Midnight Promises

Disclaimer: All characters or references to Andromeda belong to Tribune Entertainment, not me.

Author: Diamond-Raven

Story Rating: PG

Summary: In the middle of the night, Rommie and Harper have a talk.

XXXXXX

Rommie walked down the silent corridors. Wandering around in the middle of the night had become so routine for her that her legs walked her around the corridors without her being really aware of where she was going.

Even in the night there were things to do. Constant scanning of the space surrounding her, running diagnostics on her major systems, keeping the oxygen levels up, and of course, monitoring the vital signs of her sleeping crew.

She quickly ran a scan of her sleeping crew, checking their pulses, and checking their breathing rates. She always checked in the same order. First Tyr, he was the easiest. Nietzschean pulse rates were always strong and their respiration rates were always hearty. Even in sleep, they were superior beings. Then Dylan, followed by Beka, then Rev, whose she had to double check. Human vital signs were easier to read than a Magog’s. Next was Trance. Rommie always had to stop and shake her head over the strange readings she got from that girl. But they were alright.

Lastly, she checked on Harper.

Immediately she frowned. She was reading an elevated respiration rate and pulse. She grumbled under her breath as she quickly checked where Harper was.

Engineering.

Great. Muttering under her breath, she turned on her heel and marched down the corridor, shaking her head.

It was two in the morning and he wasn’t sleeping. Not only wasn’t he sleeping, he wasn’t even in bed.

Although she had gotten strangely accustomed to his insomnia, she couldn’t help but worry about him. Usually, it didn’t bother her if he stayed up until the wee hours in the morning. They’d always walk around the ship and talk and laugh, or she’d help him fix something or build one of his crazy inventions.

But when he was sick and needed his sleep, Rommie wouldn’t stand for it.

She reached the door of Engineering. Opening it, she marched through it, already peering through the mess of half finished projects and techno-gizmos lying strewn about, looking for her blond headed engineer.

She found him sitting on the floor, leaning against one of her consoles. Lying around him were piles of flexis and data chips.

He didn’t notice when she came in. Not even when she was standing beside him, crossing her arms across her chest and staring down at him.

He was busy scrolling through something on a little device into which he had stuck one of the data chips. He frowned.

Finally, when he reached the end of whatever he was reading, he muttered a curse under his breath and ripped out the data chip and threw it into a bin behind him.

Rommie glanced at the bin. It was a lot fuller than when she had seen it a couple of nights ago.

She looked down at him again, where he was reaching for another chip to plug in and read through. She cleared her throat.

He glanced up. A smile crossed his face when he saw who it was.

“Hey, Rom.”

She was still staring down at him. The smile disappeared from his face. “What?”

She sighed. “Harper, it’s two in the morning.”

He shrugged. “So?”

She raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Harper, night time is the time which organic beings have set aside for sleeping. They have done this for a reason, which is that they all need sleep. No matter who they are, they need sleep.”

He shrugged again. “I’m not tired.” He mumbled. He finished plugging in another data chip and started scrolling through the tiny Vedran letters which suddenly flowed across the device’s screen.

“Harper, you need sleep.”

“Rom, if I was tired, then I’d sleep. But I’m not.” As if on cue, he yawned. Quickly, he forced his mouth closed.

She gave him a small smile. “Harper, you’re exhausted. Go to bed.”

“Rom, I’m fine.”

“Fine? Harper, I’m used to your insomnia. Whenever you stay up until midnight or even later a couple of times in a week, it doesn’t bother me. Particularily because you get up at the same time every morning, regardless of when you went to bed, and you have way more energy than anybody with your sleeping time should have. But this is going too far.”

“Too far? Rom, I’ve been—”

“Harper, even you have to admit that this routine of yours is exhausting you. For the past two weeks, you’ve been staying up nearly the entire night, reading through these medical archives. You’re sick Harper, and you need your sleep. You can’t keep on doing this.”

Swiftly, he jerked his head up and stared up at her. The smile was gone. Now only a bitterness sparkled in his blue eyes, one which Rommie hardly ever saw in him.

