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In some ways, the last monen hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared it would be, from the way Aeryn had acted when she first got back to Moya. In some ways, it had been worse.
Aeryn had seemed to come to terms with his presence quickly enough; she talked to him, hell, she even smiled at him occasionally, one of those ironic smiles that seemed to be the only kind to reach her face just now. She worked with him on his crazy project with every appearance of comfort.
But she maintained a distance that seemed uncrossable. To talk about her loss, impossible. To comfort her – not going to happen. To touch her, even casually, unthinkable. To imagine a future – don’t go there. Just don’t go there.
And it was killing him.
What it was doing to her, he hadn’t a clue.
But it was killing him.
* * * * * * *
John was working on his module in the hanger. He couldn’t sleep, and he wanted to do something totally unrelated to the fight against Scorpius that currently consumed every waking hour. The Farscape I module was going to have to sit that one out – its presence would only alert Scorpius instantly – so it made a good distraction.
He was surprised to hear approaching footsteps, even more surprised to recognize them as Aeryn’s. She hesitated a moment at the door, then came in and crossed over to a workbench and stood quietly.
After a moment she said, “Hey.”
For some reason, that pissed him off. Rather childishly, he didn’t look up, but continued with what he was doing. “Hey,” was his only response. *I don’t want to talk.* He heard her intake of breath, waited for her to leave, and wondered what in God’s name he was doing. The sane part of him was screaming at him to look at her, not drive her away.
But she didn’t leave.
“Personal indulgences….can fracture a small crew,” she said.
That got his attention, but he wasn’t at all sure where she was going with it. He looked up, searched her eyes.
“I have been…indulging….my guilt.”
John leaned back against the module and waited for her to say more, unsure what she was talking about, but afraid that anything he might say would only stop her from speaking.
“The others are split between us, haven’t you noticed? D’Argo, Jool, Chiana – they rally around you,” she said carefully.
“And Rygel and Crais say to give you more time to recover,” he said, pleased to recognize exactly what she was talking about.
She smiled sadly then, and pain touched her eyes. “And you,” she told him.
“They say to give me more time?” he asked, unsure again.
“No. You protect me as much as Rygel and Crais do. After everything, you still tell Chiana I’m not a Peacekeeper bitch, I’m grieving….”
He hadn’t thought she’d overheard that. Any of the dozens of times he’d had to say it. But now there was real sorrow in her eyes, and he needed to soothe that. He needed to be able to do something for her. “Aeryn, you’ve been through something no one should have to go through.”
“What about you?” she asked, catching him completely off-guard.
“What about me?” he replied.
“I seem to be learning….barely….to live with the fact that he’s gone. It happens.” She shrugged, carefully keeping emotion out of the words. “Everyone dies. But, what about you?” She deliberately paused to make sure she had his attention. “I left you behind, and I gave myself to him. My life. I don’t know if we would really have gone to Earth – but I wanted to. We planned to. I would have left you behind.”
Her eyes showed raw pain, and John was suddenly stunned to realize that this, this talk, was about *him*. Not about St. John of the Wormholes – but about the John Crichton she had left behind as surely as she had been left. She knew how much she had hurt him, or at least, she knew he was hurt. And she knew he was burying it because her grief was overwhelming to him.
The realization emboldened him to let some of the anger and betrayal out of the box he’d been keeping it in, examine it, feel it…. She would have gone to Earth? “Did you even think of me?” he asked. “When you fell into his bed? Did you even remember I existed?”
Amazingly, she didn’t flinch. “At that moment? No. It just…happened. Someday I’ll tell you about it. But, after that?” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “I knew you were here, I knew you were real. I knew that you loved me. But how was I going to love two of you? I didn’t even know how to love one.”
“Aeryn,” he began, sympathetic again, but she cut him off.
“Let me finish!” she ordered. “You’re supposed to be angry!”
He glared at her for the interruption, which was apparently anger enough, and she continued. “He was there, and you weren’t, and I had to make a choice.” She looked straight at him. “I chose him,” she said simply.
“Because he was there,” John said. “That’s a hell of a reason. He wasn’t better, taller, smarter, sexier? He didn’t make you happier? He didn’t love you more? He was THERE?” He stood there for a moment, hollow, staring at the floor. Then he looked up. “You told me that you loved me,” he said.
That time she did flinch, and her eyes moistened. “Yes. And I told him the same thing, at the same time, in the same place. He was you, and you were him. But how was I to love two of you?” she asked, once again.
“So you chose him,” he said, dully, anger spent, afraid she was telling him she’d never be able to love him.
“I left you. If he hadn’t died, if he were still alive,” she said, with real tears this time, “you’d still be standing here loving me, and I would be with him. You would have lost me.”
Time stood still for John. “And have I lost you now?” he whispered.
“I betrayed you,” she said. “I am so sorry, John. But I would do it again, in the same circumstance.”
He closed his eyes, for a moment, then opened them and looked at her. *But have I LOST you?* his heart screamed. “I know,” he said aloud. “We were frelled from the moment I went and got myself Xeroxed. He only did what I would have done. You too.” He paused a minute and ran his fingers through his hair. “How can I hate you for loving me when that’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted?”
“I can’t help it,” she said then. “You ARE a plague, John Crichton, but it appears I still keep coming back.”
Something in her face made him incredibly hopeful, even more so than the words. He didn’t dare do what he wanted to, which was to take her in his arms and tell her he would always love her, he couldn’t live without her, and if she couldn’t ever give herself to him, he might just as well die destroying Scorpius’ command carrier. Instead, he blinked back the tears forming in his eyes and reached out one hand to touch her cheek. “I’m here,” he said. “I’ll always be here.”
She put her hand on his hand, holding it against her cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m not ready now, but – I’ll try not to be a bitch.”
He burst out laughing. “Well, I’m sure Pip will be grateful,” he said, harkening back to the start of their conversation. “Or maybe not, I think she likes being my defender.” He pulled his hand forward, dragging hers with it, and then leaned down and planted a courtly kiss on her hand.
She smiled at him then, a real, honest-to-goodness smile. “Don’t stay up too late,” she told him. “We have a strategy session early.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, letting go of her hand. “I’ll see you there.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, and turned and left the hanger.
After a few microts, John left as well, following the corridors to his quarters automatically, deep in thought.
Not only had he just had an open emotional discussion with Aeryn, she had initiated it. Indeed, she’d said more than he had. It told him more about her relationship with his twin than anything she or Rygel or Crais had let slip since their return. If it had taken the “practical” matter of the division amongst the crew to give her the incentive to talk to him, well, so be it.
It occurred to him that she knew him in ways he didn’t know himself. She knew the man he was when he had her.
And he had just had a glimpse of the woman she was, when she had him.
He hoped they could find their way back to each other, soon.
