Author: L0C
Fandom: Andromeda
Pairing: Tyr/Harper eventually. Sorta.
Rating: R to be safe.
Status: new
Archive: go 'head. Let me know.
Feedback: Gotta pay the piper. modernhepcat@h...
Series/Sequel: A sequel to 'Theme from Harper's Sitcom'. Sorta.
Disclaimers: Andromeda was created by Gene Roddenberry. Somebody who is not I owns it now. This story is mine. .
Spoilers: Bunker Hill and Ouroborous, but not really BAMSR because it's AU.
Notes: This is an AU, where Harper didn't meet Beka until after he had left Earth- so basically disregard BAMSR. Other than that it's mostly the same. Credits to the film "No Man's Land" for inspiring to actually write this one, which didn't look like it was going to happen before.
Summary: Harper has a bad shore leave.
Warnings: more language than I thought.
Chapter One
Gone savage for teenagers
With automatic weapons
And boundless love.
-Soul Coughing "Screenwriter's Blues"
The Andromeda Ascendant was currently resting on the surface of the only natural satellite of the planet of Sardon, a human colony that was ancient even in Dylan's original days. The planet was almost completely covered in concrete and neon, the capital city Tipiskaw swallowed up mostly all the other towns and cities around it until it reached the northern continent's shores.
It's seat of power was here on it's bright yellow moon, far removed from the smoggy, rainy home of a hundred billion beneath it. It offered a view of the planet rising over the sooty yellow horizon, freeways splayed across the land like knots, continents glowing brightly against the utter darkness of the naturally unlit oceans.
Sardon's elite were here on the moon, in the small town that held the presidential palace and was completely dependent on money and resources from the planet far below it. They were mingling with the crew of the Andromeda, or most of it, to celebrate their new status as a member of the Commonwealth.
Tyr was bored. He was there to protect the ambassadors from each other and whatever other threats may be present. It was a function he often served and it usually kept him pretty busy, but no tonight. Tonight there was no threat. The Sardonics were a happy, jovial bunch of people. Too jovial. Too trusting. As unsettling as it seemed, it made Tyr a little nervous. But they posed no real threat. So it didn't really bother him that much.
It just made him bored and a little restless. He glanced around the meeting hall at the various locals, fellow crew members and ambassadors from various signatories- no representative of the Sabra-Jaguar pride, however. That was good. Tyr wasn't really in the mood to see Charlemagne or his wife. There was no real reason for bad feelings or mistrust between them, Tyr just wasn't in the mood.
He'd been falling into and out of moods lately.
By the Progenitor, this was the most bored he had ever been. Even with his inhuman attention span, there was only so much he could take.
Harper had managed to get out of it. He had badgered Dylan for weeks beforehand, talking about how he was getting cabin fever and needed to feel a planet beneath his feet for a while, how he was only going to screw up the negotiations anyway and how Tipiskaw was famous for it's nightlife, please, please, please? Dylan had at last bended and Harper had been on leave for the last two days. No one had heard from him yet but they figured they only would if something had gone wrong, so no one was worrying yet.
Harper, however, was not having as much fun as he thought he would. Sardon wasn't the best place for surfing, surprise surprise, but it did have a bunch of good skateparks. However, it rained, constantly, since he hit dirt, so that didn't help. Rain always made him feel gross and sickly like he was back on Earth. It was the same foul brown acidic rain that fell on Earth, too, and there was poverty on the streets. All over. It was different from Earth, but it was there, in the shadows, a child in rags or an incapacitated bag lady. All the locals seemed to be able to ignore them easily enough but it hit Harper a little close to home.
Good parties, though. Harper spent two days alternately drunk or sleeping, usually with the full intent of it being with someone, but that had not yet proved fruitful. Now he was wandering through a demonstration in one of the main squares, and it was interesting. All these people yelling and cheering, some singing and dancing. It was fun. Harper didn't quite understand what was happening, but it felt good to stick it to the man like that. `Sardon Industry out of Dragon Space' picket signs read. Sure, everything out of Dragon space. What?