“Well, Rommie. Either the exhaustion is gonna kill me, or 6 little Magog babies are going to. If I have a choice, then I’ll go for the exhaustion, thank you very much. A lot less painful and a lot quicker.”

“Harper—”

“No, Rom. I’m not giving up now. What if this next data chip has something on it? Huh? Something tiny, something so miniscule that it hardly counts as anything, but what if it gives me another couple of extra days, huh? You want me to just go to bed and forget about it?”

“Harper, I never meant that you shouldn’t try, I’m only saying that these constant sleepless nights aren’t going to better your chances.”

He glared at her. “Look, Rommie. Either help me or get lost. There’s your two choices. Pick one.”

She continued looking down at him.

She was so tired of having this argument with him. Nearly every night for the past two weeks, it’s been the same thing. She’d come down to engineering and find him sitting here, scrolling through endless data chips, digging through piles of old flexis, looking for any tiny medical miracle which might help him. Rommie would always try reasoning with him, pleading with him to go to bed, but he’d always brush her off. He’d always end up giving him that ultimatum, and she always ended up staying.

She’d sit on the floor with him, sorting through the flexis and data chips and pouring through them, always wishing, always hoping.

So far, they had found nothing. Not only were medically treated cases of Magog infestations extremely rare, since they mostly happened in places with no medical facilities, but most of the victims were quickly and painlessly taken care of by euthenasia.

But they still kept on looking. No matter how many data chips they had to go through, how many flexis they had to pour over, they kept on looking. The bin where Harper and her threw the ones which they had looked over and hadn’t found anything on was slowly starting to fill up.

And Rommie was starting to run out of resources.

She’d already looked through her own medical archives, and those of the Maru’s. Rev had used his connections at several Wayist medical facilities to let her gain access to their records and download them. Lastly, she’s convinced Dylan to ask the Sinti Council to download the medical archives of the All Systems University into her database.

This last batch was the one Harper was looking at now. She sighed. If they didn’t find anything here then she’d have to go and plead with Dylan to take them to some planets with respectable medical facilities, in hopes that they might have something.

Giving up was out of the question.

XXXXXX

Slowly, she stepped over the pile of data chips and flexis and sat down, cross legged in front of Harper.

Without a word, she grabbed one of the data chips. Clutching it in her hand and closing her eyes, she was immediately pulled into its data base. Once inside, she started the slow and painstaking process of sorting through the medical records, looking for any signs of Magog infestations.

Most of the records she had encountered had never been put into any order so she’d always end up cleaning up the data base and sorting through it before she could actually start looking. She’d get so frustrated with the damn thing. You’d think that perfectionists like the Perseids would keep their medical records in order. But no. It was up to her and Harper to do it.

Finally, she was finished sorting and went straight to the section where she’d put all the cases of interspecies breedings.

She started tearing them apart, scanning them over for any signs of Magog.

Three cases of Perseids and humans. Five cases of Nietzscheans and humans. She had to remember to tell Tyr that.

Two cases of Than and humans. She made a face. Oh, God.

There! One Magog and human! Growing excited, she poured over the record. But her excitement wore off as quickly as it had come.

The victim had been peacefully put out of her misery by a quick injection of cyanide.

Biting her lip in frusteration, Rommie pulled herself out of the data base.

She opened her eyes and with a scowl threw the chip into the bin.

Harper glanced up. “Nothing?”

She looked at him. If she told him about the cyanide, the crazy devil would probably smuggle some on board the next day. Remembering how close he’d come to shooting himself, she decided it was better to lie.

She shook her head. “Got a bunch of Perseids and Nietzscheans breeding with humans, but no Magog.”

Harper nodded and went back to looking through his own data base.

At first, he had pleaded with her to let him just look through the data chips by interfacing with them, but Rommie forbid it. She knew as well as he did that he’d end up spending hours and hours looking through the things and he’d end up killing himself by either falling asleep while interfacing and frying his brain or he’d end up damaging his body worse than it already was. Neither scenario appealed to Rommie and she swore that if Harper ever tried it, she’d go in and personally kick him out.

