*          *          *

Five years earlier. Three days after Beka had kicked Bobby off the Maru and allowed Harper to stay.

Beka walked down the corridors of the Maru, glancing around corners and looking up the ladders. Where the hell was that kid?

She shook her head. Finding Bobby had always been easy. He wasn’t as scrawny as this kid, who could fit into every nook and cranny imaginable. She’d even seen him crawling around her circuit tunnels, into which only repair bots were supposed to fit.

“Harper?” she called.

“I’m in here, Miss Captain.” Came the answering call from somewhere within the walls.

She frowned. “Harper, why the hell are you in my walls?”

A snicker answered her. “What a fancy thing to call it.”

She closed her eyes and ran her hand through her hair. “Get your ass out of my walls and over here, now.” She commanded. She felt a headache coming on. Having an extra crewmember was always draining. Having a scrawny kid from earth as an extra crewmember was…she couldn’t find a word for it.

Seconds later, the panel beside her was abruptly ripped from the walls and flung across the room. She stared as a blond spiky head appeared from the hole and Harper pulled himself out of it.

He saw her staring. His eyes widened.

“I’ll fix the wall, don’t worry about, Miss Captain. I’ll fix it right quick.” He stammered, already walking towards the piece of wall which was lying beside Beka.

Beka shook her head. “It’s okay, kid. Don’t worry about.”

He gave her a small nod, but from the fear in his eyes, she knew he didn’t believe her. She had seen his former employer once, and she knew that he hadn’t been the type to be very lenient about his employees vandalizing his property. The guy had given her the creeps.

She glanced the kid over. Skinny as hell. She’d have to feed him more. And those clothes too. They looked about five sizes too big for him and were so filthy and torn that she guessed he’d been wearing them for a long time. Then she saw the earring. Man, she had a lot to fix on this kid.

She sighed. “Alright, I’ve been meaning to have a little talk, but running away from Dragans and kicking Bobby off the ship took up my time. But now, we can talk.”

He gave her a slow nod, his eyes still nervously glancing all around the corridor, probably looking for the quickest way to run in case she tried to hurt him.

She rubbed her eyes. “First of all, quit looking around as if I’m going to kill you in a few seconds. You’re my engineer and a part of my crew and I don’t kill either.”

He gave her a wary smile but the tension evaporated from his eyes and he relaxed a little bit.

She gave a small smile when she saw him ease up a bit. The kid was too damn paranoid for his own good. Not that she blamed him.

“Secondly, you’re a part of my crew and I get most of my business because of people’s impressions of me. If that impression sucks, I don’t get business and we don’t eat. That means you lose the earring and starting now what I put on your plate, you’re going to eat, understood? And furthermore, tomorrow we’re going to go shopping and you’re going to pick something decent to wear and I won’t hear any complaints about it.”

He smiled nervously. “But, Miss Captain, I don’t got any money. None at all. I ain’t ever gonna be able to pay for new stuff—”

“I forgot to mention that I’m paying for everything.”

He shook his head. “You don’t gotta do—”

“What part of no complaints don’t you understand?”

He abruptly shut his mouth. Good. At least the kid knew when to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t so bad after all.

“And next, we’re dropping all formalities right now. We’re a crew now, you and I, and we’re going to be the only two living things on this ship for the time being.”

He stared at her. “What am I supposed to call you?”

She shrugged, then smiled. “How about calling me Beka, like everyone else?”

“Just Beka?”

“Uh huh. That okay?”

He nodded his head and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess, Miss—” he swallowed. “Beka.”

He nearly choked on it. He glanced at her. “It sounds too weird.”

“Weird?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I mean, you’re my boss. I ain’t got any right to call you by your first name.”

She was going to ask who the hell told him he didn’t have any right, but she let it go.

She sighed. “Alright, Harper, what do you want to call me then? I refuse to be called Miss Captain.”

He thought about it for a second. “How about calling you boss?”

“Boss?”

He nodded.

She shrugged. “Fine with me.” She saw a faint look of relief flicker across his face. She glanced down at the ground. Now came the tough part.

She cleared her throat. “Okay, now comes the last part.” She looked up and stared him straight in the eyes. She saw him flinch back a little and that tension crept back when he saw her staring at him, but he held her gaze.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is my ship, right?”

He nodded, still nervous.

“And you’re my employee, right?”

He nodded again, swallowing hard. Obviously he had no idea where this was headed. His gaze was staring to wander down the corridor again.

“That means you do what I say. Always. And also, you don’t ever screw up. Ever. Is that understood?”

He gave her a quick nod, as if he was afraid that if he wouldn’t agree quickly enough she’d throw him off her ship.

“By screwing up I’m including everything from smuggling illegal goods using my ship, to damaging my ship in any way, to trying to stab me in the back. On a lighter note, it also includes not being a pain in the ass, and not being a liability. I personally define a liability as being someone who damages my reputation, not that I have such a great one, but I’m working on one, and as someone who makes my life unnecessarily difficult,” She said, still holding his wandering gaze. “And lastly, the biggest way you can possibly screw up with me is by breaking my trust. Granted, I don’t trust you right now one bit, but you don’t trust me either. But later, after we get to know each other for a little bit, I’ll end up trusting you. I always do. And if you break that trust, you’ll have screwed up. And if you screw up, I promise you right now, I’ll not only throw you off this ship, but I’ll throw you far enough until you land on that trash pile where I found you. Is that understood?”

His wandering gaze abruptly stopped and his blue eyes stared at her.

She waited. She saw him trying to weight his chances with this. Finally, he gave her a nod.

She still stared at him. “I mean it, Harper. You screw up, you’re gone.”

He nodded again. “I understand, boss.” He said quietly.

“Good. So, you promise not to screw up any time soon?”

He gave her a small smile. “Yeah. I promise.”

“Good.” She grinned at him and abruptly turned on her heel and marched towards the kitchen.

“I’ll have dinner ready in half an hour, but if you want you can come and help me now.” She called over her shoulder.

She heard the crunch of metal behind her. She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. Harper had picked up the metal sheet of wall and was carefully carrying it over to the hole.

She sighed. “Harper, I told you not to worry about it. Come eat dinner and fix it later.”

He gave her a small smile as he fished his nanowelder out of his toolbelt that she had found for him in one of her dad’s old boxes.

“I’ll be there in a second, boss.”

“Harper—”

“Boss,” he smiled at her, his eyes brighter than they had been all day. “I just made you a promise that I won’t screw up, didn’t I? That includes cleaning up my junk.”

She laughed and turned around and headed towards the kitchen.

She shook her head as she walked. What a kid.

*          *          *

Five years later aboard the Andromeda.

Harper slowly picked up his nanowelder off the floor and put it on the cluttered table in Engineering. Taking the time to make sure the nanowelder was lying perfectly on the table, he slowly bent down and picked up a dusty flexi which was lying among the junk on the floor.

Carefully blowing the dust off it, he placed it beside the nanowelder, fussing around with it until it was lying perfectly beside the nanowelder.