Harper wasn't quite sure who threw the first stone, the crowd or the police, but soon there was panic. Hoses were unleashed upon the crowd, gas bombs unleashed, fires started. Harper ran in no particular direction, away from the chaos at least, and right into the chest of a fully armed policeman.
"Oh, Jesus," He started, and that seemed to be enough
provocation for the law enforcer. He grabbed Seamus' arm and wrenched it
behind his back while another beat him with a billy. Harper resisted at
first but eventually, sadly, his old conditioning returned to him and he
fell limp. They tossed him where the street met the wall where he
remained.
He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, watching the chaos, watching others get beaten or carried off, cringing at the pain in his stomach and his back. Eventually it quieted down, sounds of yelling and gunfire and sirens in the far distance. Footsteps approached him from the distance and suddenly a young local woman was kneeling by him. "Holy shit, are you hurt? What did they do to you?"
Harper looked up at her blearily. "Huh?"
"Fucking pigs. Here. Let's get you someplace warm." The girl knelt by him and slung one of his arms over her shoulder, helping him stand.
--
Harper woke up staring at a dimly lit dirty beige wall. Music floated up faintly from downstairs. He realized he was fully clothed and lying in a small messy bed. A warm plaid flannel blanket tucked around him and his shoes lying in a heap on the floor. He turned slowly, taking in the rest of the room. A female laugh came at him softly from his right.
"Yeah, yeah I know. You should totally quit. I mean it. You're always talking about it, you should just do it already." A girl, a young woman really, sat on a chair in the corner, painting her toenails, an earpiece leading to a communication port whose vidscreen was snowy with static. She glanced up at him. "I have to go. He's awake. The guy I told you about. Yeah, I know, I'll take care of it, Klint, don't worry." She took out her earpiece and smiled at Harper. "Hi," She didn't wait for a response as she went to fetch a glass of water. "Sorry if I was too loud- or the music. We're on top of the Sugar Free Jazz, there's not much I can do about it. That was my roommate Klint…well not so much my roommate, I'm actually in between places right now. I just got back from a mission with SSR a few weeks ago- you know what SSR is? Of course you do, you were at the demonstration. Anyway, Klint works night at a porn shop- he hates it. Here." She handed him the glass of water and sat on the floor in front of him. "So he's just standing there and people actually come up to him and ask `do you have any child porn?' and he's like `get the hell outta here'. They make him keep a bat behind the counter just in case. It's crazy, he wants to quit and I think he just should. It's disgusting. Don't you think it's disgusting?"
"How the hell are you?" Harper had finished his water and found his voice.
"Oh, I'm Sakin. Hi. Is that okay? Are you still badly hurt? Who are you?"
"I'm….Harper." He sat up in bed blearily, his head still ringing slightly.
"Well Harper," Sakin smirked at him and he realized how cute she was. "Are you fatally injured or will you live?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." He smiled back at her, hoping it was charming. She was really cute. She was small and fit, with porcelain white skin and big, expressive black eyes. She had long, dark purple dreadlocks. Harper knew the Sardonics were offshoots of the human race, but as far as he understood their mutations were largely on an unseen cellular level. Oh well. It worked on her. Unless she was using nanobots like Beka, which took away some of the mystery.
"Did you hear what I said?" Sakin was saying.
"Huh? What?"
"You can't stay here. Klint's not too happy. Hell, he's not too happy about my staying here. I just thought it was cruel to dump you off at a hospital somewhere. Do you need me to take you to one?"
"No, no, I'm good. Thanks." Harper stood up and put his boots on.
"Do you have a place to go? I could walk you home." She shrugged on a form fitting jacket that reminded him vaguely of the leather tendencies of certain crew members of the Andromeda.
"I'm staying at the inn at the space port. I think." Harper was a little surprised at how cold it became when night fell and the excitement was over. He and Sakin started walking down the still populated but now calm streets.
"I know where that is. No problem. You're not from central Tipiskaw are you? Staying at the spaceport inn and all. You're a Souther, aren't you? They always come up here for the skateboarding and then get the crap kicked out of them."
"No, I'm not from the South. I'm an off-worlder." It was sort of nice talking to someone who talked as much as he did.
