Part 5

The weight of ten or more dead creatures was bad enough, but the smell made it worse. Seamus Harper couldn't move, and his body felt numb under the mass of bodies. He desperately needed and wanted to cough, but he forced himself not too, not willing to risk the repercussions, so instead his breathing was laboured and he felt light headed.

"Harper!"

Harper blinked his eyes, and then focused on listening and containing any joy at hearing the familiar voice.

"Harper!"

"Doyle!" Harper yelled, pleased that the need to cough had subsided and he heard the trap door above creak open. With bodies literally covering him, he shouted again so Doyle could locate him.

Soon enough he felt the pressure on top of him subside, as Doyle made easy work of removing the bodies. Gasping now as he took in a full lungful of air, Harper felt his upper body being lifted up and into an embrace as Doyle hugged him tight. The pain in his shoulder then kicked in as he tensed and tried not to scream out.

"What's wrong?" Doyle was quick to react.

"Shoulder, hurts," Harper strained.

"It's dislocated," Doyle soon accessed, by just looking. "Tell me how you got down here," Doyle then spoke as she put both her hands on his injured shoulder.

"Those freaks, they communicated with me, they were protecting me," Harper began with a pained expression, and didn't notice when Doyle suddenly put pressure on his shoulder and he screamed out as she put the joint back in. Holding him close again, Doyle waited until Harper was able to speak. "Sheesh, some warning next time?" he managed. "Maybe those freaks were right that I needed protecting," he complained between heavy breaths.

"I couldn't warn you, it would have hurt more," Doyle simply said. "You were saying?" she prompted.

"Doesn't matter," Harper looked around the small area and saw it littered with the dead bodies of his creations.

"It's over, Harper," Doyle then spoke. "You no longer have to stay here, the tech police are gone, disbanded, and your friends did that."

"Gone?" Harper checked. "The ban on tech?"

"Gone," Doyle partly smiled.

"I'm free?" Harper tried to comprehend the news. "What about Marika?"

"What about her?" Doyle was quick to ask. "Harper, you no longer have to stay here and she can't make you."

"I know, but," Harper shrugged as much as his sore shoulder allowed.

"No buts, Harper," Doyle stressed. "She hurts you and enjoys it, you're not staying here." Harper seemed at odds, and Doyle wanted to hit him with the frustration she felt. "Harper, you don't have to put up with Marika anymore."

"What else can I do?" Harper then asked.

"Sembler's offer remains open," Doyle suggested.

"Run a bar?" Harper seemed sceptical. "Doyle, I'm a scientist, an engineer, one of the best and you say I should leave all this to run a small town bar?"

"You want to stay?" Doyle asked, as she helped Harper to his feet.

"I don't know," Harper looked conflicted.

With his shirt already ripped Doyle had no trouble reaching around and placing her hand under the torn shirt and straight onto Harper's back, twisting him around quickly so he was now pressed against the stone wall.

"Ow!" Harper protested, her hand easily aggravating the damage to his back.

"Do you like pain?"

"No," Harper answered angrily.

"So why do you want to stay, when she does this to you?" Doyle asked.

"I don't want to stay for that, I want to stay for the science," Harper stressed.

"I don't believe you," Doyle sharply returned.

"What?" Harper spun around, as Doyle let him go. "You can't say that, what the hell is happening around here?" Harper's patience had gone, it had been bad enough that his creatures had learnt to communicate, but now Doyle was accusing him of lying?

Doyle looked at him quizzically. "What do you mean I can't say that? You think I should agree with everything you say?"

"Yes," Harper answered before thinking, then remembered his secret, the one he never wanted her to find out. "I mean no, I mean you're suppose to be my friend," he quickly offered, avoiding her gaze.

"I'm trying to be, Harper, why do you think I want you to leave?" Doyle stressed, and when Harper failed to respond she moved closer. "You're my best friend, Harper and I hate to see you get hurt, I feel protective of you, I care so please understand why I want you to leave with me."

"You're leaving?" Harper then asked, catching her drift whilst desperately trying to hide his confusion.

"I'm not staying here, not now we are all free," Doyle stated.

"What if I stay?"

"I don't want you to, but if you do then I guess we'll have to promise to keep in touch," Doyle shrugged now.

"You can't leave, Doyle, this is your home," Harper argued, just stopping himself from saying she wasn't programmed to 'want' to leave.

Doyle looked around the rocky walls, her memories of her life before arriving at Marika's base were still absent, but she knew she didn't belong there. "I need to find my home, Harper, this isn't it and it never was, just like it's not really yours."

"I can't return home, not to any of them," Harper sighed. "I consider this my home now."

Doyle walked over to the ladder and began to climb it, and Harper followed. When they reached the top, Harper saw the true devastation of what he had missed.

"This place really got turned over," Harper spoke with shock. Equipment was destroyed and bodies of the guards were sprawled all over the place.

"Harper!"

Harper turned and saw a battered looking Marika, blood still evident about her.

"Don't Harper, please, just walk away," Doyle requested behind him. "Come with me."

Harper felt torn, he didn't want Doyle to leave but seeing Marika in pain, he needed to know she was alright.