He sighed.

Just then, Trance’s impatient voice came over the intercom.

“Harper, come on! It’s been twenty minutes! Get up here, or I’ll send Tyr down there to carry you up here by force.”

He glared around the room through which Trance’s voice was coming.

“Oh, go to hell.” He muttered quietly. But not quietly enough.

Andromeda’s hologram flickered on beside him. She crossed her arms and tilted her head as she looked at him.

“Harper, Trance has been waiting in Medical for the past twenty one minutes.”

“Yeah, well, tell her to make herself comfortable. I’m not going up there.” He glared at her.

She blinked at him, staring at him with her usual patience.

“Harper, it took Trance nearly a month to make an appointment with the doctor, and it took her five more days until she convinced him to take three minutes to take a look at your blood samples. If you don’t want to look for your sake, then you owe it to her to go up there and at least thank her for trying.”

Suddenly, he interupted her by slamming the soldering wand he held in his hands on the table.

“For trying?” he yelled. “Trying to do what? I already know what’s going to be on that damn medical report. The same thing that’s on it every year. The fact that my immune system and my body both suck and that sooner or later, they’re both going to give up on me. I don’t need to drag myself up three decks just to read that.” He spat.

“Harper, calm down.” She ordered. Surprisingly, he did. His little spats of anger never lasted long. She was used to them.

“Please go up to med deck now and look at the results.” She said. She couldn’t remember the last time she had said ‘please’ to a member of her crew. Ignoring that last thought, she added. “You might even find some good news on there.”

He rolled his eyes. “Good news? Yeah, and you’re the Vedran Empress.” He muttered.

She didn’t answer but just continued staring at him.

Finally, he dropped the soldering wand onto the floor and walked up the ramp towards the door, still angrily mumbling to himself.

Shaking her head and praying for good news, the hologram flickered out of existence.

*          *          *         

Harper walked through the door, only to find Beka and Trance standing there, both annoyed.

“Harper, it’s been almost half an hour and some people have things to do.” Beka said. She’d spent ten minutes arguing with Dylan over letting her take a break and run up to the Med deck to see the report. They were in the middle of flying a relief mission to Schoppenhauer where a famine had been plaguing the planet for months already. Dylan had not been happy, but after a few frowns had let her go, but not before yelling after her to tell him right away if there was something important on that report.

Beka crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

Harper glared at her. “Yeah well, I never said you had to stop doing whatever you were doing.”

She shook her head and glanced at Trance. “Every year in the past five years, we’ve been through this and the idiot still doesn’t understand that looking at that damn report is more important than flying stupid food supplies to a starving planet.”

She glanced up at Harper, who was still glaring around the room. She nodded her chin at the flexi lying on the table beside him. “Well, get on with it already. Read it. I don’t have all day.”

Harper sighed and slowly edged closer to the table. God, he didn’t want to read it. Really didn’t want to read it. More crap about the doctor droning on that he had to eat better and drink less and take better care of himself. He was so damn sick of it.

He picked up the flexi and turned it on. Well, might as well get it over with.

Dear Mr.Harper,

Upon looking at your blood sample, I have made the usual disturbing discoveries.

‘Disturbing discoveries’. God, how he loved this guy.

You have obviously not taken my advice about eating right and not drinking quite so heavily, since your kidneys have still deteriorated since last year. If you keep this up, your kidneys will fail in a few years and you will die.

Why the damn guy always had to be so straightforward about things was beyond him.

However, the state of your kidneys and your eating habits worry me much less than your immune system. As you undoubtly know, your immune system is not optimally efficient—

Yeah, no shit. What a genius.

—however, over the past few years it has not been deteriorating as badly as I thought it would. Being in a relatively clean environment has kept it from collapsing. However, your recent infestation from the Magog larvae have been very taxing on the remainders of your immune system. Even though you were cured (by means which still elude me and your physician, Dr.Gemini, refused to elaborate on), the larvae did serious damage to it before they were removed. To put it bluntly, Mr.Harper, you no longer have an immune system. Whatever was left of it, is now destroyed. Needless to say, if you catch as much as a cold now, your body won’t be able to fight it or recover from it, and you will die.

I hope this news wasn’t too distressing, and I still urge you to eat lots of vegetables and get daily vitamin doses.

Until next year,

Dr. Tellany

Harper stared at the flexi. For a second it didn’t register. All that kept on going through his head were the doctor’s last words about eating vegetables and the vitamin doses.

Then it hit him.

Just like he had feared for years already, his immune system had finally given up on him. He always knew that this would happen one day, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

Shit.

He briefly closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, he found Beka and Trance both staring at him.

Beka raised her eyebrows. “Well, what did he say?”

Harper found two emotions nagging at him. One was despair. All he wanted to do was collapse on the floor and start crying about how he didn’t want to die yet, how this wasn’t fair and how there had to be something they could do.

The other emotion was anger.

Anger won out.

He stared at Beka, his blue eyes suddenly glistening with anger. Beka nearly recoiled when she saw his eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him this angry.

“Here!” he hissed, throwing the flexi at her. It missed her and landed on the floor. “Read it yourself.” He spat and turned around and ran from the room.

“Harper!” she called after him, a worried frown creased with confusion on her face.

But it was too late. He hadn’t heard her.

Beka bent down and picked up the flexi. Flicking it on, she quickly skimmed over the doctor’s letter.

She didn’t even get to the part about vitamin doses.

Her eyes widened in shock. “Oh, god.” she breathed.

Trance looked at her. “What? What does it say?”

Beka stared up at her, fear in her eyes. “Oh, god.” That was all that she could get past her lips.

Inwardly, she felt as if someone had punched her.

Harper was going to die. Somewhere, deep inside of her, she always knew that this day would come and that she’d have to face it. She just didn’t know it would come this soon.

“Oh, god.” she whispered again.

Trance gently pulled the flexi out of her grip. She turned it off.

“Beka? Are you alright?”

Beka slowly nodded. She forced herself to get a grip on herself.

“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.” She nodded absentmindly, trying to think clearly. She had to get to Harper. She had to find him. Before he did something stupid. God, he was going to do something stupid, she just knew it. Something very stupid.

And that something stupid could kill him.

She set her jaw. No way she’d let the idiot get himself killed.

Quickly, she looked up at the ceiling.

“Rommie, where’s Harper?”

“On Hanger deck 7. He’s boarding the Maru.”

“Shit.” Beka swore as she quickly pushed past Trance and ran out of Med deck.

Flying down the corridor, she ran towards the hangar, praying that her ship would be slow in starting up.

It wasn’t.

She was still two decks above the hanger decks when she heard the whine of the doors opening.

“Rommie! Shut the doors! Don’t let him go!” she yelled.

The hologram flickered on beside her. A surprised frown crossed her face. “I’ve lost control over the hanger bay doors. I can’t open or close them. Harper must have tweaked something.”

