Return to Kill Furlow Index
Aeryn couldn’t sleep.
She was laying on her back in bed, and her brain was running in circles so fast, it seemed, she couldn’t settle on any one thing. Her arm hung over the side and her fingers tapped restlessly on the edge of the mattress. When she stretched her neck, moving her head from side to side, John stirred.
He rolled over on his side and put his arm across her, nuzzling her shoulder with his nose. “You okay?” he murmured.
She hadn’t meant to wake him. Repentantly, she touched his arm and told him, “Shh, I’m fine, go back to sleep.”
He was tired enough that he accepted her reassurance and dropped back into slumber. Aeryn willed herself to be still, waiting for the change in his breathing to signal that he was deeply asleep. Then she gently slid out from under his arm and got up.
After grabbing some clothes she quietly stole out of the cell she shared with John, and began to walk. He wouldn’t be completely surprised if he awoke to find her gone. He’d guess she needed some time to herself, and assume that she’d be there, in their bed, when the morning came.
As she listened to her bare feet padding regularly along Moya’s corridors, her thoughts began to settle down. There were decisions to be made. She wondered in a detached way if she *would* be there in the morning, this time.
It wasn’t John. Oh, no, that wasn’t what was troubling her. They’d been together for two cycles now, and it was perfect. As perfect as it had been with…. She reluctantly let that thought go. She loved the man she was with, and he loved her, and no matter how insane their lives were, running, it seemed, from one battle to the next, she couldn’t regret anything as long as she was with him.
No, the problem was that she had unfinished business, and that unfinished business had just come knocking on their door. She didn’t think John had realized it yet.
Furlow.
The last batch of prisoners from the Scarran wormhole project had spoken of the large, unkempt woman who was in charge of their test facility. They’d even called her by name. Rygel had collected the coordinates of the facility for her.
Furlow needed to die.
And now Aeryn knew where the bitch was.
She stopped in the corridor for a moment and closed her eyes.
John wouldn’t understand. He would think this was about his dead twin.
It wasn’t, not really. Not entirely.
She started walking again.
Not that she’d ever forget the pain of holding the first man she’d ever given her heart to in her arms as he died, slowly, from radiation poisoning. Poisoning that would never have happened if Furlow hadn’t betrayed him, run away with the weapon he’d created to stop the Scarrans.
But she’d learned to live with that, it was part of her past, part of what made her who she was now.
Aeryn found herself in Moya’s docking bay, running her hands over one of the prowlers they had acquired in their battles with the Scarrans, the Nebari, and, it sometimes seemed, half the races in the Uncharted Territories. How odd that John Crichton, scientist and astronaut, had become the leader of a great rebel alliance. She shook her head.
No, Furlow had to die because she threatened *this* John Crichton. She had more wormhole knowledge than anyone else still living, knowledge she had stolen from John twice, and she *still* didn’t care who she sold it to, even after all the destruction.
John was going to die in one of these crazy battles, Moya would be destroyed by some Scarran or Nebari or Ancient, armed with a displacement engine or some other hideous weapon that Furlow had developed for them or sold to them.
It was time for Furlow to die.
And if Aeryn took some personal satisfaction in seeing the woman die horribly, well, that was a small bonus.
Aeryn left the hanger and pottered around in the semi-darkness of late night on Moya, finally ending up in the maintenance bay. Now, where was it? That container of Partanium…. She knew they had some somewhere. She ran her fingers across rows of boxes and metal containers. There it was…. She pulled it out and set it on the floor. All she had to do was put it on her prowler, go back and get her boots, and leave. She could get to the base before Furlow had the chance to flee.
The only trouble was, she would have to leave John behind. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, take him into this.
“Hey, Baby.”
The voice came out of nowhere, and Aeryn jumped. “John? Where did you come from? I didn’t hear you there.” She eyed him suspiciously where he stood, just a metra or so away from her.
“Just keeping an eye on you,” he said. “Whatcha doing?” he asked, pointing at the supplies she was searching through.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she told him, which was true enough.
He smiled at her sadly. “Planning a little gift for Furlow?” he asked.