"Really? Where, one of the drifts?"
"No," Why was he telling her the truth? Well, he did sort of hope that once they got to the inn she might spend the night with him, and telling the truth couldn't hurt that. Regardless either way, he'd never see her again, so he might as well. "I'm from Earth."
Sakin stopped in her tracks. "You're kidding." Oh, no. Now came the disgust and embarrassment that everyone displayed when they found out he was a mudfoot, like they couldn't see it before. Great. Now she definitely wasn't going to sleep with him, probably terrified about all sorts of diseases.
Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty, Seamus Z.
"I've…I've never met an adult Earther who got off planet. I mean, kids, little kids, but…how did you get off?" She looked away. "No, I'm sorry. It's none of my business. It's just…wow, what a coincidence. I just got back from Earth. We left a week before that revolution broke out. Did you hear about that?"
"Yeah…yeah I did."
"That's something. I wish I could have been there. I wish, well I wish it just meant more to the Dragons, you know? Here, let's sit." She gestured at a bench overlooking a barren park space. "Where on Earth are you from?"
"…Boston."
"Boston?! Holy shit! You're fucking with me! So, did you, like, just totally freak out when you saw that news feed or what?"
Harper's face paled slightly and he looked down a bit. "Well…yeah. He was my cousin."
Although talking about Brendan was still a little painful, even after all these weeks, it was almost worth it to see the look on her face. Almost. "You…no way. No way! That's…I mean…oh, jeez, I'm sorry man." Sakin surprised him by leaning forward and giving him a quick, close hug. "Wow. Man. Man. I was in Brasilia for three months, and in Beirut for a month before that. The Nietzsheans caught us, so we sort of had to leave, but if we had stayed for just a few more days…wow. That would've been something." She looked sideways at him. "I'm sorry about your cousin and all, man, but, you know, he's a galactic hero. And if he's still alive then he's a living hero, which is even better."
"Why were you on Earth?"
"Huh?"
"What were you doing on Earth?" Harper was changing the subject as seamlessly as he could. It didn't seem to bother Sakin.
"I work with the SSR. Teaching, mostly-"
"SSR?"
"Oh. Well. Society for Sentient Rights, stupid name I know. I hate it. But what're you gonna do?" Sakin slouched slightly on the bench, and Harper liked it.
"What do you do with them?"
"Well, we, we set up sort of makeshift open schools for
the refugees, you know? Shit, Brasilia was full of them, a lot of them
were moved off their land by the Dragons, or displaced by the Magog- but
you know all that. I taught littler kids, mostly, how to read, and use
technology. You know, maintain ships and all that. Some of them ended
up getting jobs fixing shit for the Dragons, which is
stupid, but it's better than in a sweatshop or slavery, right? But they
caught us and…it doesn't look like we're going back to Earth anytime soon.
Which sucks. But we also, it's not just Earth, right? I mean I've worked
on Centauri and Betelgeuse 3, too. We do this thing…I mean sometimes young
mothers there…well they know we're from Sardon, right? So they, like, foster
their kids with us and we put them into the system here and they get adopted
by barren couples…black market babies, I know, but it's all good, right?"
Harper smiled. He could tell Sakin was more than a little wired, which could only be expected given tonight's events. "Yeah, yeah, that's all good. That's really cool…I've never heard of anyone doing anything like that. I thought everyone just left us to stagnate and die." And occasionally get carried off on slave ships.
"Well, we've only been in existence for, like, ten years. It's hard work, you know. The Dragons recognize Sardonic ships so we have to be careful about how we get in- it's difficult. I've never met an adult Earther who made it off planet. That's amazing."
There was a moment of silence where the two stared off into the darkness and noisy silence of the city night, staring up at the planet's big bright sooty yellow moon.
"What…what was all that about? That riot? I mean I came down here to have a good time and I walked into a freaking riot."
"Oh, it's complicated. And stupid. It was a peaceful demonstration, those pigs put up that fence. They were asking for it."
"Why were you demonstrating?"
Sakin shrugged. "The Commonwealth signature."
Harper glanced at her, surprised. "You're against joining the Commonwealth?"
