Summary: After the events of "If the Wheel is Fixed" Dylan "helps," Tyr falls apart, and Harper picks up the pieces.

AN: Implied rape/sexual assault warning.

Originally posted to my LJ 07/03/06

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There is no Shrike Pride.

The reason probably has something to do with shrikes being tiny, if predatory songbirds who don't inspire fear in anything bigger than a mouse. You'd think ubers would have some kind of will-to-power admiration for a bird not designed for hunting that chases down its prey and kills it by impaling it on something pointy, but no. The shrike seems to lack that certain something that Nietszcheans go for when it comes to Pride names. Strength, deadliness, the mystique of the legendary and dangerous. They'd rather be eagles, solitary and supposedly above it all, top of the food chain because they were designed to be, never mind that eagles are just buzzards with better press.

The good news was that we got Tyr and Beka back alive. The bad news was that they were mind-controlled puppets. The better news was that they were apparently being controlled by aliens with absolutely no comprehension of how the real Beka and Tyr behaved. Or humans in general, for that matter. This made their being mind controlled extremely obvious. The worse news was that Puppet Beka and Tyr were almost successful anyway, and the best news was that the mind control wasn't permanent.

After the fact, Tyr strategically retreated to his quarters, and Beka holed up in the Eureka Maru and, judging by her hangover the next day, got stinking drunk. I cleaned up, then took two hours out of the security tape and locked it down to the tightest clearance I could talk Rommie into when she wouldn't let me delete it. With that done, I retreated to my room, crawled into bed, and tried to stop shaking. When I finally managed to fall asleep, I didn't dream.

Beka suspected that something happened, but she didn't push. Trance knew, but didn't try to make me talk about it. Dylan knew, and acted as if I were about to fly apart. Rommie didn't say anything directly, but was worried my work would be affected. I have no idea of what Tyr knew or thought because he was avoiding me.

The few times where we had to be in the same room together, I'd catch him looking at me, though if I tried to meet his gaze he'd look away. Other times, I'd see him rubbing his wrists (without the bracers, the faint, shiny manacle scars are clearly visible) or running his fingers over the places where the bone spurs weren't (no visible scars there.) He was grim and quiet, and if he talked to anyone at all, it was to Beka, who'd gone through something similar, but nothing nearly as drastic as what had happened to Tyr. I hoped.

It was really starting to get on my nerves, but I was afraid to confront him. Not afraid of him, but afraid that he'd crack up completely if I tried. Between us, we have a lot of things we've never talked about. I don't talk much about the refugee camps and Boston, and he doesn't talk much about the mines (barring a homily on the subject of vengeance and the importance of survival at any cost he once gave me on the Magog worldship.) Not-talking had worked for us until the whole puppet thing that had to have brought things to the surface, even if Tyr didn't remember it now.

Or maybe he did remember and that was the problem.

Memory can be a tricky thing. For instance: you see a guy run by you, medium height, brown hair, but you don't see his eyes, and can't say what he was wearing. But if another bystander says the guy had blue eyes, and another bystander agrees, and yet another bystander says he was wearing a black synth leather jacket, and if enough people agree, suddenly you remember a blue-eyed, brown-haired guy, medium height, wearing a black synth leather jacket.

But the guy had brown eyes.

Another instance: From a distance, you see someone who looks familiar. Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's someone you hate, and you're so caught up in what you remember of that person that you go up to them. Then that person turns, and you see it wasn't the person you were thinking of at all, and they're shocked as hell to be greeted, accosted or whatever by a complete stranger.

And again: Sights, sound, touch, scent and even taste can trigger their own related memory. Sometimes, this is not a bad thing.

If you're me or Tyr though, it's not a good thing either.

Tyr's caught up in being an eagle. Independant and more or less solitary. He's a "take pride in your accomplishments for you have survived and defeated your enemy" type. He's solid straight through, a rock, and believe me when I say that sometimes a rock is definitely what I want to hold onto (in more ways than one).

At the same time, that rock has to be resting on something, there needs to be a foundation--take that away and you're on your ass, wondering what the hell just hit you. Rocks break, but they don't bend (not without application of intense heat, anyway). You might be able to put the pieces back together afterward, but depending on the method, the rock is almost never as strong as it was before--and the last time Tyr cracked, he was just a kid. Sheltered, for values of "sheltered" that includes the ability to be left out in the wilderness naked for a week armed with only a knife--but still sheltered, still a kid.