Aeryn couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “You knew we found her?”
“What have you got there?” He answered a question with a question, indicating the container sitting at her feet.
“Partanium,” she admitted.
“Planning on watching her die of radiation poisoning?”
Aeryn eyed him warily. He seemed remarkably calm, but he wasn’t making a move to approach her, touch her. “What if I am?”
John shook his head. “Baby, you don’t want to do that.”
“Why not,” she said defiantly, tears suddenly glittering in her eyes.
“Because even if – and I mean *if* – you were able to expose her without exposing yourself,” and here he looked infinitely sad, “no one deserves to die like that.”
“John didn’t either,” she whispered bitterly.
“Of course he didn’t. But Furlow didn’t kill him. John took a gamble that didn’t pay off,” he said.
And that was true, she knew it. It didn’t make her feel any less like killing Furlow.
He must have seen it on her face. “Aeryn, Baby, if you have to execute her, execute her. Don’t torture her.”
“Why not?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t she suffer?”
John looked at her solemnly. “Because it’s wrong. Because it won’t hurt her in the long run, and it’ll destroy you.”
“I’m a soldier, John. I was bred to kill.”
“You’re a soldier,” he agreed. “But a soldier kills in battle, not like this. I know she’s not an innocent, Baby, but think, really think. You remember holding John when he died, before Stark took away the pain. Do you *really* wish that on anyone? Even Furlow?”
The tears still shown in her eyes, and she wanted to lie to him, but she had to tell him the truth. “Part of me does. Part of me very much wants to see her suffer, not just for John, for everyone who’s died because of her.”
“And part of you doesn’t,” he said softly. She nodded in agreement, and he said, “Aeryn, think. If you overruled the part of you that says this is wrong, what would that do to you? Could you forgive yourself? What would John think?”
She was beginning to get confused with all this talk about John. She didn’t know which one they were talking about any more. But she knew he was right. She couldn’t do it, no matter how much the bitch deserved it. Though she didn’t break down, the tears in her eyes finally spilled over and rolled down her cheeks.
John smiled then. “Go back to bed, Babe,” he said. “I’m going to put this away.”
She almost argued with him, told him not to treat her like a child. But she was too overwhelmed with relief to do anything other than follow his orders, this once. She walked back to their room, knowing she really hadn’t wanted to leave him behind, not for *any* reason. She would get into bed and wait for him to come back and hold her, lull her to sleep.
Gratefully, she reached their darkened quarters and pulled off her clothes, dropping them in her usual spot. As she crossed the room, she grew alert. Someone was already in the bed.
Puzzled, she groped for her pulse pistol and approached closely, letting her eyes become accustomed to the dark. Even before her eyes fully adjusted, her other senses told her it was John. What the???
He was still there, just where he had been when she left, arm across her side of the bed. There was no question that he was fast asleep.
Then who had she been talking to?
Perhaps sensing her presence, John lifted his head. “Aeryn? You here?” he said, voice thick with sleep.
“I’m here,” she told him, still puzzled. “Were you just in the maintenance bay?”
“Huh?”
She looked back and forth between the doorway and the bed, thinking of her encounter in the bay. The soldier in her wondered if they had an intruder on board. But whoever, whatever, she had talked to in the bay had kept her from making a terrible mistake. And he had *felt* like John….
Probably it was just her own imagination, telling her what she knew, deep down inside, was right.
Frell it. She’d seen too many crazy things since she’d been thrown out of the Peacekeepers to worry about this one.
She put the pulse pistol on the floor and climbed into bed with John. He pulled her to him and held her close, warming her up. He made no comment about her having been gone. She didn’t know what she’d ever done to deserve him.
“John,” she said. “You should know something.”
“What?” he said, cuddling her drowsily.
“We’ve found Furlow.”
“Um,” he said, struggling to stay awake. “Furlow? Where?”
“She’s running one of the Scarran test facilities. On Ceta Prime.”
“Okay,” he said, into her hair. “Can we worry about her in the morning?”
“Yes,” Aeryn told him. “Tomorrow is fine.”
