Title: Love's Labor Lost

Author: Birthsister

Author's Notes: Feel free to archive anywhere, just let me know where. Rated at least R, possibly NC-17 (I'll let you decide) Probably Drama...too much angst to be pure Romance little spoilers for the farscape universe, probably the biggest ones for DMD, AHR, and SoD any questions, concerns, hate mail please email me.

Author's Email: Birthsister

LOVE'S LABOR LOST

She found him standing wet and naked in the middle of the chamber and for the first time in her life Aeryn was struck dumb. Her repair job was forgotten, the tools hanging slack in her hands. Her I-have-somewhere-to-be-get-out-of-my-way gait pulled up short like she had hit a brick wall.

"Uh…" he started to stammer, looking desperately around him for a towel, a rag, a scrap of clothes. Anything he could cover himself with. He momentarily wished Chiana didn't keep her quarters quite so chilled. The first time Aeryn had seen him naked in almost 2 cycles and she was going to think her memory gravely overestimated itself. His eyes settled on the bedspread. He grabbed it and wrapped it around his waist as casually as he could.

"Uh, Aeryn, what are you doing here?" he finally managed to say, trying not to trip over the coppery folds of fabric as they pooled around his feet.

She raised her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He knew that look. It was the same look she had given him that first day they had met. Right after she had taken off her flight helmet. Right before she slammed him into a wall. It was the same look she gave everything that she was going to most likely shoot first and ask questions about later.

"I might ask you the same thing."

John looked around at the disarray Chiana called her quarters and wished he'd had the presence of mind to remember a change of clothes. He felt like a bug under a microscope and he didn't like Aeryn's tone of voice. The fact that it had taken her so long to say anything at all was not a good sign.

"John, I couldn't find…" Chiana rounded the corner and stopped, John's clothes in her hands. She looked back and forth between John and Aeryn and sidled off to the side of the chamber.

"Chi, just give me my pants," John made a grabbing motion with his free hand.

"I…uh…I couldn't find anything to dry you off with…I mean" her skin color turned a deeper shade of gray as she tripped over the words, "For you to dry yourself off with." She held the pants out to him, not taking her eyes off her other shipmate.

John, much against every instinct in his body, turned his back to Aeryn as he tried to wiggle his wet body into his pants. Nothing cooperated with him, his wet skin clinging to the leather, the bed spread slipping. And he had an audience. He finally said "Frell it" under his breath, dropped the blanket that wasn't doing much to cover him anyway and jumped up and down to stuff himself into the damp leather. When he turned back to Aeryn she was clutching the tools in a white-knuckle grip, her jaw clenched.

"Aeryn, this isn't how it looks…" he remembered the first time he had said that, back in college, when it was EXACTLY how it looked. His girlfriend back then hadn't bought that line, either. Aeryn was backing towards the door.

"Aeryn," he reached for her wrist but she jerked away from him.

"You," she said, nearly spitting the word, "Don't frelling touch me. And YOU," she turned hateful eyes towards Chiana, "You fix your own frelling backwash problem." She spun in a perfect military about face and stormed out of the chamber, slamming a wrench down on the door control as she raged by it. John dove for the door and scooted through as it clicked shut behind him. Chiana grabbed the bars and futilely yanked at them. She brushed her hand over the door control but nothing happened.

"Frell," she muttered. "John," she called towards his fast retreating back. "JOHN! I can't get out."

"Call D'Argo," he tossed over his shoulder as he rounded the corner after Aeryn.

"You ARE kidding, right?" Chiana yelled after him, knowing even if he was still within earshot, it was a wasted effort. She kicked the bars and sighed. After calling his name one last futile time, she set about inspecting the locking mechanism herself.

John mentally kicked himself. How could he be so stupid? And the worse part of this whole thing, he thought, was that he hadn't actually done anything wrong. But when Aeryn had walked into that chamber, he knew exactly what she was thinking and he felt guilty whether or not he deserved it. He saw the flash of her braid as she rounded another corner and picked up the pace, his bare feet slapping on the floor. She hadn't had that much of a head start on him, but she had cut down two tiers through an access shaft and being barefoot he had been forced to go the long way. He had a pretty good idea where she was going, but he wanted to catch up with her first. If this was going to get loud and ugly, and he knew it would, he didn't want witnesses. He took a chance and cut through a neural cluster, catching her just outside Pilots chamber. She moved to push open the door, but her grabbed her wrists and hauled her into an alcove.

"Aeryn, talk to me," he said, holding her tight. When pulling away wasn't getting her anywhere, she flung herself at him. A knee came up to catch him in the groin and he turned just in time, his hip taking the brunt of the impact.

"Fine," he grunted at her. "Then knock it off and let ME say something." He pulled her in close and held her in a bear hug, belly to back, her arms crossed and restrained just under her breasts.

"John, there is nothing to say," she said breathlessly.

"I think there is," he struggled to catch his breath.

"No, John, there isn't. You should have left me for dead. ZHAAN should have left me for dead. You can go frell yourself blind with that little trelk for all I care, but I think you need to go explain to Zhaan why she's dying for nothing." Her voice cracked and she renewed her struggle, a booted heel coming down hard on his unprotected instep.

"O frell this!" He said, flinging her away from him. Not expecting to be released so easily, she landed hard against the wall, her arms flailing out to catch her fall and making a sickening SLAP against Moya's internal skin.

"You stubborn mule of a woman…I was taking a shower! A SHOWER! Just a god damned SHOWER!" John looked down and saw blood welling up from where the corner of her heel had cut the thin skin on the back of his foot. He winced and scrunched up his face, taking a deep breath.

"You know that back wash problem we're having? Well the frelling DRDs came in to check it out while I was trying to take a shower, and since you lock your chamber, Chiana's was the next closest. She was even nice enough to go back and get me fresh clothes. Now, if you want to keep walking around with that bug up your Peacekeeper ass, that's your problem, but I haven't done anything wrong!" He bent over and rested his hands on his knees and cocked his head to the side to look at her.

She still stood backed against the wall, eyes wide with shock and relief. Stray hairs dangled from her braid, and beads of sweat dotted her upper lip.

"John…I," she didn't know what to say. She couldn't even understand the wave of relief that flooded over her. She licked her lip and tasted the salt, trying to find a word, any word while inside, she was recovering from her suspected betrayal. To find him with Chiana, defiling their friendship, defiling Zhaan's sacrifice, acting like every other male she had ever known…not understanding the emotions did not make the pain any less acute.

"You're bleeding," was what she finally managed to say.

"I'll live," he snapped back. John could see the hurt in her eyes and the anger seemed to run out of him. He took a step towards her, cautiously, much too aware of her volatile nature to just assume it was all over. Another step, and he was directly in front of her, her back pressed against the wall and he could smell her hair, see the unworded relief in her eyes. He braced himself against the wall, hands on either side of her head and leaned in close.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said in a whisper at her ear, "I will never hurt you, never again. I'd rather die first." He could feel her breath hitch as he said the word "die". For a moment he considered the irony that what was a romantic notion for him only a few years ago was now the God's honest truth. He still had dreams that he had died instead of she. That instead of forcing her Prowler down over some God forsaken frozen waste of a planet, instead of listening to her last gasping breaths calling for him, instead of being powerless to reverse what he had done, he had instead managed to take control and force his own module to take a header into some snowy mountain. He always woke up on impact, cold and sweaty, and feeling somehow alright if that had been the alternate outcome. Sometimes you've just got to take what you're handed and run with it.

She turned her head to look into his eyes. And his lips…were…right…there. Suddenly she wanted him so badly it hurt. She tried to tell herself all she wanted was the release of tension that recreating would give her, but she found her Peacekeeper training more and more irrelevant. She wanted him. This human. She wanted his hands on her, she wanted to explore every inch of him. She realized how foolish she had been that she hadn't taken the opportunity long ago when she was too ignorant to understand what had happened between them. She wanted…she felt his mouth so much closer to hers. Was she moving toward him or he to her? She felt the course thick hair of his chest in her hands…so much more hair than a Sebacean man. It excited her. His mouth pressed hard against hers and she opened to him.

John wanted to stop. His mind was at war with is body. He wanted to be the gentleman and say, "I know you're not ready for this, I can wait," but he didn't. He tasted that wonderful, earthy, sebacean taste and one hand followed the line of the wall down to pull her roughly to him.

"Our quarters…" she started to say around his tongue.

"Are full of DRDs," he finished for her. His hands went to her waistband and the gun belt clattered to floor.

"The hangar bay…" she mumbled against his lips.

"Too open," he fumbled with the clasp on her pants, then unhooked the clasp on her vest, leaving both hanging open.

He kissed her neck, following the line of her collarbone down to her breasts. He pushed the leather away and gently took a nipple into his mouth. He was rewarded with a shiver and a moan. He remembered that moan.

"Where," she said breathlessly.

"Right here," John answered, shoving his hand down the back of her pants, feeling the wonderful skin on her bare bottom and pulling her closer. She obliged by grinding herself against his erection then pulling back long enough to open his pants.

"Are you sure," but she was already freeing him from the restrictive leather.

John moaned in her ear. In his mind keys slid into locks, opening doors that had been closed for too long. Doors that had been shut up and locked tight after their one and only night together on the false earth. Her scent, yes, I remember that. That taste, yes I remember that too. This skin, O God, this skin. Though he indulged the fantasy everyday, the details always escaped him. He stood back a second and stared at her. Yes, there are the nipples. Those wonderful, pale, translucent nipples. He kissed her again, his hands moving to her breasts. They continued their journey south, pushing the waistband of her pants off her hips and down to the tops of her boots. He kissed her hips, her belly button. He traveled back up to her neck and whispered in here ear "Are YOU sure?" She answered him with an aggressiveness that would have scared him coming from any other woman.

***********************************

D'Argo stood at Pilots console, sniffing the air suspiciously.

"Can I help you, Ka D'Argo," Pilot asked politely.

"Chiana is stuck in her quarters, the door is jammed. Fix it. And that frelling backwash problem has moved from Crichton's quarters to mine now," he paused and sniffed the air again.

"What's that smell," he paused, concentrating, his nose twitching. "It smells like," his nose twitched, "like," another twitch, "a Sebacean in heat."

Pilot drew himself up to his full size and crossed all four arms primly in front of him on the console. "Ka D'Argo," he said, "I suggest you mind your own business."

***********************************

Zhaan placed a placating hand on D'Argo's arm. "Dear D'Argo, we all knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. We should be thankful for their bliss."

"I don't care about their bliss," D'Argo growled, "I don't even care that they're frelling themselves into exhaustion, I just wish they wouldn't do it EVERYWHERE on the ship." He shoved his food away from him with a snarl. "I can smell them everywhere. It's ALL I smell. I can't even eat."

