See Part One for Disclaimers
***11***
It was Christmas when the hut was finished. A smaller one than Harper had grown up in, but with the lack of materials and time, that was all they could do. Besides which with only him, Podraig and Jessie living there, it didn't need to be all that big. His father came and went, eating what little food they had and disappearing again.
At first Harper would wait up at night, worrying if Callum hadn't returned. Terrified of all the things that could have happened to him. But as time wore on and Callum would leave them without enough food to make sure Jessie went to bed with something in the stomach, or his father would ridicule him for his concern, he found he was passed caring anymore. Podraig was his father now.
And Podraig did his best to provide for his family, but food was so scarce that everyone in the camps looked like little more than walking skeletons.
"Seamus?"
Harper stopped in the doorway and looked back at Podraig. "Yeah?"
"Don't stay out too late." Something dark crossed his face; "it's not safe."
Harper shuddered. "OK." He turned to go.
"And don't go on the ice! The thaw's coming."
He didn't know then that those words would haunt him the rest of his days.
******
Rommie opened her eyes. She was standing on the bank of a filthy river, in front of a small jetty. The icy air was tainted with the smell of waste.
Human waste.
The sense she had existed for so long without had been one of the joys of becoming human. She had smelt the flowers in the hydroponics garden the day Harper had made her and she'd realised what she'd missed.
But standing here in the mire of Harper's memories, she was coming to the conclusion that a life without smell wasn't such a disability here.
More a blessing.
Rommie realised her feet were cold and she looked down. She was standing in a crisp white. . ..covering.
Snow.
Rommie's eyes lit up. This was snow. She was standing in snow.
"C'mon, Seamus!"
Rommie looked up at the voice, recognising the name and scanned the riverbanks for the familiar face of Harper. But the only people she could see were a couple of thin, pale kids. One, a girl was sliding about on the ice while her male companion watched from the bank.
"Seamus!" The girl called again to her friend.
Rommie frowned and stared at the kid on the bank more closely. He was fairly short for a human male, with dirty blonde hair. His skin was pale and smudged with dirt and he was so thin. Just a skeleton.
As she walked closer, she saw in his child's face a shadow of the man she would know years from now.
From this now, anyway.
"Ash, the thaw's coming!"
"It's still thick enough for skating. C'mon!"
Rommie stopped next to Harper. The boy seemed to ignore her and she realised he couldn't see her.
"Harper?"
He frowned as if he'd heard her, heard a something at least, and then went back to yelling at his girlfriend.
Rommie touched his shoulder and he jumped. "Who are you?" He demanded.
"I am Andromeda."
The name made him frown. It sounded as familiar to him as his own did. Then he noticed what she was wearing, a small sleeveless tunic and trousers. But she didn't look cold. . .She doesn't exist here. . .he thought. "Who are you?" He repeated.
"It's time to go, Harper."
"Go where? There isn't anywhere to go. Not when you live here." He said, then he frowned and his voice became distant. "Not when I lived here. . ."
"Then you know you don't belong here?"
His face filled with confusion, knowing that for the truth. His face grew older before her eyes. "Yes but. . ." The world tilted.
"Then we should go, Harper. We have to return to the ship."
"No, I don't want to go. Not now." He was young again as his reality shifted back at his will. "This was the only time I was happy here, Rommie. Because of her. . ." he nodded towards the girl sliding around on the ice and then horror filled his face. "NO! I remember! I remember what happened this day!" He turned to run to Ashling as a loud creak surrounded them.
And then a cracking.
Ashling screamed as the ice beneath her feet split into shards and she splashed into the icy water."Ash!"
***12***
Harper's yells brought some of camp racing to the riverside. He was already half way towards her, crawling on his stomach, when the first man arrived. Rommie followed his progress from the riverbank, knowing there was nothing she could do to help. This was all but a shadow of events long passed. Harper was a boy again, rail thin and dirty, lost to his memories. She doubted he knew of her presence at all.
"Ashling!" Harper called.
"I can't get out, Seamus!" She yelled back. Rommie could see the girl desperately paddling to keep her head out of the water.
Harper was almost there. The ice around him was riddled with hairline cracks. It creaked under his weight, alarmingly but he kept his eyes on her. "It's OK, I'm nearly there."
He edged as near to her as he dared on the weakened ice and reached for her. Ashling's hands flapped about, slapping the ice in an effort to pull herself towards Harper's waiting arms. But her fingers were frozen and useless, her legs going numb and heavy.
"Seamus!"
Her head disappeared under the water and Harper cried out. Without regard for his own safety he lunged forward, shoving his hands into the ice cold waters. He gasped with relief when he immediately felt, and grabbed hold of, her body beneath the surface.
The ice cracked terribly as he pulled. His body was stiff and cold from lying on the ice and she was limp, her clothes heavy with water. He called on every last once of his strength but it was so hard to drag her body out of the water.
Someone grasped his legs and he looked round to see Podraig lying prone on the ice behind him. He felt himself and Ashling being dragged back onto the more solid ice. As they reached the riverbank, the others scooped them up, wrapping Ashling in as many blankets as they could.
Harper struggled to his feet, shivering.
Rommie came up beside him, touching his shoulder. He jumped in surprise, then relaxed when he saw it was her.
Again, the image of the boy in front of her shifted, became a man. The man she knew.
"Will she be alright?" She asked.
Harper's eyes grew cold. "No," he said, "she won't."
******
Rommie followed Harper into the medical centre where Podraig rushed Ashling as fast as he could run. The medics took her and disappeared into the Emergency Room, spouting medical jargon at double time.
Harper heard Podraig telling one of the other men to find Peter, Ashling's older brother. He sat down in the tiny waiting area and a moment later Podraig joined him.
