asked with concern.
"Nothing," Harper snapped, before turning back to Trance who was now pouting. He still held his shoulder as he relaxed slightly. "Sorry, I don't mean to be so grouchy, but you'll be glad to know I fixed the heating so your plants won't suffer," he offered with a tired smile.
"Let me look at your shoulder," Trance smiled brightly.
"It's ok, nothing serious, just tweaked a muscle or something," Harper was quick to dismiss, rolling his shoulder again to show it was functional.
Trance ignored his analysis and put her hands on his shoulder to gently massage the pain that he did feel away, slightly. With a slight grimace, Harper began to appreciate the manipulations, and eased into her hold.
With a glint in her eye, Trance lightly blew on Harper's shoulder and a small ray of golden light escaped her lips and smothered the sore area on the human's body.
"You are good," Harper enthused, oblivious to the light that had aided his recovery, putting his now less aching shoulder down purely to Trance's hands. "You want anything fixing you just have to ask, ok?" Harper then offered.
"Really?" Trance enthused. "Anything?"
"Of course my purple princess, anything," Harper was too blissful to see the look of sudden hope on Trance's face behind him.
"My sister needs help."
Harper spun around and faced the purple beauty. "You have a sister?"
"That's irrelevant," Trance stated. "Will you help her?"
"Sure," Harper seemed unsure but his words said otherwise.
"You have to trust me," Trance then warned. "Things won't make sense for a while, but you just have to focus on the problem and everything will make sense."
"Trance, when it comes to you nothing has ever made sense, I'm used to that now, so go on, let your sister know the Harper man is on his way to help, so long as Dylan doesn't mind," Harper quickly stated.
"Dylan doesn't need to know, they won't even notice you've gone," Trance beamed brightly.
"Come again?" Harper said before suddenly there was a flash of light and in a blink of an eye, Harper stumbled to the ground but he was no longer on the Andromeda.
"Hello?" Harper called out. The room was some sort of engineering environment but not like anything he had seen before. "Trance, quit this, it isn't funny," Harper then called out, as he got to his feet.
"Who the hell are you?"
Harper spun around and saw another guy, he looked human with dark hair, and he looked less than pleased to see him as he continued to rant.
"Great, here I am trying to figure out where the hell I am and some joker turns up looking like he's lost his way to the beach!" the irate man turned around and walked up to a console.
"You speak Earth's language," Harper then realised.
"I speak English, or some variation of it, personally I prefer to say I speak Canadian," the man briefly smiled but there was no warmth in it.
"You're from Earth!" Harper exclaimed brightly. "Canada, that's an old Earth country, right?"
The man turned with a frown, clearly not as excited by Harper's deductions as he was. "You are an excitable little man, and simple with it, but right now, not helping, so kindly shut up and get out of my sight and let the grown ups work out how to fix things."
"Hey, I can fix things," Harper instantly protested, moving forward with purpose.
"I'm sure when I need my surf board re-waxed I'll come a running," the man flippantly responded, and gestured to the loud Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants Harper's wore.
Harper now stood there open mouthed in reaction, unsure exactly how to take this man. "Who the hell are you? You don't sound like any Earther I know," Harper then questioned.
"I could say the same, but I'd be lying, you sound like those bums that spend all day lying on sand in the sun wasting their lives away for ridiculous thrills, pointlessly getting wet and calling it fun," the man sniped, not even bothering to look up. "I am right, right, you do surf?"
"Well, yeah," Harper reluctantly revealed. "But that's not the point here, wherever here is!"
"It's not the beach, I can tell you that much," the man returned, as he moved to another console, he then stopped at looked at Harper. "My name is McKay, I work for, actually not important, way above your head no doubt."
Harper narrowed his eyes, not getting the guys problem but he didn't want to give this McKay guy any more ammo. "Harper, I work for me, myself and I, on the most kick ass warship this galaxy has."
"You work?" McKay questioned patronisingly, completely ignoring all other references Harper had made.
"Multi-talented, maybe if you unstuck your head from your ass long enough you'd stop judging me on first impressions," Harper returned. "So, McKay, what's the problem here and where the hell is here?"
"You wouldn't understand, on both counts," McKay dismissed again.
"Try me," Harper stressed.
"I hardly expect someone who can barely speak will be able to comprehend the complexity of this task, so just find a place to sit, and if you brought a comic book, bonus for you, and let me work," McKay ordered with a wave of his hand, still focused on the console.
"Look, it's been a while since I've had to speak the kludge language, ok?" Harper stressed. "If you're so smart why don't you speak common?"
