TITLE: Status Quo
AUTHOR: Tiffany Park
EMAIL: anderson7836@comcast.net
STATUS: Complete
CATEGORY: Drama, Angst, Missing Scenes for "The Spider's Stratagem"
SPOILERS: "The Spider's Stratagem," plus some hints for the revelation in "Lost In A Space That Isn't There."
SEASON: Season Four
PAIRINGS: None
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNINGS: Language, violence
SUMMARY: Beka and Rhade come to terms after the events of "The Spider's Stratagem."
ARCHIVE: Please ask.
DISCLAIMER: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda and its characters are the property of Fireworks Entertainment, Tribune Entertainment, Global, and MBR Productions Inc. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

Rhade barely held back a scream when a rib snapped, and his whole ribcage started to buckle under the terrible compression. He gripped the metal rail post, hard enough to leave dents. His other wounds were forgotten; he knew only the pain inflicted by Beka's hand as she slowly crushed his chest cavity--the agony inflicted by her rock-hard palm, every joint in her fingers, her digging, probing fingertips.

The pain increased. He lost control of his limbs in a convulsive spasm. His heart fluttered against the ever-shrinking cage of bone like a trapped bird. His ribs bent still more, squeezing the last breath from his lungs. He threw back his head, gasping futilely, expecting at any moment to feel Beka's fingers rip through his flesh and tear out his beating heart.

Then the pressure was gone.

Rhade gulped in precious air, ignoring the pain of the broken rib that stabbed his chest with every breath. He was drained, unable to feel anything but profound relief that the horror was over, that he was still alive. That Beka had stopped. For now.

Cautiously, Rhade lifted his head and opened his eyes.

Beka was kneeling over him, looking shocked, confused, and--yes, even horrified. She stared at him, her hand resting lightly on his chest. With labored, jerky movements, Rhade reached up and unzipped her jacket, revealing the bio-armor beneath her outer garments. He thought he saw green light shimmer over the armor's exposed surface, then the last of his strength deserted him and he fell into darkness.

Rhade awoke to find himself on the sleeping couch in the Eureka Maru. He was alone, which under the circumstances was something of a relief. Beka had worked him over quite effectively. Every part of his body hurt. He had a pounding headache, his thigh hurt, and his ribs were killing him. His throat was sore. He could feel the hand-shaped bruise in the center of his chest, and wondered if perhaps his heart muscle had been damaged by Beka's assault. If so, it seemed to be functioning adequately. He touched his head, and discovered the cut above his eye had been dressed. Further investigation revealed that the gash on his leg had also been cared for.

He tried to sit up, but sank back down again when sharp pain lanced through his side. He rested a moment, grateful for the comfort of the couch. He realized that Beka must have brought him here. He was a little surprised she had bothered. Considering her usual attitude toward him, he could be forgiven for wondering why she hadn't simply left him on the deck.

He was also a bit surprised to have awakened at all, given Beka's murderous rage. Then again, she had stopped short of finishing him off. He remembered the expression on her face. She had looked as if she hadn't been in control of her own actions.

While he waited for the pain to subside, he recalled Dylan's earlier message. Or rather, what little had been received before Beka had cut it off and deleted it. Dylan had said the armor could act in unpredictable ways. Unpredictable, how? Although Rhade had no specifics, that vague warning had been enough to put him on his guard, get his mind working. He had taken precautions, armed himself with a knife--but it hadn't been enough.

Beka's insane behavior and the armor--they had to be related. He couldn't believe that Beka would try to murder him of her own volition, no matter what issues she had with Nietzscheans. His admittedly clumsy attempts at socializing couldn't possibly have engendered that much anger. The armor must have been affecting her somehow. That must have been what Dylan had tried to warn them about.

Beka seemed to have shaken off the armor's influence, at least long enough to take care of him, but what next? Was she still free and in her right mind? Had she removed the bio-armor, or had it possessed her again? Where was the Eureka Maru headed? Back to the Andromeda...or somewhere else?

There were too many potentially dangerous unknowns. Rhade had to understand the current situation, and that meant determining Beka's current state of mind. He gritted his teeth and carefully sat up. He felt another stab of pain in his side, but it wasn't too bad. As long as he moved with care and only took shallow breaths, he should be all right.

He eased himself off the couch and stood still for a moment. All his injuries complained. He focused his mind, and through sheer willpower convinced most of the aches to fade into background noise. Holding his side, he gingerly made his way to the pilot's cabin.

