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She shoved down her fear, roused herself from her paralysis and cleared her throat so that she could get the words out. "John?" she called on the comms, her voice sharp with fear. "John? Are you there? Answer me, now!"
She hadn't expected a response, so the fact that she received none simply allowed her to launch herself into motion. She leaped from the ledge and ran through Moya's corridors towards the docking bay and her prowler. Pilot and D'Argo had already failed her, so she didn't bother comming them as she ran.
But D'Argo commed her instead. Frell. His voice managed to boom, even over the comms. "Aeryn! What's going on? What happened to John?"
Some part of her mind noted that she wasn't even winded, as she said too evenly, "That frelling wormhole took him!"
"Are you sure?"
D'Argo's supercilious tone annoyed her, but she couldn't waste time, because John didn't have it to spare. How much air did he have left? "He called for Pilot to pull him in. Pilot didn't. He's gone. I saw it happen." Which is more than any of the rest of you did, she thought. "And I'm going after him!"
"Aeryn, wait, we need to--"
She turned her comm off then and ran flat out the last 150 motras. In the docking bay she quickly suited up and started for her prowler, intending to skip her normal preflight check. John needed her. Halfway across the large hanger she stopped.
Chiana stood between her and her prowler, bouncing from foot to foot nervously.
D'Argo must have sent her. Well, she should be easier to deal with than D'Argo himself would have been. Aeryn looked Chiana in the eyes and allowed some of her fear out of the tight box in which she was keeping it. "John's out there without even his frelling module, and air for just a few arns. I have to find him," she said, hoping that voicing the danger to John would allow Chiana to let her go without interference.
The girl grimaced unhappily, but stood her ground. "Aeryn," she began, cocking her head to one side and speaking in simple tones, as if to a child or a wild animal. "What are you going to do?"
"Get John, what does it look like?" Aeryn snapped, taking a step towards Chiana and feeling herself coming closer to succumbing to panic. She saw the budong again in her mind's eye, saw herself in desperation opening her heart to show Talyn how much she needed this man.
"You told D'Argo he disappeared in the wormhole, right?" Chiana said.
Aeryn nodded wordlessly, moving towards the girl again, feeling her throat tighten.
"Well, the wormhole isn't there any more, is it?" Chiana asked. "I mean, Pilot says it's closed for now. It took arns to open again the last two times."
Aeryn shook her head, ignoring the tears that had appeared in her eyes. One more step and she could push Chiana aside and get to her ship. She couldn't sit here and do nothing, even though she did know the wormhole was closed and there was nothing she could do if she took the prowler out right now. But she'd frelled things up so badly since she'd come back, or maybe he had -- it didn't really matter who. She couldn't lose him, not the way things were between them. She had to do something. "Doesn't matter," she whispered. "I have to go look for him."
But Chiana took both her hands and told her softly, "Not this way. Let's make a plan first. We can help."
"I can't lose him again, Chiana, I *can't*," Aeryn said, tears -- and fears -- finally spilling over, and then sank to the floor, dragging the smaller woman with her.
Chiana pulled Aeryn into her arms and held her as she cried. And as she cried, she remembered. She remembered Talyn relenting and letting John back inside. She remembered her relief that he was safe -- and her fear of what to do next. She remembered going to John, telling him that she'd never recreated with Crais. That he'd ruined her life, but that she just kept coming back....and she remembered how things had changed between them, oh so quickly after that.
Things could change, even now, as quickly as that.
She calmed down, stopped crying, started thinking again about what she needed to do to find him, this John, here and now. She continued to lean on Chiana's shoulder and let the girl pat her arm awkwardly while she thought.
Footsteps interrupted her thoughts.
"We have another problem besides John being missing," D'Argo said, walking into the bay. "I asked Pilot why he didn't pull the docking web in soon enough. He just said he doesn't *know* why." He stopped and looked at the pair on the floor, Chiana obviously comforting Aeryn. "What's wrong with her?" he growled when Chi looked up.
"What do you think, you frellnik? The man she loves just vanished in front of her eyes."
"The man she loves?" D'Argo snorted. "If she loved him, she wouldn't hurt him all the time."
Stung, because she thought D'Argo knew her better than that, Aeryn pushed away from Chiana to sit up on her own.
Chiana would have interfered if Aeryn hadn't taken it out of her hands.
She took a breath and snapped, "You know *nothing* about it, D'Argo! It's nothing to do with you, it's between me and John no matter how big a mess we're making of it!" She paused for a moment, pain overtaking her anger and showing clearly on her face.
D'Argo crossed his arms and looked at her impassively.
A hint of moisture reached her eyes and she twisted her mouth into a wry smile. "What, you thought I came back here just to torment him? You think I stay because I enjoy tormenting myself? It's not that simple!"
D'Argo looked at her with a hint of surprise, as if he might have thought just that. "You might try telling him how you feel," he growled. "He's taking drugs that frelling Noranti gives him just so he can function."
Stunned, Aeryn closed her eyes and looked away. This mess with John just got worse all the time. Somehow she *had* to find a way to fix all this. She sighed. But none of their troubles really mattered right now. The important thing was, he was lost, through the wormhole. And he was not going to stay lost if she had anything to say about it. She filed the information about the drug and the old woman away for future use, and then ignored D'Argo and said to Chiana, "I have to go look for him now."
"You can't go by yourself, Aeryn," Chi said with surprising practicality. "If somehow he's not on the other end of the wormhole, suppose he's hurt? How would you get him into your prowler if he's unconscious?"
Aeryn simply looked at her, frustration on her face. She knew from experience she *could* snag him with the grappler, could go out in her suit and wrestle him into the prowler. But it wouldn't be easy, and a prowler was no place to try to help an injured man, if he *was* injured.
"None of us is going anywhere until that wormhole reopens," D'Argo said into the break in the conversation.
"We can take a transport pod," Chiana suggested, ignoring him.
"We can take Lo'la," D'Argo said more forcefully. "*If* John does not pop right back through that wormhole when it shows up again. He is beginning to understand them, you know." He looked at Aeryn until she acknowledged his existence and his point, then he said, "It would be helpful if we knew when that was going to be."
Aeryn stood up, then, and shook out her hair. "I can find that out. From his notes."
"Your English up to that?" asked Chiana, hopping up after her.
Aeryn managed a faint smile. "Yes. The technical words are pretty repetitious. I'm sure I can get that much right as long as he's written down how long it is between openings." Even if she'd screwed up everything else with John since she'd been back.
"All right," D'Argo growled. "Go find John's notes and see how much time we have. I'll get the others together so we can figure out what we're going to do."
Aeryn allowed Chiana to accompany her, babbling reassurances, into the maintenance bay to get John's logs. It was actually comforting to know that Chiana and D'Argo, at least, would help her find John.
