From the Past Part 3
by Aeryn Slayer
Summary: What happened to Aeryn?
Disclaimer: You know I don't own any of it, no matter how much I'd love to
Anything else you want to know, check the first part.
“I hope they’re all alright.” Zhaan said nervously. She was trying her hardest to keep her mind on the task at hand, but it was difficult with so many of the people she had forged a friendship with to be in so much danger. D’Argo hadn’t appeared to be coming back towards them, on Moya’s sensors. Pilot promised that he would keep monitoring the situation.
“They’ll be fine, Zhaan.” Chiana said. The look she gave told Zhaan that she was trying to be confident, possibly for everyone else’s sake than for her own. “You got our best warrior’s over there. Crais doesn’t stand a chance.”
“I don’t know everyone here very well, Zhaan. However, from what I’ve seen and heard, there doesn’t appear to be much that could stop this crew.” Stark added, a lot more confidently than Chiana had.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Pilot started. “But Moya has just informed me that her child has made contact with her. It appears as though he is monitoring communications throughout the Command Carrier. He has linked in, undetected at the moment, and can hear everything that everyone on the ship is saying. Moya tells me he feels badly for rushing off so rashly. He doesn’t think Officer Sun was his enemy, as we are also not. He is informing Moya that he would like to help. The things he has heard from Crais’ ship and what he has learned from Moya, has helped him realise that he would much prefer to be on our side. He will help if he can.” Pilot added reassuringly.
“I hope so.” Zhaan whispered.
*********************************Crichton boarded Crais’ ship.
As he walked through the air lock, he found himself surrounded by Peacekeepers. ‘Looks like Crais isn’t taking any chances’.
“John Crichton. Welcome to my ship. I’d like to see you ram into this one and try to kill me.” Crais remarked sarcastically.
“Where’s Aeryn?” Crichton asked, getting straight to the point. He knew what was about to come, and wanted to make sure Aeryn was going to be all right before he was unable to do anything about it.
“She’s safe. For now. How long she stays that way is up to you.” Crais responded.
“You said we would trade. Me for Aeryn. She is going to get off this ship and get on that prowler and leave.” Crichton stated as a fact.
“Well, she is currently being detained. She isn’t in the best of conditions. I don’t quite know why.” Crais’ sarcasm made Crichton feel like lunging at him and doing anything to kill him now.
“How about I take you to see her for yourself? Would that satisfy you?”
Crichton just glared Crais in the eye for a microt, letting his fury grow.
Three Peacekeepers surrounded him as Crais led him through some corridors to a heavily guarded room.
Crais waved a hand at one of the guards standing at the door as he removed his Ident chip. The guard passed it though the machine and the door slowly unlocked. The guard pushed the door open and stood aside so that Crichton and Crais could enter.
Crichton carefully entered, unsure about how much he could trust Crais. He knew it was very little.
Lying on the ground at the side of the room was Aeryn. She looked unconscious, barely alive.
Before Crichton could breathe, Crais slowly edged back and said, “I’ll leave the two of you to, talk. You won’t mind if I lock the door, would you? Just for a little peace of mind.”
Crichton didn’t even bother to answer. Crais turned and closed the door. Crichton could just make out the sound of it locking.
***************************“Aeryn, are you okay?” he asked softly, still unsure if she was actually awake.
“Crichton,” she whispered croakily. She was just able to lift her head enough to see his face. He looked worried. “I told you to go back to Moya and stay there.”
“Are you alright Aeryn?” He asked again, seemingly ignoring her protest. He helped her roll onto her side so that he could check her out thoroughly. She looked about as bad as he had after he had been in the chair. He gently guided a few loose strands of hair behind her ear so he could see her face.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to find out how to get him off the ship. ‘Crais may want me dead, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to kill Crichton as soon as he gets the chance.’ Aeryn thought, a little angrily.
“I came to get you out of here.” He started as he decided to let Aeryn in on his plan. “D’Argo is in the prowler. He’s not far away. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to get you off this ship and he’ll take you back to Moya. You can work out a way to get Moya out of this area. Starburst somewhere…”
“I told you to go back to Moya. Why didn’t you?” Aeryn asked more frustrated than anything else.
“We didn’t know what Crais would do to you. I was worried that he might try and use you as bait to get the rest of us out of the asteroid field. I had to make sure you were okay.” He said sadly as Aeryn noticed him looking at the ground.
“I am okay, Crichton.”
