Title: But My Heart Belongs To Rommie
Author: ElJay
Rating: PG
Summary: Harper and a little vacation. What could go wrong?
Disclaimer: Andromeda is property of Tribune.
Solis VII was the dream vacation of the light year so far as one Seamus Z. Harper was concerned; beautiful beaches, pounding surf, huge waves, lots of bars, lots of beer, and lots of babes.
Especially that last.
With a male to female ratio of 2:7, there were a lot of lonely ladies just waiting for a chance to hit on him, and he had been only too happy to oblige.
The trouble started somewhere in the middle of his second week on planet.
Cindy was just great and they were having a lot of fun, until Heather showed up ... then Samantha ... and Cleo ... and two or three others.
He had tried to smooth things over with his usual, "Ladies, there's enough of me to go around," but these were no ladies and they didn't want to share. By the time he escaped the cat-fight, he looked like something the cat dragged in.
He checked his chrono - seven more hours before Tyr and Beka returned to pick him up. Swell!
He headed back to his hotel; with the girls busy clawing one another's eyes out, he was all to happy to turn in early; well sort of - 3 AM was early for him, just not anyone else on Andromeda. He'd get some sleep and hit the beaches early for his last chance to surf for who knew how long.
That seemed like a good plan - right up until he saw her in the hotel lobby. She was a Niet half-blood named Katarina, but she'd said to call her Kat. Well, ordered really. She was beautiful in a large, scary and intimidating way and she had decided that she liked him. She was someone that Seamus really couldn't say "no" to - at least not if he wanted to avoid broken bones - so he'd said "yes.” He still wasn't sure about the broken bones part; he had things that ached in places where he didn't know he had things. And he wasn't real sure about everything he'd said yes to, either. It had been a little drunk out that night and his memory was hazy. He just hoped it wasn't anything of a permanent nature. As it was, he was pretty sure he couldn't survive another night of "yes," so he decided to camp out on the beach.
The next morning, he scoped out the lobby carefully. Finding the coast clear, he hurried up to his room to shower, change, pack his gear and check out. He figured if he spent too much time in this area, she'd find him and he wasn't ready to risk it.
He caught a flitter to the spaceport, stashed his gear in one of the short-term lockers and decided to spend the last of his local credits on breakfast. It was 9:00 local time, so he had an hour to kill before the Maru would be back. Just as he was about to enter the restaurant, he caught a quick glimpse of a familiar head, towering above the morning crowds.
"Oh crap, here we go again." He ducked and ran to the only sanctuary he could think of in this place. An hour later, he emerged from the men's room, dashed past Katarina, and pelted as hard as he could go for the ramp of the Maru.
"Tyr, close the ramp. Close it - NOW!" he screamed as tore up the incline. He forgot one tiny little detail. Tyr could pick the absolute worst possible times to get stubborn. This was one of them.
"What trouble is pursuing you this time, boy?" he sneered, making absolutely no move to raise the ramp or secure the ship or anything else even vaguely useful. Instead, he leaned against the ship and watched as Harper's doom approached.
He clamped an iron hand on Harper's shoulder to hold him in place as well.
"Katarina Ironhorse out of Sharell, by Jason of Three Rivers Pride. It's been a long time. What brings you here - surely the boy doesn't have a bounty on his head after only two weeks?"
"No. I'm just having a little fun. You were right, by the way. He's kind of cute when he panics."