But her heart was still stopped, and she knew that it wouldn't begin to beat again until John was back in her presence, safe. And then she would tell him, whether he was ready to hear it to not, that he was her center, and her guiding star, and that she didn't want to live without him, didn't think she really could. It had been enough to cause Talyn to spare one John Crichton's life. It had led to her merging her life oh so briefly with his. Perhaps it would be enough to cause *this* John Crichton to begin to trust her, just a little.
Chiana scurried forward and jabbed her finger in directly on top of the notes Aeryn was attempting to decipher. "Is that it?" she asked. "Those look like numbers!"
Aeryn wanted to bat her hand away, but snapped the book shut instead. "They are numbers," she confirmed, stopping and turning towards Chiana. "And they say the period is every four and a half arns. Give or take a few hundred microts. He doesn't seem to have gotten that far in his analysis." She grimaced. "I'm just trying to confirm that this section refers to *this* wormhole."
"'Course it does," Chiana said. "That's the last page, and I've seen him writing since we've been here. So it has to be this one."
Aeryn shook her head and started walking again, thinking that John was perfectly capable of writing today about something that he had observed half a monen or half a cycle ago, but she refrained from arguing with Chiana. It didn't really matter. It would be helpful if they knew exactly when the wormhole was due to reappear, but not vital.
Because whenever it reappeared, if John didn't reappear with it, she was going in after him.
Shortly before they reached the center chamber, Scorpius appeared from a side passage, with Sikozu, his ever-present shadow, in tow.
Aeryn glared at him and kept walking, leaving Chiana to catch up.
If Aeryn was annoyed to see him, it seemed he was no less annoyed to see her. "I would have thought *you* of all people would have kept Crichton safe," he snarled. "How could you have lost him?"
He couldn't have been more cruel if he'd tried. Through gritted teeth and tightened throat, she inquired with all the dignity she could muster, "Upset you've lost your precious wormhole knowledge?"
Scorpius shook his head in disgust and pushed past her.
Aeryn's eyes followed him as the half-breed forged ahead, leather tails flapping.
Sikozu took the opportunity to look over her shoulder and say, "I was right. You people do need keepers," as she followed in his wake.
"Is it just me," Chiana muttered, "or is she spending entirely too much time with Scorpius?"
"I should never have brought him on board," Aeryn announced suddenly. "I should have died. It would have been better for everyone."
Chiana grabbed Aeryn's arm and pulled her to a stop. When Aeryn swung around to face her, the Nebari said, "What the frell's gotten into you? An arn ago you were ready to jump into that wormhole without a spacesuit to go find Crichton, and now you're talking about dying like, like an urgu that's lost its seventh leg!"
The Sebacean sniffed, though there were no tears in her eyes, and thought about it for a few microts. Chiana was right, she needed to snap out of this. Sorting through her emotions was still new to her, but her attention was drawn to the rough texture of the paper book she held in her hands. She looked up at Chiana. "I think it's this."
"It's just his frelling notes."
"It's....his life. Since he got here. And I have the other half of it."
"And?"
"And he should have it all." And he doesn't want it all, Aeryn thought with a pang.
Chiana looked at her in sympathy, but simply shook her head and said, "All right. Let's go get him, and you can give it to him."
Something in Chiana's tone conjured up the image of hitting Crichton over the head with the other notebook, and as suddenly as that, Aeryn's mood turned and she laughed. "There's a thought," she said, grinning. "It might get his attention, anyway." Her grin faded to determination, and she said, "Come on, we may as well get this over with so we can do a preflight on Lo'la and be ready for that frelling wormhole to open up."
Chiana nodded in satisfaction and followed Aeryn into the center chamber where the rest of Moya's inhabitants were already gathered.
* * * * * * * *
One thing to be said for D'Argo as Captain -- he knew how to dominate a meeting, even if the outcome wasn't exactly what Aeryn had expected. It hadn't taken long for them to decide that if Crichton did not come back out of the wormhole when it opened, they would all enter the wormhole together in search of him. Scorpius testily pointed out that prowlers didn't seem to be wormhole safe, and there was no guarantee that Lo'la was, either. Even Pilot and Moya had reluctantly agreed that as much as they hated wormholes, they had survived their previous encounter without them or their passengers turning to red goo.
Aeryn suspected that Pilot was feeling guilty about his part in not pulling Crichton inside in the first place, and while she would not play on that guilt, she felt no compunction about using it. If they all went through on Moya, they would have more options available on the other side.
D'Argo had apparently come to the same conclusion, and so declared, "Fine, it's agreed! When the wormhole reappears, we go in after John."
"Unless he comes out on his own," Noranti stipulated.
"Of course," D'Argo grumbled. "There wouldn't be any point in going in after him then, now would there?"
And so it was they were all standing in command, looking through the viewscreen at the spot in space where Aeryn had seen John vanish some four and a half arns previously. Chiana was stationed to deploy the docking web manually in case John *should* reappear and Pilot should have any more unexplained lapses.
Aeryn paced back and forth in front of the screen, tension in every line of her body. Every few microts, she threw a glance at the image on the screen, hoping to see the beginnings of a swirling blue wormhole.
D'Argo could take it no longer. "Will you just sit down!" he growled.
Aeryn stopped dead and looked at him in surprise.
"Leave her be," Rygel decreed. "Would you rather she were demolishing something?"
"Sorry," Aeryn shrugged. "I'd do one of Crichton's frelling countdowns, but we don't know enough to know exactly when it's coming, so what's the point?"
"I'll do one," Sikozu volunteered. Everyone stared at her as she counted down the numbers: "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, tres, dos, uno...."
Nothing happened, of course, and Aeryn smirked. Besides the fact that it hadn't worked to conjure up the wormhole, basic numbers were one thing Aeryn was sure of in English, and she knew Sikozu had it wrong.
Sikozu tried the countdown again, and this time, before she got to "five," the brilliant yellow and orange vista in front of them began to swirl, and there it was -- a perfect, twisty blue wormhole, stretching ahead of them as far as they could see.
"John?" Aeryn called into her comms, just in case he could hear her. Everyone held their breath, but there was no answer.
Aeryn was disappointed, but not surprised. The universe was not going to be that kind to them.
"Pilot," D'Argo called, "do you see any sign of him?"
"No, Captain D'Argo, I do not."
"Do we go? Last chance," D'Argo said, glancing around the room.
"Yes, *now*!" snapped Aeryn, Chiana and Scorpius simultaneously. Rygel nodded, Sikozu shrugged, and Noranti looked away.
"Fine. All right, Pilot, let's do this. Into the wormhole. Everyone keep looking for John!" the Luxan ordered.
Whatever had originally kept Pilot from answering John's call for help did not interfere this time, and Moya entered the wormhole straight on. They sped onward, rocking side to side as the wormhole twisted, but never seeming out of control.