"Common?" McKay looked puzzled for the first time. "Do I look common to you?" he asked flippantly.
"Yeah, common, you can't survive off Earth without knowing common, and if you're so smart you'd know that, it's the Vedran language," Harper answered oblivious to McKay's reference.
"Are you doing drugs too?" McKay quickly reasserted his attitude.
"How long have you been here?" Harper changed the topic quickly.
"A few hours," McKay answered tiredly now. "A flash of light, complete room change, and here I was, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven until you showed up," McKay glibly spoke and looked around. "This tech is something else, and it'll take me a while to completely decode it, but don't worry your simple little head I know enough to solve this problem if given the time."
"So what's the problem, maybe I can help?" Harper casually asked again, as he moved to the console now. "Maybe I will have to jack into the system to find out?"
"Jack in?" McKay stated with a smirk. "What's that, some cooler term for hacking in?"
"I'm no hack," Harper snapped and gestured to his neck. "I can JACK in though," he emphasised.
"What the hell is that?" McKay jumped back with alarm. "What the hell did you do to your neck?"
"Excuse me?" Harper questioned the man's reaction. "It's a data port, dumb ass; any engineer worth his salt has one."
"Not where I come from," McKay quickly answered, still alarmed.
"We're both from Earth, didn't we already establish that?" Harper now moved to the console and began bringing up the specs. "Though I'm beginning to doubt that you actually are from Earth."
"Hey, don't doubt me when you're the freak with that thing in his neck," McKay sniped.
"Don't call me a freak when you only speak kludge, and seem to think anyone from Earth has the luxury of bumming around on a beach all day," Harper snapped back. "I mean, how ridiculous is that with all the radiation around for a start?"
"Oh you're a greenie," McKay then figured.
"A what?" Harper turned to him with confusion.
"Save the world, the pollution will kill us kind a guy, a hippy," McKay stated, as if the penny had finally dropped. "Explains the way you dress, kind of," he looked Harper up and down.
Harper could only look more confused in response. "Pollution does kill us, has killed Earth, that and the Magog and Nietzscheans but can we not go there, I still think fondly of Earth even if it is a hell hole slave planet," Harper heard a tool being dropped and turned to the open mouthed McKay. "What now? Don't tell me you're one of those collaborator kids that never saw the crap?"
"I thought you were doing drugs before but now I know," McKay simply stated and backed away, holding the rapidly picked up tool like a weapon.
"Hey," Harper gestured defensively, as McKay continued to back away. "As I see it, we're both in a place neither of us recognise, and two heads are better than one," Harper offered.
"You're not on drugs?" McKay asked.
"Are you?" Harper returned.
"No."
"Ditto," Harper answered and turned back to the console to take his first look at the workings of the room they were in. "I'm so going to kick Trance's butt when I see her."
McKay stepped closer, still cautious of the stranger. "What are you doing there?" he asked.
"Finding the blue-print, the layout, always the best place to start in any project of the unknown," Harper offered brightly. "But I'm guessing you were already looking for," Harper turned to the console as a clear flexi-sheet emerged from the console. "This?"
"Give me that!" McKay grabbed for the plans, but Harper was quicker and moved them away despite McKay's continued attempts, before beginning to read them.
"We're in the centre of a sphere," Harper figured, once McKay had stopped trying to wrestle the sheet from him.
"Like a sun?"
"Exactly like a sun, freaking hell this is the centre of a sun!" Harper realised.
"I always thought they were a big ball of mass energy," McKay looked around unsure.
Harper had to smirk. "If it wasn't enough that the crew expect me to fix a whole damn warship on my own, now Trance has me fixing suns?" he exclaimed with mock horror.
"You really work on a warship?" McKay was forced to ask.
"Yes," Harper answered quickly and moved back to the console. "And I need to jack in. Do you understand the basics of the system?"
"Yeah," McKay felt unsure now as he watched the youngster pull a cord from his cargo pants, and insert one end into the console, then watched with horror as he inserted the other end into his neck. "That's just sick, do you realise that's sick? It makes me feel sick just watching, oh no, don't please, don't do that to yourself," McKay protested as Harper slowly sunk into the mainframe, and his body slumped.
"Can you hear me?"
"Whoa!" McKay jumped and then looked around. "Where are you?"
"In the system, look it's just like submersing yourself into a VR environment, you are familiar with that right?" Harper's voice projected from the console.
"Of course I am," McKay spat, his arrogance quickly returning. "So you're in the system, but you're not," McKay looked at Harper's unconscious form. "No, really, I can deal with that, that's not freaking me out at all, that's fine," McKay spoke quickly, as he checked the read-outs now forming on the screen that Harper was manipulating from within. "Whoa, Harper, wait up, go back a bit."