"No, no, not really. It's just…you don't know much about Sardonic politics, do you?"
"I know it's a peaceful, representative democracy."
Sakin actually laughed. "And if all government reports were true, there'd be a thousand fewer slave planets."
"True."
Sakin sighed. "The party in power- the Sardonic Democratic Union- has been in power for the last forty years. Before I was born. Since then…I mean, people have found stuffed ballot boxes, but it's easy to deny it, you know? All the other parties have all but ceased to exist- a lot of those politicians just disappeared. I've heard of a lot of people getting beaten or threatened for publicly supporting the opposition. Or what's left of it. And…well, a lot of the bigger companies here do business with the Drago-Kazov. The government's in on it, or some of it, anyway. Garments, textiles, stuff like that, they use slave labour." Sakin glanced around herself. "It's never been said out loud, you know? Or proven. But I know, at least. I mean, I've been to Earth, I saw it. You know what I'm talking about."
Harper nodded. His own experience with slavery under the Dragons supported that.
"And you can see it here, too. `Cause there's no jobs for us anymore. I mean, you have to be really educated to get a decent job here, and a lot of people can't afford it because their parents can't work." Sakin sighed, staring up at the moon. "There's no way our leaders told the truth to those poor bastards up there. There's no way they're going to keep any promises. And I've done my homework, you know- I know the Jaguars and the Dragons are always going at it. What happens if war breaks out again and we're called into it? And the Dragons call our bluff? What happens to us then?" She narrowed her eyes at the sooty yellow moon. "It's so easy for them. They're so happy up there in their fucking little palace. They don't see the danger."
"…shit," Harper said after a moment.
"Yeah."
They stayed like that, both brooding, staring up at the bright moon before them, for what felt like forever. Harper looked down and realized he was holding Sakin's hand.
"This is sort of nice-" He glanced at her face and realized she had fallen asleep.
Harper looked up at the moon and back down at Sakin, and decided that the moon had nothing on her.
Chapter Two
New York, New York, I won't go back
Indelible reminder of the steel I lack
I gave you seven years, what did you give me back
Jaw grind, disposition to a panic attack
-Soul Coughing `The Incumbent'
Harper awoke slowly to the feel of soft sunlight on his face. No nightmares. Clear blue sky. Maybe he was still dreaming.
He was lying on sand. Ah. Maybe he was on the beach. No. He listened, and could hear the distinct sounds of a crowded city. Oh. He leaned over on his right slowly. A girl was lying next to him. Oh. A beautiful girl.
Oh. It was Sakin.
Jeez, where are we? He wondered as he sat up slowly. He looked around him. They were in the middle of what could have been a park, but was really an expanse of sand and dirt, in the middle of the city. There were a few people at the edges of the `park', staring at them. Huh.
"Sakin?" he muttered blearily. Oh, his throat hurt. He needed water. He shook the young woman's shoulder gently.
"Hnn? Harper?" She squinted up at him. "Where are- oh no." She sat up quickly, like a bolt, shaking the sand out of her dreadlocks. "Oh, no. Shit!" She glanced around herself, quickly. "Those fucking pigs!"
"What?"
"Don't move! You'll step on one."
"One what?"
"This place is covered in landmines. This is insane."
"Huh?" Harper stared up at her incredulously. "How? What?"
"Just calm down. Stay still. This used to be a playground. Gangs would buy mines from the Dragons and plant them here. More, uh, entitled people would die and then jobs would be free. Now it's all just mines. Dammit!"
"Well how in the hell did we get here?"
"Cops. Dammit." Sakin took off her jacket and brushed sand off her shirt. "We must've fallen asleep on that bench, and they carried us in. They do that occasionally. Shit, and they covered their tracks. They know where they are, see, they just won't demine or mark them. Says it'd cost danger pay. Fuck." She took a deep breath and that seemed to calm her. "Okay. They're usually bouncing mines so they won't blow until you step off them. Do you feel like you're sitting on anything?"
"No."
"Okay. Stay where you are." She inched around on her hands and knees, blowing sand away. Eventually she had uncovered six mines around them in a circle, and they marked them with their jackets and boots. They sat back to back in a circle of mines.
