Dylan sat at far end of his conference table, tapping his hand impatiently on the desk. He looked over to Doyle who was carefully preening her already immaculate nails.

"Is Beka gonna get here soon?" She asked with a dramatic sigh. All eyes looked up at her and Dylan slammed his hand down on the table, he was about to shout at Doyle to stop being so... infuriating. Luckily, Harper got in there first.

"Chill Doyle, she's been through a lot lately, so if she wants to spend an hour in the shower 'freshening up' we should probably let her." Harper did not add that the shower-hour, plus an hour in med deck sorting out Dean's crappy operation job of her equalled two hours when they could have been planning their next move. He felt that kind of thinking was best left to Dylan.

"She's coming." Rommie stated, turning to the door.

"Sorry I'm late." She said as she rushed to sit down next to Trance. Turning to Dylan, she nodded her head, her hair still slightly wet. "You may start."

"Thank you Beka, well the only thing on our agenda is Dean really and what we are going to do about him." Dylan spoke loudly, addressing the whole room.

"Isn't he dead? I thought Beka mentioned shooting him." Harper asked- to no one in particular. He saw a faint smile on Beka's lips; Harper remembered her look of pride when he had told him the shooting-of-Dean story. Score one for Valentine.

"Harper, since when do people actually die when we want them to?" Dylan replied but there was no hint of humour in his voice.

"Can I add something?" Asked Rommie suddenly. After gaining her Captain's approval, she continued. "I did some more digging on Dean and it turns out- he's Nietzschean."

"What?" Beka exploded, physically jumping in her seat frightening Trance in the process, Beka grimaced- sudden movements were still out. "But, but, but he had no boneblades!"

"Beka, we all know it is possible to remove them. But that's not the worst of it." Rommie said, trying to think of the best way to phrase her newly collected data. "He's part of the Letho pride."

"Never heard of them." Dylan said, shaking his head- prides do not just pop-up out of nowhere.

"That's because it wasn't always a pride, it's a group of Nietzscheans who hated or did not agree with what their original pride was doing. So they saw fit to create a new pride- a better pride if you will." Rommie finished and went silent.

"That is just great. Does that mean I get to add another Nietzschean to my list?" Beka looked at Dylan as she asked this, she considered whether to blame all of his on him. He was the Captain after all and had been the one to send on her that 'trip' to meet the wonderful Dean.

"You have a list?" He asked, Beka only shrugged. "This still doesn't explain why Dean wanted Beka's ovaries, Rommie."

"Actually it does. This pride wants to continue on, right? To not die out- now my theory is that because Beka is the Matriarch, in their eyes she has the strongest most sought after DNA. The best to reproduce from, therefore, giving their pride an edge over all the others." Rommie looked around at her crew, she had processed all of that in seconds and she wondered how long it would take for her organic counterparts to realise the enormity of her words.

Glancing over at Beka, Rommie was faintly alarmed to see that she was just sat there staring out at nothing. What Dean had done to her and what he continued to do was having more of an effect on her than she was letting on. When was the last time she slept? Had a decent meal? Had anything in the way of a nice day? Rommie vowed to keep a close eye on her friend in the coming future.

"Hold up." Harper whined, he looked confused and ran a hand through his spiky hair as he talked. "If Beka is mother of all Nietzscheans won't producing from her DNA be kind of you know... inbreeding?"

He looked at Rommie for the answers, but it was Trance who spoke up.

"No, Harper. Beka's DNA is only the marker that makes Nietzscheans Nietzschean. If you say that then you have to say that about all reproduction within the race because every Nietzschean has Beka's DNA sequence. It is simply the thing that differentiates human DNA from Nietzschean. " Trance spoke softly, looking at everyone apart from Beka.

Could this be thing that breaks her, she asked herself.

"So they can just use me like I'm some kind of DNA storage facility? First Peter, now Dean?" Beka spoke coldly, addressing Trance directly. She was scared by the look of resignation in Trance's eyes, as if she didn't know what to do. Trance had to know what to do, she was their all seeing eye. Beka's very own lucky charm- at least she had been. "I didn't want any this."

"None of us did, Beka." Dylan rubbed his hand over his face as he talked, his blue eyes gazing over at Beka's. It's never easy.

"Well Dylan. I don't see you about to become mommy to a generation of Nietzschean babies, do you?" Her voice was beginning to rise, all her frustrations held clumsily beneath the surface. "No, because you're what? Captain perfect? Everything you do is automatically considered grand?"

"Maybe Miss Valentine, if you kept your pants on for once we wouldn't get into half the trouble we do. Did you ever think of that?" Dylan was the first one to break- his voice was loud and full of anger. He hadn't even received a thank you from Beka for her rescue.

"If I kept mine on? Dylan, you're the one who does it with every woman who comes on board this ship!" Beka shot her answer back at Dylan and rose to her feet. Echoing her movement, Dylan also stood up and was about to shout back at his first officer when:

"Stop it! Both of you- god you're acting like five-year olds. Can we please focus?" Harper shouted out, he didn't usually take control but when everyone else is sat watching a fight between two people who should not be fighting he felt obliged to do something.