Beka ran a hand through her hair. “Damn him.” She swore, then turned and ran up towards command.

*          *          *

Harper opened the airlock and leapt through the door. Slamming the door shut behind him, he ran through the corridors towards the cockpit.

He couldn’t stay here. He had to get away. Get away from that flexi, from the doctor’s words. Get away from all the concerned faces filled with pity. Get away from the vitamin doses and vegetables.

Get away from everything and everyone who would constantly remind him that he’d never live to see his thirties.

As he ran down the corridor, his shirt suddenly snagged on a jagged piece of metal sticking out of the wall.

He swore as he felt the fabric tear. He angrily glanced at the wall. In the back of his mind, a memory nagged at him and he suddenly remembered that this was the spot where he had torn the wall to pieces and had talked with Beka so long ago. He’d promised her he’d call her boss.

He’d promised her some other stuff too, but his mind was too frantic and angry to remember.

Ripping his shirt off the metal he kept on running until he reached the cockpit.

He leapt into the chair and revved the engines. He grabbed hold of the controls.

“Rommie, open the doors.” He commanded.

The doors didn’t budge.

He swore. Okay, he’d have to do this the hard way. “Andromeda, override the commands of your main AI, authorization: Doing-this-the-hard-way-because-Rommie’s-being-an-idiot.”

Andromeda’s voice carried through the hanger deck and through the ship to him.

“Authorization accepted. Overriding commands of my main AI.” A small pause. Then: “Opening hanger bay 7 doors.”

The heavy doors swung open. Not even pausing to pull on the seatbelt, Harper shoved the control forward.

With a small groan, the ship fired up and shot out of the deck and into empty space.

He didn’t stop to look back if the doors were closing. He just pushed the control further, forcing the old ship to go even faster.

“Come on, come on, you damn old bitch. Hurry up.” He muttered between clenched teeth. He had to get away from the Andromeda. And quickly too.

He quickly opened the nearest slipstream portal and flew the ship towards it.

As the flickering chains of the slipstream grabbed hold of him, he tightened his grip on the control and started steering the ship through the silver strings, not really caring or knowing where he was going.

He spied an exit and jerked the ship over to it. When the stream threw him out, he was nearly thrown out of the piloting chair, but he grabbed the armrest and gritted his teeth.

Without stopping to look behind him, he shoved the control further and shot through space. Suddenly, he noticed his hands were shaking. Damn. He needed a drink. Badly.

He switched on autopilot and started rummaging around underneath the chair.

His hands detected nothing but mothballs. Shit.

He went over to a nearby wall and pulled out his nanowelder. Well, if Beka had decided to clean up, he’d just do this the hard way.

Turning it on, he sliced a part of the wall off and then threw it behind him, letting it hit the floor with a clatter.

Suddenly, the viewscreen above his head turned on. A very angry Beka appeared on it.

“Harper, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Get your ass back to the Andromeda right now!” she commanded.

He glared up at her. Without answering her, he rummaged around the cables in the wall until he found the box. He pulled it out and carefully let it drop beside the piloting chair.

Dropping himself into it, he reached into the box and pulled out a bottle of beer. Using the tip of his nanowelder, he flicked off the cap.

Glaring up at Beka, he took a long swig from the bottle.

Without a word, he turned off autopilot and grabbed the control. Steering with one hand and holding the bottle with the other, he shot through space ahead of the Andromeda.

“Harper, I mean it, stop this dumb crap and get your ass back to the hangar deck right now!”

He glanced up at her as he shoved the control further. The ship groaned and the control was shaking underneath his hand.

“Well, boss, what if I tell you that I don’t feel like it?”

“Feel like it? That’s my ship you’re driving! What I say you do with it, you do!”

He raised an eyebrow as he finished the bottle. He reached into the box and drew out another. Opening it, he took a long swig of it.

“Well, boss, I don’t feel like doing that either.”

Beka stared at him, at a complete loss of words. Harper was never like this with her. With other people, yes. But never with her.

*          *          *

Half an hour later, Beka was so angry that she was ready to start firing on her own ship if it meant getting Harper to stop and getting her hands around his skinny little neck.

They had been flying at breakneck speeds through systems, hurling through space and slipstream like lightening.

Not only that, but Harper had already gone through half the box and had downed a dozen beers. He was working on the next dozen.

And it was staring to have an effect on him. His eyes were glazed over and his hand was shaking more than the control he was holding.

He had missed the last slipstream portal he had been flying towards by about two lightyears and had sworn a blue streak about it that had made even Dylan blush, who was standing helplessly beside her.

Now they had entered an asteroid field. Harper tore her poor ship around the rocks, twisting and turning like crazy and never slowing down from the breakneck speed at which they were racing through space.

The controls underneath Beka’s hands were heating up and Rommie had told her that if they kept up this pace that soon both of their ships’s systems would start melting.

Beka had ignored her, never taking her eyes off the little ship which was speeding ahead of her.

She swore as she saw the Maru heading straight for an asteriod. At the last possible second, Harper jerked the ship around, barely missing the surface.

“Harper! God damn it! Slow down!” she yelled at the viewscreen in front of her.

Harper gave a small, hollow laugh, his eyes having trouble focusing.

“Why? Cause I might crash and die?” he gave another one of those laughs, which always made Beka’s blood run cold. “Aw, wouldn’t that be a loss?”

Beka swore. “Harper, I mean it!”

He laughed. “And do I care if you do or if you don’t? Hm, let’s think. Uhm, no.”

He reached over to the box, nearly falling off his chair in the process and pulled out another bottle. He took his hands off the control and busied himself with opening the bottle.

Beka saw another asteriod hurling towards them.

“Harper! Watch where you’re going!” she screamed at him, nearly losing it completely.

He tore his eyes off the bottle long enough to grab the control and yank the ship out of harm’s way. Looking at how close he had came to crashing, his face paled a bit and a thin sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. But he didn’t stop.

Beka swore quietly. God, he was so drunk.

Dylan was staring at the small ship hurling through space ahead of them.

“Well, for someone so completely drunk, he’s still flying amazingly well.”

Beka glanced at him, biting her lip to stop herself from screaming at him with frusteration. Harper was hurling himself and her ship towards death and the man beside her was trying to make conversation.

“Yeah, well, he learned to fly from me. What do you expect? Everything he knows about flying he learned from me.” She muttered at him.

She glanced back at the viewscreen when she heard a siren coming from her ship.

“Coolant lines in critical condition. Engines overheating.” The Maru’s voice drifted over to her.

“Harper—” she warned between clenched teeth. If he damaged her ship—

Harper blinked around himself as he drained another bottle and let if fall limply onto the pile of empty bottles lying by his feet.

Swallowing hard and completely ignoring the siren and the warnings, he glared ahead of himself.

“Coolant lines in critical condition. Engines overheating.”

He shook his head. God, that damn voice was so annoying.

“Shut up!” he yelled at the insides of the ship. When the voice still didn’t seize droning on, Harper yanked out his gun and with shaking hands started wildly shooting at the corner where the com system was.