Not too surprisingly, Beka was at the controls. He limped a little closer to try to get a look at the readouts, bumped into a console and grunted at the brief jab of pain in his ribs.

Beka whirled around in her seat. "Rhade," she said, glaring at him. "What the hell are you doing up?"

He considered her. That wasn't the friendliest greeting he'd ever heard, but in his experience a brusque manner was normal for Beka. He said, "I wanted to find out when we'll be heading back to the Andromeda." It wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie, either.

"You've got good timing. One more slipstream jump, and we'll be home. See for yourself." She moved aside so he could examine the controls.

He saw with relief that they were, indeed, en route to the Andromeda. Rhade turned his gaze back onto Beka, mulling over what to say next. She scowled at his hesitation and, as though she had read his mind, unsealed her jacket to display the ordinary clothing underneath. She even went so far as to pull down her collar enough to show some bare skin. "You can stop worrying, I'm not going to attack you again. The bio-armor's locked up. It seems dead, anyway. Now go lie down before you fall down. I'm not carrying you again. You're too damn heavy." She turned back to her controls.

Always on the attack. No apologies, explanations, or even sympathy. Nothing that could be considered a normal human courtesy. Just business as usual. Rhade decided that had to be good enough, and headed back to the sleeping compartment.

He was certain now that Beka was no longer a threat to him. She seemed to be back to her usual, prickly self. She was treating him like she usually did. She wasn't wearing the armor. The Maru was on course for home. He wasn't up to pressing her further just now. He hurt too much, and as a Nietzschean he was blessed with a strong survival instinct. As long as the situation stayed calm, he'd accept the status quo.

Beka stormed through the Andromeda's passageways, not paying much attention to where she was going. It was night shift on the ship. Even many hours after the fact, her altercation with Dylan still rang in her head. Sometimes that man was such an idiot. It was obvious he'd rather play with his little smuggler friend than deal with the issues of his own crewmates.

And he had the nerve to suggest that she might have a problem with a crew member. Ha! If anyone had people problems, it was him. Mister Intergalactic Space Stud strikes again, she thought resentfully, out to carve another notch on his bedpost at the expense of his friends.

She stopped walking. Dylan might be an idiot, but she was not. She knew exactly who he had been talking about. Playing the denial game with Dylan had been satisfying, but maybe there was a nugget of truth in there that she needed to examine. Did she have a problem with Telemachus Rhade?

She carried the standard assortment of human biases toward Nietzscheans, she didn't deny that. Additionally, her most recent experiences with Tyr had left her embittered and more suspicious than usual, even for her. Had she transferred her anger and feelings of betrayal to Nietzscheans in general, and Rhade in particular? Was he just a convenient target?

He was annoying, there was no getting around that. His ingratiating hero worship of Dylan was a huge black mark against him in her book. She didn't buy the obsequious act or the protestations that he only wanted to learn from Dylan and the crew. Rhade was Nietzschean. By definition, he had ulterior motives.

He also talked too much. On that flight to Atol Pi, he'd chattered incessantly. She'd never heard a Nietzschean jabber so much in her whole life. Just thinking about it pissed her off all over again. No wonder she'd put on that armor and attacked him.

She winced. Excessive butt-kissing and ridiculously gregarious behavior were not valid reasons to physically assault a person and try to torture him to death.

That thought made her grimace again. There was no other way to look at what she had done. She could have killed him at any time, had she wanted to do so. Rhade had never stood a chance, not while she'd been wearing that armor. She had toyed with him until he had been too beaten and exhausted to continue the fight, and then she had tried to rip his heart out of his chest. Slowly. Nietzschean or not, annoying or not, Rhade hadn't done anything to deserve that kind of punishment.

She couldn't blame it all on that damned bio-armor. She had been under its influence, controlled, but the armor had fed on her anger and resentments. It had magnified those negative emotions until they had become her whole world, and she had acted accordingly. She still had a boatload of negative emotions to deal with, but other than her anger with Dylan they were manageable. At least she wasn't under some evil alien influence anymore.

Unfortunately, clear thought brought unpleasant realities to her mind. Dylan had made Rhade a member of the command crew. She had to work with him on a daily basis. They'd done okay together so far, but now life might get complicated. Nietzscheans were a pragmatic race, and Rhade would understand that she hadn't been acting of her own free will, but she needed to do something to smooth things over. Some kind of gesture was in order. She had never actually apologized to him. That should do.