Aeryn put her hand to Crichton’s chin and lifted his face to hers. They looked at each other for what seemed like a cycle. Crichton looked so worried.
Suddenly, he leaned forward and pulled Aeryn towards him and hugged her.
He held her so tightly that she gasped out in pain. Crichton pulled back to see what was wrong.
“What is it Aeryn?” He followed her gaze and found her hand pressing against her side.
He carefully tried to pull her hand back to see what was wrong.
“No.” She said through clenched teeth. He carefully made her lie down.
He pulled her hand back, against her protests. He carefully unclipped her jacket only to discover the shirt underneath was soaked with blood.
“What happened?” he asked worriedly.
“Nothing.” She kept repeating.
Crichton pulled the end of her shirt up and found a ghastly wound resembling that of a pulse rifle.
“When did this happen?” he asked her again, this time, looking straight into her face.
Aeryn looked him in the eye for a microt and under his scrutinizing glare, finally gave up.
“At the Gammak Base. After I got the Ident chip off of Crais, I got back to you and Gilina and we went up to Zhaan and D’Argo. During the firefight up top, a strange looking man shot at me from the side. He shot at Gilina and she pulled me in front of her. I got shot in her place.” From the look on Crichton’s face she added. “Now do you understand why I didn’t really want to tell you? Besides, I didn’t think you’d believe me, especially if Gilina had made it and tried to say I was lying. It would be my word against hers. I think we both know who you would have believed.”
Crichton gazed into her eyes for a microt, before getting on with what was happening.
“It doesn’t look good, Aeryn. Why didn’t you tell someone what happened?” he looked at her sadly and added. “You should have told me.”
“We had enough to deal with on the base. I didn’t want to delay getting us out of there. Besides, I didn’t think that it was that bad. Then, when we got back to Moya, I realised that it was a little worse than I had first thought. I just didn’t want to make matters any more complicated than they already were. Moya was having problems with the baby. Everyone was worried about that. I saw no reason to give them something more to worry themselves with.” She looked at Crichton and added. “You had a few things on your mind also, so I saw even less need to bother you.”
Suddenly, they both thought about the incident on Moya involving Crichton blaming Aeryn for Gilina’s death.
A rush of guilt hit Crichton and he dropped his head in shame.
“I’m so sorry, Aeryn. I had no idea what happened. If I had known…”
“It was my decision not to tell you. You probably would have just waited until I was better before you gave me the ‘blame’ speech anyway.” She added angrily.
“Aeryn,” Crichton started, near tears. “If I had known what had happened to you, I would never have blamed you. I swear I would do whatever it took to make sure you were okay.”
“I was just fine until you got here. If you hadn’t come, Crais would have taken out his little revenge and killed me. You and the others could have found some way of getting Moya out of there and somewhere safe.” Before she could continue, Crichton jumped in.
“What has Crais got against you all of a sudden?”
“When I took his Ident chip, I confronted him about me. Then, when I left, I turned the chair on and let him watch his life.” She answered simply.
“Did you say anything to him to make him want you dead this bad?” Crichton asked, feeling like he was missing something.
Aeryn detailed her confrontation with Crais.
******************************After leaving Crichton and Gilina in their hiding place, Aeryn went in search of a Senior Officer.
She walked cautiously through the corridors, aware that, after knocking that guard out to get Crichton, someone may be looking for her.
Unexpectedly, she heard what sounded like someone whimpering. She moved towards the noise, carefully. She turned a corner and found herself in a large room. In the centre was a chair. Strapped in that chair was Captain Bialar Crais.
She slowly made her way to stand next to the chair. She was still unsure what to make of the situation.
“Captain Crais. What are you doing in this chair?” she asked, unable to think of a single reason herself.
“Who’s that? Who’s there?” he asked weakly, miserably.
Aeryn thought for a microt. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t expect you to recognise my voice.”
He still had no idea who this person was, but he would play it safe. “Did Scorpius send you?” When the women didn’t answer, he thought maybe she wasn’t working for Scorpius.
Aeryn looked up to see what memory Scorpius had pulled last from Crais’ mind. She was horrified to find the picture of Crais breaking Lt Teag’s neck.
“Release me from this chair.” He pleaded.
“Why? So that you can kill me the way that you killed Lt Teag?” she asked angrily.
“Who are you?”
Aeryn was a little disappointed that Crais still didn’t remember her.