Abruptly, the voice fizzled and stopped.

“Harper, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Beka screamed, completely losing it now.

“I’m giving you one more chance. One more, do you hear me? One more! Slow down right now!”

Harper smiled up at her with that chilly, bitter smile.

Beka was reminded of the time just twenty minutes previous to this when she had yelled at him to put on his damn seatbelt at least. He had given her that smile.

That damn smile filled with gut wrenching sadness and bitterness.

“You want me to put on my seatbelt, boss? My seatbelt?” He’d spat, glaring at her. “Will that fix me, huh? I ask you, will that fucking fix me?” he yelled at her. He’d turned away from her and gone back to finishing his seventh bottle.

Now he was working on his fifteenth. Beka gritted her teeth.

Rommie turned to her. “We can only keep this up for another ten minutes. Any longer and the Maru’s engines will fail.”

Beka glared at her. “No, really? And why else would those sirens be going off like crazy on my ship?”

Harper swallowed hard and tried to concentrate. Everything around him was fuzzy and spinning. The black space outside and the asteriods all blended in with the wall of the ship and sometimes he couldn’t tell if he was looking at the floor or outside.

Something was nagging in the back of his mind.

After taking another sip of his beer with shaking hands, he suddenly remembered what it was.

The engines. They’d be overheating soon. He had to do something. But what?

He frowned, trying to think. Thinking was pretty damn hard right now.

He shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness. Damn, he was drunk.

His jumbled thoughts were interupted by the Beka’s screaming coming from the viewscreen. He glared up at her. He was trying to think here, and she was interupting him. He was going to reach up and turn off the connection, but he couldn’t see the buttons clearly enough. He’d probably end up hitting the volume button and making her nagging louder. God, he wouldn’t be able to take that. His head would explode.

What the hell had he been thinking about? He blinked.

Oh, yeah. The engines. They’d be overheating soon. That wasn’t good.

He shook his head, trying to think.

Come on, Harper, think, he urged himself.

Finally, he got it. Turning to the panel beside himself, he squinted at the buttons, trying to see them clearly. There was a button on there somewhere to release excess coolant fluid to the engines.

Finally, Harper found the button. Or else, he thought he did. They all looked the same. Oh, well. He was pretty sure it was that one.

He pressed it.

Suddenly, he heard something being detached from the ship. He blinked. That didn’t sound like coolant fluid flowing to the engines.

He glanced up at the screen flickering in the corner. He saw something red and blinking slowly being detached from the ship and flying through space behind them.

He squinted. He couldn’t quite read the writing underneath the flying object. Why the hell wasn’t the Maru telling him what it was? Oh, yeah, he’d busted up the com system.

He leaned forward, dropping the controls and nearly falling onto the pile of empty bottles lying by his feet. He squinted up at the screen.

As he took his eyes off the windshield, he failed to see the asteriod which was hurling towards them at breakneck speed.

He was busy leaning forward and trying to force the fuzziness out of his mind and trying to concentrate enough to make out what it said underneath that object. It had passed by the Andromeda by now and was peacefully floating behind both ships.

Suddenly, he became aware of what was happening outside.

As he looked up, his eyes widened as he saw the asteriod. Panic set in and the blood drained from his face as he madly grabbed for the control.

Blinking to clear the dizziness in his head, he jerked the ship upwards.

But it was too late.

The Maru clumsily turned upwards, but it was too slow. Harper felt a shudder as the ship’s bottom scrapped against the top of the asteriod.

The control was shaking so badly in his hand that he dropped it.

The unmanned control slipped forward and the Maru’s nose dipped down again and heavily crashed into the surface of the asteriod.

Harper was nearly thrown out of his seat by the impact, but managed to grab the control again and jerk the ship up.

But the ship was too tired. Still hurling along the top of the asteriod, bouncing up and down and each time scrapping itself along the surface, the Maru started to slow down.

Finally, the Maru hit a large ridge and abruptly slammed to a stop, it’s front having been wedged between the ridge and the surface.

At the last impact, Harper had been thrown across the cockpit. His head had slammed into the wall as he had tried to grab onto the railing behind the chair, but he had missed.

As the ship shuddered and stopped, Harper crashed into the opposite wall and his head slammed into the wall again.

The last thing Harper was aware of was the sickly taste of his own blood in his mouth and the shards of glass which lay all over him and the floor. He was vaguely aware of the fact that they had probably been his beer bottles. The faint thought crossed his mind that now he wouldn’t be able to return them for a refund.

Then the fuzziness in his mind turned to blackness and he passed out.

*          *          *

Far behind the asteriod, the still form of the crashed Maru and the Andromeda which had come to a screeching halt before the asteriod, flew the object which Harper had expelled from the Maru.

Slowly drifting through space, the Maru’s slipstream drive passed by large asteriods and small chunks of debris. It was the same slipstream drive which Beka’s father had created from scrap pieces of metal and had lovingly installed more than twenty years ago.

It floated through space, slowly twisting and turning, until it drifted straight into a small asteriod which was coming towards it.

Crashing into it, the slipstream drive crumbled and exploded. The small chunks of metal and wires drifted through space, now blending in with the other forgotten debris floating around space.

*          *          *

A week later, Beka marched down the corridor of the Andromeda towards the Med Deck, her strides long and furious and her lips drawn in a tight, white line. Her eyes were glaring.

Gripping a crumbled flexi in her hands, she continued striding towards the door.

She didn’t slow down as she reached the door, and the door hastily slid open, lest it opened too slowly and cause her to unleash her pent up anger upon it.

But no, there was no fear of that. Beka smiled bitterly. The only person on whom she’ll be venting her anger was the one who was the cause of her anger.

And by the time she was done with that person, she swore he’d be begging for mercy.

She narrowed her eyes, glaring as she marched into the room. Oh, she’d make him beg alright.

She continued striding across the room until she reached the bed on which the object of her anger lay.

Trance swiftly turned around from where she was putting another IV into his arm, her braids flying over her shoulder as she looked at Beka.

“Beka, he’s not strong enough to talk yet.”

Beka glared at her. “Do I look like I give a damn?”

Trance bit her lip. “Beka, please. At least let him gain consciousness before you start yelling at him.”

Beka gave her a bitter smile. “Oh, I’ll make him come around, don’t worry. Give me two seconds and I’ll have him up and scampering around as usual. Works like a charm everytime.” Beka gave a strangled laugh as she remembered what Harper’s former employer had said about him. “Nothing brings him around quicker than a good trashing.”

Trance’s eyes widened and she swiftly stepped closer to Harper’s bed, protecting him.

Beka laughed when she saw her. “Trance, you don’t have to worry. I won’t touch him as long as he’s sleeping. I promise. But as soon as he’s awake, I’m going to let him have it, and nobody, no, nobody can say that he won’t have deserved it.”