"This is insane. You're serious, hey? That there's lots of parks like this and the government won't do anything to clean them up?"
"Yeah." Sakin shielded her eyes against the sun and peered out at the people on the edges of the park peering back. "And the townspeople just watch you get desperate and blow yourself up."
"That's insane. Everything you've told me is insane. Dylan should know."
"Dylan? Whose Dylan?"
Harper didn't answer her.
"Dylan Hunt? `Cause that's the only Dylan I can think of, but that can't be it. Can it?"
"…maybe."
"Is it? You know Dylan Hunt?"
"I…I'm the Andromeda's mechanic."
"You're fucking with me. And to think I was going to sleep with you."
"What? You were? And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Yeah. Sure. I thought that was the deal. Gods, the Andromeda. Dylan Hunt. I mean, restoring the Commonwealth's all well and good, but there's so much more he could be doing."
"Huh? How?"
"Like cleaning up the slave planets for one. He has the guns. Fuck."
"Yeah. Well. It's not like I didn't try to get him to."
There was a moment of silence. Sakin looked over her shoulder at Harper. "Really? You did?"
"Yeah. A couple of times. But, well, it wasn't really on his agenda. So you were actually going to sleep with me, huh?"
"You're amazing. Un-fucking-believable. I mean, escaping Earth is one thing, but the Andromeda. You're unreal. How'd you do it?"
Harper didn't answer right away.
"Oh come on, man." Sakin said. "We need to talk about something else if we're going to figure out a way out of this, and the only thing I can talk about right now is those fucking pigs and how much I fucking hate them. I mean, they do this all the time, and they still can't come in here and mark-"
"Okay, okay, calm down." Sakin was thrashing about a little too much and it was making Harper nervous and panicky. "I'll tell you, okay? I was working with this girl Beka Valentine on the Eureka Maru when we found the Andromeda. All right?"
"But how'd you get off Earth?"
Harper sighed. "I…Beka…well she saved me. From…Dragons."
There was no reply, but Harper knew from Sakin's stilled back that he had her attention. "When I was ten, my, uh…my parents were killed by Nietzschean slavers. I got away, but…well, they got me eventually anyway. My cousin, his name was Brendan…he thought I had just run away but they got me eventually." He swallowed, hard. He hadn't told anyone this, not even Beka. "They…they put on this ship. The New Yorker."
Oh, god. The memories came back and out of Harper like a bat out of hell. Suddenly he could remember everything, the sounds and the darkness in the hold of the New Yorker, where they invaded his brain and stuck the port into him. Where he did the most meaningless of jobs for hours on end. Where his soul died and almost never came back to life.
"The worst…the worst part was that there was this girl," Harper's eyes were full of wetness, and his voice was shaky and cracking, but he refused to let go. "I don't know if…I knew her from before or what, but she was always there and she was always so good to me. When I had a chance to get off, with Beka, I…I promised her I'd take her with me, but I didn't. I just didn't. I got scared and I just ran off. And I…and I can't even remember her name." The weight of his entire unhappy past settled on him and the seriousness of his present situation hit Harper in the face and the tears came, for the girl, for the first time ever. He had never been touched by these memories before, and that had always scared him a little-but this scared him even more.
"Oh, Harper, I…" Sakin was suddenly, for once, at a loss for words as she turned and cradled Harper in her lap.
"Why? Why didn't I take her with me, why did I go free and she didn't?" Harper's chest convulsed as he struggled for breath. "Why…and…and after, I…I mean, I got infested by Magog for Chrissakes, and just when I thought I was gonna die, I get them out, and now I'm stuck here in the middle of a freaking minefield! It's like death is fucking teasing me!"
"Harper, Harper, shh, calm down," Sakin hugged Harper too her and tried to calm him, quickly getting as scared as Harper was, staring across the minefield to the spectators far away. "That's over now. Hey. Hey. Tell me about the Andromeda, hey?"
Harper closed his eyes and wiped his face and tried to control his breathing. "Okay…" he said slowly, after a long pause.
