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She could feel him. As sure as if he had reached out and touched her she could feel him and she cursed inwardly. This was the one place she’d prayed that he would not come.
“What do you want Crichton?” she said.
He walked towards the door, raised a hand to open it and then thinking better of it, let it drop and made his request from the hall.
“What I want... is irrelevant Aeryn. But what I NEED is to talk to you for a few microts.”
She sighed and turned around, “Can’t it wait until morning Crichton? It’s very late and we have a busy day tomorrow.”
He backed up a bit but he didn’t leave. “Busy, yes, but that’s all the more reason we should discuss this now, not tomorrow when there might not be enough time and since we are both not sleeping and from the looks of it WON’T be for awhile either, I say no it can’t wait till morning.”
She took one look at the determined expression on his face and knew he wasn’t going to concede this one. Reluctantly she palmed open the door. “Alright.”
He took two steps into the room and stopped, waiting until she indicated he should take a seat before moving again. She sat down opposite him and they regarded each other in silence. .
“I don’t want to you go with us, Aeryn.” He said finally.
She frowned, “Go with you?”
“To the Command Carrier, I want you to stay here, ... or go elsewhere but I don’t want you to come.”
“He’s pouting,” the thought absently entered her head, “Like a squad leader that’s been reprimanded. He’s pouting and trying to take it out on his crew.” She laughed out loud a short bitter sound that made them both twitch.
“This isn’t about you Crichton, it’s..”
“It IS about me Aeryn,” He said with enough force to make her stop short. “It’s about me and it HAS been about me since I fell through the frelling rabbit hole and ended up in this bullfrell quadrant of the galaxy. It’s been ALL about me but I haven’t had any say in the matter and that’s about to change.... Right. Now.” He shook his head. “I’m tired of having all my decisions made by everyone else. Scorpy, the Ancients, The other Crichton, .... You. This time, to quote Sinatra, I’m doing it my way.”
She sat silently against the assault of his words. He was hurt and upset. He had every right. But so was she and there were bigger things at play now than the two of them. He needed to understand that.
“And doing it your way, means leaving me out?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
John stared her straight in the eyes for a microt and then looked away.
“Because I think you’re distracted.”
She blinked, “I beg your pardon?”
“Distracted, Aeryn. Distant, not focused, thoughts elsewhere.”
“I know the meaning of the word Crichton.” She said defensively “ I just don’t see how it applies to me. I’ve been dedicated to helping you with this mission since you came up with the idea.”
He nodded, “In theory you have. You’ve gone on recon missions, analyzed data chips, given.... invaluable tactical advice. And I’m... grateful, you know I am. But soon, we’re gonna have to go “into the lions den”. No more standing on the outside. And I need to know that the people who are backing me are really ... there.”
“You have a problem with my performance?” she asked coldly.
“No.”
“You have a problem working with me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Because of this.” John reached out and placed his hand over hers.
She instinctively snatched it back.
“Because of that,” he continued and because you can’t look at me, And because you leave 5 microts after I walk into a room. Aeryn, I CAN’T...” he paused, cleared his throat and tried again. “ I don’t want anyone with me who’s not 100% and because of him... and because of me, I don’t feel you can be.”
She stared at him and oddly enough the emotion that filled her was... anger. He had no right to remove her from the mission. SHE was the soldier, knew the outlay had the training. He was just some tech jockey who....” She stopped, took a deep breath and pushed the thought away. Fighting with him never solved anything. She’d learned that the hard way.
“I grew up on that Command Carrier, Crichton.” She said evenly. “No one knows it better than me, not even Crais.”
“I know that,” he conceded. “But it doesn’t really matter. We know how we’re getting on and Crais has showed me how to get off. The in between bit, the Scorpius bit, I haven’t figured out yet and when I do, that’s my call, no one can help me with that.”
“Oh no,” she thought irrationally, “He’s not doing this to me. Not again.” She started to get up and then sat back down pressing her lips into a hard line and staring at the floor.
He took her silence for defiance and started rambling on again. Always the scientist proving his point. She stopped listening, concentrating instead on calming the anger building inside. He didn’t know.. He didn’t know how he... echoed inside her. That every part of him wounded her already fractured soul. How his voice called up conversations he’d never been a part of. His smell conjured memories she knew he didn’t have. Every time she got near him she felt him die again. Looking at him was a torture. Being with him was a torture, and yet he wanted to trivialize her effort, minimize her sacrifice and make himself the injured party, the martyr, the saint. Well she wouldn’t let him. The saint had died; she’d been there to see it. All that was left was the man and he wasn’t turning this around on her. Not this time.
“You’re full of dren Crichton,” she said suddenly her voice strained and hard.
“What?”
“You heard me, you’re full of dren. But you were right about one thing this is about you. You and how much you need to grow up.”