Trance’s gaze slid to the floor. She knew that Beka was right. It wouldn’t be right for her to protect Harper from this. Even if he was her best friend. Harper had messed up really badly, and now he would have to pay the price. She couldn’t pay that price for him. No. Harper had dug himself into this hole on his own, and he’d have to climb out of it on his own too.

Clenching her hands into fists and forcing herself not to clutch Harper to her and protect him from the seething wrath of his captain and boss, she quietly walked out of the room.

She glanced at the door behind her as it quietly slid closed.

She briefly closed her eyes and muttered a small prayer that Beka wouldn’t lose control and that Harper would be able to apologize.

*          *          *

Beka stopped pacing around the room, since it only fuelled on her anger. She was so mad by now that she felt like throwing the tray of medical supplies beside her across the room.

Leaning back against the counter, she drew a hand through her hair and took a deep breath. She slowly forced herself to relax.

That didn’t work. Her anger got transferred to her hand where she started crumbling the flexi she held in it.

Slowly she stopped her hand from breaking it. She wanted it to be in good enough shape for Harper to read it. For her to shove it in his face and make him read what it said.

She clenched her other hand into a fist and banged it on the counter behind her.

She glared across the room at the figure lying on the bed across from her.

She didn’t notice his pale face, his shallow breathing, the way his head was turned to one side because of the 17 stitches which Trance had put there in an attempt to stop the blood which was pouring from his head wound.

She didn’t noticed the bandages showing through his shirt where he had broken three of his ribs and Trance had taped them back together.

She didn’t notice any of that. Instead, she found herself becoming even angrier.

She wanted him to wake up. Now. She couldn’t hold in this anger much longer. She banged on the counter again and her self control broke.

“Wake up, you bastard!” she screamed across the room, nearly throwing the flexi at the bed.

Abruptly, she saw him groggily opening his eyes.

She smiled bitterly. Almost as effective as hitting him. Being a light and paranoid sleeper had its advantages.

He didn’t see her at first. He just slowly opened his eyes, blinking at the bright light shining above him.

Blinking a few times, he finally realized where he was.

She waited, watching his confused eyes roaming around the room, trying to remember. She crossed her arms across her chest and waited.

His hand moved up to scratch his head where the stitches were. As his hands touched the tough thread, his hand recoiled, and his eyes widened.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

Panic seized him and he abruptly he sat up. Apparently his ribs weren’t ready for that. With a small cry, his hand clutched his side as he fell back down onto the bed.

Squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, he gingerly felt around the bandage.

As the pain subsided, he opened his eyes again and stared up at the ceiling.

Beka patiently waited. Any second now he’d remember.

Suddenly, his eyes widened and the blood drained from his face as he stared up at the ceiling in shock. Slowly, his eyes fluttered shut and he clenched his jaw.

“Oh, shit.” He muttered. Squeezing his eyes shut harder, he swallowed hard. “Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. Fucking shit.” He swore, his voice quiet and filled with despair.

“That’s exactly what I said when I stepped onto my ship after you so gently landed her on that asteroid.” Beka spat sarcastically.

His eyes flew open  and he jerked his head up and stared across the room at her. His eyes widened even more and despair flooded them.

“Oh, my God, boss! Boss, listen I’m so sorry. So, so, so sorry. There ain’t nothing I can say that’ll make up for it, I know, but I’m so sorry. So sorry. You gotta believe me. I’m sorry.” He stammered, staring at her.

Beka held up a hand to silence his barrage of apologies. Slowly, she walked across the room, her arms still crossed across her chest.

She didn’t take her eyes off him as she walked. When she came to a stop just a meter from his bed, she was still staring at him, her eyes glaring at him with such anger that Harper hardly recognized her.

A spark of fear mixed in with the despair in his own eyes as he slowly edged away from her.

“Boss, listen, I’ll fix her, don’t worry. As soon as Trance says I can go, I’ll go. I’ll run right down to the ship and I’ll work night and day until she’s as good as new.” He stared up at her, his eyes pleading for her anger to fade. “I’ll—I’ll make her better than new. You’ll see. I can make her like a—a miniature Andromeda. I’ll make her the best looking ship around, I promise.” He stammered.

When she didn’t respond but just continued staring at him with that anger in her eyes, he licked his dry lips and his eyes nervously flickered around the room, desperately looking for something else to say.

“Boss,—Beka—I didn’t know what I was doing. I swear. I didn’t mean to crash like that, I was just not looking for a second and then suddenly she was bouncing like crazy on that asteriod and I couldn’t get her to stop and everything went crazy, and, boss, I really didn’t know what I was doing, I swear, I’m so sorry. I’ll fix everything. I’ll get up when Trance says I can go, or—or, I’ll even get up now.” A trembling smile flickered across his pale face as his scared eyes roamed around the room. “Yeah, I’ll get up now and go down and start fixing her and make her all good and I’ll work every day this week and every night and even the next week, and I’ll make her all new, and—” his voice faded when he realized she wasn’t going to respond and that his stammering wasn’t calming her anger. His eyes grew even more scared and he bit his trembling lip. “Beka, I swear, I didn’t know what I was doing,” He cried out, his voice close to hysterics.

Beka gave a short, bitter laugh that nearly made Harper crawl out of the bed and run out of the room. That was the same laugh his other bosses used to use whenever he messed up.

She kept on laughing as she tossed the flexi on his lap.

“Well, for one who didn’t know what he was doing, you managed to hit all the right spots on my ship.” She spat, glaring at him.

Tearing his terrified eyes off her, Harper picked up the flexi and with trembling hands turned it on.

Tiny green vedran letters flew down the screen. Harper’s tired, scared eyes tried to follow them.

He could make out some words which flew past him.

Coolant lines…AP valves…lighting fixtures…sensor repair bots…plumbing lines…

The list went on and on until finally the words stopped flying and the screen went blank before some large numbers started blinking up at him.

He stared at it, growing numb with shock.

230,000 thrones.

He blinked. It couldn’t be that much. No way.

Dazed, he slowly looked up at Beka. “Boss,” he stammered in a quiet voice. “It couldn’t be this much. There was no way I smashed her up so bad.”

Beka glared at him. She gave another bitter laugh. “Oh, don’t worry, Seamus. It’s the right figure. I went through five repair stations before I settled on the cheapest one.” She nodded her chin at the flexi. “That was the cheapest.”

He stared down at the flexi. 230,000 thrones.

Thinking back, he couldn’t ever remember him and Beka having that much money. Come to think of it, he couldn’t think of anybody having that much money.

He swallowed. Hard.

He’d messsed up really bad.

Beka laughed again. He glanced up at her, nearly afraid of what she was laughing about.

She was staring at the wall beside him, glaring at it with such fury sparking in her eyes that Harper was surprised it didn’t erupt into flames.

She narrowed her eyes and raised an eyebrow.

