Between

Author: John Clifford
Disclaimer: The usual…Farscape is owned by Evil Geniuses, I'm just an Evil
Genius wannabe writing to ease the anguish of a torturing hour, Even More
Evil Lawyers please don't bother.
Rating: PG. Mild cursing.
Spoilers: Big honkin' spoilers for 'Die Me Dichotomy' and 'The Hidden
Memory'. Vague reference to 'The Flax'.
Archiving: Probably, but please email me first: Elflore@aol.com
Feedback: Always, please! Good, bad, or ugly…again, email Elflore@aol.com
Notes: In one respect, this could be considered a sequel to my previous fic
'Returning the Favor'. It also acts as a bizarre kind of epilogue to DMD,
and a bridge to whatever comes next in Season 3.

---

It wasn't Crichton's bright light, and it wasn't the nothingness of her
people. It wasn't the last place she would have expected to find herself…but
it was close. It was dark, hazy, cavernous and cold. Very cold.

Aeryn Sun stood alone in the middle of the hanger bay. For the first time in
two cycles, for the first time since she'd been deemed Irreversibly
Contaminated, she stood aboard a Peacekeeper Command Carrier.

Maybe it should have felt like home. She'd spent the greater part of her
life aboard ships like this one. But now she knew those cycles had been the
lesser part of her after all.

She wondered if she could have been captured by Scorpius. But there were no
shackles, and no guards, and the last thing she remembered was crashing down
through the ice. Fighting to pull herself up, to breathe…the blackness and
the haze pouring into her thoughts…For a moment she wondered if this might be
hell, but that moment passed.

Suddenly there was a clang!, and a muffled curse, and Aeryn turned.

"Gilina?"

The young tech crawled out from under the lone Prowler in the bay, just as
blonde, grease-smudged, and infuriatingly guileless as Aeryn remembered. She
looked quite guilty at the moment, too, like a cadet caught smirking behind
the commander's back.

"Officer Sun! I'm sorry, I'm working as fast as I can, but she's not ready
yet…"

Aeryn raised an eyebrow. "What ARE you going on about?"

Gilina blinked, in an odd and typically tech sort of way…embarrassed,
baffled, and superior all at once. Trying to think how to say this in
Sebacean, and wondering why she even bothered explaining anything to grunts.

"Your Prowler--"

"Is in a hundred pieces scattered across the bottom of a canyon," Aeryn cut
in, her voice frigid. Like everything else, now. "Even you're not that
good."

"Maybe there it is. And maybe there I'm not," Gilina returned, unfazed.
"But it's different here."

"And just where is 'here'?" Fear, and the shame she'd been taught must
follow it, gave Aeryn's voice an edge she might not have intended.

Gilina smiled softly, seemed to think that would be reassuring.
"We're…between. That's all."

"And that means what?"

Gilina shrugged. "It's…not really something that can be explained. But it
doesn't matter anyway…you get to go back, Aeryn!"

And there it was again, that word Aeryn had survived so much to learn. Hope.
And along with it, an odd sense of wonder. If here, between, was where it
seemed it could be…and she was going back *there*…

Even now, she almost felt…unclean, somehow, to be considering these things.
But how could one be heretical in a society which believed in nothing beyond
itself? One could be treasonous, of course, but Aeryn Sun had crossed that
line long ago.

"What do I have to do?"

"Umm…nothing, really," Gilina answered. "Just wait, the Prowler can take you
back, as soon as I'm finished with it. Which means I should get back to
work, huh?"

Aeryn almost grinned at that. Luckily Gilina was already turning away,
ducking under the fighter and retrieving her tools.

A few microts passed, and then Aeryn found herself tugging at her earlobe,
and realized she had to do something. Anything.

"Is there some way I can speed this up?" she asked. Politely. (That was her
story and she was sticking to it.)

"Yeah, sure…if you could just get into the cockpit and keep an eye on the
engine lights?"

"Of course." Aeryn popped the canopy and swung herself up and in. But the
lights were all green, and steady. Busy work. "I have a better idea,
Gilina."

She vaulted back over the side of the ship, then joined the tech down below.
A wide hatch had been removed from the Prowler's underside, a tangle of wires
was hanging loose, and several circuit boards were charred and cracked.
Gilina already had replacements ready, piled neatly beside her tool-kit.
Smoothly and efficiently, Aeryn began pulling the broken boards free and
sliding the new ones into place.

"Careful," Gilina warned. "You have to be sure the--"

"Contact points. I know."

Aeryn kept going, never stopped, but Gilina was still just watching her.

"What?!" she snapped. "I'm doing this right, I know I--"

"No, it's not that!" Gilina said quickly, even as she resumed work on the
wires. "It's just that…you don't see many pilots that'll get this far into
their ship. Not and have any idea what they're doing."

"You forget…we don't have techs on Moya. We have DRDs, but they're really
not the same…and you think I'm gonna let Crichton touch my Prowler?"

Both women laughed then, and the tension which had always existed between
them seemed to fade. Only to be replaced a few microts later by a new
pressure from the outside. Shadows just out of sight, the feeling of being
watched, and that damned cold again.

"Aeryn?" Gilina's voice was brittle now, a child trying to reassure herself
there was nothing to fear in the darkness. But Peacekeepers always knew
better, grunts and techs alike.

"Yes?"

"You can't blame him, you know. It wasn't his fault, he…"

"I know. I don't."

"And the things he's doing now…the things he might do or say when you get
back…it's not, he just…"

Aeryn didn't answer that, refused to think about things she could neither
know nor change. She could only deal with each mission as it came.

"He *needs* you, Aeryn," Gilina insisted, her voice softer still, almost
pleading.

And for some odd reason, Aeryn found herself smiling. "Then we'd better
hurry, hadn't we?"

END