"Right, sorry." Beka said, coming to her senses and promptly sat down again. "It's just- I know I chose poorly again with Dean but can everyone please stop mentioning it all the time?"

The crew looked at floor- no one knowing what to say next.

"So what's the plan Dylan?" Beka asked quietly. "You do have a plan right? Please don't let this happen."

She sounded so utterly terrified when she had spoken that Dylan couldn't help but need to think up a plan. It was his nature to help when someone was in distress and when that person was Beka, the feeling was twice as strong...

"We need to destroy it." Doyle said, returning to the group from her nail-vacation. "I know that's probably not what you want hear, but the only way you can successfully not have a race of tiny blonde haired Nietzschean pilots is to destroy what they need to make them. You've got another ovary tucked inside you anyway so you can still have children. If you want."

"We'll blow it up." Dylan said. "Dean, Beka's hijacked ovary and the whole ship. That's the plan. Everyone alright with that?"

At Dylan's final words on the matter, the crew nodded.

"Good."

"One problem Dylan. The ship has jumped into slipstream – I can track it but we can't just go all guns blazing . I've done some scans- it has shields, a deflection system and pretty good sensors. Dean would know that we were planning to launch missiles at him before you'd even set the command." Rommie deflated the mood quite well with her comment.

"I have an idea. But Beka, you're going to hate me." Said Harper.

"Harper I was stuck in a space the size of a matchbox for about a week, you are not and will never be someone I hate. So what is your idea?"

Beka smiled at him and made a note to spend more time with her favourite engineer in the future, she missed his oh-so-awful jokes and he was like a brother to her.

"The Maru?"

"What about it?"

"We use that, we send it into the belly of the beast, chock full of explosives and BAM! Dean won't know what hit him." Harper said, with perhaps too much excitement over what would be an awesome explosion.

"No." Beka shook her head and turned to Dylan for support. "No."

"Actually Beka, it's one of the better ideas I've heard in a while." Said Dylan. "You say you want to come aboard his ship to talk or whatever. Instead we send over an empty Maru and as Mr Harper said, bam."

"Complete with fake life signs-which I'm sure Rommie can rig, you know- so we don't tip him off to the fact the ship is empty." Added Harper.

Dylan waited for the speech about how it was her home, how it had always been her home. That she would see the Andromeda blown up or become a museum before anyone dared to touch her ship.

It never came.

"Fine, take it." Beka whispered after minutes of agonising silence.

"We'll go and start clearing out the Maru then?" Asked Doyle. When Dylan gave her a curt nod, his eyes not leaving Beka, she grabbed Harper by the collar and dragged him out of the door. Trance followed but not before giving Beka a quick hug.

"Rommie?" The avatar looked up to see her Captain motioning to the door. She gave a slight cough and left the room, leaving Beka and Dylan alone.

The silence grew ever more oppressive, Dylan rose from his seat with a groan- his back was killing him. That is what rescuing Beka Valentine does to you, he thought to himself as he moved around the table to sit down next to the aforementioned women. She shuffled in her seat and refused to look at him.

"Beka?" He was about to ask if she was ok, but stopped himself, he already knew the answer. She looked tired, her full lips downturned and her eyes half shut, the ghost of a bruise still on her cheek. Eventually she turned to look at him.

"It's not fair." She said shaking her head, she didn't know whether to cry or be angry over the past few weeks. Emotions suck, Beka thought bitterly, most emotions anyway.

"What in this universe is fair, Beka?"

Her eyes darted around the room as she pondered his question although they soon returned, like a magnet, to Dylan.

"Good point, Hunt. Good point."

"I've been known to make a few of them in my time." Dylan said with a grin, a grin that grew when he saw a smile on his friend's face.

"There's the Beka Valentine smile I've grown to love." He said, the words out of his mouth before he had a chance to stop them.

Beka tilted her head and gave him a puzzled look. Then he saw it, the sudden drop of happiness from her face and Beka looked scared. Scratch that, she looked completely and utterly terrified.

"I should go help Harper and Doyle, if we're going to do this." She mumbled, as she removed herself from her seat and the situation.

Dylan let his head drop to his chest as he heard the door swish shut behind the escaping Beka Valentine.

"Damn it."

He didn't notice as holo-Andromeda popped up next to him, her arms crossed and her hair a deep shade of purple. The ship felt like experimenting with different looks, she was virtual after all and could whatever she pleased. As long as Dylan approved.

"I think that went very well."

"How Andromeda? How did that go well?" Dylan snapped at her, after he had established it was Andromeda speaking and not some disembodied enemy trying to drive him insane.

"One of you finally admitted... something to the other. Also, Beka did not shoot you, which is always good."

Dylan looked up Andromeda, his eyes were blotchy, not from crying but as Andromeda suspected from a minor eye infection and his hair stuck up awkwardly from days of impatiently pushing it out o his face.

"Good? But Andromeda,after this whole week that is nothing short of fantastic."

"Captain, has anyone ever told you that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?"

"Andromeda, has anyone ever told you purple is not your colour?"

Touché.