"She doesn't care, Harper," Doyle stressed.

Harper closed his eyes, knowing Marika and Doyle were now in a silent battle of wills, both wanting to have him side with them. Harper knew Marika was no saint, she had hurt him many times but he'd never felt about a woman the way he felt about her. Harper also knew that Doyle wasn't real; she was someone he had built, something he had needed to do. He felt torn purely because he had built Doyle to be his voice of reason when it came to Marika, and it pained him to hear what he needed to hear, Harper knew he had to walk away and leave Marika but he wasn't moving.

"Harper," Marika almost purred.

"Marika, so glad you're ok," Harper enthused.

"Everything has gone," Marika gestured. "I have nothing now."

"You still have me," Harper tried to console her brightly. "I'm only a little damaged," he tried to joke but Marika wasn't smiling.

"See what you can retrieve, what we can salvage," Marika then ordered. "Least now that we don't have the threat of the tech police we might be able to get some real work done around here."

Harper nodded his head, eager to follow the orders but when he turned to speak to Doyle, she was already gone.

"Doyle?" Harper called out, in the hope that she had only just left but he feared she was already gone.

"Forget about her now, Harper, we need to focus on us, and our future," Marika stepped up beside him. "We need to get to work."

Beka cautiously walked into the bar and immediately saw that she was the last one to arrive, and she took the final seat at the table.

"Any news?" Beka asked.

"Nothing," Dylan returned, knowing what she was referring to. "It's looking more and more likely that the first reports were true, the base and all inside was destroyed."

"I don't believe it," Beka stated defiantly, her expression hard as she stared at Dylan.

"Trance?" Dylan turned his attention to the golden alien.

With a shrug Trance could only show her uncertainty before speaking. "I do know that we need to work as one to bring unity, but I am unsure if that unity has been disturbed."

"Why can't we go and find out for ourselves?" Beka asked.

"And waste more time?" Rhade chipped in. "We need to get out of this system before it kills any more of us!"

"Harper is not dead!" Beka stressed. "And if we can get the Andromeda moving again isn't he the one person we need on board to get her going?"

"He's not interested even if he is still alive, and if he was interested then he wouldn't have been at that base to get killed," Rhade returned, before taking a gulp of his drink. "He's not the sort of man we should be wasting time on, or relying on."

"And you are?" Beka returned pointedly.

"You know what I mean, how could you have forgotten already, so easily dismiss what he did to Rommie?" Rhade asked.

"Ok, enough," Dylan spoke up before Beka could speak. "We don't have the resources to go, that whole area is still too dangerous with the rebels to go and see for ourselves," Dylan offered to Beka before turning to Rhade. "And Rhade, I'd appreciate your thoughts staying in your head until you can think about what you're saying."

Rhade dismissed Dylan's words with a shrug, and leaned back in his chair as the others looked on, and for a moment nothing was said.

"So where is Harper, if he did somehow worm his way out of death?" Rhade asked flippantly.

"He's with her."

Everyone looked up at the new voice and to their obvious amazement they saw Doyle at the entrance to the bar, close to where they were seated.

"He's alive?" Beka asked with hope. "I mean you're alive and we were told you had all been killed."

"Harper, Marika, and myself, we all survived," Doyle simply said before moving to the bar, seemingly disinterested in continuing the conversation.

"I knew it," Beka quietly smiled, turning back to the group sat at the table.

"Why is he still with this Marika lady?" Rhade asked. "I thought we'd done all that fighting so he could be free?"

"You're right," Dylan agreed, and glanced at Doyle who was stood at the bar now speaking to Sembler, but before Dylan could get up to go and talk to her, Sembler raised his voice enough for them to hear.

"He's what?" Sembler demanded. "He's free and he chose to stay with that bitch?"

"Please," Doyle hissed, aware of the scene Sembler was creating.

"Maybe I did over estimate his intelligence," Sembler was clearly fuming. "What the hell is he thinking?"

"He loves her," Doyle simply said.

Dylan turned to his friends, seeing the shock and surprise registering on their faces.

"I can't compete with that, none of us can," Doyle simply continued, and turned to leave but before she could make it to the door Dylan stood up to intercept her. He checked her expression, and saw that Doyle was strangely calm, when he had expected some emotion. "What do you want?" Doyle finally asked.

"Sit with us," Dylan requested.

"I have no business here," Doyle answered and tried to move past the high guard captain.

"Please," Dylan gestured to his chair. "We need to know about our friend."

"Your friend?" Doyle smirked. "He wants nothing to do with any of you, he didn't come with me because he claims he has no home other than those caves with that woman," she stressed. "He chose Marika because he believes he has no one else, not even me."

"Sit down, please," Dylan asked again, and with only a slight hesitation, Doyle sat down.

Dylan found another seat and settled down, before looking at Doyle. "Are you and Harper, in any way?" Dylan prompted.

"No, we're good friends but no more," Doyle answered. "I really care about him, and he's helped me a lot since I got amnesia. I have no recollection of any time before I met him, and he has always been there for me. Am I in love with him?" Doyle questioned herself. "Yes, but its not a romantic love, I feel very protective of him, he looks after me and I've tried to return that but lately, he's been listening to me less and less, Marika has him where she wants him."

