Chapter 38

Teach us delight in simple things,
And mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And love to all men 'neath the sun!

- Rudyard Kipling

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Harper didn't return until the second curfew had sounded. Dylan was panicked and getting up to go find him when he finally came in, his hand clutching Twig's shoulder.

"Thanks," he said softly and patted the boy's back. "Now go sleep."

Twig nodded solemnly and left him alone. Slowly and carefully, weariness showing in every motion, Harper found the pile of straw and sank down on it. Without a word, he turned his back on Dylan, lay down, and closed his eyes.

Dylan had never felt more like a monster than he did at that moment.

Morning brought silence between them again but Dylan could feel the hurt and shame radiating from the engineer all the same. And strangely, something was missing: anger. The Harper he knew would have been furious and seething at being treated like that, but this Harper never said a word.

All day as he slaved in the mines, Dylan tried to piece together an apology that might fix what he'd done. It was such a huge sin, though, and words so cheap. He couldn't believe he'd let everything build up and get to him to the point he hurt the very person he was trying so hard to protect; hurt him probably worse than anything the Nietzscheans had ever done to him.

Harper avoided him at dinner. Simon was feeling better and the young man sought refuge with him. That was okay with Dylan, who sat by himself and tried to figure out what to say. Twig flitted back and forth, not knowing where to be or who to stay with, his huge, solemn eyes darting between the two men. Finally, Ethan took pity on the boy and called him over to play cards.

The food tasted even worse than usual. Dylan ate it mechanically, choking it down, then rose and rinsed his dishes before retreating to the barrack and his thoughts.

Sometime later, Dylan heard the clank of chains. He watched as Harper made his way to their bed and sat quietly down.

"Dylan?" he asked after a while, not sure if the man was even there.

"I'm here, Harper," the captain said, his voice full of shame.

They both fell silent, neither one sure what to say. Finally, the older man couldn't stand it any longer. "Harper," he said watching the engineer carefully, "I'm so sorry for what I said. I didn't mean any of it! I was just tired and worried and keeping things to myself when I should have been discussing them with you and I snapped. But that's still no excuse. My words were in no way fitting of a High Guard Captain, and worse I acted like a really lousy friend. I'm not sure how to make it up to you but I do want to try!"

Harper was shaking his head before the captain was halfway done. "Boss, stop," he finally broke in, holding up his good hand. "Just stop okay?" He paused. "Simon told me what happened in the mine yesterday, Dylan. I'm sorry."

That was not what Dylan had expected to hear. "How did he know?" he asked in surprise.

Harper shrugged. "He's Simon, usually he just does."

"That doesn't excuse my behavior, though," Dylan said.

"No, but it does help explain it," Harper returned, drawing his knees up to his chest. "Don't worry about it, Dylan," Harper said sadly.

"Harper, I was awful to you!" Dylan cried. "You should be angry with me, yell at me, punch me, something!"

Harper hugged his knees tighter and turned his face in Dylan's direction. "Boss, I'm gonna cut right to the chase here. What you said hurt like crap, burned like vinegar in an open cut, and believe me when I say I do know what that feels like, but you didn't mean it. And even if you did, it doesn't matter. Look, you say it's important to keep our hopes up and stay positive and for the most part I'm willing to humor you and play along, but the truth is I'm under no illusions that I'm ever getting out of this place, Dylan. Not alive anyway. Frankly, getting angry or worked up over something you said because the stress got to you is too much trouble. I'm gonna die here, I'd rather not push the only family I have away because he occasionally acts like a jerk."

"A complete jerk who still owes you a very big apology," Dylan said gently, upset by Harper's blunt admission of hopelessness.

"Apology accepted," Harper replied. "And for the record, I'll try and be a little less clingy and more independent. I know I'm hard to have constantly hanging around. Just ask Beka."

"Harper, you don't have to do that. Please, I want to help and I am glad to have you around, especially here," Dylan said quickly, still feeling immensely guilty.

"We'll see," Harper said dismissively, shrugging his shoulders.

"I mean it," Dylan stressed.

"Okay, enough with the sappiness, Boss. This place reeks bad enough as it is. Let's just forget it ever happened and move on, okay?"

For the most part, they tried. Dylan, unable to forget, groveled until Harper snapped at him one day and told him to stop it or he'd deck him, and do it when the captain was asleep so he'd be sure to hit his target. Dylan took the hint, but he also tried to be more careful. He started talking to the engineer again, even about stupid little things. He hated everything about the mess they were in except for one part, the friendship he'd developed with the young man, a young man he realized he'd never really known before. He knew he'd have completely lost everything if he lost that. At least it seemed to be firm again. Still, Dylan couldn't help noticing that Harper turned to the others for help more often now, or struggled through silently on his own. Some damage, Dylan realized sadly, just couldn't be covered or repaired.