No time like the present.

She needed to find him and do it before she lost her nerve. She knew Trance had pumped him full of medical nanobots, then released him when his injuries had healed to her satisfaction. He could be anywhere.

"Andromeda, locate Telemachus Rhade," she said to the ship.

The Andromeda said, "Lieutenant Commander Rhade is on the observation deck."

"Well, that part was easy," Beka said to herself. "Upwards and onwards."

She started walking.

Beka arrived at the observation deck. Aside from Rhade, it was empty. He stood before the large view port, gazing out at the endless field of stars. He must have heard her approach, for he turned around and faced her.

"Beka," he said, inclining his head slightly.

He looked so composed, even aloof. Smug and superior. Just like any other Nietzschean. Resentments old and new surged. Beka barely repressed them. I tried to kill you, she mentally railed at him. I tried to rip your heart out with my bare hands. Damn it, I almost succeeded. It's just dumb luck that you're still alive. You should at least look a little concerned to be alone with me.

She didn't say any of those things. To hide her inner turmoil, she kept her own face composed, a deceptive mask any Nietzschean would be proud of. She'd learned to hide weakness a long time ago, a survival trait she had in common with the damnable Nietzschean race.

"Rhade," she said, returning his greeting.

They stared at one another in silence. Rhade's intent eyes bored into her, as though measuring her very soul.

Beka's thoughts scurried, scrambling for the words that had suddenly deserted her. She'd come here to make amends, right? So just blurt something out. "You look a lot better," she heard herself say. Oh, that was just brilliant.

"Thank you. The Andromeda has excellent medical facilities." He quirked a brow and continued to regard her calmly, although Beka thought she detected a hint of curiosity in his dark gaze.

"That's good. I'm glad you're all right." Beka hesitated, told herself to just get on with it already. "Look, I wanted to apologize. For what I did to you, back on the Maru."

"No apology is necessary. I understand that you weren't in control of your own actions."

"That's for sure," she said ruefully.

"Why did you put the bio-armor on in the first place? Curiosity?"

"I honestly don't know. All I can tell you is the same thing I told Dylan. I can't explain why I put on the armor. I just... I just did."

"Perhaps it was controlling you even then."

"I suppose it must have been." Beka frowned, troubled. That didn't seem right, but why else would she have done something so stupid?

"Dylan told me the armor had some kind of psychic connection with its creator, that it stopped working when she was frozen."

"Good thing, too." Beka stared out the view port. In the utter blackness of space, the stars shone like diamonds, hard and cold. "When the armor's control wore off...I couldn't believe what I'd done. What I was trying to do. That's just...not like me."

Rhade gave her a sidelong glance. The corners of his mouth twitched. "You don't usually try to rip people's hearts out?"

Good God. Had he actually made a joke about it? Beka grimaced and shrugged. "Not as a general rule, no."

"You did look shocked."

She uttered a short laugh. "Yeah, I suppose I did." She turned back to him. "So, are we okay?"

He looked at her thoughtfully. "Yes, I believe we are."

"Glad to hear it." A little demon made her add, "At least I won't have to get rid of you now."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, you know. We have to work together. If we couldn't get along reasonably well on the bridge, I'd have to do something about it."

He looked discomfited. In a hidden corner of her mind, a tiny darkness laughed with malicious satisfaction. She tried to squelch it, but it squirmed away, out of reach. She settled for ignoring it, denying it even existed.

"Oh, come on," she said. "It was a joke, Rhade. You know I wasn't serious."

He looked at her suspiciously. "Human humor can be quite odd at times."

"Okay, so I admit it was in bad taste. I'll work on that." She held out her hand. "Truce?"

He regarded her for a long moment before accepting her gesture. "Truce."

They shook hands, then he cocked his head and said, "I sincerely hope insanity is not a common malady on board this ship."

"Are you calling me crazy? No, don't answer that." Beka grinned. She enjoyed trading insults with him. "You'll get used to us. Who knows, you might even end up just like us."

"I find that unlikely."

He didn't seem to be holding a grudge. She laughed and relaxed a bit. "Well, I need to get an early start tomorrow morning. I'd better get some rest. Good night, Rhade."

"Good night, Beka." He nodded to her and turned back to the stars.

Feeling much lighter in spirit, she left him alone on the observation deck and headed for her quarters. Everything would be all right.

April, 2004

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