There appeared to be only a single path, and Pilot followed it, but they all kept their eyes open for anything that might be Crichton, or any branching in the brilliant blue tunnel. There was no sign of the missing human.
Once, D'Argo shouted "Wait, wait, wait, that was a fork!" as they whizzed past an opening off to their hamman side, but it was much smaller than the main path, and everyone hoped they were going to end up where Crichton was. Otherwise, they were frelled.
Then suddenly they were out of the wormhole, in normal space, and the sensation of movement was gone as the viewscreen stabilized. For a few microts, everyone was busy, assessing their situation.
"Frell me dead," Aeryn said, staring at the image on the screen in front of them, her flat voice bringing all activity to a halt.
"What?" demanded Chiana, bouncing up and down.
Scorpius took two broad steps forward, and then, simultaneously with Aeryn, breathed, "Earth!"
"Earth?" growled D'Argo. "How the frell do you know that? And don't say from the time the Ancients created that copy," he added, directing his comment to Aeryn. "We barely caught a glimpse of it then!"
Aeryn and the Scarran halfbreed were glaring at each other. "I have seen that fragile little planet many times in the memories my neural chip collected from Crichton's brain," Scorpius said, never taking his eyes off of her.
When everyone else turned to Aeryn, she blinked and said, "He drew it. Over and over. In that," she said, pointing to the corner where she had left John's original notebook in the confusion when he had disappeared. "I recognize the land masses." She stalked over and picked it up, intending to show them the pictures as proof, but instead clutched the notebook to her chest and called over the comms, "John? John, can you hear me? Crichton?"
There was only silence, and D'Argo commanded, "Pilot, do a scan for Crichton's comms or the signature from his suit."
"All scans are currently negative, Captain D'Argo," was the reply.
"Then move us around the planet in case he's on the other side," Scorpius snapped.
"Ka D'Argo?" Pilot inquired.
"Yes, Pilot, do as he says," the Luxan growled.
"John! Are you here?" Aeryn called again, but there was no response. Frustrated, she put the notebook down and stalked over to the controls, pushing Chiana aside. "I'm going to do a manual scan," she said. As she worked, she called into the comms for Crichton every few microts, but there was no reply.
As they rounded the planet from the day side to the night, Aeryn said suddenly, "I think I've got something. There!" she said, pointing to an invisible spot far ahead of Moya's position, though Moya was gaining on the object rapidly.
"Crichton!" growled D'Argo in frustration. " Where the frell are you?"
"Hey, Big D! What took you so long?" came Crichton's weary voice at last.
D'Argo took one look at Aeryn's face, the joy and relief mixed with disappointment that John had answered his call and not hers, and said, "Well, we had to wait for the wormhole to reopen. If it hadn't of closed right behind you, Aeryn would have been through it in a microt in her prowler."
There was a long pause in which they could hear him swallow, and then Crichton answered, "Yeah, well, I think you better get me inside. The air's getting a little thin out here." He cleared his throat and added, "And you better get Moya away from prying eyes, too. She's bigger than I am."
"Pilot," D'Argo called, "deploy the docking web and get Crichton back in here. Once you have him, take up orbit behind the planet's moon."
By the time anyone dared look at Aeryn, she had steeled her face into an expression of determination. "I'm going to the docking bay," she said, and headed out the door without waiting for any reaction.
* * * * * * * *
Noranti had excused herself to go to the galley, saying Crichton would need nourishment, and Scorpius, Rygel and Sikozu had also found other things to do. So only D'Argo and Chiana were in the docking bay with Aeryn when Crichton picked himself up off the floor and took off his helmet.
"You look like dren," D'Argo opined. "Where have you been? Here?"
"I have been," Crichton said, looking at D'Argo, "on an iceberg."
"On Earth?" Aeryn asked, voice husky with emotion.
John didn't look at her, but he answered softly, "No. In space. In the wormhole."
Chiana spoke up for the first time, both relief and skepticism in her voice. "We were just in the wormhole, Old Man. There's nothing there. You sure you weren't seeing things?"
Crichton shook his head. "There was this man there. He looked human, but he had no eyes. Just....black holes." He paused for a microt, shivering at the image. "He told me a whole lot of crap about wormholes and space and time which mostly gave me a headache, but what it boils down to, kiddies, is, unless I'm very, very careful not to end up someplace before I left, I can destroy the universe as we know it by going through wormholes." He laughed unconvincingly. "I always wanted to say that. 'I can destroy the universe as we know it.'"
"And you believed him, this man?" Aeryn asked cautiously. "If we're here before you left Earth, that's bad?"
Crichton looked at the floor and said, "He scared the crap out of me."
Aeryn took a deep breath. "So the first thing we need to find out is when this is, on your Earth calendar. Is that right?" she said.
He did look at her then, chewed on his thumb, and said softly, "Yeah."
When John didn't continue and Aeryn seemed at a loss for words, D'Argo asked, "So, how can we do that?"
John drew a deep breath and said, "Tap into their news broadcasts, I guess. I can adjust the frequencies to pick them up."
"Sputnik can do it," Chiana piped up. "She's good with radios. You need to get out of that suit and eat something. Bet you need to relieve yourself, too."
"Thanks so much for that helpful reminder, Pip," Crichton growled.
"No problem," she said brightly, and then tagged D'Argo on the arm. "Come on, let's go tell Psycho what we need!"
D'Argo grunted his assent and followed her, leaving Crichton and Aeryn alone in the docking bay. Crichton couldn't seem to find words to speak, but he made no move to go, either.
Aeryn bit her lip and looked at him. "When the Ancients called to John, before we went to Dam-ba-da, he said he could feel it, like a, a homing signal," she said. "Was it like that for you, the wormhole? This man?"
"No," he said, too quickly and without elaboration.
"Did you mean to come here?" she tried again.
He looked at the ceiling, then back out through the bay doors into space. "No," he said. "I meant to go home."
Did that mean that deep inside him, home was Earth? She closed her eyes. What was it she'd promised herself to tell him when she found him? That she loved him. That she couldn't live without him, and she didn't want to try. She'd vowed to tell him that whether he was ready to hear it or not, but now, faced with his passive resistance, she knew she couldn't push him. Not now. Instead, she looked at the weariness apparent in every line of his body and said quietly, "You need sleep."
"No I don't. If this is before I got sucked into sci fi hell, I've got to get out of here, fast."
"Like it or not, I know you, John Crichton. You are exhausted. You're no good to anyone if you collapse." She paused briefly, and then wrapped her arms around herself and plunged on, not bothering to hide her pain. "You said you would trust me with your life. If I don't even have that, what do I have?"
He closed his eyes against the sight of her tears. "All right," he said after a moment. "I'll take a nap. Two arns. I guess if I don't interact with anything the space-time continuum is safe for that long, anyway. Make sure someone finds those broadcasting frequencies while I'm out, okay? We really need to know."