Zhaan sighed. She was tired, and she had noticed this morning that her sap was starting to turn an ocher color. But she managed a smile in spite of it all and said, "Consider it a gift, that you are more aware than others that you might not walk in and interrupt their special moments."

"Indeed," Rygel said from his throne sled in front of the cold storage unit, "It is a most repulsive process."

Zhaan silently got up from the table, never once losing her peaceful smile, and draped an arm over what could be called Rygel's shoulders. Rygel cocked his head at her then let out a shriek as she grabbed and viciously pulled an ear brow.

"If I ever catch you using the DRDs like that again, Dominar, I will personally see to it that all of your 'repulsive processes' come to an abrupt end, do I make myself clear?" D'Argo chuckled from the table behind him. He tried to nod, but the Delvian's grip on his ear was too much.

"DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!" she hissed at him.

"Perfectly," he managed to sputter out, "yes, yes, perfectly."

Zhaan let go and stood in her full regal serenity. She longed for Stark to return from his supply trip. She needed someone to center her. She needed his strength.

"D'Argo, why don't you take a plate out onto the terrace. You may find that more suited to your…palate." D'Argo snorted, but picked up a plate and a drink receptacle and started out of the dining area. He paused at the door, turning right and left, sniffing.

"Argh!" he growled as John and Aeryn rounded the corner.

"Hey, big guy! What's up?" John slapped him on the back as he walked by, grabbing a cup off the counter
and pouring himself some water. John smiled broadly at him, then frowned.

"Hey, who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?"

Aeryn edged by the massive Luxan and joined John at the counter, holding her own cup out for him to fill.

"The LEAST you could have done," D'Argo said, "Was bathe before dinner."

Aeryn's head dipped slightly, in what John had come to know as the closest thing to embarrassment she was capable of showing.

"Since when do we stand on formality around here," John said, taking his and Aeryn's cups and setting them on the table. Aeryn touched her nose and nodded her head slightly. John ignored her.

"Hey Blue," he said in a quieter tone to the tired looking Delvian, "Shouldn't you be resting?" He noticed the red highlights that had taken over the natural blue of her forehead were spreading.

"I'm fine, thank you John. Although my solitude is sacred to me, the Goddess continues to grant me the strength to seek the pleasure of my friends company. I shall graciously accept it so long as it lasts."

"Where's your nurse maid," Aeryn asked, reaching across John to pile more food on her tray.

"Stark went down to the planet to assess the moisture levels and bring me back some more herbs for my apothecary. " She sighed, watching Rygel closely as he hovered past D'Argo with his tray balanced precariously on his lap. She suspected he was hoarding food again, but had decided to pick and choose her battles.

"Uh uh," Aeryn said, putting a staying hand on top of John's, "easy on those seeds." He stuck the spoon back in the bowl of small, shiny black beads. When she turned her back, he shrugged and piled another spoonful on the blue green concoction that faintly resembled technicolor mashed potatoes. He suspected it was some sort of steamed and mashed tuber, but had learned that the less he knew about what he ate, the better off he was.

"Well D'Argo," Aeryn said, sitting down. "Are you going to hover there like some adolescent, or are you going to join us?"

D'Argo shifted his weight from one foot to another, then entered the chamber so slam his plate down on the table. "I have lost my appetite." He stormed out of the room fast enough for John to hear his flesh locks slap against the wall as D'Argo turned the corner.

"Is he still grousing about Chiana?" John asked, handing Aeryn a fork.

"Probably. But right now it's us." She answered.

"What's wrong with us? Aren't our stunning personalities enough for him anymore."

Aeryn touched her nose. "He can smell us."

John shoveled a spoonful of mashed tubers and seeds into his mouth and frowned. "He's always been able to smell us." He crunched on the seeds, "Hmmm, kinda like pepper. But bigger. And crunchier. Hmmm, not bad." John shrugged and took another bite of food.

"No, not us," Aeryn tried to clarify, casting a glance at Zhaan then lowering her voice,"US." She motioned back and forth between them with her fork. "You, me, together…."

John was engrossed in his food, picking each little seed out and eating it individually. It had been so long since he had any kind of seasoning, any kind of anything that tasted remotely like home that he was truly enjoying the experience.

"John, what Aeryn is trying to say is that Sebaceans, and I suppose Humans too, have a very distinct scent when they're aroused."

"Aroused, huh," John looked up from his plate of food, "Oh, aroused. That kind of aroused." He looked around sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. Then he kind of chuckled, "Well, if we have to bathe every time, Moya's plumbing is REALLY going to have a back wash problem."

Zhaan smiled indulgently then stood up. "I will leave you to your meals. I feel the energy I was earlier graced with has run its course."

She stopped and looked over John's shoulder. "John, how many of those placa seeds have you eaten?"

"What? O, these little things," he held up one of the obsidian beads and popped in his mouth. "I dunno, a couple, three spoonfuls."

Zhaan turned her attention to Aeryn. "Stop by the cargo bay on your way back to your quarters and I will leave a remedy to help eleviate the symptoms."

Aeryn smiled almost affectionately at Zhaan. "Thank you. But only if it's no trouble."

Zhaan smiled back, then turned to stroll gracefully out of the chamber, "Less trouble for me than it will be for him," she said in parting.

John looked horrified. "What, what…." he sputtered at Aeryn.

Aeryn stood up and took his plate, "No more food for you."

"Hey, I wasn't done with that."

Aeryn smiled, then her face turned serious. "Trust me, you are."

John grabbed her elbow. "What did you let me just eat?"

"Let you? No, I told you you had enough but you seemed to have gone back for more. Besides, when did I become your keeper? Now c'mon, let's go get that remedy from Zhaan."

John wouldn't budge, "WHAT did I just eat."

Aeryn sighed. "O, nothing that's going to cause you permanent harm. In small quantities," Aeryn emphasized the word 'small', "placa seeds are a seasoning. In larger quantities they are an emetic, in the quantity you just ate…" she let the statement hang in the air.

John jumped up from the table, "Let's go."

***********************************

 She was clutching the wash basin until the molding along its fixtures left indentations in her hands. Certain that she had nothing left in her stomach she dry heaved until the back of her throat burned with bile. She spit into the basin, the smell of stale water and fresh bile instigating another spasm in her gut. She rinsed her mouth out and tried to stand up straight, but she'd been at this the better part of a solar day. She gave in as another pain took her. She found herself on all fours next to the basin, gagging and cursing. Her hips ached, her back rebelled in pain refusing to hold her upright. She felt like someone was trying to reach up through her center and remove her intestines. From somewhere far away, she heard a voice. She rested her head against the cool metal of the basin, not certain why it felt so good.

"C'mon Sun, shake it off." That would be Praetor, she thought. Yes, Praetor. She recognized the edge to the voice, the impatience.

"Frell off," she spat back at him, before more pain took her. She felt blood hitting the floor between her bare knees. My blood, she thought. My blood. She struggled to her feet and swayed with the pain. Sometimes the swaying helped. This wasn't one of those times. All she wanted to do was lay down and sleep. A good long sleep cycle and then a duty shift in her Prowler. That's all she had ever wanted, her Prowler, her unit, her uniform. They were the only important things in life…the other women had told her to close her eyes and cling to what was important. In her mind she clung to the stars, the smooth metal of the controls, the other voices of her unit in her head…she felt a surge of energy and promptly leaned over and puked on Praetors mirror shined boots.

***********************************

She was leaning over the receptacle before she was even fully awake, the contents of her stomach sliding slowly down the drain. She wondered briefly if stomach acid counted as a corrosive, but decided she would hear about it from Pilot later if it were. She rinsed her mouth out, pausing as she heard gagging sounds coming from down the corridor in Crichton's chamber. She shook her head, then adjusted her ponytail deciding that since she was up anyway, she might as well go check on him. She'd barely made it to the door before she felt the familiar wetness at the back of her throat and she found herself rushing in the other direction, jumping across her bed and burying her head in the basin.

"Well, this is just disgusting," she thought as she took another moment to collect herself. Sebaceans were a hardy species, not prone to stomach ailments, and even if they were, she hadn't had any of the placa seeds that were causing Crichton his fair amount of discomfort tonight. She frowned in thought. She hadn't vomited like this in several cycles, not since…well, not since any time she cared to think about.

She snapped her pulse pistol into place and passed a hand over the locking mechanism at her door, pausing a moment at the suspicious rumblings in her stomach. They subsided and she padded barefoot down to Crichton's quarters.

She found him in his boxers hunched over his own wash basin, sweat pouring down his back, his hands barely supporting his weight as he gagged and sputtered. She paused at his door, uncertain what she should do.

"You should lay down," she finally called out.

He turned his head to look at her, one watery blue eye peeking out at her from under his arm. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand then turned and slid into a sitting position.

"Aeryn, I'm going to die." His voice was scratchy and rough.

She moved forward and tried to pull him to his feet. "No, you're not. You just wish you would. Now, come on, shake it off and get back into bed."

"….Can't….move…" he whispered at her. "Besides, it too far back to the sink."

"There's nothing left in you to come out. You're just wasting your strength sitting here like this. " She planted her bare feet on top of his, grabbed his hands and pulled, leveraging him into a standing position. "You'll be fine by this time tomorrow, now come on, lay down." She pivoted him and pushed him back on the bed, arranging a pillow under his head.

"I don't think Zhaan's potion worked," he mumbled, turning to curl into a ball.

"No," Aeryn replied, planting herself in a chair, "Just imagine how bad you'd feel if it hadn't." John groaned in reply.

Aeryn watched him toss and turn for a couple of arns, wondering why she had even thought it was a good idea to sleep in her own quarters tonight. When he finally dozed off into a fitful and sweaty sleep, she managed to put her own head back and close her eyes.

***********************************

She had been told "for all you endure, you will be made stronger for it". Somehow the words weren't very comforting as she was bleeding and puking, her whole body aching in pain. Somewhere in the middle of what would have been her sleep cycle, and probably shortly after she puked on his shoes, Praetor had been replaced with the silent Karanda. He said little, handing her water, a cool wash cloth, and holding the med techs at bay as the situation warranted. His silent presence was more comforting than the grating Praetor. She continued to grind her teeth against the pain. Her legs were starting to shake when the med tech managed to slip in the door while Karanda had gone to relieve himself. She was young and inexperienced and hesitated at seeing the soldier alone.

Aeryn looked up from where she crouched against the bunk, grunting at the peak of the pain. When it passed she focussed hateful eyes on the med tech. "Don't frelling touch me!" She managed to spit out before another pain took her. She heard the soft drop of more blood hitting the floor. When she stood up she could feel it on her legs. The loose gown she wore was spotted with it. She could smell it. It made her gag again and she rushed to the basin just in time to heave up what little water she had managed to swallow.

The tech took another step towards her, uncertain of the situation. A soldiers unit was her support, companionship, her strength in all things. Then here was this one…alone. "It's almost time," the tech said, trying to be comforting.