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"What do you miss the most?"

Harper rolled carefully over onto his ruined back to better hear his friend, since apparently neither of them were sleeping. "You mean besides my friends and my freedom and my sight, right?" he asked the man lying next to him.

"Of course," Dylan agreed, laughing a little. It was a mark of how far their friendship had progressed that the man even dared ask the question.

Harper thought about it for a minute. "Promise you won't laugh?" he asked.

"No, because I could use a good laugh, but I promise not to laugh at you."

Harper reached over and swatted the older man lightly. "Fine, be that way."

"So, tell me, what do you miss the most?"

"My hair," Harper finally admitted, blushing furiously.

Dylan was surprised by the answer and raised himself up on one elbow to look at the boy. "Your hair?"

"Yeah. I hate these bi-weekly buzz cuts. They're itchy and they cramp my style."

Dylan laughed heartily.

"See, told ya you'd laugh!" Harper whined.

"Sorry, Mr. Harper," Dylan said, wiping his eyes as he chuckled.

"No, you're not," Harper shot back, allowing a smile onto his own lips. "So, what about you? What do you miss the most?"

"Comfortable chairs," Dylan replied firmly. "I'm getting too old to be sitting on the ground all the time."

"Yeah, chairs were nice…" Harper agreed. "And hot showers."

"…and Rommie's cooking…"

"…and engineering, and my tools, and jacking-in…"

"…and giving orders and having people actually follow them…"

"We did that? I don't remember following orders. I think you're delusional…"

Dylan elbowed him gently in the side. "Hush. I like my delusions."

"Okie-dokie, Captain Delusion."

"I miss my ship, Mr. Harper," Dylan said softly after they'd fallen silent again. "I'm a captain. What good is a captain without a ship?"

"I miss your ship, too," Harper said. "Her eyes, that shape, those lips…"

Dylan swatted him again.

"Ouch, Boss!" he teased. "Easy on the engineer. I was just admiring her finer qualities, as any good engineer should!"

Dylan snorted. "Totally from an engineering standpoint, right?"

"Totally," Harper agreed fervently.

"You know, I even kinda miss Trance and all her injections," Harper said after a bit.

Dylan glanced sadly up and down the young man, noting the many healing injuries or scars. "Me too, Harper," he agreed softly.

"And Tyr and his…well…Tyrness."

Dylan laughed.

"And Sparky Cola. Definitely miss that," Harper went on, licking his lips dreamily.

"And pizza," Dylan added fervently.

"Pizza? You?"

"Yes, pizza. I love pizza. Any kind, all toppings. Love it so much that Rommie banned me from eating it more than three times a week. Something about my cholesterol…"

"How come I never knew this? Boss, you freakin' should have told me! I am the king of pizza! I can show you toppings that you've never dreamed of, and I can show you how to program Rommie so she thinks you're having pasta when you're eating it." He smiled slyly.

"We get out of here, that's your first assignment, got it?" Dylan ordered.

"Aye, aye, Captain," Harper said, making a lazy mock salute with his good hand and bashing his nose with the dangling chain. "Ouch," he muttered. "See why we don't salute? It's dangerous."

"Ah, so that's it…"

They fell silent again, each dreaming of the past and small comforts often taken for granted then but desperately missed now. A chill breeze crept through the barrack from the open doorway, and Harper pulled his ragged blanket closer to his chin, his empty eyes staring at the ceiling. Stiff and his muscles cramping, Dylan gave up on sleep and pushed up to a sitting position, wrapping his own thin blanket around his shoulders and turning to face his friend.

"What was it like," Harper asked after a while, "for you, growing up on Tarn Vedra, the home of the Commonwealth and jewel of the skies? Was it totally great?"

"Yeah, it was great, but for me, it was just normal. Until I joined the High Guard, I'd never lived anywhere else. Tarn Vedra wasn't this famous planet to me, it was just home."

"What did you do, when you were a kid?"

There was a note of longing in Harper's voice that Dylan didn't miss beside the open curiosity.

"Well, I was just a normal kid. I went to school, hung out with my friends, made my parents' hair turn grey. And I was really big on sports…"

"…hence the basketball hoop in hydroponics…"

"Yeah," Dylan laughed. "I've always loved basketball. I signed up for my first team when I was seven and fell in love. 'Pro Basketball Player' was my top career choice until I was about thirteen. I also played a lot of NaAnac; that's a Nietzschean sport," Dylan explained.

"I know. Brendan and I used to sneak under the fence around the camp and watch the Niet kids play it outside their schools. Brendan loved it and wanted to try, but Kludges were banned from playing sports. I didn't mind though, I was always more interested in what was inside the schools. Not that I ever got a chance to find out, mind you… Anyway, go on. What else did you do? Where did you live?"