She snuffled once, which made him wince, and pulled herself together. "Yes."
"And don't let D'Argo take us out from behind the moon."
"No," she agreed. And when he reached for the fasteners on his suit, she turned and left the docking bay, as quickly as she could.
She would check on the others, make sure they knew what was required. She would give John time to get into bed, fall asleep. When he was this tired, it didn't take him long to be out like a lamp. And then she would go and sit outside his room, and make sure that for two arns, anyway, he was safe.
She'd been trying to simply sit, on guard, mind alert to physical dangers and not wandering into dangerous emotional waters, but she hadn't been very successful. And now the tug of his presence only motras away from her position was becoming irresistible. She wanted, needed, to see him.
He'd developed as good a sense of time as any trained soldier, even when he was asleep. He'd said two arns; he would wake up after something very close to that much time had passed. Telling herself that he would be up soon and the opportunity would be lost, she stood abruptly, and silently entered his room.
She hunched down like a ghost and leaned her back against the wall very near the door. She didn't dare go any further into the room, but she could see him clearly in the dim light. She watched him breathing, the rise and fall of his chest...and goddess help her if her mind didn't start taunting her with visions of lying beside him in the bed, feeling his body next to hers...feeling his breath on her face, letting her hand rise and fall with his chest, instead of having to rely on her vision to know from this distance that he *was* breathing....
Frell. She could feel her heart pounding. What was she doing here? If he woke up....
He was lying there, sprawled on his back, wearing some lightweight fabric pants and one of his ubiquitous black tee-shirts. With his arms and legs flung out, it looked as if he had just stood at the foot of the bed and fallen backwards onto it.... He looked peaceful, sleep working its magic, even on John's troubled mind.
Aeryn wanted desperately to walk over to the bed, climb on top of him, run her fingers up along his thigh, or in circles on his chest, or plant teasing kisses along his neck and on to his mouth, until he opened his eyes, grinned, flipped her over and covered her with his body....
No, don't go there, as John would say. It didn't bear thinking about.
She wiped her hands on her knees.
She knew she could do it. On Talyn, he always said she could arouse him even if he were dead...and John Crichton was very much alive.
But he wouldn't thank her for it. Not the way things were.
Her time with the other John, and her time apart from this one, had taught her how much she loved him, needed him. She couldn't imagine her life any more without him in it.
But...the way things were, he *wasn't* in it.
She leaned her head back against the wall, feeling the rough texture of Moya's ribs, staring up at the ceiling.
She knew he loved her -- if she'd had any doubt, she'd seen the truth of it in his eyes as he'd fought to keep from killing her under the influence of those alien insects last monen -- but was that enough to tip the balance in the end? For the first time since her return, as she crouched in his room and watched him sleep, she questioned whether she could ever make things right with this man she loved so much.
She didn't really even know what was wrong, what she'd done to make him shut her out completely, not accept even her smallest overture.
Watching him sleep, watching his chest rise and fall and wishing she were in his bed to be lulled to sleep by the rhythm, she made a decision. She couldn't do this any more. He was taking frelling drugs, from that miserable old woman, for Cholok's sake, to hide from her, from the pain she was causing him.
She couldn't bear to torture him like this any more, and it was killing her.
When they were finished with Earth, whatever happened here, when they got away from this place to somewhere safer, where he wasn't worried about destroying the universe, she would have this out with him. Either they would somehow find a way to make a new start, or she would have to leave....
Even the possibility of leaving John again made her heart freeze and her gut ache, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, but she really didn't see any other way out if they couldn't find a way to start again.
But, unlike the last time, she would not leave without the two of them truly talking. Last time, they'd both been in such pain, they couldn't even see each other. This time...it was a different pain, a different grief.
They *would* talk. That resolution made her feel a little better.
And then John snorted in his sleep and rolled over on his side, a prelude, she knew, to him coming to full wakefulness. Quickly, quietly, she stood and headed for the door, taking no chances of him catching her in his quarters, uninvited.
Aeryn went back out into the hallway, back to her post, and though she could have gone then, knowing he was all right, she decided to wait until she actually heard him get out of bed, begin to dress, before she left.
Only a few microts later D'Argo appeared around a bend in the corridor, and he brought her up to date on their efforts to access the broadcasts from Earth. She eagerly turned to thinking about matters far more important than her own personal pain.
* * * * * * * *
When D'Argo entered his room, John asked, "Who was that? I heard voices."
D'Argo shrugged. "Just Aeryn.... She's been worried about you...."
John's fingers twitched, and his gaze went to the container where Granny had been stashing his lakka.
D'Argo's eyes didn't miss the look, and it wasn't hard to guess what it meant. "You should talk to her," he said.
John replied briskly, "No, she should talk to me."
The Luxan shook his head. "You should *listen* to her," he said, with exaggerated patience.
John cocked his head and said skeptically, "D, correct me if I'm wrong here, but, wasn't the last thing you said to me before I fell down the rabbit hole, 'Let her go'?"
D'Argo stared at John until the human lost some of his stubbornness. "Well," D'Argo said then, "maybe I just didn't understand that it's not that simple."
John's face softened, and he nodded. And then he got back to business. "So, did Sputnik find out anything?"
D'Argo heaved a great sigh and grumbled, "No. She adjusted the radio in your module, but with this hunk of rock in the way, she can't get anything, even when Pilot edged Moya as close to the edge of the radio shadow as he could. And," he added with a smug grin, proud of the intricacies of his ship even if they made their lives more complicated, "she couldn't get the radio in Lo'la to get anywhere near the right frequencies."
"I'm surprised she didn't try to take the Farscape module out around the other side of the moon."
"She did try," D'Argo said, and continued before John could get too worked up, "But we wouldn't let her."
"Damn straight," John muttered. Then he shook his head. "Okay, I'll take the module out around the other side and twiddle with the settings on the radio, see what I can find. If I sneak in low and land on the surface of the moon, I won't be too noticeable from Earth -- as if anyone actually has any instruments trained this direction." He shook his head ruefully. "Unless this is one hell of an unrealized reality, they're not going to be expecting to see anyone or anything actually on the moon."
D'Argo nodded agreement, even if he didn't quite understand everything John had said. "You know this planet," he said. "Your call."
A smile split John's face. "Yeah. I do know this planet! I tell you, D'Arg, that's an amazing feeling after all this time in Oz!" And then his smile faded again, and he said, "I just hope I haven't screwed things up big time comin' here."
The Luxan put his arm on John's shoulder and said, "My friend, the universe loves to frell with you, but I think it's you personally, not your whole planet."
John snorted and shrugged D'argo's arm off his shoulder. "I hope you're right, big guy," he said, and headed off to collect his spacesuit and the rest of his gear for the trip.