Aeryn slowly turned towards her, head raised, watching her out of the corner of her eye. She wiped her mouth on her shoulder, gritted her teeth against another wave of pain that threatened to bring her to her knees and spat out "I'll tell you when it's frelling time!"

The tech turned as the door to the medical chamber opened and another Peacekeeper entered. He looked at her with only slightly less distaste than Officer Sun had. "Clean her up or leave," was all he said.

The tech bowed her head and nodded. Taking some cloths from a shelf, she wet them and quickly and efficiently wiped down Officer Sun's thighs, ankles, and the tops of her feet where the blood had spattered. Taking a fresh cloth, she wiped it quickly over the other woman's face and refastened her hair. She threw a larger towel over the puddles and droplets on the floor, scooping everything up into one bundle and depositing it quickly into the linen receptacle next to where Officer Karanda stood. She left a clean gown on the bunk, it's red contrasting brightly with the gray bed linens.

"If she wants to change later," the tech said as she slipped back out the door, "but it won't be too much longer now."

The pain was constant now and it took all of Aeryn's concentration to keep from crying out. She hadn't wanted this. All she had wanted was to be lost in the stars, lost in the ranks, nameless, faceless, fearless. She squatted with her back against the wall for support and gestured wildly for Karanda to come forward. He moved towards her and she reached up and gripped him tightly, "Help me lean."

She could smell chakon oil on him as she leaned into him. She found it comforting. Cling to the familiar. Cling to the familiar. She was grunting against the pain again and felt the nausea welling up in her. "Basin," was all she managed to get out as pain and spasms took her over. Her hips felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets. She felt something inside of her shift and there was a fresh gush down her thighs.

***********************************

Aeryn sat bolt upright in her chair, eyes wild for the few microts it took her to reorient herself. John was sleeping, a fine sheen of sweat across his brow, an arm flung over his eyes. She splashed some water on her face, disturbed by her dream. She hadn't thought about that day in ages. She made it a point not to think about that day.

Satisfied John was sleeping peacefully she made her way back to her quarters to finish dressing. With Zhaan ailing, Stark down on the planet, and now with Crichton laid up for the day, she couldn't afford the luxury of a leisurely morning, not that she ever did anyway. Just the past week had found her dallying with Crichton in the morning, and he was in no shape for anything right now.

She pulled on her boots, refastened her hair, and found a clean tank top. D'Argo would be looking for her soon, to help him with some maintenance in one of Moya's neural clusters. She wanted to help Zhaan move her few belongings into new quarters. Aeryn ticked off her to do list in her head as she moved down the corridor towards the central chamber.

She ran a hand over Moya's scarred bulkhead as she passed through one of her charred sections. It seemed firmer than the last time she had been through here. Aeryn smiled to herself, satisfied that at least something looked like it was going right for them. She stopped, her smile fading. Her stomach was lurching and she had suddenly become very aware of the smell of Moya's charred flesh. She looked wildly around her and found what had once been a "sink" as John called it. She spit a few times into it before collecting herself. "Well that's just frelling odd," she thought as she made her way into one of Moya's healthy corridors.

D'Argo joined her in the central chamber a short time later, pausing at the door to sniff the air first.

"O frell off D'Argo, I bathed last night," she said without looking up from her plate.

"No," he said, moving closer, "There's something else."

He picked up his own plate of food cubes and sat across from her, still sniffing slightly.

"We've got work to do D'Argo. We don't have time for your olfactory hallucinations."

D'Argo ate his food, his face still showing signs of puzzlement. "It's familiar. I can't put my finger on it…"

Aeryn sighed as she stood up. "We've been sharing space for nearly 3 cycles, of course I smell familiar by now. Now let's go so I can get back and check on Crichton before the midday meal."

D'Argo shrugged, picking up the food cubes in one massive hand to eat on the way to the access shaft. He was certain there was something…

***********************************

By the fourth day Aeryn was certain there was something, too. She looked tired and haggard. She felt like dren and it had been impossible to keep anything, solid or liquid, down. She spent more time inspecting the bottom of various waste receptacles around the ship than anything else. She had managed to disguise her illness from most of the crew by dedicating herself to finding and solving the back wash problem. But Crichton was getting suspicious.

He had spent the first night still in his own quarters, sleeping off the retched effects of the placa seeds. The second night he had expected her to accompany him after the last meal but she had begged off claiming Pilot needed her to run a diagnostic from his chamber. He had looked confused, but hadn't pushed it. The next day, he had playfully pursued her, finally cornering her in an alcove of the cargo bay while she rooted through miscellaneous toolboxes. He had gone away hurt when she snapped at him and he hadn't bothered to seek her out the rest of the day. She hung a privacy curtain that night over her door and had held her breath as she heard his footstep pause, then continue on to his own chamber. She breathed a sigh of relief, but inside she longed for him to share her bed again. Something inside of her just didn't seem…right…without his constant companionship.

It had been a weeken since the first dream and her illness had not let up any. She was tired, gaunt. All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep but she pushed on. She hoarded food in her quarters to snack on when no one was around so that when the inevitable regurgitation occurred, no one was the wiser for it. She scheduled her duties on command counter to Crichton's, hoping their opposite schedules would give her some breathing room. She knew she could count on his good graces only so long before he cornered her and demanded to know what was going on.

She was surprised when D'Argo joined her on command. He paused briefly to examine a control board and then sighed loudly.

"What's wrong, D'Argo," she asked, knowing already Crichton had sent him to test the waters. "Did Crichton send you?"

"No," he answered, surprising her again. "But he is concerned." Aeryn sensed there was something hanging in the air unsaid. She suspected she knew what it was. D'Argo wasn't stupid, and he had been married to a Sebacean. She was too tired and ill to play games.

"Have you told him?" She asked, still not bothering to turn and face the Luxan.

"So it's true then," she sensed him move closer to her and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. "You hide the illness well."

Aeryn nodded but didn't say anything. She looked down at the comms board, but there was nothing to look at. If something had been out of the ordinary, Pilot would have already alerted her.

"If I hide it so well, how did you know?"

D'Argo sniffed in reply. "You smell like Lo'Lann when she conceived Jothee."

Aeryn almost chuckled to herself. Leave it to a Luxan to diagnose her with his nose.

"D'Argo, I trust I have your confidence in this?" she said, finally turning to face the enormous man.

D'Argo smiled broadly at her. "Well of course I would give you the opportunity to announce the news yourself. I'm not that much of a traznik." Then he saw the look in her eyes. The pain, the fear, the utter lack of joy. He frowned.

"You're not going to tell him, are you?" It was a statement.

"D'Argo, what am I supposed to say? Why should I play with his emotions like that? I've already done enough to him."

"I think he would welcome the news."

"Would you think for just one microt? We can't do this here. Now. How the frell am I supposed protect something that small for that long? I didn't have parents, I had trainers. I had a huge ship armed to the teeth. What do we have here?" She heard herself raising her voice but didn't care anymore. "We have a sick leviathan, a dying priest, and a father who's borderline insane."

She lowered her voice again, and comptemplated the toe of her boot, "D'Argo, I realize what I missed as a child, and I want that for my own. I can't do that here while we're like this. We have nothing to offer."

She felt his huge hand on her shoulder and it took all she had not to turn into his strength. "What you have," he said, close to her ear, "is family."

She wanted to cry as she heard his heavy footsteps recede. She wanted to scream and rage. She longed for her Prowler as she watched the stars in their infinite stability before her. Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt the familiar tingling in the back of her throat and rushed out of command to the main chamber and the closest waste receptacle.

She passed Crichton in the corridor by their quarters. He reached out to her and she flinched away from his touch, steeling herself against him, knowing she would not be able to do what needed to be done if she let herself find solace in his arms again. The hurt expression on his face, the worry in his eyes cut at her, but she held firmly to her plan.

"Crichton, I'm tired." She didn't look at him. She realized how long it had been since she had called him by his family name and knew it had probably hurt him.

"Why are you avoiding me? What did I do to piss you off this time?" He backed up a couple paces so she would have to move around him.

"It's not you. It's me. Now let me go to bed."

"Jesus Christ, I get blown to the other side of the Universe, and some things just don't change. How many times have I heard that line? Is that some genetic imprint they give to all females?" Yes, she had hurt him. She could feel the pain masked by the sarcasm.

Aeryn shook her head at him, "I don't know what your talking about, but I don't want to talk about anything right now. I just want to sleep." She stepped around him and he moved to intercept her. She sighed and stood still, staring at the floor.

"What's wrong with you, Aeryn? I thought we'd already covered this ground." His voice was starting to rise in exasperation. She stepped to the left and he countered.

"Look, we can stand here all day and do the Peacekeeper two step, or we can talk."

Aeryn started to speak but her stomach heaved without warning and she found herself on her knees in the corridor inspecting the shine on Crichton's boots and thinking of an Officer she had known a lifetime ago named Praetor.

A second later Crichton was on the floor with her, his arm around her shoulders and a hand smoothing the stray hairs back from her forehead. When the spasms stopped he tried to help her to her feet but she shook off his hands, knowing he would notice how thin she had become in the past days. She kept her eyes cast down, knowing how dark they were with circles. Although her face had always been thin, she had noticed just this morning how the hollows of her cheeks had become gaunt.

"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?" His voice had lost its edge and she wanted to melt into the concern she felt from his words. Instead she heaved a great sigh as she picked herself up and straightened her clothes.

"Because it's none of your concern. I'll be fine." Disoriented, she turned, trying to remember which direction she had been coming from and which way her quarters were.

Deciding on a direction, she brushed past Crichton. It was the wrong direction. He grabbed her by her shoulders and turned her 180, saying, "No, you need a bed." She knew Crichton would know just how sick she was getting, because for the first time in days she didn't have the strength to argue.

***********************************

She knew she was dying. She was certain of it. She'd been at this too long and she was certain this much fluid couldn't come out of her without causing some sort of irreparable harm. She doubled over at the waist, unable to hold herself up any longer, her arms clasped desperately around Karanda's neck. A clasp from his uniform bit into her cheek and she tried to concentrate on that rather that everything else that was going on with her body. The pain was steady and unrelenting now and she was moaning and grunting, unable to help herself. The nausea had long ago dissipated and she now decided that it had been the lesser of the many evils. She felt things slipping and moving inside of her, forces at work on her body that she had no control over.

There were two med techs with her now, but neither she nor Karanda were in any shape to send them away. She despised this intrusion into her self, her privacy. She hadn't asked for any of this…tears streamed down her face as she cursed. All she had to do was finish this, all she had to do was finish and her life could move forward again. Hands were on her and she wanted to fight them off but she didn't have any strength for anything other than staying conscious. She felt her teeth sink into Karanda's shoulder, but she suddenly felt like she was an observer from somewhere back inside her mind and it was somebody else doing it. She felt the rough fabric against her tongue, the pull of the seam hurting her teeth…

***********************************

"Ow, Goddammit Aeryn! Let go!" She was suddenly awake and staring at a startled and wild-eyed Crichton. He jumped out of the bed, holding his shoulder where she had bit him in her sleep. "What the frell is going on with you woman?" He pulled his hand away and there was blood.