“And take a wild guess what made up the majority of that sum.” She glanced down at him. When he just gaped up at her, she gave him a bitter smile. “No takes? Well, then, I’ll enlighten you. 65,720 of those thrones were for a new slipstream drive.” She gave a harsh laugh. “You didn’t even have the decency to leave me the old one so I could get someone to tinker around with it. No. You had to throw the damn thing out of the ship and get it blown into a million pieces of fine debris shit when it crashed into an asteriod. Thanks, Seamus. I really appreciated that. Come to think of it, my dad would have appreciated it too. It took him a year and a half to build that engine, you know. But apparently it wasn’t as strong as he thought it was.” She threw up her hands and laughed. “After all, it took just one stupid, drunk engineer and a small asteriod to demolish it. Oh, if my dad only knew.”

Harper squeezed his eyes shut as guilty tears brimmed his eyes. God, he’d never felt so bad in his entire life. So damn guilty.

Slowly, he forced his eyes open. He stared up at her, pleading.

“Beka, I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’ll build a new slipstream drive for her, I swear. And I’ll go down right now and start tinkering on her and making her as good as new, I—”

Beka abruptly held up a hand and closed her eyes.

“Seamus, I don’t want to hear it.” She interupted him, her voice cold and angry.

“But, Beka, I’m really, truly sorry. You know I am. I’d do anything to—”

“Seamus! What part of ‘I don’t want to hear it’ don’t you understand?” she demanded angrily.

Harper abruptly shut his mouth, but continued looking up at her, despair and guilt flooding his eyes.

He bit his lip. He had never so badly wanted to go back in time and undo what he had done. Never in his entire life had he felt this bad and this guilty.

God, he’d messed up badly.

He decided to try again. “Boss, I’ll go down right now if you want and start working on her. I’ll even get in touch with the old dealers we used to do stuff with and they’ll give me good deals on some of the stuff, you’ll see—”

Suddenly, she whirled and turned to stare down at him, her eyes blazing with anger. She clenched her jaw and yanked up one of her hands.

Harper’s eyes widened and from instinct he flinched away from her hand.

“Seamus, I have never laid a hand on you for all these years, but I swear to the Divine, if you don’t shut the hell up right now, I’ll smack you so hard you’ll land in the Milky Way Galaxy before you can blink and by the time I’m through with you, the beatings Keeler used to give you will seem like a day in heaven by comparison.” She snarled through clenched teeth.

Harper’s fearful eyes grew even more terrified as he stared up at her. He swallowed hard and tried to edge even further away from her, careful to keep his mouth shut.

She glared down at him. She wanted to see if he’d call her bluff and open his mouth. Right now she knew she wouldn’t hesitate to slap him across the face if he so much as uttered a word. Somewhere deep within her she knew she’d never forgive herself for that, but she pushed that thought aside. She was too angry and too frustrated to care.

She crossed her arms again and continued glaring down at him.

He was cowering on the side of his bed, his hands gripping his blankets so hard that his knuckles were white. His face was stark pale and his eyes were wide filled with fear and guilt. She could see the invisible tears which brimmed his eyelids. Tears of fear, guilt or pain, she didn’t know. And right now, she didn’t care.

She clenched her jaw harder. When she was convinced he wouldn’t say another word, she decided to explain herself.

“The reason I don’t want to hear another pitiful and guilt infested word come out of that mouth of yours is because there is absolutely nothing you can say to me that will change this or make this okay again. No amount of apologizing or fixing or pleading or crying will get you out of this. No. Face it, Harper. You screwed up. Badly. Royally. Whatever word you might put in there— although I doubt it’ll be sufficient enough to describe the situation— they all apply.” She leaned down so his terrified eyes were at her eye level. Slowly and patiently, enunciating every single word as if she was talking to a child, she repeated it. “You…screwed…up.”

Harper started wildly nodding his head, as if agreeing with her would make her less angry.

“I know, boss, I know.” He stammered. “I screwed up real bad this time. I know. But trust me, I’ll make up for it, I promise.”

A bitter smile tugged on the corner of her lips and she smiled down at him, slightly amused.

“Seamus, I don’t think you understood what I said. I said that you screwed up.” Before he could start his frantic agreeing again, she continued. “And I seem to remember making a promise about what I’d do if you ever screwed up. I made it a long time ago, and your drunken, idiotic mind might not remember it, but fortunately, I do.” Her eyes glanced back down at him. “I remember it extremely well.”

She watched his nervous eyes flicker around the room, his mind reeling back five years, until he suddenly remembered.

His eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat. If such a thing were possible, his face grew paler. He jerked his head up until his eyes were staring at her.

Instead of guilt, there was only fear in them now. A pure and sick terror.

“Beka, please, you don’t mean that.” He whispered, his voice shaking.

She stared down at him, her eyes filled with nothing but anger.

She didn’t answer him.

He shifted across the bed, coming closer to her.

“Boss, please tell me you don’t mean that.”

She still didn’t answer him, only stared down at him.

As soon as Harper realized she was serious, he was left speechless.

Beka raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him speechless.

Harper gaped up at her before finally finding his voice. The nervous stammering was gone. The only thing remaining in his voice was that sick, horrified fear.

“Please, don’t do that boss. Please don’t. I’ll make up for it, I promise. I’ll do something. Anything. Ask me to do anything and I’ll do it, just please, please don’t bring me back.” He pleaded as a sob crept into his voice.

The tears which had threatened to spill now ran down his face.

“Please, Beka.” He begged, sobbing now.

She continued staring at him, not saying anything. Finally, staring down at the shaking, terrified, sobbing person who stared up at her with dread, she replied.

“I always keep my promises, Seamus. Even if you don’t, I still do. I said if you screw up, and if you break my trust, then I bring you back. I made that promise and I intend to keep that.”

That only made him cry harder as he realized she wasn’t going to change her mind.

“Beka, please.” He sobbed. “Don’t bring me back there. Just drive me to some rock somewhere and dump me there, but not back there. Please. Beka, I’m begging you. Please!” He pleaded in a shaking voice. He untangled one of his hands from where it had lain entangled in the blankets and tried to reach up to her.

She didn’t answer, only took one step back until she was out of his reach.

With a sob, his hand fell back onto the bed and he buried his hand back into his blankets.

Without another word, Beka slowly turned around and walked towards the door.

“Beka, please!” he called after her, his voice choked with tears. “Don’t go! Beka!”

She didn’t turn around but continued to the door, which slid open in front of her.

Without looking back and without saying another word, she walked out.

“Beka!” she heard his thin, pleading voice behind her one last time before it was abruptly cut short by the door closing behind her.

She strode down the corridor, forcing herself to breathe and calm down.

She ran a shaking hand through her hair. She realized her legs were shaking so she leaned against the wall of the corridor.

She closed her eyes and wearily ran another hand through her hair. She took another deep breath.

She’d done the right thing. She knew she had. She hadn’t broken a promise she’d made. She’d made that vow to herself a long time ago; never to break a promise she made.

And she hadn’t.

She opened her eyes and stared at the wall opposite of her.

Clenching her hand into a fist, she punched the wall she was leaning on and clenched her jaws as a lump formed in her throat.