“I need to grow up?” He began
“Yes grow up, and stop letting your stupid emotions stand in the way of reason.”
“I’m HUMAN, Aeryn,” he countered, his tone matching hers, “emotions are the nature of the beast or didn’t he teach you that?”
“Bastard,” she spat
“Maybe, but at least I’m a truthful one.. you need to listen to....”
“NO!!! I’m done listening to you!!!.” She stood up and faced him, “ I always listen to you and it always goes wrong. I know what you’re doing here and I’m not letting you get away with it. The other John gave his life so that wormhole technology wouldn’t get into the wrong hands. He went by himself and he died. Scorpius is dangerous Crichton, more dangerous than Furlow, more dangerous than the Scarens. Lives hang in the balance here, millions of them and you know it. And you can’t do this by yourself and I won’t let you. I won’t let your self pitying need to play the martyr put the rest of us in danger.”
He stood up abruptly, so abruptly his chair skittered backwards and fell. His face was white and his voice shook with the weight of his barely controlled rage.
“You’re so busy playing the widow you can’t see any further than your own grief.” He growled. “Take a look around Aeryn. We’re already in danger. I’ve got a weapon in my head that Scorpy’s been Jonesing on for far to long. I’m sick of it. It’s time for a showdown and whether you're there or not isn't going to change the outcome of the O.K. corral. This is my path, my fight and it has nothing to do with him, or you or the fact that he died. I KNOW whenever you look at me you see a dead man and I’m not going to feed into YOUR self-serving need to play angel. He’s DEAD Aeryn, and saving me ISN’T GOING TO BRING HIM BACK TO YOU.”
She didn’t think, she just moved. Her fist coming up and around to take aim at his face. But she was too angry and anger makes you careless and sloppy and slow, and he ducked and caught her hand in his own flesh meeting flesh with a thudding smack.
And she looked at him, and she saw all her anger and emptiness and pain reflected back in the deep blue of his eyes and she understood at last that she was not alone in this, and the understanding was to much for her. And she wanted to flee, but she could not run, and she wanted to scream but she could not cry out, and she wanted to hit him but her hand was already taken and there was the familiar feel of his flesh against hers. And she wanted to shut him out of her mind the way she couldn’t shut him out of her heart and so she blinked.
And in the micron that it took for her eyes to close and open again everything changed.
She couldn’t say how the space closed between them, only that suddenly her mouth was moving hard against his and her hands were seeking the softness of his hair.
She was not gentle, biting at his lips until he opened and drew her tongue into the heat of his mouth to duel with his. She felt his hands ... everywhere, in her hair, on her back down her sides and she pushed closer, aching to deepen the contact, forcing his back up against Moya’s smooth wall.
She heard ....sounds, deep, desperate, animalistic sounds muffled by the pressure of his lips upon hers. Was she crying? Was she screaming? She did not know. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t think, she merely burned. And the burning was better than the emptiness and the burning was better than the pain and if it killed them, so be it. At least she would go with him this time.
She felt his hands slipping downward around her hips, past her rear stopping to grab at her thighs and then the pull of muscle as he lifted her and flipped them around so hard her back meeting the wall with a force that caused her to groan.
Her hands sought his chest, pulling the black T away from his skin as far as it could reach. Her nails trailed tracks down his ribs across his stomach her fingers dipping into the waistband of his pants before continuing around to the muscles of his back. Her legs locked his waist thighs digging into his hips as he abandoned her mouth for the column of her throat. She was starting to drown, lost in a sea of sensation and desire when she heard him speak.
“This changes nothing” he grated between clenched teeth.
“I know” she panted.
“We’ll hate each other tomorrow.”
“I know that too.”
“Aeryn?” It was more a plea than a question.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. And it happened again. A microt where she could change everything. Were they could still stop this, where she still had control. It hung there between them.
And then she blinked.
She was very good at retreating. And that was ironic because as a soldier it was a word she wasn’t supposed to know. Stand, advance, retaliate, conquer. Those were the things she was trained to do. Face the enemy, back him down, show off your dominance. That’s what the rules said. And Peacekeepers were supposed to have rules for everything. Everything except this. What do you do when the enemy is the one thing you love? When the only thing to conquer is yourself and no matter how you look at it, the battle is already lost?
You retreat.
It had been three days since she’d awakened alone and he hadn’t said a word since then about what had happened between them. In fact since that night he hadn’t been … there.
Oh not that he’d left, he was still physically on Moya. He just seemed… unaware of her presence now. Or maybe untouched by it anymore. He spoke when addressed and not another word otherwise. He completed their planning sessions and then left the room. He never looked at her unless necessary and when he did she felt like… an afterthought. Some half-remembered thing just barely kept in mind.
And she wondered, when had she become the ghost that needed exorcising?