"I….I'm sorry," she stammered. But the taste of blood was in her mouth and she found herself quickly rolling to the other side of the bed and the basin there. When she recovered, she found Crichton still standing on his side of the bed, in T-shirt and boxers, staring at her like one of his science experiments. She didn't remember his coming to bed with her, but decided it was just like him not to want to leave her alone while she was ill.

He came around the side of the bed and knelt in front of her. "Aeryn, tell me what's going on. You haven't been sick the entire time I've known you, except when someone skewered you, and then you were up and sparring in a matter of arns." He held her head in both of his hands and stared into her blue green eyes. She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted his blessing for what she had to do and knew she wouldn't get it. She wanted to tell him about that day she kept dreaming about. She wanted to tell him about Kez'ryth, like so many times before, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth and no words would come. What had been duty then weighed on her like her death sentence now.

"I'll be fine," she pulled herself to her feet and reached for her pants. "Let me go get you something for that shoulder." She desperately needed an excuse to get out of the chamber. She needed some time, even a few microts, to collect herself. Prepare herself.

"I can do it, Aeryn." John reached for his own pants at the foot of the bed.

"John, I don't want to disturb Zhaan and you don't know what to get from her apothecary. And I wouldn't trust Stark to tell you." She saw he wasn't sold on the idea. "Besides, I need to clear my head. I'll meet you in the central chamber in half an arn."

He paused as he laced up his boots. "Aeryn, I…" he started, but she cut him off abruptly.

Snapping her pulse pistol into place, she all but growled at him, "Crichton, just let me be! Why do you HAVE to argue with every frelling word?" His mouth snapped shut.

"THANK YOU!" and she marched out the door and down the hall.

She found what she needed for Crichton in the lab section of the cargo bay. It wasn't complicated, she'd had enough wounds to know what went into the poultice. It was simply a mild anesthetic and antiseptic. What she needed for herself was a little more complicated, and she wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for. She carefully pulled out each colorful vial and examined it, mentally cataloging the ones she knew from the ones she didn't. She didn't need any antiseptics. Blood clotting agents, anti-poisons, anti-venoms, sedatives…her eyes fell on a pale yellow fluid. She touched a drop to her tongue and frowned at the sharp biting taste. Her stomach heaved and she clamped her jaw shut. Yes, this was one, she was certain. Ironically, it was a derivative of the placa seed. She picked up another pinkish bottle and sniffed it. Sweet, similar to the scent Zhaan had given her so long ago for her hair. Probably a digestive aid. She set that one aside and mentally catalogued it as something she might need later.

"What are you looking for?" Her heart jumped to her throat as she heard Zhaan's quiet voice behind her. Outwardly, she showed nothing as she slowly turned around.

"I, uh, needed…Crichton hurt his shoulder." She held up the poultice. Zhaan smile never faltered as she reached forward and picked up the yellow vial.

"Then you shouldn't be needing this, dear."

"You've been talking to D'Argo."

"Actually," Zhaan said, as she rearranged her bottles and potions back into the order they had been in. "No."

Aeryn looked at her, puzzled. She stepped away from the mystic, afraid any sort of proximity would give away any plausible deniability she had left. But stealth and subterfuge had never been her forte, and what she felt towards Zhaan belied any ability to lie to her.

"Then who? Does Crichton know?"

"You should tell him. It is blessed news." She continued to smile sweetly, serenely as she put her workspace back in order.

"I suppose that's relative." Aeryn wanted to bolt. Inside her stomach rolled and the surge of adrenaline at getting caught rummaging where she didn't belong had not helped her emotional stability in the least.

Zhaan turned to face her, cupping Aeryn's head with her hands as she did when she shared Unity. But she only stared into Aeryn's tired eyes and kissed her on the forehead. "My child, life is a gift. For all that you have learned these past few cycles, let this be the most important lesson."

Then she turned and walked away, leaving Aeryn stripped of her defenses and crying silently as she realized Zhaan had taken the bitter, yellow liquid with her.

***********************************

John was in the cargo bay adjusting the atmospheric shielding on his module when he commed D'Argo to come help him. He had himself wedged into a tight space and the shoulder Aeryn had taken a chunk out of was not appreciating all the friction. Normally, he would have commed her instead of the massive warrior, but he decided with her laid up beggars couldn't be choosers.

He saw tentacles dangling in front of him as D'Argo leaned over to inspect Crichton's work.

"What can I help you with, my friend?"

Crichton cursed as he banged his thumb and slammed his shoulder simultaneously. "For starters, grab my feet and pull."

D'Argo looked startled a moment, then shrugged. He grabbed a solid hold of his friend's feet and heaved, extricating the smaller man and dropping him unceremoniously on the cargo bay floor.

"Uh, thanks. I think," John stood up and rubbed his shoulder. The poultice had really worked wonders since the morning, but Aeryn had bitten him hard enough to draw blood and it would take some time heal. He made a mental note to drop by Zhaan's for some more of that anesthetic.

"D'Argo," John finally said after they had worked together in silence for nearly an arn, "are women alike no matter where you go in the universe?"

D'Argo frowned at him. "You are asking the wrong man that question right now."

"Ok, ignoring the fact that SOME women are the same no matter where you go in the universe, what are the chances of meeting with another Aeryn twice in the same lifetime?"

The big Luxan snorted. "I wouldn't wish that on any man."

 John stopped what he was doing and stood up, leaning on the module and staring thoughtfully into space. D'Argo stood and faced him, tossing his tools into the cockpit. They faced each other over the small spacecraft until D'Argo couldn't stand the beaten look on his friend's face any longer. He had looked better the day they had rescued him from the Peacekeepers a cycle ago than he looked right now. But, he figured he probably looked pretty much like dren too, these days.

"John," D'Argo tried to choose his words very carefully, "Male to male, perhaps I can shed some light on the situation…"

Aeryn heard the loud voices coming closer and instinctively reached for her pulse pistol where it lay on the bed next to her. As they neared she recognized them as John and D'Argo's and wondered what the frell had gotten them riled up at each other again. Then she wondered why they were on her tier arguing. And then understanding struck her and she knew what was coming next. She forced herself out of bed and into a standing position. If she could just get out of her chamber and down the corridor without Crichton seeing her…it was a vain hope.

"Aeryn…" she heard him calling her name down the hallway and she cringed inside. She was not one to back down from any sort of altercation, not with him, not with anybody, but she was NOT up to this right now. She leaned over the basin and spit, looking around herself for an escape and finding none. The two males were just on the far side of her chamber door now, and she could hear them clearly.

"Dammit D'Argo, I appreciate that fact, but I didn't get much of a say last time so you better believe I'm putting my two cents worth in here. Now get the FRELL out of my way!"

"I'm just saying, John, that I don't agree with it but it may be a necessary decision."

"What the frell do you know…" and then John stopped himself. Aeryn winced, knowing that was question that should not have been asked.

D'Argo's voice grew very solemn, "John, I am a father and a husband, and we have both seen the effects of a child forced to grow up without his parents."

"Yes, but would you have rather seen him dead?" He was answered with silence.

"I didn't think so."

Aeryn heard the larger and heavier footfalls recede and palmed the lock open by the time Crichton actually reached it. He found her sitting on her bed with her head in her hands. She had given up cursing the Luxan, this was a secret she was a fool to try and keep, anyway. When she looked up at him with anguished eyes, all of his anger evaporated leaving only a dull throbbing in his temples in it's wake.

"Talk to me, Aeryn," he said, sitting on the side of the bed with her.

"If you already know, what is there to say?" Her voice was quiet, subdued. He'd never seen her like this. Risen from the dead she had more life in her than this shell of a woman.

"Tell me something. Anything. Please explain to me that this is more than just some Peacekeeper party line." In his mind he was panicking, memories of Princess Kitralla and the daughter he would never know fresh and raw like a wound.

"John, I'm sorry. I just can't. I can't." He heard her voice wavering and he was completely off balance. Her strength had always guided him. In this they were both lost.

"You can't what? You can't talk to me? You can't tell me why my input in this decision isn't as important as yours? Or can you just not bring yourself to carry a half-breed?" As soon as the statement came out of his mouth she flinched and he knew he had crossed the line.

Aeryn reacted to her anger the only way she knew how. She jumped up and pulled her pulse pistol on him, her hand shaking and wavering as though she were still sick from peraferal nerve damage.

"I…can't…"she spit each word out," go...through...that…again! I WON"T!"

Crichton still sat on the bed in shocked and ashamed silence.

"Aeryn, I…" he stood up and moved towards her, one hand outstretched, "I'm sorry. Please give me the pistol." She took two steps backward for his one forward, her hand still wavering madly.

"John, I want this more than you could EVER understand," he'd heard this tone of voice only once before, several weekens ago, in a cold storage chamber on Moya. She'd told him she loved him then. She had collapsed in his arms sobbing. Now she was telling him she was carrying his child with only slightly less enthusiasm. And at gun point no less.

"Then give me the pistol and let's discuss this like two rational people." Inside John scoffed at the absurdity of the words. When had they ever been rational about anything?

Aeryn wavered one last time, then collapsed in a fit of gagging and sobbing. John rushed over and kicked the weapon to the far side of the room, then bent over her and laid his head against hers. He made shshshing sounds trying to calm her. She smelled sweet, kind of fruity. Sebacean sweat. It wasn't an unpleasant odor to him, but he realized his usually fastidious Officer Sun hadn't bathed in a day or two.

"Aeryn, please. This is important." He cupped her chin and forced her head up to look at him. "I'm not your enemy. Make me understand. Help me understand."

Aeryn took a deep breath. It wasn't a story she had ever told before, and she didn't know where to start. She looked into John's pale blue eyes searching for strength but only found her own confusion mirrored back at her. She resisted her thoughts of Kez'ryth and focussed on the matter at hand.

"John, we can't do this here. We can't do this now. We're still fugitives. We don't have enough to eat one microt and we're being shot at the next, what kind of life is that for a child?"

John looked at her incredulously, "Aeryn, we have more money than God. Hell, if you I'll buy us a nice little asteroid out there, put up a white picket fence and settle down. I don't care. I just want you. I just want our child."

"I can't, John, not yet. I have…" she lingered over the sentence, trying to find the right words, "unfinished business." And she knew as she said it she had to go back. She had to go back to the life she left behind and bring home what was hers. And that meant sacrificing one for the other.

"You've done this before…" John let the sentence hang. When she slowly nodded he sat back on his haunches, dazed.

