SUMMARY: It all sounds so easy. Set after the end of season 3.
RATING: PG13
DISCLAIMER: These characters are the property of, well, I can’t quite remember, but I do know they’re not mine and I make no profit whatsoever from them.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m not sure yet whether this will become a series or not so bear with me
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Ever since she met up with him by chance on a dank and miserable drift her life has changed. She supposes she must have become somewhat of an enigma to those who know her; while on board the Andromeda Ascendant she is the perfect first officer, albeit somewhat more restrained than she once was. She takes off by herself, often without warning. She comes and goes without explanation; it’s better if she doesn’t try to tell them where she is and with whom.
She endures their looks and insinuations. Harper whines at being left behind while Trance and Rommie smile suggestively. Dylan is disapproving, but she knows he counts on her when she is there. Off the ship, the matriarch is equally as disapproving, but not just of her actions. She can live with the old woman as well. She has learned to live for herself, get the most out of life. He supports her on that and that’s the only thing that matters.
After he left she felt herself change from within. She realised that perhaps some of her chances were gone, never to return, and she vowed that if and when those chances came again she would take them. So when they met in that pathetic excuse for a bar she grabbed her chance and held onto it with both hands. Fearing rejection, she approached and put a drink down on the counter in front of him. She placed a hand tentatively on his shoulder, waiting for the violent reaction that never came. Instead, after a moment of awkwardness she went to remove her hand, only to have it grasped firmly in his own.
“I often wished you were Nietzschean,” he said quietly.
She was momentarily lost for words. “How did you know it was me?”
“How could I not?” He gestured for her to take a seat beside him. An hour later they were in her bunk on the Maru, his body moving over hers while she cried out in ecstasy at his touch.
Now, they lie in bed together, in a nameless hotel on an equally nameless Drift. Their passion temporarily abated, they talk – of the past, of the present, and of the future. He tells her again how he often wished she was Nietzschean and she strokes his arms, subconsciously reminding him that he no longer is Nietzschean on the outside.
It is the future that means most to him now. “I have my son,” he tells her, “and his future is secure.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means I no longer have to abide by Nietzschean rules.”
“Like you ever did.”
He chuckles and places a kiss on her brow. “You humour me, Beka. I like that.” He pauses. “What I mean is that my son’s future is secure. No matter what I do now future generations of Nietzscheans will regard him as their leader.”
“No matter what you do now?” Beka asks, lazily tracing patterns over his glistening skin.
“No matter what I do now,” he repeats. “Beka, you trust me, do you not?”
She shrugs. “I trust Tyr to be Tyr.”
He drops onto his back and laughs. “Those are Dylan’s words, Beka. I’d appreciate it more if you used your own.”
“What do you want me to tell you, Tyr? That, yes, I trust you with my life, my soul, my heart?”
Her words do not go ignored. “Then trust me now, Beka, when I say that what I have in mind is for us both.”
This piques her interest and she props herself up on her elbow. “Both of us? Tyr, what’s going on?”
He sits up, clasping her hand and dragging her upright with him. “Beka,” he began, “I have taken a wife, and I have had my son. I have fulfilled my duties as a Nietzschean male. Now it is the time for us. I want a future for us.”
She grimaces. “Might be a little problem there. Olma doesn’t exactly like me and Dylan doesn’t exactly like you.”
“That is a shame. I had hoped that when I left we were still allies.”
“Allies are different from friends, Tyr,” she reminds him, “and I don’t think he appreciates the way I’m keep coming to see you.”
Tyr sighs. “Then perhaps it is time you made a choice, Beka.”
“A choice?” she panics. “No, Tyr, please don’t ask me to do that.”
“Why not? You have served Dylan admirably through the years.”
“And what about my friends? What about Harper, Tyr, and Trance?”
“They would be welcome to visit.”
Her brain is racing. Tyr is serious, more serious than she has ever envisioned. He wants her as a permanent part of his life, something she has always believed impossible. She also realises that such a step would be a permanent one; there will be no going back once she makes her decision. Quickly, she tries to evaluate all that she holds dear and compare it to what Tyr might have to offer her.
“Tyr, I need time,” she protests.
“Are you not tired of sneaking around, trying to find time for us to be together?”
“Yes, but…”
“Beka,” he smiles at her and she inwardly cries foul, knowing that she can never resist the way his entire face lights up when he does that, “I want to be with you. I have even contemplated rejoining the crew of the Andromeda, but I need to be with my son. I’ve missed too much of his growing up. I owe it to him to be there for him.”
“And what about now, when you’re with me?”
His face falls. “This is why I cannot go on like this.”
She feels as though he has issued an ultimatum. “So its either I go with you on a permanent basis or that’s it? Tyr, you can’t do this to me.”
“Why not?”
She flounders for answers. “Well, for one thing, Tyr, in case you haven’t noticed, I like my freedom thank you very much.”
“And you will continue to have it. It is impossible to keep a wild bird caged.”
“Is that how you see me?”
“As a beautiful, yet wild bird? Yes. You may keep the Maru, and you can go where you wish. I only ask that you come back to me.”
His eyes show a sincerity that overwhelms her. It is apparent he has thought this through and the fact scares her. Still she has questions.
“Why?”
“Because I love you and I believe you love me.”
The simplicity of his words amazes her. She cannot deny him though; she does love him and she is tired of all the lying and the hiding, of the not telling her crew where she is going and with whom she is meeting. “I do love you,” she admits, and goes one step further, “but I’m afraid. What if it doesn’t work out?”
His grin grows wider. “And I thought I was always the pessimistic one?”
“It’s called being realistic,” she chides him.
“Isn’t that what I called it?”
It all sounds so easy.
FINIS