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She felt his presence before she saw him. Aeryn Sun stopped dead in her tracks and scanned the crowd -- and there he was.
Her chest tightened and her breath caught. There was no question it was him. Even from across the plaza, even dressed like that, in bright native colors -- even if she hadn't seen his lips actually form her name, she would have known it was him. The baby kicked, and she settled her arms protectively over her abdomen, but John never took his eyes off of her face. She smiled, a huge relieved smile, hoping he would be able to see it. It had worked. Her frelling stupid plan had worked.
Standing across the busy plaza, an open area that reminded him of a garish Las Vegas hotel, complete with phony sky, John Crichton tried to think. It seemed his crazy strategy had actually paid off. He'd found Aeryn, and even better, she hadn't turned tail and run from him, as he'd half expected her to do. But was she working? She was wearing soft-flowing, natural-colored pants and a loose long-sleeved top of the same color that almost hid her pregnancy. No doubt it also hid several weapons. Would he blow her cover if he approached her? He didn't know what to do, but he wasn't going to risk her getting away.
And then he saw she was coming towards him, working her way through the mixed crowd of aliens. That broke through his paralysis, and he rushed to meet her, heart pumping, his long legs making giant strides, eating up the distance between them.
"Baby?" he asked softly, standing in front of her, holding his hands out, low, so she wouldn't be intimidated.
"Hi," she said, her dark eyes sparkling, and her mouth twitched into a smile. She took his hands in hers then, and stood there, fingers locked, looking at him. He looked so much better than the last time she'd seen him, four monens before. Still tired, still much older than the man he'd been when he got stranded here, but not…hollow. Not empty. Not…lost. Her heart swelled, and she blinked back unexpected tears. Words failed her, and she could only repeat, "Hi."
"Damn, you look good," John told her, shaking his head. He'd remembered the pain in her eyes, the loss, the fear. And now she looked…better. Not…whole exactly, but…better. Like she'd figured out how to go on living, maybe how to hope again. And he thought, frell it all, public decorum be damned. Aeryn Sun was smiling at him, and he was not going to restrain himself. He did the one thing he'd been aching to do for most of a cycle. He pulled her into a hug, round baby-full belly and all, and she moved into his embrace willingly, intensely, her arms across his back, pulling him even more firmly to her. She smelled the same, she felt the same, soft skin over hard muscles. He knew if he kissed her, she would taste the same. Her hair was down, probably part of her cover, and he longed to twist it around his fingers.
Hezmana, she'd missed those arms around her. Aeryn didn't think she ever wanted to let him go. She wished she'd been able to stay, back when they'd blown up the command carrier, but she couldn't. She truly *had* needed the time on her own to come to understand, or at least accept, the feelings of her heart. Day by day, it got a little easier to keep going, to accept that John was dead, and she was alive, and she had to live with that. And at the same time, she grew more and more certain that she had made a terrible mistake in leaving the other John behind.
She’d found the anti-terrorist group easily enough, and before they’d found out about the baby, she’d carried out a few covert assignments. And every time she went on a mission, she had found herself expecting to find Crichton there instead of her squad mates, watching her back. And she couldn’t help but wonder where he was, if he was all right, how he was feeling. She didn’t even know if he was alive or dead, given his knack for getting into trouble without her to watch his back. The one thing she'd come to realize with absolute certainty was, she belonged with this man. And now it seemed he still wanted her in his life. Perhaps fate was on their side after all. She sighed and squeezed him a little tighter.
The one thing physically different, the baby between them, made its presence known.
"Hey," said John with a laugh, standing back and looking at the bulge of her stomach beneath her shirt. There was no point in pretending he hadn't noticed. "Your kid kicked me!"
"Mmm, he kicked me the microt I saw you," Aeryn told him. "I think he knew it was you." And after a moment she asked, "You don't seem surprised. About the baby, I mean." Or hurt either, she thought, but didn’t say.
"I knew…I thought I knew…you were pregnant when you left. After you left. Old three-eyes said something about it." He hesitated for a moment, afraid to tell her in his darker hours he had been afraid she had aborted the child and moved on. Instead he said, "So, it's a boy?"
"That's what the medtechs at the base say," she said. "Look," she said abruptly. "Are you busy? Can we go somewhere where we can talk? There's a lot you need to know. And a lot I want to know about."
John nodded gratefully, some corner of his mind registering surprise at Aeryn saying the "T" word. "I have a room. Do you?" When she nodded, he continued, "Either place is fine by me."
"Mine, then," she said. "It's comfortable."
He smiled. "Well, comfortable is good." He took a deep breath and said, "Lead on."
* * * * * * * * *
John followed Aeryn’s lead as they walked away from the center of town and nearer the spaceport where she’d taken temporary lodgings. They were both surprised at how natural it felt to be side by side again, even after everything that had passed between them, after the miserable way they’d parted. It was still awkward, perhaps that was the word, but it didn’t hurt.
“Why are you on Tosh?” she asked to make conversation while they walked.
John ran his hand through his hair once, ruffling it up more than flattening it down, and said simply, “Looking for you.”