"Kez'ryth," she said, savoring the name. A name she hadn't pronounced since she had first briefly looked on his face and chosen it for him. "His name is Kez'ryth."

***********************************

She had felt an enormous pulling, stretching, tearing as though the whole of the universe were passing through her. As much as she tried not to, she cried out at the end. Then there was a sudden sensation of relief and she looked down to see hands fumbling over a head and a body slithered out shortly after. She would have collapsed if Karanda had not had a good hold of her.

"It's a male," someone said. Hands maneuvered her onto the bunk but as exhausted as she was she could not close her eyes. She saw small hands flailing in the light and then a loud, lusty cry. She felt as though she had been holding her breath the whole time and let out a long, hard sigh. She collapsed against the bunk, her son healthy and her career secure.

One of the med techs moved to help her into a fresh gown. "A good meal, a good sleep cycle, and you'll be back at your post in no time."

The other tech held up the wailing infant from across the room. She could see a pelt of black hair, his features scrunched up in futile fury. "So, does our little soldier have a name?"

Aeryn lay her head back against the pillow. "Kez'ryth," she had said. "Kez'ryth Crais."

***********************************

John looked like she had just shot him. He cocked his head to one side, "I'm sorry, did I hear you right?"

Aeryn slowly nodded. "But it's not what you think."

John stood up and paced in front of the door. "Sure, sure…family name…Crais, Jones, Smith…"

"John, my world was a different place then. You know that, and you've accepted it before." As a matter of fact, she thought, he had taken the news that she had murdered Moya's previous Pilot with infinite more grace than he was taking this.

"I've told you before birth is a matter of duty, when you're called upon, to fill the ranks. For some soldiers, a good birth can set her career. Or ruin it. My birth devastated my mother's career. I was NOT going to make the same mistake." Aeryn had regained some of her composure though she still sat in a small heap on the floor.

"Aeryn, you are the last woman I would expect to make it to the top on her back," John realized he was being spiteful, but Aeryn didn't understand the reference and stared blankly at him.

"My lover was dead, John, and I was looking at the prospect of having a child that would be brought up in the lowest ranks of Peacekeeper society. His father was a traitor, and a tech. I didn't want that stigma on my record, and I didn't want that to be his legacy. And," she lowered her voice, the statement of fact hurting her, "I didn't want to be responsible for both of their deaths."

John was staring blankly at her again, all the pieces of the puzzle still not making a coherent picture in his mind.

Aeryn took a deep breath and continued, "But, I had already curried favor with Crais when I turned Velorak in. He felt that someone as motivated as I would be a good match to him and with another breeding cycle coming around, I did not turn him down when he made the offer."

"So let me get this straight," John sat down with her again, "You slept with Velorak, but after he gets arrested you sleep with Crais to hide the fact you're pregnant with his kid?" Aeryn nodded.

"So it's not Crais' kid?" Aeryn shook her head.

John let out a whoop that startled Aeryn into another spasm of dry heaves. John was holding her when it passed, and she wanted to die before turning her back on the feeling of his arms around her. She closed her eyes and allowed herself the indulgence one last time before pushing him away and standing up. She settled herself at the table, feeling weak and worn down. She understood Crichton's jubilation, but she did not share in it.

"Ok," he sat down with her, "So where does that leave us."

"The same place we were before we started this conversation, Crichton."

"I don't get it." He took her hand in his and toyed with her fingers. She closed her eyes and let him, enjoying for the moment the softer memories it stirred in her. The joy was short lived as consequences rushed back at her painfully.

"I have sacrificed one child for a career that I don't even have anymore. He is being raised without a family to grow up and be what we both abhor now. Not only that, he is my son and I am a traitor. He is Crais' son and Crais is a renegade. How well do you think he will be treated? How well do you think he is BEING treated?" She snatched her hand back and stared hard at him.

John nodded. "So, what do you want?"

"I want to go back for him. I want to find him and teach him what I have learned. I want him to grow up know...knowing he can be more."

***********************************

John and D'Argo were unloading crates in the cargo bay, neither saying anything. D'Argo watched John heave a container into the cargo bay wall with more strength than he thought the human was capable of. He righted the container and leaned on it, staring at his friend.

"John, I understand this pains you, but ultimately it is her decision."

"How long," John hoisted another container over his head and threw it in D'Argo's general direction. The Luxan stepped aside then set it right side up, too.

"A Sebacean breeding cycle is about 6 monens, give or take for hybrids. Jothee took 8," D'Argo faintly smiled at the memory. "Lo'Lann thought she was going to be pregnant forever." He stooped and picked up another container as it clattered near him.

"How long," panted John, "until she can't do anything about it?"

"John," the larger man lingered on the name, casting a sidelong glance at him.

"Dammit D'Argo!" John picked up another crate, "just answer the question!"

The Luxan sighed. "Once the illness subsides, the child has implanted itself securely enough that it would take, how do you say, an Act of God to dislodge it. Sebaceans are a hardy species, they breed easily and quickly. Hence all the laws about interbreeding." He snorted over the last word.

"But, until the illness ebbs, it is quite fragile. That is why they get so sick…if they can't eat they can't ingest anything to harm the little one. If they can do nothing but sleep, the baby has all the energy it needs to survive to the point of implantation."

"So how much longer do you think she has?" John had paused in his exertions and was staring intently at his shipmate.

"John, you already have one child in the universe that you know will be well cared for and will one day grow to rule an empire. Why is this one so important to you?"

John stared at him in shocked silence. He jumped off the palette and stood toe to toe with the massive Luxan. "You did NOT just ask me that."

"John, I'm only saying…"

"You're only saying what? D'Argo, Jesus Christ, you of all people should understand this. I thought family was everything to you people."

D'Argo's voice was quiet. "Family IS everything. But, although we don't always agree with the decision, even Luxans understand when a family's resources are best utilized elsewhere." He gripped Crichton by the shoulders and ducked his head to look the smaller man in the eye. "Fatherhood is the most rewarding thing a man can do, John. It would be an honor and a privilege to be able to share that joy with you and Aeryn. But, as your friend, I can only offer you my counsel. As her friend, I cannot do anything that would violate her warrior spirit. She must give this gift to you, you cannot force it on her. Do you understand me John?" D'Argo shook John's shoulders lightly, trying to drive home the point. But what was for D'Argo a light shake, left John's teeth rattling in his head. He nodded and gripped D'Argo's forearm, as much to steady himself as out of his human need for contact.

D'Argo sighed and moved back to his work stacking crates. "You and Aeryn know you can breed, if it is meant to be the spirit of the child will come back to you."

John hung his head. He knew he couldn't win this. Aeryn was as strong willed as they come and he could not keep her locked up indefinitely. He wrestled with himself a moment then blurted out, "she already has a kid."

 "I am not surprised." D'Argo answered without pausing in his work.

"What?"

"A Peacekeeper of her age and breeding…it would have been her duty to have at least one."

"D'Argo," John finally voiced his gnawing fear, "what if it's just mine she doesn't want?"

"Because you are human or because you are John Crichton?" John moved forward to help his friend with a particularly bulky container. The enormous man didn't need help, but John felt like he needed to be doing something, anything, before he crawled out of his skin.

"Both."

"Because you are Crichton I think she wants this child more than she is capable of expressing." The big man shrugged, "But because you are human…two cycles ago I would have said it mattered. Now, aside from some obvious short comings, I don't think she notices anymore."

John ignored the good-natured jab at his pride and asked, "so what do I do?"

D'Argo stood and looked over Crichton's head to the wraith like figure standing there. "Don't ask me, ask her."

John and Aeryn walked back to her quarters in silence. John noticed her uniform hung on her thin frame where only a few days ago she had filled it out nicely. Her eyes looked even more hollow and he suspected that instead of resting as D'Argo said she should be, she was still pushing herself to maintain her responsibilities around the ship.

Aeryn palmed the door control and turned to face him, opening her mouth to speak. John gently put a finger over her lips and backed her into the chamber, pausing only long enough to palm the door closed. He cupped her face in his hands and tenderly brought his lips down to hers. He pulled away when he tasted salt and saw tears running down her face from tightly closed eyes.

"I missed you," he said.

She nodded emphatically at him, her voice choking on words and tears.

"What do you want to do?" He asked her, leading her to the edge of the bed and sitting down.

"If. If we do this, you have GOT to understand the sacrifice I'm making." John had not expected this line of conversation and didn't know what to say.

"We'll go back for him, someday, I promise."

"No, John, that's just it. If I…if we," she corrected herself, "are going to raise a child we cannot risk ourselves going back into Peacekeeper territory. We can't. One or both of us dead is not acceptable. Do you understand me?" He saw the pain in her eyes and nodded, afraid that if he spoke the wrong thing would come out.

"And, if I have to turn my back on the one good thing I did as a Peacekeeper for this," she grabbed his hand and put it over her belly, "then you have to promise me you'll stay."

Crichton felt as though an electrical charge had gone through him. It was better than one of Zhaan's ear kisses. He had felt his sister's pregnant belly when he was in graduate school and he had been reminded of Aliens. He felt nothing perceptible beneath his hand now, but the knowing that what, that who, was in there was his and Aeryn's thrilled him beyond words.

"Of course I'll stay. Where would I go without you?"

"No worm holes, no Earth."

He leaned over and kissed her long and hard. "I couldn't afford the therapy bill anyway."

***********************************

It was the middle of his sleep cycle, but he had been tossing and turning like a kid on Christmas Eve. His stomach rumbled and he realized he had missed the last meal of the day. His pants and boots lay on the side of the bed fireman style. Slipping into them he went over in his mind what had transpired in the past day and it all still felt like a dream to him. He stuck his head in Aeryn's quarters on his way to the central chamber. She was asleep, her hand resting gently on her pulse pistol. Well, he thought, that's one habit that's going to have to go.

In the mess hall, he found Chiana foraging in the back of one of the cold storage units.

"Hey Chi," he said, grabbing a plate.

She jumped as she turned, taking on her characteristic crouch in her surprise. Her cheeks were puffed out with food but she smiled when she saw it was Crichton.

"Hey, if it isn't the proud Papa himself," she handed him something green and brittle that he hadn't seen before. He sniffed it. It smelled like cucumbers.

"Placa root," she said, grabbing another handful for herself.

"Agh! No thank you," he handed it back to her. She laughed.

"Yeah, I heard about your little run in with the seeds. Trust me, this stuff is perfectly harmless." She put it back on his plate and picked some fruit off the counter. Sniffing it for ripeness, she shrugged and put one on his plate and one on her own. They sat down together and ate in silence.

When her plate was nearly clear, she cleared her throat and said, "so, you really think a baby is a good idea?"

John stared blankly at her a moment, not sure whether to deny it, ignore it or acknowledge it. He shook his head and took another bite of the peppery vegetable. "Were you born this nosey or did you have to work at it?"

