By Erin_Cale
Disclaimer: Andromeda isn't mine. Too bad.
A/N: This was inspired by a challenge that I issued at the Beka-Dylan Group. On Aug. 23, 2002, the Group will turn one year old and I decided to hold a story challenge. The challenge, because I couldn't think of anything else, was that the crew should celebrate an anniversary. This is the first of my responses. You heard me right- there is more than one coming as soon as I can write the others.
Life didn't turn out exactly like I expected. Of course, I had different expectations at different times, but generally I expected to live a happy life after I restored the Commonwealth. A happy life with my first officer, Beka Valentine, at my side as my wife. As it turns out, none of my expectations ever saw the chaotic light of reality.
I shouldn’t be here, you say? I know that, of course. I also shouldn’t be drinking as if there’s not going to be a tomorrow, but hey, it’s my life- lousy as it is.
The bartender doesn’t recognize me in this dim light. It’s a good thing. It would never do for the great Dylan Hunt to be caught getting drunk in some backwater bar where the fights are better than the beer.
She would tell me I’m getting off of the subject. You have a story to tell, she would say, so why don’t you just tell it for crying out loud?
Jeez, I hate it when I hear voices in my head.
I hate it even more when those voices are right, which she is. I do have a story. It’s not a happy one, and it’s told by a drunk who is being bossed around by a voice in his head, so it’s probably not in the best of shape.
Today, I celebrate the second of two anniversaries. The first was yesterday. It began in a big bang. Well, not quite. That was just the Magog Worldship exploding. It was exactly eight months and thirteen days ago today that Harper devised this awesome weapon and we used it to blow up the worst threat the universe had ever known. That was the easy part.
The second anniversary, the one I am currently celebrating, happened the day after. It started with the celebrating that night. By that point in time, we had recruited twenty-three others for the crew whom we deemed trustworthy, so it was quite a bash. Harper produced liquor from somewhere and soon enough the party devolved into vomiting and slurred sing-alongs. Harper even managed to program Andromeda so that she was feeling the effects. Both Rommie and I still want to know how he did that, but he was too drunk to remember anything afterwards.
As Captain and First Officer, Beka and I should have had just one drink and let the others do all the partying, but we didn’t. We got just as drunk as the rest. In fact, we faced off against each other in a drinking contest. I won, surprising everybody except Trance, who collected money from all the people who had bet against me. However, because neither Beka nor I were interested in singing, we left when the others started with a rousing round of, oddly enough, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.
We ended up in my quarters. I don’t remember anything else from that night. In fact, the next thing I remember is waking up in bed the next morning with Beka wrapped in my arms. I remember thinking that, even with the hangover that had my head in a vice-grip, this moment was the happiest of my life. Of course, Andromeda, with her wonderful sense of timing, interrupted and called me to Command. It turned out that I was called because some ambassador had sent an “urgent” message that they wanted to speak with me. As I found out only after responding to the “urgent” message, Andromeda could have easily dealt with it if only the ambassador hadn’t had a prejudice against AIs. On top of that, the whole thing was blown completely out of proportion until the original situation looked nothing like the one the ambassador presented me with.
Anyway, so I hurried back to my quarters only to find Beka on my bed crying. As if that wasn’t enough of a shock in itself, the moment I appear, she starts yelling how there is no room in my heart or my life for anything other than The Cause. You can’t even bear to spend one morning away from it, she had cried.
Now normally, I would have been understanding, but with my hangover making me irritable and the encounter with the ambassador added to that, I was not in a nice mood. I started yelling back, saying things that I would never have said normally. Andromeda told me later that she had immediately sound-proofed my quarters when she heard what was going on, so that the entire crew wouldn’t hear our business. They surely would have if she hadn’t done so. That’s how loud we were.
Next thing I knew, Beka slapped me hard enough to give me a bleeding lip. Then she walked out. That was the last time I saw her in person.
Of course, I’ve seen her on the news now and again, doing good deeds for the Commonwealth with her original crew by her side once again. What I haven’t seen, but just learned about today in a brief note from Beka is that we have a son.
Yes, that’s the flexi I have in my hand. Dylan, she says, three days ago we had a son. I’m calling him Justin, after an old friend I knew a long time ago. And that was all. She didn’t tell me whose last name he got, though I don’t doubt that she’s going to have him keep her last name. She didn’t even let me see him. That’s why I’m here, drowning my sorrows in the kind of bar that even Harper wouldn’t enter if they had a free beer night.
So why don’t you go see him? You have a right to see him, as Justin’s father. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to do some major groveling and begging for forgiveness with the mother of your child, the voice in my head tells me. Funny how the voice has become my only way of hearing Beka during the past eight and a half months.
Just go to her, you idiot!
Okay, okay. Hey, it’s been nice talking with you but I’ve got to sober up, then I’ve got to go see a blonde about something that I lost not too long ago. I’m hoping maybe I can get it- and her- back.
Oh, you wanted more? All right. Come to think of it, there is something to my story that I seem to have forgotten. What is it, you ask?
The end.
Back to my Andromeda/Dark Angel fic