“I am irreversibly contaminated. Now do you know who I am?” she asked as she moved around to face him.
‘You’ Crais thought to himself. “Aeryn Sun.”
Aeryn leaned in towards Crais and looked him right in the eye. “Does this contaminate you Crais?” she asked heatedly.
“As a Peacekeeper, you took a blood oath to obey your commanding officer. Til death.”
Aeryn nodded her head. “Yes.”
“I am still your commanding officer.” He growled angrily.
“But I am no longer a Peacekeeper.” She retorted. ‘I finally said it.’ Aeryn thought to herself. She’d never actually said it aloud before. Aeryn felt as though her voice had echoed through the entire base.
“You are a Peacekeeper for life. On the oath you took.”
“Your oath means nothing to me, you made sure of that. You destroyed everything. I lost everything, because of you.” She cried furiously.
“Aeryn…Sun.”
“You know what I learned when I was away from you? Everything I lost isn’t worth a damn. And I don’t want to go back to your past.” Her voice started cracking with the emotions she was throwing at the man whom she would have given her life for, should the mission require it.
“I order you…”
“You order me?” Aeryn asked in horror. She looked at his Ident chip and wrenched it from around his neck. She stepped back and looked at him with contempt. “You will never order me again.”
Crais growled wickedly. “I will track you down and kill you Officer Sun. On that I give you my vow.”
Aeryn looked at him for a microt, saddened. “And you know what I give you, Crais? Your life.” She walked over to the control panel and looked back at him. “I will make you watch your life.”
With that, she flicked some of the switches and swung her arm over the panel causing everything to start humming. Crais started screaming in pain as the chair was activated.
Aeryn looked at him one last time as she pulled the lever to start the memory extraction.
She left the room and cautiously started making her way back to Crichton and Gilina.
She never looked back.
******************************Aeryn stopped as Crichton touched her wound a little too hard with the cloth he had.
After he’d been unable to find anything to try stop the bleeding with, or to clean the wound, he had ripped some material from his own shirt.
He started to dab the wound, which hadn’t bothered Aeryn that much.
Until he touched a part which made her flinch. It had hurt quite a lot.
Aeryn looked at Crichton’s face and almost laughed, apart from the pain it would have caused, at his look of complete concentration. He was trying to be so careful of her wound, and find out what Crais had against her, at the same time.
Aeryn noticed something else in that look.
“What is it?” she asked.
Crichton stopped and looked up at her. Their faces were so close he could feel her rapid breathing on his lips.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, although they both knew what she was talking about.
“That look, was there something more than worry in there?” she asked a little prudently.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He started as he looked back at her wound so that he didn’t have to look her in the eye.
Aeryn lifted a shaky hand to Crichton’s face and moved it towards hers. They were even closer together than before.
“Yes you do.” She told him, a little breathlessly.
“Hearing how you stood up to Crais and told him that you were no longer a Peacekeeper. I would have loved to have seen that.” Crichton held Aeryn’s face and looked deep into her eyes as he said what he was really feeling about it. “I’m really proud of you Aeryn. The fact that you said those things, and that you said them to the one person who it would have affected the most. It really does make me even more proud to care about you so much.” Crichton looked away as he let Aeryn digest what he had let slip in front of her.
“Crichton…?” Aeryn started, but John didn’t know if he could get into this right now. Someone could be watching or listening.
“Aeryn. I think it would be safer if we just concentrated on now.” He started, getting back on topic. “How exactly did this happen?”
Aeryn was still a little thrown off by what Crichton had said. ‘How much does he care about me?’ She attempted to shrug it off to talk about it later, but it wouldn’t leave. Instead, she tried to get back to what had happened to her.
******************************The battle was a dangerous one. Everyone was aware of that.
Crichton, Stark and Gilina were held up on one side of the firing range.
Zhaan, D’Argo and Aeryn had managed to get to the other side, where the transport was ready and waiting to take them back to Moya.
“Aeryn, cover me so I can get to D’Argo.” Zhaan called out to Aeryn.
She started firing at everything out past the wall of flames created by D’Argo’s grenade. She was sure that she had hit at least three soldiers.
Aeryn risked a look back to see that Zhaan had safely made it to D’Argo’s position. She looked to be all right.
Crichton and the others, however, looked to be in a much worse situation.
“Crichton!” Aeryn called out to let him know she was there.
“Aeryn. Go back to the ship, we’ll meet you there!” he called back.