"Aw, c'mon," her voice took on a crooning note. He recognized it as the same tone of voice she had used on the Peacekeepers at the Gammack base. It was the same tone of voice she used to wheedle and seduce. It was not the tone of voice he wanted to hear right now. "We're all family here."

"Mmhmm. So who told you." He tossed the left over root back onto his plate, it's familiar peppery taste causing his stomach to roll dangerously. He took a bite of the fruit, catching the juice as it rolled off his chin. It was tart and meaty and he was thankful that the mess it made gave him something other than his young shipmate to concentrate on.

He felt his shoulders relax as her tone of voice changed. "So it is true, then?" She was again a friend, a sister, a companion. She got up and rooted through the dry storage. Wrinkling her nose at the dehydrated food cubes, she opened another bin.

"No one told me, John," Her voice echoed from behind the storage unit.. "But it's not like it's a big secret. Everyone knows. Everyone has an opinion."

"Well," John said, throwing the gnawed pit on his plate, "it's nice to know at least some people have the self control to keep it to themselves."

Chiana ignored him. "I mean, Zhaan and Stark have that weird intuition thing going on, and D'Argo," she kind of tripped over the name and John felt his agitation abate a little in the face of her pain, "well, D'Argo might as well be a Diagnosan with that nose of his. And Rygel…well…Ryg just has good ears. And me," she came back around the side of the counter with two pastries, dropping one unceremoniously on John's plate, "I'm just not stupid." She bit into her desert and John couldn't resist wiping a glob bright green filling from the corner of her mouth.

He sighed again, resigned to her line of questioning. "Well, whether or not it's a good idea, it is what is right now." He took a bite of the pastry. It was tangy, with a clinging, sweet after taste. It reminded him of baklava with sweet tarts and applesauce. "By the way, what are you doing up at this hour?"

She blushed a deeper shade of gray. "D'Argo was in here earlier. I skipped dinner."

"O…mmmm…you're one to be talking about good ideas." Finishing his own desert, he speared the last piece off her plate, ignoring her frown.

"Hey, I'm getting enough dren already. Keep it to yourself. At least I can admit when I made a mistake."

John put his fork down very carefully, before he could throw it at her. "What does that mean?"

"How long have you two been at it? Huh? Two, three cycles? Back and forth, back and forth. And now you got her just where you want her. I don't blame you for not wanting to let her go, but this isn't the way to do it."

"You think I'm trying to trap her?"

"I think you're taking advantage of a situation and she's trying to make the best of it. John," Chiana lowered her head and brought her face close to his, "Aeryn has just discovered she can feel something besides hate and aggression. Do you really think she's ready to be a mother?"

John stood up and picked up his plate of food, his appetite gone. Chiana put one gloved hand over his before he was out of reach.

"All I'm saying, John, is that she loves you, and there's more than one way to betray that love."

"What am I, in the frelling Twilight Zone?" John muttered to himself as he walked back to his chamber. "First I got D'Argo being my voice of reason and then I'm taking tips on relationships from Chiana. What's next? Stock tips from Rygel?"

He stalked back to his chamber, pausing again to check on Aeryn. She hadn't moved and he wasn't really tired. He kept walking, moving towards the burnt out section of Moya. He usually avoided this place. It saddened him. But Zhaan had refused to move her quarters and he knew now that's where he was going. The Catholics didn't have anything on guilt that that woman didn't have, he thought.

Chiana's words gnawed at him as he walked. Was he betraying Aeryn? What did that mean, exactly? They had come to the decision together. Or had she capitulated in the face of no other options? Why was he so quick to dismiss her child? He had a daughter he would never see. She had a son. They could have a child together and try to move on. Try. That was the word he kept getting hung up on as he rounded the corner and stood outside the decimated remains of Zhaan's quarters.

She lay in her bed, her back to him, using Stark's lap as a pillow. She did not wear her cowl to bed and he could see the sores and red highlights of her illness in the dim light. Stark, her nearly constant companion, sat with his back resting against the bulkhead, his head tilted towards her. He opened his one eye as Crichton approached and put his finger to his lips. Crichton nodded and waited for the other man to extricate himself from underneath Zhaan's placid figure.

"She's getting worse, isn't she?" John asked as they moved deeper into the scarred and healing section of the ship.

"Yes," was the answer. Stark didn't need to elaborate.

"But, I hear you have reason to be joyful. And yet," the man paused, inspecting John's face, "You are troubled."

"Well, you don't have to be Kreskin to figure that one out." He sighed and sat down on a blackened chair.

"Stark, do you have kids?"

His one eye opened wide as though startled by the question. "O no, no. My peace comes from the passing of souls from this existence, not from leading them forth into it. Why?"

"I had this idea in my head," John ran his fingers through his short hair, causing it to stick out at odd angles, "of being the big rocket jockey, and I would have this nice house with a wife and kids and they would just be there for me to come home to. I don't think I ever thought too much about how they would get there, they'd just be there, know what I mean?"

Stark nodded, not really understanding but trying to be supportive.

"I'd play golf on Sundays and I'd teach my son to fish and play football and we'd have these big barbecues with the neighbors and DK and whatever girl dujour he had with him at the time."

Stark nodded, urging him to continue and taking a seat of his own hunkered on the floor.

"And now I'm out here and I've got this, this" he searched for the right word, "I've got this amazing woman who is more than I ever knew I wanted and there is no way I can ever tell her or show her or do for her what she deserves. And then I find out she's pregnant." He paused again, his mind feeling like a squirrel in a cage.

"I mean, you'd think I'd think of these things, yknow? We frell like rabbits for a week, what did I expect to happen? I mean, it's the first thing dad teaches you…and here I am and all of the old rules don't apply out here and would you believe it…there is some intergalactic practical jokester out there who decides that THIS, THIS is the one rule that applies. I mean, I don't even think Peacekeepers get married, but they do get pregnant." John put his thumb to his mouth in thought.

"So why does Aeryn's pregnancy disturb you?" Stark finally asked after several microts of silence.

"It didn't. Aeryn disturbed me. I had to find out from D'Argo. And by then I was just so angry I didn't hear what Aeryn had to say. I just wanted this kid." John was rambling, but he couldn't stop himself now that he had started talking about it. And Stark was the perfect listener, silent, attentive, non-judgmental.

"I've already got a daughter out there I am never going to meet. Hell, she won't even be born until I'm pushing up daisies somewhere. But she's going to be an empress, and I'm supposed to be happy about that. I mean, what am I expecting, that Aeryn is suddenly going to exchange her pulse pistol for a bottle warmer? I'm beginning to think Chiana's right."

"Chiana's right?" Stark asked carefully.

"I'm not being true to Aeryn. Chiana said there's more than one way to betray a lover. I think I'm betraying Aeryn by asking this of her. She's not ready. I'd like to think I am, but this has got to be a team effort. Right?" Stark nodded more in encouragement than agreement. Having been born a slave, he was used to seeing families getting along just fine with one parent or the other, but rarely both.

"I want her to be as happy as I am about this. I want babies…. Lots and lots of babies, but when Aeryn is ready to be a mother, and not just willing to bear a child. She's already done that, and she deserves more."

Stark's one eye widened in surprise. "Aeryn has a child?"

Crichton snapped out of his reverie. "Finally, someone who's surprised by the news!"

"No, I'm not surprised that she has a child…it would have been her duty. But she recovered so well."

"Hey!" Crichton stared Stark down the only way another man could.

Stark blinked at him, then asked "So what do you do?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping you could help me out with that. How do I convince her she's made a mistake, I've made a mistake."

"John, you know Aeryn better than any of us. You know once she's made up her mind you're not going to change it."

"I can't let her do this."

"You'll never talk her out of it. Perhaps you could find colonists…"

"Stark," John turned wild eyes on his friend and former cellmate, "did you not hear any of what I just said? We've both already got kids we are never going to see again. Do we need another? I can't do that to her and I sure as hell am not doing it to myself. Not intentionally. Besides," and Crichton lowered his voice, "D'Argo sent Jothee off to foster parents and look at what happened to him. No, it's not an option."

"Then it appears you only have one option." John knew Stark was never one to sit still long, so when Stark started pacing in the small confines of what had once been a room in Moya's gutted interior he was not surprised. He also knew the man's lucidity was quickly coming to an end.

"Zhaan has potions…medicines…" John offered.

Stark shook his head wildly. "No, no! She believes all life is sacred and I would never violate her trust like that." He lowered his voice to a mad whisper, "and she is very fragile right now. Her spirit is not suffering, but she would grieve. I will not have her grieve."

"You Stark, what do you think?"

"I think whatever happens is as is should be. The universe has its plan and the decisions we make cannot in any way violate that plan. You do what you do and what will be will be. Life and death come together. Her spirit will find you again." He turned to walk back the way they had come. John opened his mouth to say something more, but decided against it. He knew Zhaan would be waking soon and Stark would want to be at her beck and call.

Exhaustion was creeping up on him as he made his way back to his quarters. Aeryn hadn't moved all night and although she usually woke soon, John figured she wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. He kicked the DRD that tried to roll into her chamber, a high whistle from it acting like an alarm clock.

"Commander Crichton!" Pilot's voice came to him over his comm. "That was just unnecessary!"

"I'm sorry Pilot, but do me a favor. Keep the DRDs and the rest of the crew off this tier today and keep the lights at sleep level."

Pilot's voice changed from one of outrage to gentle calm. "I understand Comdr. Chricton. Consider it done."

He slipped back into Aeryn's quarters, her own exhaustion evident when he was able to gently slide her pistol away from her and slip into bed unnoticed. He pulled her to him, nestling her head in the crook of his shoulder, a position she always seemed too restless to assume when awake. He fell asleep knowing his fantasy was almost over.

***********************************

Another weeken passed and it saddened John to see Aeryn surrender herself to the life within her. She no longer tried to get out of bed and make it to her duty shift. She ate nothing and slept more than she was awake. Every morning he would bring her food and every evening remove the untouched plate. He did the work around the ship for the both of them, and helped her bathe and change into fresh clothes before bed every night. She continued to sleep with a pulse pistol at the side of the bed, but he doubted she had the strength anymore to use it. He finally sought D'Argo out as his only source of information and found the man on command, silently watching the expanse of stars as though he owned them.

He stood shoulder to elbow with his enormous friend, wondering briefly what D'Argo saw in that great glittering blackness.

"You are still troubled," the Luxan said, without taking his eyes off the view.

"Is this normal? Should we be worried?" Crichton asked.

"It shouldn't be too much longer."

"I don't get it. Human women get morning sickness, but nothing like this. I'm waiting for her head to start spinning…we've already got the pea soup going on." He wrinkled his nose, still wondering how so much could come out of someone who ate so little.