That he would have been looking for her, as she had been looking for him, wasn’t a surprise. In fact, she’d assumed it from the satisfied expression on his face when she’d looked up to see him watching her. But…. Without breaking stride, Aeryn turned to him and asked, “Why here?”
He looked away briefly, chewed on his lower lip, wondering how much to say. “I thought if you’d done….what you talked about doing,” he began awkwardly, acutely conscious that they were in public, “then maybe, if I checked out some potential…targets…maybe I’d get lucky.”
She stopped then and stared at him, astonished. “That was your plan?” she asked dryly, trying to keep from laughing. It was insane, it was impossible, and it was so very like him.
He heard the affection in her voice and shrugged apologetically. “It was all I could think of.” He shrugged again, and said, “It worked.”
Without thinking, she reached out and cupped his cheek briefly in her hand, warmed by the feel of his skin. “Come on,” she told him, starting up again. “It’s just another block or two.”
He stood for a moment, drinking in the pleasure of that momentary touch, until he had to rush to catch up to her. Curiosity got the better of him then, and he asked, “What are *you* doing here? I mean, whatever you can tell me.”
“Recon. For the squad,” she said briefly, not wanting to get into more detail where they might be overheard. “And looking for you,” she admitted. “I’ve done a lot of recon work the past few monens, because of—“ and she gestured towards her swollen belly. “And everywhere I’ve gone, everywhere I’ve been, I look for you. And here you are.”
“It’s Fate, Babe.”
“Wasn’t that my line?” she asked softly. It wasn’t meant to be an accusation, but it brought both their thoughts back to that awful scene in Moya’s docking bay, the day they parted.
Into the silence she gestured to a two-story building with an imposing front door that belied the simplicity of the lobby. Aeryn lead John up the steps and down to the end of the hallway to her room. She palmed the door and they stepped in.
It was a simple room with off-white paint and pictures on the walls that looked to John’s eye like they could have come out of a Motel 6, except for the fact that every single landscape included foliage that had never been seen on Earth, two moons in the sky, or unfamiliar constellations…. The room was spotless, and soulless, nothing to show anyone actually was staying there. There was a bed far bigger than any he’d ever seen Aeryn use for sleeping, a small chest for clothing and other belongings, and a large, overstuffed armchair.
John stood in front of the chair, waiting for Aeryn to make the first move. She had said she wanted to talk, and he didn't want to say the wrong thing.
She walked towards the bed and stopped, turned around to face him. Now that they could talk with some privacy, she wondered where to begin. She stretched and put her hands in the small of her back, pressing with all ten fingers. “I usually sleep on my ship,” she told him, saying the first thing that came to mind. “But I’m not sleeping very well right now, and I thought a real bed might help.” She pushed a hand in the middle of her back again, and grimaced.
He made a snap decision. “Come here,” he said, sitting down in the chair. When she cocked her head and looked at him in question, he only repeated, “Come here.” She shook her head in mystification, but nevertheless walked across the small room. When she was standing in front of him he scooted back in the chair and spread his legs as far as he could to make room. “Sit,” he said.
And she did as he asked. She came and sat down in front of him on the chair.
He took his hands and pressed them into the small of her back, pressing hard through her shirt with his palms, making circles with his thumbs, and she relaxed completely under his ministrations.
Her head hung down and though he couldn’t see them, her eyes were closed. “Oh, that is good,” she breathed.
John smiled, and expanded his massage to her whole back. He gathered up her hair, quietly reveling in the silky texture, and started to drape it in front of her.
Aeryn’s hand reached back to help pull her dark locks forward, and her fingers grazed his. She left them there for a moment, enjoying again the feel of his skin on her fingers, and then pulled her hair over her shoulder. “Who knew that would help so much,” she said happily, as he continued to grip the muscles up and down her back, kneading with his fingers, concentrating on the lower portion where he had seen she was most uncomfortable. He kept it simple, kept it safe, never daring to reach under her shirt for a better grip.
“Tell me about the baby,” he said finally, into her neck. "Is he healthy?"
There was such longing in his voice, her heart melted. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I…couldn't." She'd been having trouble making *herself* believe it back then. Regret filled her voice. "And I'm sorry I left. But I had to."
"It doesn't matter. The past is past," he told her, and to his own surprise, he realized he believed that. Unlike the last time they'd been apart, when she had been with his twin, this time, he'd been able to get past the hurt and realize that what he'd told her was true. There was nothing for him without her, and he would do whatever it took to have her back in his life.
She twitched her back and commanded, "Do that again, right there," and he did. She continued, "The medtech at the base says the baby is healthy. They don't know he's half human," she faltered slightly, "but I think it's all right that their scans say he's fine."
John closed his eyes and fought the urge to shake her for her uncertainty. He'd vicariously shared a few pregnancies of friends, back on Earth, and he knew how important it was to have good medical care, and to tell your doctor everything. But how could she have? *Well, actually, the baby's father is the notorious human, John Crichton, and by the way, I have some Pilot DNA in my genetic make-up as well.* Oh, yes, *that* would have gone over well with a bunch of ex-PKs. Stop it, John. She did the best she could, he told himself. "When are you due?" he asked neutrally.