Aeryn knew they weren’t going to get out of there without a little help from her, if she didn’t say so herself.
She charged forward and fired her way to the other side of their line. She found herself next to Gilina.
“Crichton. I’ll take Gilina over to the other side. Will the two of you be okay?” She found herself having to scream over the deafening sound of battle going on around them.
Aeryn looked over to Crichton, just in case he had answered her and she had been unable to hear him. He was also looking at her. He nodded his head and used his hands to indicate, as well as she could make out, that they go over to the transport and wait. Aeryn could only nod back in agreement.
She grabbed Gilina by the arm and pulled her to a nearby shaft. They stood behind it for a microt, until the fire had lulled, as much as it could with the amount going on behind them. Aeryn was sure Gilina was trying to say something to her, but she couldn’t make it out. There was no time to talk.
Aeryn fired out at the procession of soldiers starting to make a move forward.
Some went down. The rest came forward even further.
Gilina was stumbling behind. If Aeryn couldn’t make her hurry up, someone would shoot at them and get her.
Suddenly, Aeryn found that they had come to the other side. It had been closer than she thought.
She pulled Gilina behind the stone wall, towards the transport.
“What about John?” she asked, obviously annoyed that she had had to leave him in there.
“He’ll be fine, Gilina. We have to get to the transport and be ready to take off as soon as they get to us.”
Gilina was obviously not convinced. She looked back at the scene of mayhem that they had left Crichton in and stranded herself between that and safety.
Aeryn ran back and tried to pull Gilina away from the edge of the wall.
“He will be okay, Gilina.” She had wanted to say something else, but someone interrupted her.
“Unfortunately, neither of you will be able to say the same.” He was an ugly looking man. Tight, pale skin. A black body suit. Aeryn was about to ask who he was when he pulled out a pulse rifle.
“You were the one who helped Crichton while he was in the chair.” He said casually as he looked at Gilina. “And you must be the Peacekeeper from his memories, who has given up her own life in order to help him escape.”
All of a sudden, he had his gun up and had it pointed at Gilina. Aeryn had planned to shoot him before he got a shot out, since all her training told her she would be fast enough, however, she never got the chance.
Gilina grabbed Aeryn by the shoulders and pulled her in front of her own body as a shield. Scorpius realised he had time to stop and avoid hitting this other woman, but thought that it would just as much damage. ‘Better to kill someone, than no one’ he thought snidely.
Before she could pull away from Gilina’s grasp, she felt the shot hit her. She cried out in shock and pain. Her instincts made her fire out at him, but she was in too much pain to get even close.
The man disappeared as Gilina let Aeryn drop to the ground. She ran off towards the transport, but then she cut a left around the corner. Aeryn was able to pull herself towards a wall and around the corner slightly. She looked down at her wound and saw that it was bleeding. She took a few deep breaths, before using the wall to help heave herself up to a standing position. She took a few more deep breaths.
Aeryn stood for a microt, trying to see if she could stand without leaning on the wall. She suddenly felt like the hit she had taken wasn’t as bad as she had first thought. She came back around the corner and found Gilina, only this time with a gun in her hands. Aeryn looked at where she had the gun pointed. The man who had shot her had a gun pointed into the side of Crichton’s head. For some strange reason, Crichton had a smirk on his face.
“Shoot him, Gilina.” She heard him say.
When she looked back at Gilina, she was just standing there. ‘Why hasn’t she fired yet?’ Aeryn asked herself.
The man who was holding Crichton had a chance and he took it. He fired at Gilina twice before Crichton was able to knock his hand away. As the man left, Crichton swung back around and fired at him, missing every time. He got up and ran to Gilina. He cradled her in his arms for a microt before D’Argo and Stark were there. They helped him get Gilina back to the transport.
Aeryn made her way, as fast as she could, back to the transport. She was able to cover the wound well enough for it not to be seen. Luckily, the blood was almost unnoticeable on the Peacekeeper jacket she still had on. She only hoped that all the other commotion aboard Moya would be enough of a distraction for no one to be too concerned with her well being. ‘If anyone asks,’ she thought to herself, ‘I can just say I’m still a little tired from the paraphoral graft. Zhaan did say I would need to rest.’
She was on board with the others, and no one seemed to notice.
*************************Crichton looked at Aeryn, completely bewildered by what she had described. ‘Could Gilina have really done that?’ he asked himself. He knew Gilina may have a grudge against Aeryn because of what he had said to her, but would she go as far as to try and get Aeryn killed?