“This is good,” She’d thought to herself initially. After all it’s what she had wanted from him all along. Not just time but space away from his being. Distance, to give herself a chance to detach. “This will help us both adjust.” She argued when anyone questioned their silence. “It was to much, I can’t do it again. He has to accept that we aren’t what we were.”
Except that it wasn’t working.
She wasn’t getting any better. Or if she was it was in ways to minute to show. Her bed was too big and her quarters to empty. The tears had stopped coming, but the ache didn’t lessen. And the emptiness didn’t fade just because he wasn’t there. Perhaps if he were truly gone she could have found some way to let him go. But an open wound doesn’t heal. It just festers.
And she missed him.
So once again she retreated. This time to the lower tiers. Told pilot she needed exercise and to let her alone for an arn. And she’d gone through the motions because the exertion forced her to fall back on the training and the solitude made her think. Face up to the enemy and let it do its worst. Stand, conquer, dominate, advance.
And in the end she decided. There would be no more retreating.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
She walked into the room like a soldier on parade. Back straight, uniform neat and not a hair out of place. The others left as soon as they saw her expression. His half voiced protests going unheeded in their wake.
She pushed the plate of uneaten food aside, at down next to him and waited. She didn’t speak, but then again she didn’t have to, she knew he never could stand her silences long.
“So you come here to talk?”
She almost smiled. He was nothing if not predictable.
“Yes.”
“Well have at it, I’m the only one here.”
“I can’t make it fit.” She blurted, her voice clipped and hard.
“Pardon?
“You died, I watched that, I felt it. I was there. And yet here you are. I can’t mourn him because you’re right here in front of me and I can’t be with you because he’s only just gone. So you tell me Crichton, how do I make it fit?”
He stared at her a long moment and then dropped his head in defeat.
“Since I was a child,” he said softly at last. “I’ve had a plan for everything. How to talk my folks into getting the bike I wanted for Christmas, or Cindy Markowitz into letting me into her bed, or funding for my research and grants for the Farscape program. And I got every last thing, because it was worked out meticulously beforehand. Contemplating every contingency and leaving nothing to chance. It’s been the same since I got here, I’m constantly planning. Get get back home, get rid of Scorpy, different music, same dance.”
“And I thought that was the way to go. A plus B equals C, it was simple. You wanted something, you worked the math and you got it. And it always worked, always.”
He rubbed his hands across his face for a microt and then looked her straight in the eyes.
“I just know that I’m not your lover and we can’t be just friends. And I don’t know where that leaves us Aeryn,. I don’t know how to make it fit. This is something I can’t plan.”
They sat there in silence, different sides of the same problem. Trying to find some solution that didn’t spell the end.
“I can’t bear losing you again.” This time she had to break the silence.
He flinched and the color drained from his face.
“Sticks and bones may break like stones. But words will always kill me” He said softly and got up to leave.
She watched him go. If she had any sense, she thought she’d let him. But then if she had any sense she’d have never come here at all.
“John?”
He kept moving.
“John.”
One foot after the other, just a few more steps and he’d be at the door
“JOHN!!”
She was shouting. Yelling at him like some errant recruit. But he was blind to her panic and deaf to her anger. And she had to do something.
And so she blinked.
“I can’t get you out of my head” she heard herself say, voice shaking with some emotion she couldn’t identify. Her eyes were dry but she felt like her whole body sobbed. “No matter how hard I try, you’re always there. In my thoughts, in my dreams.”
He stopped.
“All I want is to be with you and then when I am I can’t wait to get away.”
Her eyes had finally caught up with the rest of her body. The tears spilling over the dam built up inside.
“And no matter how far I try to go I can still feel you. And I know that no matter what I do that’s not going to change. I can run, but you won’t hide and so when I say I can’t lose you again, that’s what I mean. Despite you, despite, me, despite him, I can’t lose you. So promise me John that it won’t happen again.”
He shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Then what do I do?”
He gripped her shoulders. “You have faith that we’re not going to die.”
“How can I do that?”
“Same as me you just have to. Time passes, things change, maybe it’s different this time.”
And she looked at him then and saw the belief in his eyes, and thought maybe, just maybe the fates would be kind. And even if they weren’t. It really didn’t matter. Life was short and it was precious and worrying just wasted time.
So she would fight along side him because that fate was. They’d started this together and she would do what she could to see that they made it this time. And she would fight for him because that’s what love was. Following your heart even when it’s at war with your mind.
“Aeryn?” His voice pulled her back from her thoughts..
“Yes.”
“Tell me what I can do.”
She felt it all come back for a microt. The fear and resistance and the little voice telling her this was wrong, she should just run and hide. But she realized that some decisions are best made without thinking. They just happen and you go with them, in the blink of an eye.
And so she took his head in her hands, pulled his mouth down to hers.
And blinked.