D'Argo looked at John out of the corner of his eye, as though wondering whether a clarification of that 'Crichtonism' was worth the time and trouble. He slowly and deliberately returned his attention to the view and John wondered if he was interrupting a private moment between D'Argo and his thoughts. Although the big man was not known for his rhetoric, he was usually more talkative than this. "It shouldn't be too much longer," the Luxan repeated.

"D'Argo, what's on your mind?" John pulled himself up to sit on the console and looked at his shipmate.

"Nothing that hasn't been on my mind since my son betrayed me and then abandoned ship." He said it matter of factly, like he was giving a weather report. It was an obvious statement, the one thing everyone in D'Argo's presence longed to mention but never did. His shipmates supported him in silence and John wasn't much different.

For a lack of anything better to say, John reached a hand up and rested it on D'Argo's shoulder. "I'm sorry, man."

"They have breeding cycles," D'Argo said, obviously wanting to change the subject.

"Excuse me?" Crichton's eye brows wrinkled as he tried to wrap his mind around the concept. "What are we talking about here, dogs, fish, insects?" It took some of the romance out to think he had participated in a 'breeding cycle'.

"They are given contraceptives or countercontraceptives when they are examined every cycle for physical integrity. Both the males and the females. Breeding cycles are ordered on a per unit basis. It takes quite a bit of planning for two Peacekeepers to decide they want to breed together. Accidents rarely happen. It's the only way they can care for the gravid in those first crucial weeks. If a Peacekeeper gets pregnant outside of her breeding cycle, it can affect her career for the rest of her life. Her ability to follow orders is suspect, and she puts the rest of her unit at risk because they are all pulled off duty to maintain their integrity as a team."

"Why are you telling me this…she's not a Peacekeeper anymore."

 D'Argo finally turned to face John. "You have to understand how to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Are you saying she did this on purpose?" John was incredulous that she would put herself through this emotional drama intentionally. John slid off the console and looked up into D'Argo's unreadable face.

  "Doubtful. What I AM saying is that we most likely won't see a Peacekeeper physician again. Not one willing to help us, anyway. When this little one comes, you have to make sure it's the only one."

John tried to wrap his brain around what D'Argo was telling him. He knew he wasn't getting it. No matter how many times or in how many different ways he replayed D'Argo's words back in his head he couldn't seem to grasp the underlying point.

"Jesus," John mumbled under his breath, "I thought I left health class 20 years ago." He paced in the open space between consoles, scratching the back of his head. Ok, so the Peacekeeper pill was out of the question, that left what? He shivered to think what their version of a condom was out here.

"Ok," he finally turned back to D'Argo, who hadn't moved except to fix his gaze back on the infinite universe before them, "So, she's got to have a biological cycle, right?" He remembered being 19 and his father cuffing him in the back of the head. Her name had been Sally Turner and she had been the first, and until this moment, the last big scare of his life.

"But Dad," he had try to say in his defense, "She'd said it was safe."

"Boy," his father had said, shaking his head, "I did not raise you to play russian roulette with your life. Praying is not a form of protection." He was grasping at straws as it was finally starting to add up in his head what D'Argo was getting at. He didn't like where the math was going.

D'Argo heaved a great sigh and moved forward, placing an enormous and gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "John, you are a scientist, you should understand this. Even I understand this. Space bound Sebaceans do not have lunar cycles. It is the very act itself that precipitates conception."

All the pieces clicked into place and John's head was reeling. "Whoa! Whoa! Wait just one minute!" He backed away from the Luxan, turning in a circle and chewing on his thumb the way he did when something particularly disturbed him.

"What you're telling me is that once this kid comes, we can't have sex again? What the hell is THAT all about?"

D'Argo's voice was controlled, steady. "I told you Sebaceans were a pernicious species. You and she could fill this whole ship in a matter of cycles, if you had a mind to. That is why it is up to you to make sure that doesn't happen."

"But you, you and your mate. You only had Jothee, how did you manage that?" John was desperate, and knew it.

"Lo'Lann's House was not space bred and born. Her brother was conscripted as a child while she grew up planet side. We lived planet side."

"Lunar cycles…goddammit! So, I guess all those comments about Peacekeeper PMS were out of line?" John was pacing again.

"John, you have to tell her."

The human stopped dead and cocked his ear in D'Argo's general direction. "I'm sorry, I thought you said…"

"John, it's very likely she doesn't even know. My assessment of her was accurate when we first met. She is military, told where to fight and where to die. And in some cases when to breed. It probably has never occurred to her why she was able to recreate without conceiving yet here, now…"

"Then how did she have that techs kid?"

D'Argo shrugged. "She was pulled off her regular duty for that. She could have missed an inoculation between duty assignments. It's not unheard of, just rare. And here, now, all the drugs are out of her system."

"And you know all this because…"

"My brother in law," D'Argo looked more pained than usual saying the words, "was a Peacekeeper. My mate was a sebacean. I spent eight frelling years living with them…I just know, John."

***********************************

John returned to his quarters to find his bed empty for the first time in many, many days. Puzzled and concerned and with entirely too much new information weighing on his mind he continued the few short feet down the corridor to Aeryn's chamber. He heard the water running even before he saw the black top of her head over the privacy screen in the wash area. He leaned against the doorway, watching her hair, this piece of exposed skin, that glimpse of face as she turned and washed in the cool water. He noticed her clothes folded neatly on her bed, a fresh pair of trousers and a green body suit lay out next to them. On the table sat her breakfast plate, half-eaten. Her pistol hung off the privacy screen in its holster, never more than arms' reach away.

He caught her eyes just above the screen and smiled at her. "Feeling better?"

"Some," she answered, turning and searching for the cleaning compound.

He admired the curve of her neck where it met her shoulders, the arch of one fine brow as she turned away from him, the slope of her jaw in profile. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked towards her, initially intent only on watching her. But as he leaned against the screen he felt the incredible need to touch her. He moved to scrub that place just between her shoulder blades, that place that would cause her to arch her back and lean into him. But she turned just as he reached and he found himself brushing her breast instead. He pulled his hand back as though he had touched electrified cable and she graced him with one of her half smiles.

"I won't break, John," she said, bending to scrub between each individual toe. "You should know that by now."

He noticed the ridge of her spine had become bony. When she stood upright he could see her ribs and the gentle slope of her belly had become angular. He looked at her stomach and frowned. She looked so small, so frail. He didn't like it.

She leaned back and let the water hit her in the face, resting most of her weight on the screen.

"You alright?" he asked, moving around to stand full in front of her. She nodded but didn't answer. He took another step forward, uncertain as to what he should do. He realized that for all the times he had helped her bathe in the past several days, he had been too concerned to ever stop and just look at her. Their encounters were quick and down to business, with John holding her up long enough to get wet and clean between bouts of sickness, and colored by his own eagerness to get out of the cold water.

He realized that in spite of her thinness, he still found her intensely beautiful. He felt himself longing for her, aching for her. Without realizing he was doing it, he took the last step forward and lay one hand on her belly, the other coming up to smooth the hair out of her eyes as he leaned in and kissed her. He closed his eyes against the cold water splashing him, ignored the water saturating his T-shirt, and lost himself in everything but the feel of her lips, the slick of her skin, the feel of her body pressing against his as he moved closer.

He felt her body relax as though it had heaved a great sigh and she brought her arms around to hold him. Fingers crept up the back of his neck and he felt goose bumps go down his arms. His hand left her belly and snaked around her waist and pulled her to him, out of the stream of water and she was returning his kiss gingerly, tentatively. He pulled his mouth away and kissed her eyes, the bridge of her nose, her neck. He followed the slope of a shoulder down to the inside of her elbow to the palm of her hand. He traced each finger with his lips and she sighed and lay her head back again. He placed the hand back around his shoulders and found the hollow of her throat. He nipped tenderly where flesh met bone and followed the rivulets of water that pooled there to cascade down over each full breast. He continued his way down to where the water ran in a sheet over her smooth flat belly and gently lapped at her navel, pausing to kiss the two tiny scars left from where the vork had bitten her half a cycle or more ago.

He knelt before her now, worshipping at the altar of his goddess. The world did not exist but for her being in it. His tongue traced the contours of her hip, his teeth nibbled at the flesh of her thigh, and for the moment she was all that sustained him. He paused in his homage to look up at her face, his hands holding her around her narrow waist as though she might try to run away. She was looking at him, her head cocked to the side and her blue green eyes smiling with amusement and affection. She reached down and smoothed the wet hair off his forehead, her hand lingering on his cheek. He turned his face into it and smelled her mingled with the fresh scent of the water and the clear, plantlike scent of the soap.

"Aeryn," he started to say, but she lay a finger against his lips. She reached down and peeled his wet shirt off. He heard the solid "thwap" as it landed on the floor on the other side of the shower screen. He felt himself shiver and wondered momentarily if it was her hands on him or the cold water. It was a fleeting thought as he noticed the beads of moisture collected in the thick black curls at her center. He turned his attention to that marvelous part of her that had seemed so alien to him before and now was as familiar as…home. Right there, right in front of him and not tucked away like some secret. He never failed to be awed by her body.

While their lovemaking had varied from frantic and animalistic in various dark corners around the ship to tender and slow in their quarters at the beginning or end of a day, he realized he had always thought there would be enough time to explore the vagaries of Human/Sebacean sex at their next encounter. Their love play had always been very straightforward and without the attention to detail he had always prided himself in. Deep inside his chest something ached with the realization that time was running out.

He kissed the part of her stomach just above where the curls began. "Hello, little one," he thought, keenly aware of the tiny life there. Then he turned his attention further south, his tongue tentatively reaching out to her core. He felt her stiffen, her hands bracing against his shoulders.

"John, what are you doing?" She asked heavily, her voice thick with desire and sharp with shock.

He sat back on his haunches and looked at her face, not daring to take his hands off of her. "Don't tell me you've never…"

"I've never…what?"

"This. Don't tell me Sebacean men don't do this?"

"Why would they," she paused, her brows dipping in a slight frown, "John, I have to kiss that mouth."

He moved back towards her, "I promise I'll brush."

"Hardly seems fair to a dentic," he heard her mutter, but she didn't push him away again.

He tasted her. Musky. But not like a human musk, not at all. There was a barely perceptible sweetness to it, like the smell of her sweat. He wrapped his arms around her, his hands resting on the small of her back and pulled her towards him. He felt her breath hitch and was instantly aroused, cold water or no. He lapped at her tenderly, finding that tiny bump that was almost a vestigial nerve. He felt her legs quiver and she let out a long, low moan. He pressed in harder, hungry for her in so many ways. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he ran his tongue around the small, pale lips. He noticed her juices were sweeter the more aroused she became and he felt that center itself begin to quiver.

He paused, looking up at her. Her head hung down, her hair partially obscuring her face. But her eyes were open, boring into him. Her mouth hung open with heavy breaths. Her hand grabbed the back of his head.