Just as John was about to climb into his module, Aeryn approached him in the bay. She was wearing the spacesuit she'd brought back from Talyn, and carrying her helmet. John eyed her with suspicion.
"I'd like to go with you," she said. She licked her lips and added, "Please."
John grimaced and told her, "This is my world, Aeryn, I don't need a nursemaid. I can do this myself."
She would not allow herself to get upset, she knew he wasn't trying to hurt her. "I know you can," she told him, hoping he would see that she understood how much she was asking of him, how close the quarters would be in his module. "But I would really like to see the place where your father walked." She cocked her head and smiled softly. "I'd like to hear the voices from your world."
He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in a monen, trying to read her eyes. He must have believed whatever it was he saw there, because he said gently, "Okay." He chewed briefly on his lower lip, then gestured towards the ladder and said, "Ladies first."
Relieved, she smiled, and teased, "Who are you calling a lady?" before scrambling up and into the rear seat of the module, setting her helmet down in the space behind her seat. John followed her and climbed into the pilot's seat in front.
"Let's do it," he said, and he started the module's engines. They left Moya behind, heading for the side of the moon that faced the world that had given him life.
* * * * * * * *
They made the flight down to the surface of the moon in silence. John brought his module in low and fast, and settled the ship comfortably on a flat plain with a clear view of the tiny blue ball of Earth.
"There," he said, as he turned off the engines. "Now that we're not moving, we shouldn't kick off anyone's automated search programs."
"That's good," said Aeryn, not knowing what else to say. She looked around at the airless rock they sat on, and personally thought humans were an amazing species to try so hard to reach it in craft that must have been even more primitive than this one.
John turned his head slightly and said to her, "Okay, let's get this show on the road. The original settings on this radio are for IASA Mission Control, which probably isn't up right now, and won't tell us much if it is. So, I'm going to see what I can do with civilian frequencies."
Aeryn sat quietly in the back as he fiddled with the radio. The sounds that came from it were oddly distorted as he tried to tune in something solid enough to understand. There were snippets of words that didn't resolve, odd sounds, music.... Earth. She blinked to hide the tears that came unbidden, and hoped he wouldn't turn around and see them.
"Gotta admit, Sputnik didn't do a half-bad job with the modifications," he commented, just to break the nervous tension he felt, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Mm-mmm," Aeryn replied, and left it at that.
John continued to work, now adjusting the circuits with one of the tools he had brought along. "A-ha!" he exclaimed, as a smooth stream of words flowed from the radio at last.
Aeryn listened for a moment before venturing, "That's not English, is it?" at the same time as John burst out, "God, that's freaky!"
"What's...freaky?" she asked.
"It's the microbes," he said, turning his head so he could see her. "You're right, that's not English, it's Italian. From another part of the planet than where I grew up. And I can understand it..."
"That is how the microbes work," Aeryn ventured, not sure what was rattling him.
"I know," he said softly. "But...I shouldn't be able to understand Italian. It's not right."
Ah. She reached out and patted him lightly on the shoulder, then drew her hand back.
He smiled at her, and then something else seemed to occur to him. "Ah, crap!" he exclaimed, voice sharp with fear, and turned his attention back to the radio.
"What?" Aeryn asked in alarm.
"Just hang on a microt," he said, and she waited. After a short time his efforts were rewarded by a different broadcast, this one clearly in English. Someone was extolling the virtues of something called a Toy-o-ta. John exhaled loudly and turned his head back around. He grinned sheepishly. "I read this story once a long time ago. It was about a time travel experiment where they had this big ball they were sending back in time, just to prove they could do it, I guess. They sent it way back, millions of years to like, the dinosaurs, and then it bounced forward to different times on the way back to the present. Hell of a way to conduct an experiment."
He paused and shook his head. "I read a lot of that sci fi crap when I was a kid."
She smiled. It was the most personal thing he'd said to her since her return. "And what happened?" she asked.
"Everyplace the damn thing stopped, it changed something, just by being there...but they never noticed the difference. By the end, they weren't remotely human any more. They all had six arms, something like that, and tentacles for feet. And more eyes than a full-grown eedic, and they were about the color of Rygel -- and the chief scientist said, 'See! Nothing has changed!' Let me tell you, it made an impression on me!" He laughed.
"And you thought by being here you'd changed things so no one spoke English."
He shrugged. "Occupational hazard of being me."
Before Aeryn could think of something to say to that, the radio caught his attention again.
"Looks like the commercials are over and they're playing music again. But that's not going to help us much, they hardly ever say the date. Let me find something else."
A few more microts' adjusting brought in a program John called the news. They both sat back to listen, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
It seemed to Aeryn to be a catalog of calamities: battles, plagues, accidents, crimes, deaths. She wondered if that was different, but she remembered back to their early days on Moya, John telling her about all the illness and suffering on his world. Perhaps it was unchanged.... She wanted to ask John, but didn't dare. Occasionally, there was a report of a rescue, or a celebration of some sort, so at least it wasn't all bad.
Finally, in the midst of a discussion of some kind of politics, the speaker said, "With just fifteen months to go until the 2004 Presidential election...." and John let out a whoop and clapped his hands together sharply.
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!"
"I take it that was good news," Aeryn said dryly, leaning towards him.
He turned around and blinked, surprised to see her so close to him, but his smile didn't dim. "Yes. That means this is definitely after I left. No end of the universe as we know it!"
She grinned and patted his arm briefly, then sat back in her seat, trying to give him space.
He took a breath then and said, "I guess we can go back to Moya. There's not much point in listening to more of this. The news is as depressing as ever..."
"Why do they only talk about the bad things?" Aeryn asked.
John started up the engines and shrugged. "Misery loves company," he said, and lifted the ship off the lunar surface.
Aeryn thought that he was going to take them straight back to Moya, but she realized he was flying in the other direction. Mystified, she watched the surface in silence, sometimes looking up and staring at the back of his head, wishing she could read his mind. He seemed to be looking for something.
John spoke up suddenly. "I wasn't even 10 when my dad walked on the moon the first time. And I was scared to death, I knew enough to know it wasn't a walk in the park. But I was so proud of my dad, and so excited." He paused a minute and peered out the window again. "I had a map of the lunar surface, and before he left, Dad marked his landing site for me. And I studied that map, and studied it and studied it. I know every crater and rille and ray leading to the site...." He broke off again and banked the ship to the hamman side.
Aeryn held her breath, understanding what he was looking for.
"There," he said softly, pointing off to the treblin side where she could see something that wasn't natural sitting on the dull grey surface.
She leaned forward to see better, and put her hands on his shoulders. She felt his breath catch, and his heartbeat speed up, but he didn't pull away and she stayed there, breathing in the scent of him while she looked down at the landing site spread out on the surface before her, with its clutter of discarded equipment and red, white and blue flag.
"Right there," he whispered, circling the site at enough of a distance not to disturb anything. "Right there my dad walked on the moon."