“Aeryn. I had no idea.” He said, still a little dazed.
Aeryn looked at him suspiciously. “You mean, you believe me?”
“Of coarse I do. Why shouldn’t I?”
“I know what Gilina meant to you. I didn’t think you would want to believe she was that kind of person. I didn’t even think she was.”
Crichton was getting sick and tired of hearing Aeryn talk about how she knew what Gilina meant to him, and he told her so. “Aeryn, I am sick and tired of hearing you say that you knew what Gilina meant to me. You have no idea. Do you think I would have made her come with us just because I might have felt something for her, of which it has been a long time since I have ever thought like that, when it was obvious to everyone on board that there was definitely something between you and me? I know we never admitted it, and that there were only a couple of times when something happened to make it that clear, but there was definitely something there.” He explained to her, almost a little mad, and absolutely disappointed that she didn’t seem to have realised what he was telling her before now.
“Didn’t you ever think that maybe there was something between us?” he asked hopefully.
“I…I thought maybe, I don’t know. Look, Crichton. You know as a Peacekeeper, I am no good with emotions. I feel them, more often now, but I can’t, and usually don’t know how to express them as easily as you do.” She said sadly.
“But you’ve already said that you are no longer a Peacekeeper, so that excuse isn’t going to work anymore, Aeryn. Since you aren’t a Peacekeeper, you’re going to have to stop acting like one so much. Do you want to be with me?” he asked, a little pleadingly.
Aeryn gave him an odd look, and then stated, “You sound just like Gilina.”
Crichton looked at her for a micron. ‘I should probably be thinking of Gilina about now, shouldn’t I?’ he asked himself.
Aeryn was ready to give him a microt to grieve for any memory that had brought up, but he actually didn’t look like he needed it.
“Well, do you?” he asked again.
“Crichton, I don’t really think this is the right time to be discussing this sort of thing.”
Crichton looked at her for a microt, then decided he would rather know exactly what had happened to her before he made them go into the ‘silent’ routine that happened whenever something this delicate came up. “For now. What you’ve told me; it doesn’t make sense that you didn’t tell anyone. Wasn’t it obvious to you that it was pretty bad?”
Aeryn made a note that he was being patient with her, and also trying to get back to the matter at hand, both of which she was grateful for.
“I knew it was ‘pretty bad’. But I told you; I didn’t want to bother anyone with more problems.” She tried to explain again.
Crichton wasn’t buying it.
“Aeryn, there’s no excuse for not telling anyone. What if had been a lot worse than you thought? You should have at least gone to Zhaan and got it checked.” He sounded frustrated, almost angry.
“Why are you getting angry at me? I didn’t give anyone any bother. I didn’t give them any reason to worry about anything but the task at hand, which I want to point out, was rather more important than what happened to me.”
“No, Aeryn, it wasn’t.” he jumped in sounding harsher than he had meant to be, while finally letting his heart take over. “Nothing is more important than you. If you had told someone, they would have dropped what they were doing to make sure you were okay. Well, except maybe Sparky.” Sensing that Aeryn was going to start arguing her case again about not bothering anybody, he continued. “I know I had issues to deal with, but I promise you Aeryn; if you had come to me, I would have helped you. I wasn’t lying about caring about you.”
Aeryn wanted to tell him to stop saying that, but when she looked into his eyes, she could see how deadly serious he was. She only wished he would say more about it.“Crichton, I think we should stick to my previous suggestion and not discuss this now.” She wanted to discuss it, but there was too much to deal with already.
Thankfully, Crichton could tell that Aeryn also wanted to talk about it, but agreed that it would have to wait until a later time.
They looked at each other a little longer, before Crichton finished with Aeryn’s wound.
“You would have thought Crais would want to keep us separate.” Crichton started, changing the subject. “Did he know about your wound?”
“Yes. When they put me in here, it hurt too much to hide it. He came over and checked for himself.” When Aeryn gave a severely disgusted look, Crichton queried.
“What was that for?” he asked, referring to her look.
“Nothing.” Aeryn started, but when it was obvious that Crichton knew she was lying, she added, “It’s just…the way he looked at me and…touched me. I didn’t like it.”
Crichton understood straight away. As he did, he felt so disgusted that he felt like he was going to throw up.To be continued...
Where would we be without TBC? I know, I know, probably a lot happier!