Guess what? I decided that I wasn't done with Harper, so here's more. Plus, since there's the interest, I figured I'd continue. So here's the second chapter; hope it doesn't disappoint.

I don't own Harper, as much as it saddens me, or any of the other characters from Andromeda. I do however own the plot of this story. If I mess things up, I'm sorry; I've only seen episodes from the third season and read about the earlier episodes, so I'm probably not as well-versed in the series as the rest of you. Anyway, enjoy, and tell me what you think.

For the first time in his short life, Harper was happy. He had all the food he could possibly want (as long as Bobby wasn't in the room), a bed to sleep on (even if he did still prefer the floor), a job he loved (Becka had offered him the job of ship's engineer on the Maru, and he had jumped at the chance), and no one beat on him for no reason (unless he wasn't done with the task at hand fast enough; then Bobby would be on him like white on rice, as the saying went, but those cases didn't count, 'cuz he deserved it). All in all, a good deal. It had been a few weeks since Becka found him, and he had finally started to relax a little bit. He still wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, and flinched away whenever someone touched him, even if it was purely by accident, but he was improving.

Currently, he was working on the slipdrive. It was broken, again, and Harper was the only one on board who knew how to fix it. He was soldering wires together, completely focused, when he felt like someone was staring at him. He turned around slowly, and saw Bobby lounging against the wall about three feet from him. He turned back to his work, against every instinct ignoring the man's presence. Maybe he was there to watch, maybe he wanted to learn how to do it himself, maybe he was bored. Who was he kidding? There was only one reason Bobby would be there; he was impatient, and Harper obviously wasn't finished as soon as Bobby thought he should be.

Without warning, Bobby took a few steps closer, ending up right behind Harper, which caused him to jump involuntarily. "How's it coming?" Bobby asked, faking politeness.

"Umm, a-a-almost done," Harper stuttered, resisting the urge to cringe. It would only piss Bobby off further. His hands were shaking, causing him to miss the wire and burn his fingers. He swore, and immediately regretted it. "What did you say to me?" Bobby asked, his voice rising.

"N-nothing," Harper said, hoping that Bobby would drop it and knowing he wouldn't. He put his fingers in his mouth, trying to soothe the burns.

"No, it wasn't 'n-nothing'," he said, mocking Harper. "You called me something, and I want to know what it was."

"I didn't call you anything," Harper said quietly, knowing that nothing he said would satisfy Bobby.

"You lying kludge! I heard you; don't try to play dumb!" Bobby was now extremely annoyed, and was turning a bright shade of purple. In other circumstances it would have been funny, but Harper wasn't laughing. He was too busy looking for an exit. He didn't find one, so he backed up as far as he could, distancing himself from Bobby. He brandished his soldering iron like a weapon, years of instinct kicking into action.

Bobby advanced on him. "Oh, so now you're going to attack me? You ungrateful piece of shit!" He picked up a screwdriver that Harper had left on the floor and advanced until Harper couldn't retreat any further. "I'll teach you some respect," Bobby said, his voice threatening. He grabbed Harper by the shirt and threw him across the room, where he hit a pile of boxes and tumbled to the floor. Bobby stalked across the room, the screwdriver still in his hand. Harper struggled to stand, but Bobby was on him before he made much progress. Bobby grabbed him by the throat, pulling him up into a standing position. He forced the screwdriver into Harper's data port, causing Harper to twitch and yell. When Harper's struggles subsided, Bobby dropped his unconscious form, kicking him before he stomped out of the room.

Becka was going down to the engine room to check on Harper's progress when she heard yelling and the sound of something hitting the wall coming from the direction she was traveling in. She picked up the pace, afraid of what she would find. She got to the engine room, and was almost knocked down by Bobby leaving the room, obviously furious. She stopped him. "What's going on?"

He glared at her. "What's going on? I'll tell you what's going on. That damn kludge is the most disrespectful thing I've ever met. He needs to go, Becka. I'm serious."

Becka gave him a quizzical look. "Why, what did he do?"

Bobby snorted. "What didn't he do is more like it. He still hasn't finished the slipdrive, and he had the nerve to swear at me when I asked him about it. Plus, the damn kid tried to attack me. Ungrateful little…" The rest was cut off, but Becka got the picture.

She pushed past him into the room, and was shocked to see Harper's pale and unconscious form in the corner. She walked over to him, and shook him a few times, but he didn't respond. He looked dead, which worried her. She reached down and felt his pulse. He was still alive, thank the Divine. She spun around and stormed over to Bobby. "What the hell did you do to him, and why. I want answers, now."

He put his hands up, trying to avoid responsibility. "Hey, he was the one threatening me. Plus, he's just a mudfoot; what does it matter? He can take it. Hell, he's probably survived worse."

"Don't care. What did you do." She was sick of his bullshit.

"Why don't you ask him when he wakes up? Also, you might want to give him a lecture on respect. We are providing him food and shelter; the least he could do is act like it." With that, he stormed down the hallway, probably to the mess hall to get a beer.

Becka went back into the engine room, and bent down next to Harper. She looked at him closer. He was beginning to bruise, huge handprints showing on his forearms from where Bobby had grabbed him. The bottom of his shirt had lifted during whatever had happened, revealing huge angry looking bruises on his side as well. She sighed. What was Bobby's problem? It's not like Harper was really much of a threat; he was still too skinny, despite the steady diet of high protein foods Becka had been feeding him to get his weight up, and Bobby outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Plus, Harper was still too skittish to actually stand up for himself, so if Bobby had been pushing him around, she doubted he would fight back.