They sat in silence for a long time, Harper knowing what Podraig was trying to find the right words to say. How to say why didn't you listen to me about the ice.
He decided to save him the effort. "Don't say it. I'm sorry, OK? I tried to warn her but-"
Podraig sighed. "What's done is done, Seamus. Talking about it won't change anything."
"That's what you always say isn't it?" Harper cried, "don't talk about it. Well maybe I want to talk about it!"
"Now is not the time."
"Maybe I need to talk about it!" He yelled, letting out the anger he'd felt for so long. "And maybe I need to talk to you about stuff like it!"
"Seamus. . ."
"Mum dies, don't talk about it. The twins die, don't talk about it. My fucking Da is a complete shit to everyone, but, oh no we don't talk about it. 'Cause 'it's not gonna change it.' Is it?" He went up to Podraig and screamed in his face. "I get. . ." his voice hitched in his chest, "I get raped by some Nietzschean, but let's not talk about that! Sometimes I feel like I'll explode if I don't talk about it!"
"And would it have change it if we had?""That's not the point! I was eleven years old, don't you think I needed to talk about it?"
Podraig sat back down. "I'm sorry." He touched the boy on his shoulder. "I just didn't want to upset you by making you tell me or anyone else what happened, what you were feeling before you were ready. I know you don't believe this right now, but I was trying to protect you."
Whatever might have been said after that was lost as Ashling's brother Peter burst into the room.
"Where's Ash?" He gasped, breathless from running. Podraig was about to explain when a doctor entered and cast a glance around the faces.
"Who is her next-of-kin?" He asked.
"Me, I. . .I'm her brother." He said, "is she going to be alright?"
"She suffering from hypothermia, we're trying to raise her temperature at the moment but. . ."
"But?" Peter demanded.
"If your sister is religious, I think she should be given the last rites."
******
Peter sat by his sister's bed, his head bowed, praying to a God he no longer believed in for a miracle he knew would never happened. Ashling was dying, her malnourished body unable to withstand the extreme cold she'd suffered. Harper sat the other side, telling her how she would get well and then they would leave this place. Travel among the stars together.
Even though he now knew it would never happen, at that moment he believed it.
Ashling was trying to hum something. The song she had sung at the twin's funeral. "Can't. . .can't do. . ." She said. "Seamus. . .sing. . .sing it for me. . .please. . ."
Harper blinked back his tears, "no. No I can't."
"Plea. . .It's my favourite." She smiled, "I want it to be the last thing I hear."
"No, no you're not. . .!"
She had no strength to fight him over it, "just. . .just sing. . ."
He took a breath. "A. . .Amazing Gr-Grace, how sw. . ."he choked on the words.
Rommie stepped out of the shadows. "Amazing Grace. . ." she began, her voice lilting and just a fraction off key, but it didn't matter. At that moment her voice was the most beautiful thing in the world.
Ashling smiled, her body relaxing with the music.
And somewhere in there, her soul departed.
Peter cradled his sister gently and rocked her.
Harper wept.
Podraig took the boy into his arms and let him cry.
Rommie watched for a long while before she decided to speak.
"Seamus Harper?"
Harper stood up. The reality of the room shifted infinitesimally. "Rommie. . .?" He asked, a man again, with that man's years of detachment from this memory.
"Yes."
"Was that you singing?"
"You appeared to be having trouble."
"Yeah. . ." he looked away, "thank you. I always. . .I always regretted not singing for her."
"I know." She said with a smile, Harper frowned and she pointed to his head by way of explanation.
"Oh yeah, your up here, right. Oughta charge you rent."
Rommie's lips curved upwards.
"Rommie? Will I remember this?"
"Unknown."
"Will you?"
"Yes."
He looked down, "everythin'? Even. . .even, um, that stuff I said to Podraig?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
"I can file this experience in a secure file. I would not be able to access the memory without authorisation."
Harper thought for a moment. "Yeah. Do that."
Rommie looked distant for a moment. "Filing." She said, "securing file. Authorisation Acting Chief Engineer Seamus Harper."
"Great." He grinned, "hey no offence Rommie but I wanna keep what's up here, up here, y'know?"
"Understood." She replied. "It is time to leave here."
"Yeah, just gimme a sec, OK?"
Harper bent back down to the still form of Ashling and gently kissed her forehead. "I love you." He murmured. He hadn't told her that during her life and would forever wish he had.
Then he stood. "Let's go," he said.
Rommie closed her eyes again, and her 'consciousness' withdrew.
******
When she opened them, the found she was looking at the others' backs. They were all gathered around Harper's bedside, leaning over him. She walked around them and stared down at the sleeping young man.
Harper's chest rose and fell peacefully and there was no beads of sweat on his brow.
Trance looked up happily, her tail curling behind her with joy. "His fever broke."
Coda: In the Cold Light of Day. . .
A few days later, Harper was released from the medical deck. Trance had told him to go straight to his quarters to rest but he'd been cooped up in bed for what felt like a small ice age, so he took a walk instead. He headed for the hydroponics garden and wandered through the trees and plants. It was such a beautiful place.
So calm, so peaceful.
The air around him was filled with the scent of the blossoms, honeyed and warm.
And just the kind of place he needed to sit and think. He stopped by the little pool at the back of the garden, away from the window to the Heavens where he might have been disturbed.
He really did need to think.
He rarely thought much about the past. Something he'd learned from Podraig probably.
It didn't matter how much you thought about something, or talked about it, it wasn't going to change it.
So why bother?
But he'd been forced to recall things he'd rather have stayed buried. Things that wouldn't go back to being buried. . .
He picked up a stone. Smooth and flat, just right for skimming.
He smiled. But not by him.
He tossed the stone in the water and it disappeared with a faint plop.
end
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