Title: Come Clean
Author: MouseBebe
Rating: PG-13
Summary: There's a small child in his quarters when he wakes up and Tyr doesn't know why.
Spoilers: Up through season three.
Pairing: Beka/Tyr
Setting: Diverges after A Heart for Falsehood Framed.
Disclaimer: Tribune owns all rights to Andromeda.
Archive: Do not archive without express permission.
Feedback: Constructive criticism welcome.
Author's Note: This was written as a response to Phoebe's challenge #5 at Wandering Minds.
Chapter One:
Tyr woke the instant the door to his quarters slid open, but but kept his eyes closed and waited. An intruder aboard? One who had slipped past the ship's defenses and sensors but still needed to use the door and was unaware that he could hear it? More than one, at least two: he could hear motion near the door, someone moving things there, though he wasn't sure what, and steps coming closer. The gait was… odd. Short steps, but heavy. Whoever it was didn't hesitate at the edge of the bed, immediately pulling or leaning on the cover. He tensed, hearing fast, excited breaths by his side and feeling the mattress shift under the other's weight, and then there was motion, a shadow flickering over his eyelids.
He shot his hand out to intercept the— Knife? Garrote?— and immediately froze. No weapon but a hand, a small one like a child's, and an overflowing giggle at the restraint. He opened his eyes to see that it was a child, leaning over him fearlessly and grinning. "Awake!" it shouted, gleefully and painfully close. "Daddy's awake!"
That he had no response for. He was no one's father, and certainly not to a child who would use a pronouncedly Human term of address. It was a small relief to hear the other individual in the room, female and presumably the child's mother, say, "Oh, Cath, no!" and start to come over, but the relief was outweighed by the concern of who they were and what they were doing aboard, especially in his quarters.
The child was unrepentant at the rebuke and stayed hanging over him. "Awake, awake, awake," it chanted quietly, and tried to poke him with the hand he still held, an attempt that led to another giggle when it was stymied. Presumably he did resemble the child's father, given that its dark hair and warm skin tones were close to Tyr's own, but he saw no reason to encourage it.
At that point the other individual arrived and Tyr was startled to see Beka. He had thought the voice seemed familiar, but under the circumstances… He relaxed his hand in surprise and promptly got poked in the cheek with a fingertip, setting off a gleeful squeal that turned into a protesting squawk when Beka scooped the child up. The carry was amazingly casual for how non-maternal the woman usually seemed. Despite the initial complaint the child didn't seem as upset over being held as Tyr would have expected, given that he'd never seen it before and therefore assumed it and Beka were strangers to each other. "Down," it told her reproachfully, "Cath wants down," but it didn't struggle much.
"I'm sorry," Beka said, "I just needed one thing and I told her she needed to stay close to me and be quiet, but… I'm sorry."
"I…" Tyr sat up slowly, feeling like he'd turned too many pages in a book and couldn't flip back. "Why are you in my quarters?" he asked finally. "And who is she?"