XXXXXX

It seemed like hours later that Harper flung the device reading the chips across the room. It slammed into the wall and broke in half as it crashed onto the floor.

Rommie put down the flexi and stared at him.

“Harper, damaging equipment will get us no closer to a cure, and what’s more, you know it.” She said.

He was leaning against the console, his eyes closed.

They were nearly through the pile. All of the data chips had been read through, pain stakingly scrutinized and then thrown into the bin.

Now only a small pile of flexis lay between them. Most of the flexis lay in the bin already.

Rommie checked her internal clock. It was three thirty in the morning.

She continued looking at Harper, waiting for him to say something. She saw him clenching his jaw and noticed that his pulse rate had slightly gone up.

She frowned. She was able to very accurately distinguish between the symptons of pain, happiness, anger, fear, guilt and exhaustion by an individual’s vital signs.

Harper was afraid. Of something. She didn’t know what.

He slowly opened his eyes. In his eyes she detected a hint of fear.

“Rommie?” he whispered. “What if—” he swallowed. “What if we don’t find a cure?” he asked, his voice tiny.

She sat there and stared at him for a moment, before pushing aside the flexis seperating them and sitting down beside him.

“Harper, we’ll keep on looking. Even if there’s nothing here, then I’ll go and plead and beg with Dylan to take us to a planet where they’ve made significant medical advances and then I’ll threaten to blow them to pieces if they don’t let me access their—”

“But what if we don’t find one?” his terrified whisper interupted her.

She looked at him. “Harper, why are you so afraid of dying? I don’t understand. A person who has lived the kind of life you’ve led, you’ve seen more death then anybody should rightly have to. People like you normally don’t care whether they die or not.”

Harper remained silent for a moment, thinking. Finally, he looked up, not looking at her but staring at a table covered with schematic diagrams in front of him.

“Rommie, it’s not that I’m scared of dying.” He swallowed hard, his voice still not above a whisper. “I’m scared of dying alone.”

“Harper, you’re not—”

“Rom, you don’t understand. I’ve always been alone. Always. My entire life I’ve been surrounded by people who ultimately died. Some died quicky, some died slowly, but that doesn’t change the fact that everyone I knew at one point or another died. And they left me. No matter who they were, no matter how much they said they cared about me, they always left me. Always.” His voice was shaking and Rommie resisted the urge to put a hand on his arm. She knew Harper feared people touching him from long years of hell and she always did her best not to disrespect his fear.

“Rommie, the reason I wanna find a cure so bad isn’t because I wanna live till I’m, oh, I don’t know, Dylan’s age, but because I don’t wanna die alone. And if I die now that means I’ll die alone.”

“Harper! That’s not true! Every one of the people living on—”

“Rommie, they’ll leave me. All of them. Sure, they all say they care and stuff, and Beka’s always going on about never deserting me, no matter what—” he swallowed, still not looking at her. “But I know she’ll leave at the end. They all will. Everyone always does. I mean, who would want to hang around and watch me die? Especially die this way.”

She had had enough, she turned and took his chin in her hands and turned his face until his terrified blue eyes were staring at her.

“Harper, you’re going to listen to me right now, and you’ll listen extremely well, or else the next time you decide to mess around with my mind, I’ll fry you. Understand?”

He scoffed at her and tried to wrench his chin from her hands, but she raised an eyebrow and held him there, forcing him to look at her.

Finally, he sighed and nodded.

Rommie slowly let go of him when she was sure he wouldn’t take off on her.

“Harper, I understand where your fears come from, and they’re perfectly justified. But you have to believe me when I tell you that you won’t die alone. Trust me. You’d have to beat all of them away from your bedside with clubs if you want to die in solitude. Harper, I know that you’re not used to people keeping their promises and not leaving you, but with these people, you can forget about those fears. You know as well as I do that they all care about you and that they’ll never desert you, no matter what.”

He bit his lip and suddenly looked years younger than he actually was.