"Dad was a gardener in the Imperial Gardens and Mom worked as a pilot so we had to be close to the city. We lived in a human suburb about a thirty minute shuttle ride from the capital. Far enough away Dad could have his trees and his gardens, but close enough Mom could have her shops. And the mountains were only a short flight away." Dylan's voice took on a dreamy quality as he remembered things he hadn't allowed himself to think about for a very long time. "Dad used to take us camping all the time, sometimes two or three times a month in the summer. It was great!"

"I don't think I like camping," Harper added, scrunching up his face slightly.

"Well, it's a lot better when you're not chained to a post…" Dylan said.

"Good point."

Dylan let his mind drift, losing himself in the good memories and recalling the faces of people from his past.

"You miss them, don't you," Harper said knowingly.

"Yeah," Dylan agreed softly, his voice rough.

"I'm sorry," the engineer offered sincerely. "I know what it's like to lose everyone, but at least for me, I usually had time to prepare. I lived my whole life knowing that at any moment someone could be gone. Kinda gives you a certain mindset and you build up coping mechanisms. But for you, one second they were there and the next everyone was gone. No warning, no preparation. And they hadn't even really died, just disappeared where you couldn't reach them. That's ten times worse and I'm sorry."

"Thank you, Mr. Harper," Dylan said.

"I guess we're more alike than I thought," Harper continued quietly. "It's just that you do such a good job at projecting the image of the unflappable Captain Hunt, I sometimes forget how much you've lost. We've both lost almost everyone from our pasts, and we both hide it from others behind carefully built lies. Me? I'm the funny little guy, cocky, sarcastic, irreverent… You? You're the mighty High Guard Captain, never shaken, always in control… Sometimes I think we even fool ourselves."

"Sometimes that's who I'm trying to fool the most," Dylan whispered. Then he cleared his throat loudly and regained his composure. "What about you, Harper? Surely there must have been some good times in your childhood, nice memories to share?"

"Well yeah, of course there were good times. Sometimes, someone in the clan would get a hold of a keg or two of Nietzschean whiskey and then the good times would roll. I tell ya, you ain't seen nothing until you've seen an all-out Boston Bash! The Ubers didn't even dare come in to break it up when we really got going. And there are good memories from earlier, when my parents were still alive. Mom had the gift of telling stories and we used to listen to her for hours. She could make us forget everything; the Ubers, the Magog, our empty stomachs. Her voice was like pure magic."

"I think perhaps her son has inherited that gift," Dylan said with a smile.

Harper grinned.

"What else?" Dylan urged.

"Brendan and Isaac and I got great kicks out of ticking off the Ubers, and when I was younger, Brendan and Declan and Siobhan and I used to scrounge around in the trash and make all sorts of strange creations. They got tired of it as they grew older, but I guess it sorta stuck with me." His voice grew quiet suddenly. "And there was the Christmas I was fifteen. I got my rabbit's foot that year."

Dylan waited to see if he would explain more, but the young man had grown quiet, apparently lost in memories of his own.

"How long do you think we've been here?" Harper asked suddenly after the silence had stretched for several minutes.

"I really don't know," Dylan admitted. "I've sorta lost track of time. Five or six months at least, I'd guess. Why?"

"Just thinking," Harper said evasively, then changed his mind and offered a bit more. "It's just, I'm pretty sure I'm twenty-four now. I should have had my birthday about three months after we got home from that last mission. If you're even close to being right, it's past now." He sighed a little. "That's birthday number three I've spent as a slave. I have got to find better ways to celebrate. And the worst thing is Beka mentioned she had a really cool surprise for me but I had to wait to find out, and now I'll never know and always have to wonder what it was."

Dylan didn't know what to say. 'Happy Birthday' hardly seemed appropriate when Harper was lying next to him in chains, half starved and a slave.

"I really hope she remembered to renew my subscription to Intergalactic Surfers, too. I'm sure it's run out by now and I would hate to miss any issues," Harper continued, saving Dylan from having to speak after all.

"We'll backorder the issues if she didn't," Dylan assured Harper kindly.

"Thanks." Harper yawned and rolled painfully over onto his side, still facing Dylan. The captain watched as the young man's eyes began to drift shut. "Maybe we can get them in Braille," Harper muttered tiredly and tugged at his blanket, trying to get it to cover his shoulders. "That would be good…"

His eyes closed, his breathing evened out, and Dylan knew he was asleep.

Dylan reached out and gently covered the boy's shoulders with the ragged blanket. "Happy Birthday, Mr. Harper," he said sadly. "I promise this is absolutely the last one you'll spend as a slave."