If keeping a promise was supposed to make someone feel good, why did she feel like someone was threatening to rip her heart and soul in two?

*          *          *         

(two weeks later)

Wearily, Beka took her hand off the control long enough to run it through her hair for the umpteenth time in the past two hours. She took a small, deep breath before punching in the next slipstream’s coordinates into the screen beside her.

She slowly looked up through the windshield and clutched the control again.

Forcing herself to concentrate, she flew her ship into the stream and yanked it along the silver chains, her eyes glued to the screen infront of her.

Although her eyes were staring at the slipstream she was flying through, her mind was elsewhere.

Doubts, guilt, broken promises, fear, threats…these words all went flying through her mind faster than the stream she was flying through.

She bit her lip. She could do this. She knew she could. She only had…she stole a quick glance at the navigation screen beside her. Two more jumps.

Two more. That was it. She could do this.

*          *          *

Everyone on the ship had tried to stop her. Trance had at first attempted to convince her that Harper was still too sick to go, but when Beka only raised her eyebrows and commented on the fact that he had been scampering around her ship fixing it like crazy, Trance had abruptly closed her mouth. Then Trance had quietly pleaded with her not to take her best friend away from her. Beka had stared at her, that little feeling of guilt gnawing at her. But instead of lashing out in despair, she lashed out in anger. She had laughed and sharply told Trance to be more careful on whom she wasted her friendships on.

Dylan had tried too. He’d tried reasoning with her, telling her she was too angry to think straight, but she had harshly interupted him. She’d quite plainly told him that Harper was part of her crew and how she dealt with her crewmembers was none of his business.

She’d shaken him off pretty quickly.

Rommie had been a different matter. At first the avatar had flown off in a rage, yelling at her that she couldn’t do that to Harper and that nobody deserved the fate she was resigning him to, no matter what they did. Her main AI even sided with her, giving Beka the cold shoulder, refusing to answer her calls, dropping the temperature in her room, and, when the time came, even refusing to open the hangar deck doors. Beka had screamed at her to open them, but her ranting was ineffective, and only when Dylan’s tired voice carried over the com and intervened, did the AI open the doors.

Tyr was at first surprisingly indifferent to the whole thing. Not that she minded. She was very appreciative of the fact that he was the only one considerate enough to keep his nose out of her affairs.

But even Tyr got to have his say. Striding into her quarters completely uninvited while she was throwing a few things together for her trip, he’d leaned against the wall, staring at her.

She’d glanced over her shoulder at him, irritated. “What?”

He raised an eyebrow and remained silent. Not until she whirled around and opened her mouth to order him from her room did he speak.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little too…” he glanced around the room, searching for a word. “…drastic?”

“Drastic!?”

He shrugged easily. “I mean, the boy has done stupid things in the past, but you’ve never punished him this badly before. I’m not one to run to the boy’s defence all the time, but life on earth is not easy, as you undoubtly know. I doubt he’ll make it through the year if you bring him back.”

She shifted uncomfortably. A part of her wanted to lunge forward and scratch his eyes out, and the other part of her wanted to break down and cry. The more violent part of her shown through.

“So?” she demanded, her hands on her hips.

He stared down at her. “So, it makes me wonder if there isn’t another reason you’re bringing him back.” His face blank and impassive as always, he blinked down at her.

Beka stared up at him, speechless.

“No?” he asked. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Alright then, I was mistaken.” He turned around and strode towards the door. “Have a nice trip.” He called over his shoulder before the door swished shut behind him, leaving Beka staring after him.

*          *          *

Beka swallowed hard and squinted at the silver chains she was flying through. Why the hell were her thoughts miles away when she was streaming?

She tried to force her mind to concentrate. But it was useless.

She only realized how far away her mind was when she nearly missed her exit and started getting pulled down another route.

Swearing, she jerked her ship around and shot towards the exit.

Pushing all other thoughts out of her head, she forced her mind to concentrate on nothing but the silver chains of electricity she was hurling through.

Only when the stream gently threw her ship out into normal, black space, only when she slowed her old ship down, only when she realized she had one more jump to go, did she let her mind wander again.

She could do this. All she had to do was do one more jump, fly straight towards that ugly, decaying hell of a planet and open the airlock and throw him out. That was all she had to do.

It was that easy.

She bit her lip, new determination in her eyes. Clutching the control, she punched in her next coordinates.

Her hands were shaking so badly that she missed her buttons and ended up typing in the coordinates for a system 300 light years from here.

Swearing, she tried clearing the screen and starting over, but her shaking fingers missed that button too and she ended up deleting her previous coordinates too.

Determined not to give up, she tried flying towards the next portal and trying again later. But she couldn’t even do that.

Her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn’t fly straight. She started zigzagging all over the place, tearing her ship around at jerky speeds until she finally threw the control down with a curse. Her ship slowed down until they were aimlessly drifting through space.

She clutched her armrests, digging her nails into it.

She took in a shaky, deep breath. She couldn’t do this. No.

She let her head fall back onto the headrest of her piloting chair and closed her eyes.

She couldn’t do this.

Because she was too weak, because she was too trusting, because she was too quick to give her loyalty out.

Damn it.

She bit her lip.

She couldn’t do it.

She heard someone shifting beside her. It was him. She’d nearly forgotten he was there.

When they’d first stepped onboard, Harper had asked her in a quiet voice if he could lie in his bunk during the trip. Beka was on the verge of letting him, but then thought that the idiot might try to throw himself out of an airlock along the way, so she’d sharply refused to let him and ordered him to sit beside her in the cockpit, where she could see him.

Without a word, without that blank expression on his face changing, he’d followed her to the front where he’d quietly sat down beside her.

For the next two hours, he’d sat there like that, his knees pulled up to his chest, his head hanging down and his blank eyes staring into nothing.

He hadn’t said a word the entire time.

Another tiny shift. “Boss, I don’t think we’re there yet.” Came a quiet, toneless voice from beside her.

She didn’t answer. She only clenched her jaw harder.

She couldn’t do it.

Another uncomfortable shift. “Uhm, boss, if you don’t mind me asking, why’d we stop?”

Beka yanked one of her hands off the armrest and curled it into a fist and slammed it onto the armrest.

She forced her eyes open. She stared straight ahead of her, looking out into the black night surrounding her ship.

She couldn’t do it.

She gritted her teeth. She felt a small lump forming in her throat. God damn, she was a weakling.

Not looking at him, she managed to roughly answer him.

“Because I can’t do it, you dumbass.” She had meant for her voice to come out as sharp and angry, but only managed a pain filled rough whisper.

Harper didn’t answer her. The blank expression on his face didn’t change.

She closed her eyes again.

“You wanna know why I’m so damn determined to do this?” she asked.

She felt his eyes darting between her and the floor. “Cause I pissed you off majorly, nearly busted your ship and broke your trust?”

She gritted her teeth. If it were only that easy. “No.” she whispered, wanting nothing more than to throw him and herself out of the airlock. It would get rid of her problem and get rid of her feelings at the same time.

