Chapter 61

"You can just about always stand more'n you think you can."

- Texas Bix Bender

00000

Tyr sat quietly in the frozen darkness. His charges were sleeping, and he had taken up a position just outside of their pitiful shelter to keep watch. To the outward observer he was the picture of laziness, but his senses were all focused and alert. There were no threats, however, not right now. The world around him was starting to lighten as the first hints of morning appeared. It was the best time of day, the time when people left their secrets exposed and vulnerable and for the taking – when things were easy to find out, if you knew how to look. Unfortunately, the universe seemed to think that was a collective attribute, and today he found his own thoughts mulling around closer to the surface than he would have liked. He had to admit several things had caught him by surprise, something he wasn't proud of. He had not planned on finding the engineer this damaged – crippled, deathly ill, hobbled and blind. Any of those problems alone would have complicated things, but blindness would be a serious issue to deal with, both on the rest of their journey and in whatever happened after. The boy was a survivor, though, he would give him that much. He would wait to pass judgment on his condition after more options had been explored.

It was the bond between the young engineer and child that was most startling and unexpected. Despite the fact that Harper was little more than a child himself, somehow he had taken upon himself the roll of father for the abandoned boy. Perhaps it was foolhardy and rash, but it was done, and Tyr found he respected it. It was not a bond that would be easily unmade. One look at the pair of them, with Dylan hovering in the background like some pathetically protective guard dog or maybe grandfather, and he'd resigned himself to the fact that the child was coming along.

It was foolish and maybe slightly suicidal, but all Nietzscheans knew that protecting one's young was the only endeavor worth acts of foolish, suicidal faith.

Tyr felt Beka's presence behind him long before she approached. He ignored her, knowing she would speak when she couldn't hold the tumbling thoughts and emotions inside any longer.

"Tyr," she finally said, coming to where he reclined against a tree. "Why aren't you in there working on getting the chains and that blasted collar off?"

He rolled his eyes in her direction. "And how exactly would you suggest I do that?"

"I don't know! Pick the locks, shoot them off…"

He looked at her for a moment, then glanced lazily away, unfazed by her silly display of emotion. "For one, there are no locks I can see. Secondly…shoot them off? How do you propose I do that without injuring them further?"

"I don't know, Tyr," Beka hissed again in frustration. "You're the ex-merc. Think of something! Just get them out of them!"

"Captain Valentine, stop letting your emotions control you and use your head!" Tyr almost snapped. "I will not cause further harm just to remove something you don't like looking at. They have lived with them for this long; they will last a few more days. They may even be of use when we reenter the city."

Beka slid down the tree trunk to sit beside him, defeated. "I just can't stand seeing them like that, in chains, looking like…" She trailed off, unable to say it.

"Like slaves," Tyr said, ignoring her flinch. He did not condone slavery, but it was pointless to pretend it didn't exist. His own back bore the scars that testified to the disgusting practice. It was an odd bond he shared with the boy, that instinctive understanding of the universe's cruelty and ugliness. An understanding that never let you forget or hide, was always exacting payment and refusing to be swept under the proverbial rug. Beka should have learned that by now, and he was not about to let her slink away from it. "They wear the vestiges of the last year of their lives, Beka. Neither you nor I can change that or make it 'go away' simply by removing their bonds. And it doesn't really matter anyway. The android will make quick work of them once we're off this retched planet. Stop worrying about things you cannot change," he finished coldly.

They fell into silence again. Tyr said nothing. Something was on the woman's mind, and he knew she'd get around to blurting it out eventually. She always did.

"What about Twig?" she said, right on cue. She was playing with those blasted rings, a sure sign she was agitated or nervous.

He didn't bother to answer, just leveled an annoyed look at her and waited.

"He's gonna slow us down," she finally blurted. "Use up resources and food. Get in the way when we get back to the city…"

"Shall I kill him?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral. He was baiting the woman, and enjoying it, but she didn't need to know that.

"What? No! Of course not, Tyr!" She threw him a disgusted look. "He's just a kid! And one who's obviously been through hell! I'm not that calloused! I just thought, maybe, we could find someone to take him in… to leave him with. You know…"

"Dylan and the Little Professor would not agree."

"Yeah, well, they aren't exactly in any shape to know what's best right now, are they?"

Tyr looked out over the snowy landscape before speaking, remembering his own thoughts of moments earlier.

"You've never taken issue with boarding strays before. You took in Harper, and the Purple One."

"Yeah, well, they could take care of themselves."

Tyr raised a disbelieving eyebrow in response.

Beka rolled her eyes. "Okay, you're right. I just don't want to waste anymore time. We've lost so much already and Harper… He's so… " She broke off, not willing to finish that sentence, looking completely stricken and guilt-ridden as she turned away from him.

"Rebekah," Tyr said with sudden gentleness. He placed a finger under her chin and turned her face back toward his own before locking his dark eyes onto her bright ones. "Have you not watched them? Harper and the child? Do you not see the bond they've created?" For some strange reason he felt the need to explain this to her, an odd reversal of roles.

"Yeah," she muttered quietly, looking away. "I see it."

"Then I will tell you this bluntly because it appears you must hear it: without that child your Harper would be dead. Without the knowledge that someone needed him, someone else was depending upon him to survive, he would have succumbed months ago. So, what do you think would happen if you suggested the child stay behind? Do you really want to do that?"

"No, of course not!" Beka cried, stricken. "I'm just…" She trailed off again, dropping her head and bringing her hands up to run through her hair. "Everything's so different, Tyr," she finally said. "I thought I was prepared, knew what to expect when we found them, but this… I never imagined this. And now there's an extra person to keep safe as well…?" She sighed deeply. "I don't know if I can do this anymore." A shudder ran through her body.

Tyr frowned. "You can and will do this, Captain Valentine, because you don't have any choice!" he growled, suddenly angered by her human weakness and willingness to give up. "You carry guilt for not finding them sooner, for leaving them here? Then stop wallowing and act! This universe is ugly! It is brutal and unforgiving and those too weak to face it are swept aside! I know this first hand, Beka. I did not drag myself up inch by inch from the black pit of slavery to let the universe defeat me! Dylan, Harper, and the child know this, and they have chosen to spit in its face and move forward! Is a Valentine any less? I've seen you face the darkness inside yourself and rise above it. I've seen you take the impossible cards fate has dealt you and laugh as you laid down a winning hand! Will you now, when proven right in your farfetched belief and foolish optimism, fall to your knees and concede the fight? Is that the legacy you wish to leave for the infamous Valentine name?"

He paused, letting his words crash over her, then lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Is that the idol the Little Professor has held out hope for? The 'big sister' he has suffered innumerable humiliations for over a year to see again?"

A small sob escaped the woman and she let her head sink back to the trunk of the tree, tears carving tracks down her cheeks. She swiped furiously at them, obviously angered by her inability to hold them back.

"And now he can't see anything, can he?" she spat, her voice both livid and vulnerable at the same time.

"No, he can't," Tyr said simply. "So that's the end then? You don't want him now, now that he no longer sees?"

"NO!" she cried, jerking her head up and facing him, eyes wide with incensed indignation. "How dare you even say that?"

Tyr shrugged. "It's what you imply by sitting here, wringing your hands and spewing sickening platitudes."

She opened her mouth to shout something back then snapped it shut again, glaring at him. So, he'd made her angry. Good.

"I'm going back inside," she said bitingly.

He simply nodded, which caused the blonde to huff and march off. As soon as she was out of sight, Tyr leaned his head back against the rough bark of the tree and laughed.