She knew if she could see his face, there would be tears in his eyes, and there were certainly tears in hers. She swallowed, and asked, "Does it look like you thought it would?"
"Exactly like I thought it would, " he told her. "Thank you for suggesting it." He reached one hand up to squeeze her right hand where it still rested on his shoulder.
"I wanted to see it," she said. "You've talked about your father, and him walking on the moon, as long as I've known you." She leaned further forward and rubbed the side of her head gently on his cheek.
"You smell nice," he said, some unknown emotion in his voice. "Still scenting your hair?"
She nodded, afraid to speak, but then, not sure he could tell her answer by feel, she managed to croak, "Yes."
"Good," he said, and gave her hand a squeeze and a pat, then let go of her and put his hands back on the controls, pulling the module out of the low circle he'd had it in.
She took the hint and sat back, oddly comforted, as he wordlessly headed back to Moya. She wasn't sure what had just happened, but she dared to hope it was a step forward.
"You're asking me?" Aeryn tore her eyes away from John's receding form and shrugged in frustration. "I don't know. I think so." She looked back at the image of Tormented space on the viewscreen in front of her. "I don't see what else he could have done."
"He could have gone to see his father and not worried about anybody else's tender sensibilities on the frelling planet," D'Argo growled.
"No, no, no," Noranti fluttered, "He was right. His people aren't ready to know they're not alone! Not yet!"
"Well," said Chiana, "all I know is, that's the closest any of us has gotten to home, and he turned his back on it. That's gotta hurt."
Aeryn stood abruptly. "I'll go talk to him."
"Oh, that will be a big help, I'm sure," Rygel snickered.
Aeryn ignored the comment, but as she left she heard D'Argo chastising the Hynerian. "It might if he'd listen to her...."
Well, maybe he would. They'd made a connection, she'd felt it, in his module on the surface of his planet's moon. Of course, they'd made a connection on that planet where she'd killed so many people, too, and he'd withdrawn again. But she had to keep hoping. It was all she had.
She wasn't blameless in this situation, of course. She knew that. She'd frelled up badly, in ways she understood, and ways she didn't. But she didn't know how to begin to fix it if he kept shutting her out. On impulse, she stopped by her quarters and grabbed his notebook, the one that had been her solace and her touchstone for monens after the other John's death. It was time to give it back.
* * * * * * * *
Aeryn had the notebook in her hand as she stood outside of John's quarters, holding it awkwardly at her side, rather wishing it were a weapon. Weapons she understood. But she hoped he wouldn't construe her offering *as* a weapon. Frell. Relationships were impossible.
But, she screwed up her courage before she could run away, and called softly, "John? Are you in there?"
She heard the sounds of rustling, John getting up, probably from sitting on his bed, brooding. His footsteps sounded on the deck, and he pulled the grill open warily.
"Hi," she said brightly, wondering if cheerfulness was the right tack. Frell.
He stood there and looked her up and down, wearily, eyes not really settling anywhere, as if he were afraid to even look too closely at her, afraid it would hurt, or afraid it would break his resolve. He simply stood to one side and gestured her into the room, and then....waited.
Aeryn thought she understood, at least a little. He looked the way she had felt, monens ago, when she'd first returned from Talyn, when seeing this man living had brought such sharp pain that she'd kept herself wrapped in a tight wall. She hoped she could break through the wall John had built. "Chiana was wondering," she began, and then stopped and started over. "No, *I* was wondering if you're okay. With leaving Earth behind? Without even seeing your father..."
John grimaced and shrugged. "Who am I to turn their lives upside down? Look at what it's done for me...." He gestured around the room in a way that indicated he meant everything that had happened to him since he'd been stranded in the Uncharted Territories. "Believe me, Earth is not ready for little green men. Or tall tentacled ones." He shook his head. "Or little old ladies with a third eye in the middle of their forehead."
Not one word about his father, she noticed. Typical John. Never answering the real question. Retreating, running just as surely as she did, when the issue was his own pain. Well, no point in pursuing it. Better to just charge ahead into enemy territory -- to the topic of his heart....
Aeryn lifted the notebook from her side and held it out to him.
He stared at it, evidently not having noticed it earlier. He looked up at her, questions tumbling over each other in his eyes. He obviously recognized it.
She bit her lower lip and said softly, "You should have it."
John frowned. "That's what you've been using to study English," he accused.
Aeryn nodded, trying to keep herself calm and unemotional. She needed to be able to think. "Yes. He started teaching me right before...before he died."
"It's mine. You had no right to keep it," he snapped, grabbing it from her hand abruptly.
Frell. He was angry. She tried to explain, stumbling through the explanations. "I needed it....It meant a lot to me....and you didn't ask...." Throat tight, she finally said, "If I thought about it at all, I thought you knew I had it."
"You didn't give a crap how *I* felt, did you? The one thing I cared about...." He broke off in a voice so strangled it was nearly a sob. His face was screwed up in anger, and he was breathing hard, obviously trying to hang onto his control.
She stared at him, heart pounding, wondering what was going on in his head, and what to say, when he blurted out, "You left, Aeryn, you left me, and you took my damn notebook with you!"
He stood glaring at her, and she almost laughed at all the fuss over this little piece of wood pulp, until quite suddenly she realized he didn't mean the notebook at all.
He meant the baby.
Well, that was something she *could* explain. She'd been wanting to talk from the moment she realized he knew about the pregnancy. "Look," she said softly, "can we sit down? There's rather a lot to tell you about that."
Some flicker of hope crossed his eyes, and some of the anger died, and he nodded. They walked over to his bed in silence and sat down, an arm's span between them. John dropped the notebook on the bed, and Aeryn dropped her hands in her lap.
She looked away from him, unsure of how he would feel about what she had to say, but knowing she had to say it. "When he died....something....broke inside. I didn't know what to do, or how to live with this enormous....hole inside me. It almost killed me. And seeing you..." She shook her head and looked at him. "I knew I loved you, and I knew if I let you in, and I lost you again, it *would* kill me."
John was staring at the floor, but he seemed to sense her movement and looked up at her through his eyelashes.
"And then on the command carrier, I found out I was pregnant. And I was....stunned. I had no idea."
"You had no idea? You were screwing like bunnies all over Talyn and you never thought you might get pregnant?"
Aeryn stared at him. Where had he gotten that idea? Not that it was exactly wrong but....
"Oh, my buddy Ryge had a lot to say one night when he was good and sauced...."
Aeryn shook her head and kept going, ignoring the question. "I believed, I hoped," she said honestly, "that the baby was his. And I knew that if it was his, you would claim it as your own." She could see in his eyes that she had been right. "And I was afraid."
"Afraid?" he said softly, with just the slightest hint of a sharp edge in his tone.