Harper moved back along the stream he'd been checking, having logically begun his search in the system's maintenance files.
"That's it, that's what I was trying to find!" McKay exclaimed excitedly. "There's the problem."
"I don't see it, what are you seeing?" Harper asked confused.
"The stutter, come on, boy wonder, surely you see the stutter?" McKay gestured to the screen thinking it would help his case.
"Stutter?" Harper questioned from deep within the system, his voice carrying amusement. "Systems don't stutter, technology does not stutter, not since nano tech, stutter just doesn't happen."
"Nano tech?" McKay questioned patronisingly.
"Yeah, nano tech, sheesh even Trance grasps what nano tech is," Harper mocked.
"Is nano tech present in this system, boy wonder?" McKay stood his ground.
Harper was silent for a moment before answering. "No," he finally came back.
"And do I take it that you still find my diagnosis wrong?" McKay mocked defensively. "Then maybe explain this, boy wonder."
McKay activated the problem file with ease and the action made the entire system jump. Seconds later a loud scream sounded, as Harper rapidly disconnected from the main frame and rubbed his neck in shock.
"Ow!"
"So, stutter is still ruled out?" McKay asked smugly.
"And you call me sick," Harper dismissed still rubbing his neck, as he gingerly got to his feet. "So ok, this system is ancient, like you, so it must be the stutters causing the system to fail."
"And now watch boy wonder, as I correct the fault and return this, whatever it really is," McKay gestured.
"A sun," Harper reminded him.
McKay didn't seem happy to acknowledge that as he paused before continuing. "I will return full power to a sun, even though I refuse to believe a sun is powered on batteries."
"It's not powered on batteries," Harper shook his head, but showed amusement now in his expression. "Suns are huge amounts of energy, they don't need energy."
"Solar power?" McKay considered.
"Exactly," Harper agreed. "Now are you going to fix it or prance around some more with declarations of your own brilliance?"
"I do not prance!" McKay shot back.
"Do you want me to take a look at it?" Harper offered cockily.
"I can fix it!" McKay returned sharply, and then focused on his work.
"Not without my help you couldn't, you'd have been here for days locating that file," Harper remarked.
"I'd have found it," McKay answered.
"No, you wouldn't," Harper confidently returned. "Not if you don't know common, the file was locked within a Vedran code block."
"Well you wouldn't have known there was a problem with that file, because you failed to recognise a stutter," McKay responded.
"I didn't fail to recognise it, I just wouldn't have looked for that," Harper shrugged.
"Ha, which makes me the more competent engineer out of the two of us," McKay exclaimed with joy.
"So I'm not some simple beach bum now?" Harper mocked. "You wound me."
McKay stood awkwardly. "Ok, I misjudged you, but I was stressed."
Harper shrugged. "So is it fixed?"
"Let's see," McKay hit the command prompt and around them the room came to life in a blaze of light. A huge smile crossed McKay's face, as he bathed in the sudden light and he turned to Harper, appreciating the smaller guys help finally. "Hey, how bout we go for a beer or something?" McKay offered.
"Yeah, sounds-" Harper was cut off as in a flash of sudden light, Harper disappeared.
"Aw come on, it's not often I act so generous," McKay protested but in another flash, he disappeared as well.
"Harper?"
"Trance?"
Harper suddenly sat up, having found that he was lying on the deck with Trance by his side.
"I think you're exhausted," Trance offered. "You just collapsed, and I was very scared that you had hurt yourself."
"Your sister, did I help?" Harper then thought to ask.
"My sister?" Trance offered a warm smile. "I don't have a sister, I think you must have hit your head when you fell, you should get some rest, then maybe Rev can take a look at you."
"Trance you asked me to help," Harper protested, as Trance helped him to his feet.
"Harper, you always help me, and you've never failed me," Trance responded, and as she walked with Harper her hand rested on the back of Harper's neck, omitting a small golden glow.
"Actually, I think I did black out," Harper then offered unsure. "I don't remember falling, in fact I don't remember much after fixing the heating systems."
"We should go and see Rev," Trance offered.
"Have I over done it again?" Harper asked wearily.
"Yes, Harper," Trance agreed. "And thank you."
"Thank you? What for?" Harper asked confused.
"For sorting out the heating problem."
"Oh, yeah, of course, the heating, I fixed that," Harper then smiled and looked at Trance. "This universe would never survive without me."
"It sure wouldn't, and I only hire the best," Trance then secretly smiled.