"Another quarter cycle," she said, and she knew her voice betrayed her frustration. She was already uncomfortable a lot of the time. Her hip joints ached, her balance was off. She hated not being able to trust her body to do as she wanted and expected it to do with no complaints. Three more monens seemed an eternity. "I can't wait for this to be over," she admitted. But she had no idea how to care for a baby, a child.
As if he had read her mind, John said softly, "It's all right. We'll get through it together." She almost burst into tears, and he must have felt it, because he stopped rubbing her back, and pulled her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. He leaned his face into her hair, and whispered, "It's my baby, too, Aeryn. In every way that matters. We're in this together, even if *we* aren't together. Your child will have a father as well as a mother."
And then the tears did come, and she whispered, "John didn't know. It must have happened just before we got to Dam-ba-da. He didn't know."
John had figured that. "Don't push her, she takes time," didn't cut it if he'd known. He could understand how it preyed on Aeryn's mind that she'd never been able to tell him, never seen his reaction. He pulled his hand up to play with her hair as she rested in his arms, breathing hard. "He would have been so happy, Aeryn," he promised her. "He loved you, he wanted a family with you…." Just like I do, he left unsaid. It wasn't time to go there.
She leaned her head against his hand where he was twisting strands of hair around his fingers. "If it matters," she told him, "it was an accident. We never even talked about children, except once, about, about prevention."
"I thought so," he told her, kissing the top of her head. "I wouldn't have let you get pregnant on purpose with a retrieval squad on our tail. I didn't think he would have, either."
She pulled his hand down to her mouth and kissed the back of it. "The medtech at the base said that my implant must have run out early." She sighed. "It doesn't matter. It happened, and I'm going to have a child, and he is gone. And now you're here. But…" She didn't know what she meant.
He let her trail off, and then took her shoulders and turned her body around so he could see her face. "Aeryn. I do understand what you've been going through, at least a little. You died, no, you didn't just die, I killed you. And I was lucky, incredibly lucky, because I got you back, even though the price was so high."
She thought about interrupting, about saying it wasn’t the same thing at all, but then she thought she should let him talk. She'd said they needed to talk. So she brought her hands up to hold onto his arms, and let him talk.
"I understand, Baby, I really understand, that I am not the man who shared half a cycle with you on Talyn. I'm not the guy who comforted you when you thought your mother was dead." He settled his hand on her stomach and continued, "And I know I'm not the guy who made this baby. That John Crichton is dead. You don't have the chance I did, to get your lost love back."
A look of pain so deep it took his breath away crossed her face, and he cursed himself for being so blunt, for reminding her of the loss she'd obviously been learning to live with. But he couldn't take it back, and he wanted her to know he wasn't trying to *be* the other John. He couldn't have done that if he'd wanted to. He took a breath and carried on. "But I *am* John Crichton. I love you just like he did. We have a history together, you and me, not just you and him."
She knew it. She'd known that even when she left him behind. And it felt so right, being here in his arms. "I love you too," she confessed, and buried her face in his chest.
He stroked her hair, felt her breathing hard, felt her heart beating next to his. "I kinda get the feeling," he said, "that you're still having a hard time, you miss him a lot." He took a deep breath to steady his voice. "We can take our time," he told her. "I can help with the baby, I can be whatever you need for me to be, and we can build a life together. Not the one you lost, I know that, but a new life, one that belongs to you and me."
"Our life?" she asked, her words muffled by his chest. "Yours and mine?"
"Yeah," he managed to get out past the lump in his throat. "Yours and mine."
The only sound in the room was their breathing, punctuated by an occasional sniff from Aeryn. How, she wondered, did she get so lucky as to have found a man who loved her, and wanted her, through all her fears and her pain and the dren that seemed to happen around her, and above all, the pain she caused him. Only a fool would push him away again, this man who'd been searching for her for monens. "Yes," she said aloud. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. "I do want that for us. A life together. You, and me, and…." She trailed off and took his hand and set it on her belly, and the baby kicked again.
He smiled then, and resisted the urge to kiss her. Instead he brushed the hair out of her face, and said, "I have rendezvous coordinates for Moya. Do you need to tell someone to take this job and shove it?"
She sighed and relaxed. "They'll probably be glad to see me gone," she said. "I didn't really fit in." She smiled sadly. "But the man I was watching here, he is truly evil. I should finish the recon and send them the intelligence report."
"I'll help," he said, and when she looked at him askance, he said, "Hey, I'll help you blend in. Pregnant lady, husband, on vacation for a last little fling before the baby comes…."
For a moment, as her eyes narrowed, he thought he'd gone too far, but she laughed instead. "All right, you can help. I was verifying his routine. Let's finish that, and we'll go home to Moya."
"Yes," he said, suppressing his triumph, but his eyes glittered still, and he knew she saw his happiness. Home to Moya. She was still fragile, and it would probably be a rough road before she truly opened up to him. But, it would be all right, he knew that now. She takes time, his twin had said, and now that he knew that she *wanted* to be with him, he could give her all the time it took.