She looked at him earnestly. "Afraid to give you my heart again. Afraid that you would die in my arms again." Her eyes filled with tears, and she continued. "I was afraid that I would have to choose somehow between you and the baby, the way my mother did. That I couldn't keep you both safe."
John closed his eyes. "That wasn't your job. Your job was to love us. Just love us."
Aeryn looked away from him, took a deep breath and continued, "And I thought, if the baby *wasn't* his, or yours in truth--" She broke off as his eyes came open.
"Mine?"
"Yours. From that night on the false Earth. It could have been, it could be," she said in the face of his skepticism. She shook her head. "Anyway, I thought, if it was from before I met you, if it was someone else's, you would never be able to accept it."
"You didn't even ask," he snapped.
She sighed. "I know. But you were always so jealous of Crais...." She ran her fingers over the smooth covering on his bed before she went on. "I was afraid you wouldn't want me if I was carrying a stranger's child."
"A stranger's child. You're saying it couldn't be Crais' kid?"
She stared at him, belatedly realizing she'd never told this John that she had never recreated with Crais. Frell. That was probably part of why he had been so angry when she said she didn't know who the father was. "Yes. There is no possible way this is Crais' child."
John turned away from her and knuckled his eyes dry.
"I had to leave," she said to the back of his head, wishing she dared touch him. "I thought I did, anyway. At the time, it seemed like the only thing I could do. I was...." She groped for words. "....a mess," she finished. "I truly wish I hadn't gone. It was a bad decision. But it was the only one I could make."
"And you didn't tell me about the baby," he said to the wall, "because you thought either I wouldn't let you go, or I would reject you."
"I thought I had time," she told him. "The fetus is perfectly safe in stasis, and I thought I had time to...." She paused a moment and took a deep breath. "What is it you say? 'Get your hat on straight'?"
He almost smiled. "Head," he corrected.
"Head." She nodded, filing the English expression away. "I wanted to have a DNA scan done. I didn't want to hurt you if I didn't have to."
He laughed, a short, sharp bark, but when he turned around, he looked just a little more relaxed than he had since things had all gone wrong. He reached a hand out and twisted a strand of her hair around one finger.
Aeryn felt electrified, even with that at-a-distance touch, but she didn't dare react except to smile weakly. "I am *so* sorry," she said shaking her head just slightly so she could feel the tug of his finger on her hair.
"You're sorry. I'm sorry. We're all very sorry," John said, pulling his hand back away from her and dropping it on the bed between them.
How long was he going to punish her, like an officer who'd taken a dislike to a cadet? "Why didn't you answer me?" she asked abruptly.
It was John's turn to be surprised. "What are you talking about?"
"This morning," she said. "When we came through the wormhole."
He looked at her, puzzled.
"I commed you. Over and over. I was so scared. I called your name, and you didn't answer me. And then D'Argo commed you, and you answered."
Comprehension flooded his face, and she saw there was a hint of distress there, too. "I didn't hear you."
She stared at him, and he explained. "I mean, I did hear you, a couple of times. But I thought...." He stopped.
This business of dragging things out of him was maddening. Was this how he felt with her, all those cycles on Moya? "You thought?" she prompted, when he showed no signs of continuing.
"I thought you were a hallucination. Oxygen deprivation." Something in his face suggested he wasn't being entirely honest.
"And D'Argo wasn't a hallucination because....?"
He snorted and looked her in the face. "Hell, you know I'd never hallucinate Big D.... He had to be real."
That was the truth, Aeryn thought, watching his eyes. It made her feel better to know he hadn't been deliberately cruel in not answering her. But that suggested he was used to hallucinating *her,* and just as she thought that, his eyes slid over to a storage container. Frell. Just when she thought that things were going pretty well, that he was listening to her for once, she was reminded of the depth of the rift between them. She had to bridge it, now, once and for all, whatever the outcome.
"You take drugs from that old witch to forget me?" she asked, as casually as she could. Her tone must have been sharper than she was trying for, because he was clearly annoyed by her question.
"That's just great, D'Argo told you!"
"That's right, blame D'Argo!" she snapped, frustrated at the ups and downs of this conversation, and hurt that he even needed the drug. They sat staring at each other for a microt until Aeryn sighed and rubbed her hands on the front of her pants. She ran her hand through her hair, attempting to ease the tension in her scalp, and began, "I've never had to try to work things out with anyone before. Explain things. I've never had a relationship with anyone before, John, just you."
"With me." He shook his head. "Don't you mean him?"
"No, I mean you. Everything before Talyn, that was the same. Him, you, it was the same."
He nodded acceptance of that much, at least.
"And on Talyn.... Everything was perfect. I told you that once, and it was. We didn't have time to hurt each other or confuse each other or misunderstand each other.... It was perfect...and then he...died."
The pain of that loss burned in her eyes, just for a moment, and John looked at the floor, unable to face it.
She shook her head, dark hair dancing down her back, cleared her throat, and finally continued. "I've learned to live with that. And now you and I...we're left to pick up the pieces, because we didn't have that time together...but it could have been us. It would have been us...and if it had been, then it would be him I'd be having this conversation with."
She squeezed her eyes closed. "There is only you, John Crichton." She lifted her face again, captured his eyes with hers. "I told you once -- no, I told him," she corrected, "but it's still true." She took a deep breath. "You have ruined my life. The life I thought I wanted is gone, I can never go back to it. But I just keep coming back to you."
He looked at her with his face full of pain.
She took a deep breath. "But I can't do that any more, not if I am ruining *your* life."
His expression shifted ever so slightly towards fear, but he still didn't say anything.
She plunged on. "Tell me what I need to do. Tell me what I need to tell you. If I'm not telling you what you need to hear, *ask me*. Please. Because if you don't, if there's nothing I can say, then I have to go...." Her eyes filled with tears...."I don't want to leave you again. Ever. But I can't keep hurting you.... I love you. 'Beyond hope.'" She paused and then repeated, face scrunched up with the effort to keep from crying, "I can't... keep...hurting you."
He looked at her for a long time, his face unreadable. Finally he said, "Tell me...about when the other me heard the Ancients calling him...."
She stared at him, blinking, totally puzzled at this apparent change in subject.
"Tell me," he persisted. "What...did you do? How did you feel? Did you talk about it?'
Tears filled her eyes again. "I asked him to ignore it...."
"And he...I...didn't." He said it with certainty.
"No," she whispered, tears overflowing to run down her cheeks as she shook her head.
John took a huge breath and his eyes filled with tears of his own. "I'm a son-of-a-bitch, aren't I?" he said.
When she nodded mutely, terrified and hopeful all at once, he held his arms out to her. She stared at him for a moment, still afraid of doing the wrong thing, and then, breaking into huge sobs, she fell sideways into his arms.
He held her so tightly she could barely breathe, but it didn't matter. She was in his arms, and she could feel the wetness as his tears mingled on her cheeks with her own.