“And what’s more, even if by some freak accident, they aren’t here when you die, I will be. I won’t leave you Harper, no matter what happens. And you can bet that the rest of the crew won’t either. They all care about you. You’re like family to them, and you’re like family to me too. None of us are going to leave you, Harper.”

He stared at her. “Promise?” he whispered.

She nodded firmly. “High Guard honor.” She gave him a brief smile. “You can’t get a better promise than that.”

He drew in a shaky breath. “Okay.”

She glanced at him and quietly noted that his pulse rate had gone down again and was normal.

She grabbed another flexi from the pile.

Quietly, she started reading through it. “And by the way, until the time comes that I have to make good on that promise, I’m going to try to keep you alive for as long as I can.” She said, reading. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “I mean, who but you can fix those AP valves in my slipstream core with just a ball of twine and a kiss?”

He laughed. The sound was the most beautiful thing she could have heard.

He leaned forward and grabbed another flexi and started reading.

XXXXXX

Rommie glanced up as she threw the last flexi into the bin. Harper was asleep.

She smiled. He was leaning against the console, his eyes closed. His chest was rising slowly and regularily as he slept.

Finally, she thought. She stood up.

Then she bit her lip. She couldn’t just leave him on the floor. Knowing him, he’d probably wake up with pneumonia. But how in the world was she going to get him down to his quarters? She was strong enough to carry him, but she hadn’t had enough experience carrying things. She didn’t want to risk hurting him.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she contacted her main AI to please wake up Tyr.

XXXXXX

Her hologram flickered on in Tyr’s quarters. He was peacefully sleeping, snoring quietly. Rommie bit her lip. She felt bad about waking him, but she needed to get Harper to bed.

She moved over and cleared her throat.

Tyr immediately opened his eyes. He turned around and stared up at her. He yawned.

“If you are waking me for anything but an emergency, then help me God, I will blow you to pieces.” He grumbled.

“Well, it’s not exactly an emergency. It’s something else.” Her gaze slid down to the floor under his glare. She was about to chicken out when she heard her main AI scolding her. Just remember, Harper might wake up with pneumonia tomorrow.

That got her going.

“It’s Harper.”

The Nietzschean’s gaze remained stony and his face impassive. “What about him?”

Rommie detected a slight increase in his pulse rate, but decided to keep that to herself.

“He fell asleep in Engineering and I don’t want to risk hurting him by carrying him to his quarters myself.”

Tyr grumbled. “Why isn’t the boy sleeping in his bed?”

She shrugged. “Insomnia.”

He growled, but nevertheless, threw his covers off and stomped out of his quarters, towards Engineering.

He reached the door and marched through them, hardly giving them time to open.

It took him two seconds to locate Harper by his smell. He marched over to where Harper lay quietly sleeping against the console and Rommie was standing over him.

Without a word, he pushed past her and bent down. He was about to throw him over his shoulder like he always did, but as soon as he touched his stomache, Harper winced and twitched in his sleep.

Grumbling under his breath, Tyr picked him up and carefully held him in his arms. God, the boy was light. Must have been losing some weight. He had to remember to threaten him with physical harm if he didn’t eat.

Slowly, but with long strides, Tyr marched out of Engineering, stifling a yawn and being careful not to jostle Harper too much.

As soon as he reached Harper’s quarters, he went over to his bed and lightly, yet swiftly, tossed him onto his bed.

Turning on his heel, he walked past Rommie, who had followed them inside. Without a backward glance, he walked back to his quarters.

XXXXXX

Rommie pulled off Harper’s shoes and shirt and quietly pulled the blanket over him.

She smoothed a strand of his blond hair off his forehead.

Slowly, she sat down at the foot of his bed, ready to wait out the rest of the night until Harper woke up.

She checked his vitals again, watching him peacefully sleeping.

She ignored her main AI when she contacted her that she forgot to clean up the broken data chip reader in Engineering.

Her hologram flickered on beside her, a frown on her face. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

Rommie smiled at her. “I made a promise. One which I intent on keeping.” She answered simply.