She opened her eyes and turned her head to stare down at him. He was looking up at her, his eyes sad but faintly curious.

There wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face. There was only blankness.

“I want to bring you back not to keep a promise I made, not to appease my anger, but because I don’t want to have to lose another person I care about.” She said, staring at him.

He frowned up at her and shifted around. “Boss you ain’t gonna—”

“Yes, I am.” She swallowed hard and clutched the armrest. “Harper, I know I’m going to lose you. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but one day I’ll lose you.”

“If this is about what the doc said, boss, you know half the time it’s all bull—”

She laughed harshly. “Seamus, I don’t need a medical report to convince me that you’re dying.” She laughed again. “Seamus, you’ve been dying since the day you were born. I could say the same thing applies to everyone else, but with you it’s more apparent. I mean, you might be twenty-four years old, but you’ve got the body of a ninety year old. Nobody in the entire universe, not even Trance, can change that.”

Harper swallowed hard, knowing that it was true. He, too, didn’t need a doctor’s report telling him he was dying to know it was true.

Years of eating scraps of leftovers and garbage, living in filthy streets littered with filth and other dirty, dying people had left his body in tatters. Adding to that the hundreds of diseases and plagues which ravaged the camps filled with weak and sick people, all of whom didn’t have the necessary immune systems to fight off the illnesses, no matter how old or small those diseases might be, and it was easy to see why it was a miracle he had even lived to be twenty.

Beka laughed again, but her laugh was choked with unspent tears.

“And no matter what I do, I can’t change it. I mean, I’ve been shoving food down your throat like crazy, made sure the air you breathe here and on the Andromeda was always fresh and filtered, forced you stay on onboard when I went to some planet where the conditions were even slightly unsanitized, and you’re still dying.” Tears ran down her cheeks now, but she didn’t seem to notice. “No matter how many doctors I drag you to, no matter what medication I find and shove down your throat, no matter how many vitamin pills I make you swallow, no matter how much I cut down your drinking, you’re still dying. No matter what I try, how far I go, how much money I spend, nothing will make you better.” She swallowed hard, sobbing now. She bit her trembling lip. “And that’s what kills me, Seamus. The fact that I have to stand by and watch the one person who I truly consider my family die, and not being able to do anything about it.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her head down, her hair creating a curtain around her. Strands of her blond hair got snagged in the tears coursing down her cheeks.

She didn’t notice. All she was aware of was a gnawing feeling in her heart, a bitter sense of dread.

God, she was scared. So scared.

She might lose him. And there was nothing she could do.

Harper slowly got up and crawled over to where she sat, hunched over and crying on the chair. He crouched down in front of her and looked up at her.

Slowly, he reached up and smoothed one of the strands of her hair off her cheek.

She opened her eyes at the touch. She stared down at him, fear and pain in her eyes.

She could see the same things in his eyes.

“Beka, look, I’m scared too. I’ve always been scared. It used to be so bad that I wouldn’t go to sleep at night because I was so scared about not waking up in the morning.” He whispered, lightly brushing her tears off her cheeks.

“But then I realized that I was going about the whole thing the wrong way. I realized that everyday I got to live was a gift, and that if I just sat there, scared about dying, I was wasting it. So I started living life. Really living life. Beka, I know I’m not gonna live a long time. Hell, even thinking about my thirties is a little farfetched. But at least, I know that when I die, I won’t regret it because I’ll have done everything I ever wanted to do.” He gave her a small smile. “And most of that I owe to you. You gave me everything I have today, boss. You gave me a family to care about me, you gave me hope, and you gave me the freedom to live my life just the way I wanted to live it. Beka, you’ve done enough for me. You don’t have to do anything else. You’ve given me all that you could, and because of that, I’ve lived this long already. Don’t feel guilty because you can’t give me everything. Nobody can. But you gave me all that you could, and even the stuff you couldn’t, you tried as hard as hell to get it for me.” He gave her a gentle smile.

Slowly, Beka’s tears stopped flowing and that lump in her throat evaporated.

She stared at him, seeing that understanding in his eyes. And the thankfulness.

For the first time in five years she slowly found herself accepting the fact that she couldn’t do everything for him, and that when the time came, she wouldn’t be able to save him.

But she also realized that he wouldn’t blame her or be angry with her when the time came. No.

Even though he was her family, and she had promised him she’d never leave him, he wouldn’t be angry.

Because through everything else, Beka had never left him.

She gave him a small smile. “Thank you, Seamus.”

He grinned at her. “Although it doesn’t even come close to repaying my debts to you, I might as well start trying.”

She laughed, her voice still a little raspy from the tears. “Well, hey, you worked day and night for two weeks to fix this rust bucket of mine, and now she’s running better and looking better than she has in twenty years. I’d say that’s a huge chunk of your debt repaid.”

He laughed. It was the most beautiful sound she could have heard.

Taking one of her hands off her armrest, she brushed her tears off her cheek and quickly ran it like a comb through her hair.

She straightened up a little and pulled her seatbelt tighter around her.

Harper smiled at her. “You okay now, boss?”

She nodded. “Yeah.” She smiled. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good.” He pushed himself off the floor and stretched.

Beka glanced up at him.

“Now, you look exhausted. Get your ass up to your bunk and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until we’re there.”

She glanced down at the navigation screen beside her and started punching in their coordinates. Harper watched her fingers. She typed in the coordinates for the system behind them, not the one in front of them.

A smile crept across Harper’s face.

She looked up at him. “We’ve got a long way to go before we’re home. Now, scram! Captain’s orders.”

Without that smile cracking, Harper leapt up the stairs and ran down the corridor towards the crew bunks.

Beka listened to his footsteps on the metal grate floor fading.

Picking up the controls, she turned around and headed towards the slipstream portal.

Well, if she couldn’t keep him from death, she’d fight like hell until she had to give him up.

And until then, she’d never leave him. No matter what happened.

She’d never leave him.

*          *          *

As Harper jogged along the corridor, he passed along the little jagged piece of metal still sticking out of the wall where he had repaired it so many years ago.

He stopped and stared at it.

The thought crossed his mind that it might seriously scratch someone one day, and he took out his nanowelder. Turning it around, he was just about to hammer it flat, when he stopped. He stared down at the jagged edges of the metal.

Slowly, he put his nanowelder back into his toolbelt, and stared walking down the corridor, leaving the metal the way it was.

In a small way, Harper knew that the little piece would always be a reminder to him.

A reminder never to mess up again. A reminder never to break Beka’s trust again.

But most importantly, it was a reminder not to leave Beka. No matter what happened, he’d stick by her, until death would finally pull him away from her.

But until then, he’d never leave her. They were family, and he’d never leave her.

Smiling, he turned around and looked down the corridor towards the cockpit.

“There’s something we’ll always have in common, Captain Valentine. I don’t break promises where family is concerned either.” He whispered, before turning around and walking to his bunk.