After a while her sobs trailed off, and so did his, and there was only the sound of their breathing in the room. Aeryn brought her hands up and clutched his arms, not wanting him to let go, and John rubbed his cheeks on the top of her head, first one and then the other, drying his tears on her hair.
Apparently he didn't want to let go any more than she wanted him to, and they sat that way for a long time, eyes closed, not saying anything, their breathing slowly synchronizing. Aeryn felt every part of her body relaxing for the first time since she'd returned to Moya.
Finally, she took a deep breath, and John kissed the top of her head. The gesture gave her the courage she needed to say aloud, "This is where I belong."
He tensed, just a little, and she sat up so that she could look in his blue eyes, try to see into his soul. She almost laughed. She believed in souls now, how could she not, and surely theirs belonged together.
They were sitting so close they were almost touching, and his eyes were fixed on hers, holding onto *her* soul as if it were a lifeline. There was fear in his eyes, not pain, not anger. He looked as frightened as she remembered feeling when she'd brought him the compatibility test from the royal planet.
Never taking her eyes from his, Aeryn reached out her hand and stroked his cheek. He trembled, but didn't withdraw, and she dared to lean forward to touch his lips with hers.
The resulting fire was far more than she had hoped for. John gasped once, and then eagerly kissed her back. When she slid her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, he knitted his fingers though her hair and clutched her to him, all the while deepening their kiss. Their tongues danced around each other, and Aeryn could feel John trembling with the same long-suppressed desire that would have had her sinking to her knees, if she'd been standing.
"Oh, god, Aeryn," he murmured into her mouth as she trailed one hand down his back and around the front to caress his chest.
She had to fight to keep herself from pulling his shirt up to play with the soft skin and hair beneath, to feel the muscles of his chest, or tug on the fastener of his pants. Not yet, too soon, don't do too much. He tasted heavenly, he tasted like John Crichton, he tasted like forever -- if she didn't frighten him away.
But she trembled, and he responded instinctively, and his mouth moved to her neck, to kiss, and nibble....and his hands found their way to her breasts, sliding gently over the soft fabric of her shirt.
Aeryn gasped, and bit her lip to maintain enough control to keep from pulling him down on the bed. Because it wasn't just the desire, the physical yearning that had drawn them together almost from the moment they met. She could have had him, she'd realized long ago, that very first day she met him, locked together in a cell. But if she had, she might never have learned to love him. And he needed to know that she did, with all her heart.
If he'd just stop doing that with his hands, and *that* with his mouth, just for a minute, she could think....
"John," she said softly, running her hands up and down his back. "John, we need to talk," she gasped.
"No we don't," he murmured into her neck. He shuddered once as she nibbled on his ear and he gasped, "I think we're doing just fine."
But she took his face between her hands and held him tight so she could see his eyes, and he could see the truth of what she wanted to say. "Just for a microt," she promised, a smile burning through the passion in her eyes.
And he nodded, and let her talk.
"I need you to know that I love you. I need you to know that this is not about our bodies--"
He cut her off with a laugh, a genuine laugh, sliding his hand under her top and cupping her breast.
She shuddered and threw her head back, long dark hair flowing. And she laughed too, and gave in. "All right, it is about our bodies. But you have all of me, not just my body. I need to know you understand that."
He cocked his head to the side, and she thought she saw the slightest hint of moisture there, but he smiled softly and said, "Isn't that supposed to be my line?"
She shook her head, and held his eyes, waiting. She needed an answer, after all they'd been through.
And finally, he gave it to her. "I know, Baby, " he whispered. "I know." He took a heavy breath, and told her, "I love you too. And you have all of me. We'll figure the rest of it out some damn how."
She started to reply, and he stopped her with his mouth. The kiss was deep, and hot, and long, and her head was starting to spin when he pulled back and gasped, "No more talking!"
Aeryn nodded, and wordlessly reached to tug John's shirt loose from the waistband of his pants, pulling it over his head while he tried at the same time to get her black tank top over *her* head. They managed to do it, laughing, and both shirts landed on the floor in a heap. They hastened to tug off boots, struggled with leather pants, socks, underwear, and before very long ended up naked and giggling in his bed.
And then John rolled Aeryn over onto her back, just as she'd imagined earlier. He covered her body with his, and giggles turned to gasps and moans....
* * * * * * * *
Afterwards, they lay together, limbs entwined, listening, feeling each other's heartbeat gradually slow to normal. John twisted strands of Aeryn's hair around the fingers of one hand, while the other hand held her tightly to him. Finally he rotated his head so he could see her face. He kissed her lightly on the forehead and asked, "Were you always like this with the other guy?"
She almost panicked, but he didn't seem upset, so she angled her head to look at him and asked, "In bed, do you mean?"
"Uh-uh," he said, shaking his head as best he could. "I have a very strict 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about old flames....even or maybe especially when they're almost me."
"Then what?" she asked, playing with the soft hair on his chest.
"Oh, god," he said softly, shivering slightly, and went on, "I don't know how to describe it, but you've been....different since you came back." He squinted at her. "Open? You laugh. You...talk about things. Emotions. Stuff wild horses couldn't drag out of you before. And....it scared me. It didn't seem like you, and I was afraid...."
"You were afraid Scorpius did something to me," she realized.
He twisted around to kiss her on the lips and then said almost sheepishly, "Yeah. I was. But now I'm thinking it was...the other me. You being with him."
"You, too," she said quietly. "Loving you. You both made me more, even when I'd frelled it up and hurt you so badly you wouldn't talk to me."
That sobered them both for a little while, thinking about all the hurt, all the pain that stood between them. Finally John brushed dark wisps of hair out of her face and asked gently, "What do we do now?"
"Let me stay. Just for tonight, if you're not sure about more," she suggested. "We have time to work things out."
He laughed. "You're in my bed, Aeryn, after how long? Do you really think I could throw you out?"
"I hope not," she purred. "Because I have plans for you...."
"Oh-oh," he teased, and kissed her soundly.
She kissed him back, and her heart, for the first time since she had returned to Moya, felt light. There were still things she couldn't tell him; there were changes in both of them that they still had to work their way through. More land mines, probably.
But for the first time, Aeryn believed that they would find a way to make things work. And one day, it would be perfect, just as she knew it could be.
And then she stopped thinking, and surrendered once more to her passion for the man she loved, and who loved her.
Neither of them noticed the whirring of Rygel's thronesled in the corridor outside, nor did they hear it when the Hynerian growled, "Oh, frell, they're at it again!"
aeryncrichton wrote an epilogue to her own fic which you can find at ScapeRoute's Forum, Kansas. It is called Lifeline Part 5 and aeryncrichton rates it NC-17 for sexual content (not violence), so don't even think of going there if you are not an adult. You've been warned.
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