--
Tyr was annoyed. Harper, of course, hadn't returned to the ship this morning like he was supposed to, and he had been sent to go look for him while the rest of the crew prepared to leave.
He was sure the boy would still be asleep in his room at the inn, but when he arrived, he wasn't there, and the innkeeper said he hadn't returned at night. Tyr sighed, and went back out, armed with a flexi photo of the boy, to look. No point in worrying the captain about it, Harper was probably just passed out in some strip joint or brothel.
--
"So…this Tyr is…Nietzschean?" Sakin and Harper sat close, facing each other. Harper's eyes were still red and his face still dry from tears, but he had calmed down considerably in the last hour. Talking about his friends had helped him immensely, but neither of them had yet formulated a plan to get out of the minefield. "And…you're okay with this?"
Harper shrugged. "Yeah."
"And you're in love with him?"
Harper stared at the ground. "Look, I haven't said this out loud before. To anyone. So I'd appreciate it if-"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. I know how you feel. I mean…I take it you haven't told him anything?"
"Jesus, no!" Harper stared at her, incredulously. "Do
you know what
he'd say?"
"Well, no. I've never met this person."
Talking with Sakin was strangely like talking to an old friend over drinks. "I don't know what to do about it. Nothing. I think he hates me. He makes me so nervous, you know? But…well, sometimes he's nice to me. He's saved my life before, but then he makes it seem like such a chore, you know?" Harper sighed. "I mean…I'd love to be with him. He spars with me sometimes, right? And that's the greatest thing in the world. And when I had the Magog, I mean…it's like he was taking care of me. But other than that, well…he makes me feel like shit. I mean, why would he be attracted to me anyway? It's pointless. I'm pathetic and useless and scrawny and…well, look at me!"
"Hey. Stop that," Sakin said calmly. "You're not useless or pathetic. You survived Earth for fuck's sake, and a slave ship after that. I think as a Nietzschean, he should be able to appreciate that. And you're not unattractive. You're anything but." She reached out and stroked his face softly. "I think that if this Tyr person can't see that, then he doesn't deserve you." She leaned in to kiss him.
Harper smiled against her lips and kissed her back, even if he was secretly pretending she was Tyr.
--
Tyr's search had led him to the steps of the Sugar Free Jazz. A bartender there told him that the boy had gone north with this Sakin girl, but who knows where that Sakin girl took off too.
So Tyr headed north, and was content to continue and brood when he saw a gathering of people around a square park. He pushed his way through them and his superior sight allowed him to glimpse the boy in the center with a local young woman draped across his lap.
"Of all the inappropriate…" Tyr sighed and stepped into the sandy park, ignoring the cries of the people around him.
"Hey, man, you shouldn't go in there-"
"Dude, shut up. This'll be great."
Tyr rolled his eyes at the banter behind him and strolled towards Harper and his latest conquest.
--
Harper hadn't had this much fun in a long time. Despite the fact that he was sitting in the middle of a minefield, or a crowd of people were watching, he was able to forget his troubles and lose himself in Sakin's kisses. Or maybe it was the exhibitionism and sense of danger. Whatever. It worked.
Sakin broke free of his mouth and smiled at him. "Do me a favour?"
"What?"
"When we get out of this…will you tell your captain the things I told you? About the Dragons? Get him to talk to our leaders?"
"Yeah. Yeah I will. Do me a favour first."
"What?"
"Keep kissing me."
Sakin smiled and leaned in from where she sat on his lap, kissing him gently and lovingly.
She had a tongue stud. Oh, god, Harper figured he was already blown up by mines and in heaven.
No, heaven would have Tyr there with a tongue stud.
"Harper?" Speak of the devil! Harper twitched quickly at Tyr's voice, jolting Sakin off his lap. She fell into Tyr's legs, sideways, and it actually surprised him. Tyr lost his balance.
And fell.
Onto Harper's jacket.
Tyr rolled his eyes and suppress and growl and moved to-
"Don't get up!"
Tyr looked up warily at Harper and the local girl, who were both staring back at him apprehensively. Then he realized that he felt something digging into the middle of his back.
Oh, for fuck's sake.