"Harper looks after you?" Rhade questioned, hiding a smirk.

"He's my best friend," Doyle returned, seemingly oblivious to Rhade's amusement.

"But he chose to stay with Marika," Beka now questioned. "What is it, some twisted love affair? Just the other day you were telling me Marika had Harper as her prisoner and you never mentioned love."

Doyle took a moment to collect her thoughts before speaking. "It's not returned, Harper has feelings for Marika, but she couldn't care less about him."

"Sound's like Harper's love life," Rhade remarked.

"How can he lust after a woman you told me likes to torture him?" Beka asked with a frown.

"Not sure we should go there," Rhade stated, and finished his beer before he ordered a fresh one. "Each to their own I think the saying goes."

"It's not like that," Doyle returned. "I thought maybe it might be but I think he genuinely thinks it will stop when she realises her feelings for him."

"But that will never happened," Beka stated. "Love is blind."

"I don't think it will, and I'm not sure he'll listen to anyone until the day she finally goes too far," Doyle sighed, and looked down. "Those caves are not good for him, he keeps getting ill, and I just wish he'd left when he had the chance," Doyle looked away. "I knew that once he saw Marika looking so helpless I had lost him," she finally spoke with sadness.

"Harper has this in built ability to move on, it's his survival tactic," Beka spoke, as if from experience.

"He's never been one to cling onto his past," Dylan observed.

"Outwardly," Beka corrected. "Inwardly, whole different situation and that's why this time we have to make him stop and think about what he's pushing away, he can't pretend we don't exist, or that none of us matter to him, not this time, we won't let him forget any of us," Beka motioned to Doyle. "He has to see that he can't keep walking away."

"Rommie," Trance then spoke up. "He's cut up about Rommie, more than we probably gave him credit for, and we only serve to remind him of what he has lost, and he can't deal with that."

"And the solution to his grief is not to give himself to this Marika woman," Beka stressed.

Rhade got to his feet, clearly at odds. "Will you listen to yourselves?" Rhade gestured. "Harper is not worth any of this, and if he wants to shack up with that evil bit on the side then let him, jeez the guy deserves whatever happiness his twisted little mind can afford him so just forget about him."

"Such a romantic," Beka sniped at Rhade, and got to her feet to match him. "But don't you dare tell me Harper isn't worth it again, because when he does see sense and he gets us closer to leaving this system, you'll be the one we'll forget about, lying in your drunken stupor in the corner!"

"Will you two pack it in?" Dylan ordered, and watched as both Rhade and Beka sat down again, whilst glaring at each other.

Silence returned again before Trance sat forward and looked at Doyle. "What did you mean when you said Harper keeps getting ill?" Trance asked.

Doyle felt a little uncomfortable now sat with the group, she was at odds as to whether they actually liked Harper or not, but she now saw that Beka was different to her first impressions, and seemed to actually care a little about Harper, giving her some hope.

Seeing Trance still waiting for an answer she spoke up. "I'm not sure, he becomes weak and finds it hard to breath, gets a bad cough," Doyle remembered the symptoms. "Usually it's bad when he's been taken to the lower caves, where Marika likes to torture; I think it's the poor air down there."

"The Gorgorum virus is still in his system," Beka frowned. "The stress of the torture must cause it to activate," she tried not to think too hard about the cause.

"Sounds like the symptoms," Dylan agreed.

"What is that?" Doyle asked.

"He never said anything?" Beka checked and Doyle shook her head. "It's a virus he caught just over a year ago," Beka remembered.

"To Harper it would be four years ago," Dylan remarked, before Beka continued.

"It's a nasty strength sapping virus that takes a while to leave the system, roughly five years and flairs up at times of stress or worry," Beka finished.

"That certainly fits," Doyle realised. "Why didn't he tell me about this?"

"Harper's never been in the business of making sense," Rhade remarked.

"What else hasn't he told me?" Doyle then asked.

Beka frowned. "Maybe he didn't think it was worth mentioning, it doesn't sound like that virus is here in the Seefra system, or maybe he didn't make the connection?" she offered.

"Never changes," Rhade mocked. "Even when one day you claim to hate him, the next day you'll still cover for him."

"What is your problem?" Beka snapped.

"My problem? Is your problem, let the tiny twisted poor excuse even for a kludge go and do us all a favour," Rhade stressed, finishing his drink he then left the bar with anger.

With the stunned silence that follow, Dylan looked at each other the people still sat with him, seeing they were just as shocked by the Nietzscean's outburst. "Well, I guess we know Rhade's feelings on the subject."

"I prefer Nietzschens when they're tall dark and brooding," Beka remarked, with her arms crossed. "Drunk and hysterical just doesn't work for me."

"I want to help Harper, but I'm not sure how," Doyle then offered.

"Stick with us," Beka offered. "Forget what the uber said; if we can find a way to help Harper we will, trust me," she smiled, and gave Doyle some hope.

TBC