Where I grew up, though, you couldn't afford being a rock all the time--something more malleable was called for. Sometimes you went with the flow, and sometimes you stood against it, and sometimes, if you were very unlucky, you drowned.

Tyr cracked wide open during some kind of confrontation with Dylan. I didn't know all the details, just bits and pieces from Rommie and Beka after the fact. Some kind of "intervention" or counselling session that had gone very, very wrong, and ended with Dylan in the infirmary with a concussion and a split lip, and with Tyr in the brig. I dropped what I was doing immediately. "What the hell happened?" I asked when I got to the infirmary.

"Hello Mr. Harper. I'm fine, how are you?" Dylan said, blinking in bemusement.

"Just great Captain Hunt," I shot back. "What the hell happened?"

"Tyr didn't like Dylan's ultimatum," Trance said.

Dylan gave Trance an annoyed look. "It wasn't an ultimatum. I told him that he was temporarily off duty since...what happened...was affecting his ability to work." At the same time he gave me a half-guilty, half-angry look, which made me want to read the security feed of the actual conversation.

"And when he said there was nothing wrong, you gave examples, and mentioned that you'd had Rommie keep an eye on him, and you knew about the nightmares he'd been having," Trance said.

"Tyr's been having nightmares?"

Dylan gave me another odd look, but it was Trance who answered. "His sleep patterns and behavior for the past few weeks matches most of the criteria for post-traumatic stress--well, so does yours, but Tyr." Trance shook her head. "If you're invested in the idea of your own perfection--"

"You don't deal so well when you get the screaming meemies," I finished for her. "Shit. I gotta go talk to him." I started for the exit.

"Harper, after what you've been through, I don't think that would be a good idea," Dylan said.

I stopped and turned. The odd look was still on his face, like he couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. Like there was something wrong with me. "What we've been through," I said.

Dylan blinked at me. "What you've been through. Harper, he assaulted you. Granted, he was under the influence of some kind of mind control, but what he said and did are still wrong," Dylan said. "He might be mentally unbalanced at this point in time, but he's most certainly not the victim."

"You have no fucking clue, do you?" Some snide voice in my head was wondering if all High Guard captains had been this fucking stupid, or if it was just Dylan. "Is that what you told Tyr? If so, I don't blame him for beating the shit out of you," I said, and walked out of the room, ignoring both Dylan and Trance, who were calling my name.

Tyr was lying on the cot in his cell, back to the door when I found him. "There are two hours missing from the security feed," he said before I could open my mouth to say anything.

"You're welcome."

"You believe you've done me a favor then." Tyr sat up, his head down and his arms resting on his thighs. He wouldn't look up at me.

"I believe I saved you a lot of embarrassment," I said. "You said a lot of off-the-wall things back there." Half the time, I hadn't been sure if he was talking to me, or to whatever ghosts were in his head.

"Strangely enough, my concern is for what I did, not what I said."

"It wasn't any worse than--" I stopped. "Look, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?"

"That is no comparison I wish to hear, Seamus," Tyr snapped, and looked up at me. Where Tyr got the habit of using my first name when we argued, I don't know. "I am not endured. I am not an obstacle to be overcome. I am not--I do not," he trailed off, voice sounding shaky. Shaky for Tyr, anyway. There was a bruise high on his cheek, and one eye was swollen shut. It looked to me like Dylan had given as good as he'd got.

"What do you want me to say?" I asked. "I don't hate you? I forgive you? Throw me a bone here, because I got nothing."

"Do you wish me to act as if nothing happened?"

"Instead of acting like I have an incredibly contagious disease? Yeah."

"I thought--I thought that was what you wanted--for me to stay away," Tyr said.

"Not permanently," I said. "I should have let you know, or something--I was on autopilot."

"Conceal the evidence," Tyr said softly. "Say nothing of what happened."

"In retrospect, probably not a good idea."

"No." Tyr was silent for a moment. "He showed me the security footage. It was as bad as I thought it might be."

On the Harper scale of Things I Don't Want to Go Through Again, it was only at best a five, but Tyr probably wouldn't want to hear that. "I really wish he hadn't done that," I said. "Out of sight, hopefully eventually out of mind."

Tyr snorted.

"Hey. Want company?" I didn't really give him a chance to decide yes or no, I just let myself into the cell.

Tyr blinked at me like, you are a very strange little man, but he moved aside so that I could sit next to him. After a lot more quiet, Tyr started to talk and I listened.