As she examined him for more injuries, she noticed the dark ring around his dataport. She wasn't sure what it was for a moment, but then she realized that Bobby had most likely put something in it that didn't belong there. No wonder he was unconscious; whatever it was had closed the circuit, sending probably hundreds of volts directly into his brain. She had to get him to med deck, immediately.

She carried him to med deck, surprised at how light he was. She placed him on the bed, hooking him up to the various machines that would monitor his vitals. Man, she really needed a medic. She only knew the basic stuff, not anything complex. And with Harper's immune system, she would need someone who did know that kind of stuff. She made a mental note to look into it at the next drift they stopped at.

She carefully removed Harper's shirt, trying to be as gentle as she could; she needed to see the extent of his injuries. He moaned a little, and she shushed him, assuring him that everything was alright. Not that he can hear me, she commented to herself.

The bruises continued from his side to his thin chest, slowly turning an ugly purple. His pale skin made them stand out even more, making him look like a corpse laid out on a table for an autopsy. She shivered at the thought, burying it; now was not the time for such morbid thoughts. As she continued to inspect him for injuries, she saw countless scars, covering his entire back, making her shudder. The things he had been through; were those whip marks? They had to be; that was the only thing she could think of that would make those long raised marks. And that wasn't the only type of scar; she could see smaller ragged horizontal scars on his abdomen and side, as if someone had stabbed him with a knife. And he had survived, on a world with very limited medical facilities. It was a miracle he had lasted this long.

According to the machines, he was going to be fine; his brain function hadn't been damaged by the electricity, thank the Divine, and his heart rate was normal, if a little elevated. He wasn't even running a fever, which surprised Becka, since Harper invariably was.

Harper stirred. He carefully opened his eyes, instantly on alert for danger, but upon seeing Becka he relaxed. "Hey, look who's awake," Becka said lightly.

"Yup, that I am," Harper responded, closing his eyes again. "Man, I have the worst headache…"

Becka laughed. "Yeah, I bet you do. You're lucky your brain didn't get fried."

Harper chuckled. "I'm not so sure it didn't." The laughter turned into coughing, sobering the conversation immediately.

"So, what was the deal with you and Bobby? I heard his side of it, but somehow I think he left a few things out."

Harper hesitated. He didn't want to tell her; hell, everything he had learned from the Camps was telling him to keep quiet. Back there, ratting someone out was fatal; you were liable to end up with a knife between your ribs the minute you fell asleep. And with the Übers it was worse; you'd be severely punished for badmouthing any of them, anything from whipping to acid burns; basically, if it was horrible and painful, they'd do it. But Becka was looking at him intently, all but begging him to tell her what had happened. Maybe it would be okay if he told her; she had proven to be much more accepting and forgiving of the things he did. Laying caution to the wind, he decided to tell what had actually happened. "I'm sure he did. I was fixing the slipdrive, and he just showed up, out of nowhere. Apparently I wasn't fixing it fast enough, although if you ask me, an hour is nowhere near enough time to fix all that is wrong with it; we're going to need to get parts, because there is no way I can just patch it up again; some of those parts are so old I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did." He gave a wry smile, apologizing that he couldn't fix it as well as she wanted him too.

Becka nodded. That was another thing they were going to have to do at the next drift.

"So he surprises me; I wasn't expecting him to show up so soon. Although it's happened often enough; you'd think I would realize it by now…

Anyway, I jump, and miss the wire I was fixing, and I burn myself. Like any self-respecting mechanic, I swore, which only pissed Bobby off. If you ask me, he was just looking for someone to wail on. Anyway, he starts accusing me of not being respectful enough, one thing leads to another, and the next thing I know I'm hitting the wall. But that's not enough for him; he grabs my screwdriver off the floor and shoves it into my dataport. And that's the last thing I remember."

Becka sighed; why couldn't Bobby just leave him alone? From what Harper had said, he hadn't done anything wrong. She knew this wasn't the first time something like this had happened; there were plenty of other times when Bobby had been in an especially bad mood and Harper had become even quieter than usual, dodging her questions. And any time she tried to confront Bobby about it, he would just brush her off, telling her she was worrying over nothing.

To her chagrin, Harper didn't seem worried about what had happened. When she sighed in irritation at Bobby, he actually gave her a confused look. "It's my own damn fault, boss; I should have known better than to piss him off. I was asking for it. My stupid mouth always gets me into trouble."

"But you didn't do anything, Harper; you were just working on the slipdrive, and Bobby had to be an ass. It's not your fault."

"If you say so…" It was obvious Harper didn't believe her.

Becka moved closer to Harper, staring into his eyes. He tried to look away, uneasy at Becka's actions, but she grabbed his face and pulled it back so he was forced to look directly at her. "No one has the right to do that to you, Harper. No one. They can get angry at you all they want, but no one is allowed to push you around like that."

Harper nodded, and tried to pull away, but Becka wasn't done. "I can't imagine what you had to deal with on Earth; it just blows my mind. But that is not the way most people behave everywhere else in the galaxy. You are a human being, deserving of respect and happiness and - and no one has the right to take that away from you. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay boss. I got it." She let go, and Harper sighed in relief. Becka was great, really she was; she gave him a place to stay, food to eat, and anything else he needed. But sometimes she scared him, more than Bobby even. Because anger and hate he could understand; he had grown up with them. But compassion, that was something new to him, and he wasn't really sure how to deal with it.

Okay, now don't all flip out at once; more is coming, I promise. I'm working on like three other stories besides this one all at the same time, so it might be a while before you get another chapter. But I promise; it's on the way.