"John…" she started to say.

"Shhshhsh," it was his turn to reach up and put a finger gently against her mouth as his other hand pulled her towards his mouth again.

"John, I…" and as his tongue pierced her her legs buckled and she slid down the back of the shower wall to join him on the floor.

She kissed him hungrily, gripping his head on either side as though he would dare get away from her. She was wet and slick against his bare chest, her skin smooth and cool. She pulled back and smiled.

"I don't think I can hold myself up," she finished, licking her lips at the unfamiliar taste.

He gathered her to him, pulling her to her feet as he stood. He pressed her back into the shower wall and kissed her, his tongue darting in as she opened to him.

"Here," he mumbled against her lips as he grabbed her thigh and pulled her leg up to wrap around his waist. She took the cue, braced herself, and wrapped both legs around him.

"Buckle," she said urgently, trying to squirm higher.

She was light now. Much lighter than she used to be, he thought as he held her to him with one hand and reached underneath with the other. The fastener released and the holster clattered and splashed to the floor.

Her legs were thin and tight around him, her heels pressing into the small of his back as he carried her over to the bed. Laying her gently, reverently on the copper coverlet he again slid to his knees before her. He put a staying hand on each thigh as she started to squirm backwards. "No, stay right there."

He started at her knee where it bent to keep her feet planted against his hips. He traced the line of her inner thigh with his tongue, licking off the beads of water and nipping playfully at the tender skin. She wiggled towards him, shifting her weight to wrap a leg over his shoulder. He lingered over the area where her leg joined her body, feeling the tension in her hips as she strained against the urge to raise herself to meet him. He smiled to himself, secretly satisfied that not only was she finding this immensely enjoyable, but she also had no basis for comparison. Nothing like a clean slate to work with. He shifted his attention to the other leg and smiled outright at those low, throaty mewing sounds he had come to recognize and long for.

Feeling playful, he made one long sweeping motion with his tongue, barely touching her sweet, wet lips, then sat back on his heels. "Should I stop?"

She pushed herself up on her elbows and glared at him. He watched her mouth open and close in an attempt to formulate some coherent reply and he chuckled.

"Just checking," he said, moving back to his work with a hunger that elicited a cry from Aeryn the moment he made contact with her. Her leg jolted against his shoulder, her calf hooking around his neck and pulling him harder into the folds and lips of her sex. He wrapped his arms under her thighs and held her hips, pulling her to him as she pushed against his hip with her other foot. She fell back on the bed, her arms reaching up and behind her for something to grab onto. She settled for wringing the coverlet in her hands as she arched her back under this intense new sensation.

John parted the pale, fleshy lips, drinking her. His tongue moved in and out of her slowly, gently. He was amazed at her reaction and wanted more. He ran his tongue around the opening, pausing to graze the very tip against that tiny bundle of nerves. Her hips bucked in his hands and she let out a long, strangled "Uhhhhh…" He pulled the skin taught, amazed at the whiteness of it, the slick sheen of their juices mingled, the sweet taste immediately and the tanginess left on his tongue after. He brushed her again with his tongue and was greeted with the same violent thrust of her hips. He nipped and nibbled at her as she strained against him, then plunged in for the climax, lapping and sucking like a man starved.

"Aaahhhhhh!" another strangled cry as her whole body became rigid, one hand loosening its grip on the blanket to search blindly, wildly for something else to hold as the wave hit her. He felt those amazing, intimate muscles clamp rhythmically against his mouth as he held her to him, her fluids sweet as candy now.

"Auhhh! John!" She called his name before she collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

John stood up, shaking the cramps out of his legs and his own erection pushed to the back of his mind. Although he was used to her crying out at the end, for her it had always been the restrained cries of a woman brought up in a military barracks. Even sex was to be performed with stealth. Here she had cried out his name, unrestrained, and he realized it would probably be a long time before he heard it again.

He leaned over her. She lay half on the bed, her head at an awkward angle where she had stopped her struggling, her eyes half closed. He kissed her gently. She didn't open her eyes.

"You're going to have to give me a microt, John." She said. Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Hush," he kissed her again, "That was for you."

He stood upright again, stretching all the kinks out of his neck and suddenly keenly aware of his own arousal. She was so damn beautiful, lying there askew on the bed. It wouldn't take much just to pull her forward a bit…he turned his attention back to the shower. He walked back to retrieve his pistol and it's holster, pausing to let the icy water splash down on him. It didn't help. He shook the water off his face and out of his hair, fumbling with the shut off knob. He hung the holster next Aeryn's on the privacy screen and retrieved his shirt from it's puddle on the floor. Wringing it out, he hung it on the screen to dry.

He turned back around to see Aeryn righting herself on the bed, swinging her legs around to tuck them under the covers and pulling the blanket up to her neck. She moved slowly, sluggishly, as though all her energy had just been expended in one fell swoop. John figured it probably had been.

He realized his boots squished when he walked. He looked at the puddles between the shower and the bed and frowned. Aeryn liked to keep her quarters aboard Moya much as she had kept her quarters aboard a command carrier, Spartan and neat.

"I'm going to go back to my quarters for a microt," he said, leaning over to kiss her again. "Then I'll be back to clean this up." She nodded without saying anything, already drifting off to sleep.

***********************************

It was the middle of their sleep cycle, but as was par for the course over the past few weeks John lay wide awake listening to the quiet hum of Moya, the buzz and whine of the DRDs, Aeryn's breathing. They lay belly to back, his face buried in the clean scent of her hair and his hand resting on her belly. His mind wandered.

She hadn't been awake when he returned. He cleaned up quietly, refastened his gun belt and went to the central chamber. He could still taste her. Sweet. Sticky. He licked his lips thoughtfully, reliving the past arn over and over in his head. He smiled.

He was surprised to find them all gathered in the central chamber. It was almost as it had been before, when they would all gather for the last meal of the day like…well…like a family. But Chiana sat in the back, unusually subdued. She cast furtive glances at D'Argo, who pointedly ignored her. She graced John with a wan smile before turning her full attention back to her meal.

Zhaan and Stark sat huddled together, Zhaan pushing her food around on her plate but eating little.

D'Argo looked up from a serving tray and sniffed suspiciously in John's direction, his eyes narrowing as his friend entered the room.

"So, Aeryn is feeling better, then." He finally said, snorting over the last word.

"Jesus Christ, man!" John said, taking a plate and looking over D'Argo's massive frame to see what was on the menu. "What are you? Part blood tracker?"

D'Argo stood up straight. "There is no need to insult my family."

"No man…I'm just saying give the nose a rest." John piled some of the grayish slab on his plate and poked at it. As an afterthought he added, "and I showered."

D'Argo snorted in reply but did not press the issue. He took a seat next to Zhaan, pouring himself some water.

"Crichton, I need you in my quarters tomorrow. We have to fix that frelling back wash problem again."

John sat down next to Chiana, but she kept her head low over her food. "I'm right there with you buddy," he replied, still poking at his dinner.

"Perhaps," Rygel said from his throne sled, catching the tail end of the conversation as he entered the room, "Part of the problem lies in the fact that your chamber is directly below Officer Sun's, eh?"

John's head snapped up and he glared at the Hynerian, "Can it Sparky!"

"Now why would…" D'Argo turned to look pointedly at John as realization dawned on him. His eyes narrowed.

John hastily picked up his plate. "Hey, Aeryn takes long showers…I'll talk to her about it." He paused long enough on his way out the door to flick Rygel in the back of the head with his fork.

"Well, gotta go make sure she eats…see you all…later." And he was fast retreating down the corridor.

"Like they haven't done enough damage frelling around like that," D'Argo muttered, returning his attention to his food.

Zhaan was staring hard at Rygel. "Was I not explicit enough about your use of the DRDs?" She asked, sounding genuinely pained.

"What? I did no such thing. They didn't even bother to put up a privacy screen." He sounded put out by the very accusation that he had been using the DRDs to satisfy his voyeurism. He chuckled evilly. "It was very…educational…actually." He chuckled again.

Zhaan shook her head again…reminding herself to pick her battles. And she was getting weary of Stark clucking over her. Very quietly she said, "Just leave them be, Rygel. They deserve their peace."

Aeryn had still been asleep when he returned to the chamber, but she had woken long enough in his absence to get up and put underclothes on. He set the plate on the table, undressed, and climbed into bed next to her.

"John?" she asked, not bothering to open her eyes or roll over.

"Were you expecting someone else," he slid down next to her, noticing for the first time she had one hand tucked under her pillow, the other on her pulse pistol. She answered by releasing the trigger and resting her hand gently on its handle.

"John?"

"Yeah?" he lay on his back, tucking his hands under his head and staring at the ceiling.

"What you did…before…" he smiled in spite of himself. "How do your females reciprocate?"

He tried unsuccessfully not to get aroused at the thought of her reciprocating. Her mouth…"We can talk about that later," he answered. He rolled over and draped an arm over her. "When you're feeling better."

She scooted her body back into his and wiggled her hips. He resisted the urge to groan. "Feels like we should talk about it now." He could hear the playfulness in her voice. He could feel his erection get harder as she shimmied her hips again, grinding her tailbone against him. He grabbed her by the waist and held her still.

"Don't do that," he whispered in her ear, "We'll never get to sleep."

She rolled over to face him, one had reaching up in the dim light to trace the silhouette of his face. "Speak for yourself." And she had kissed him long and hard until all resistance had gone out of his body. His goddess called and he was powerless before her.

They made love slowly and quietly. He resisted the urge to tell her just how Human women reciprocated. For now this was enough. Forever this was enough.

And that had brought him here, restless and tired, holding his love against his body like he could never let her go and acutely aware of the third presence in the bed with them. "What to do, what to do, little one." He whispered, holding her belly just a little tighter. Aeryn's illness was passing and he knew time was running out. For one of them. For both of them. For some faceless child on a command carrier somewhere whose parents were traitors. For a faceless child whose parents loved him more than they were capable of voicing.

His mind drifted. The noises he knew and were accustomed to receded. The room slid away and he found himself confronting that part of himself that was not him at all.

He banged against the side of the dumpster. "Rise and shine Harvey!" he shouted.

"Go away," a cultured but petulant voice echoed back at him.

Crichton raised the lid on the dumpster, peering into the dimness. "C'mon man, I'd have thought you'd be hungry for a little fresh air."

"O, this is abominable," the voice said as a pale face and leather hood came into view.

"Yeah," John said tersely, "tell it to someone who cares. Now get your ass down here."

The frightening visage of the sebacean/scarran half-breed paused with one leg in the dumpster, the other leveraged against the half lid that was still down. He leaned his elbow on his knee, looking down on the mental construct of the man he had first been sent to protect and now wished with fervent hope would get himself killed in short order.

"Why should I bother John?"

John turned, grabbed the neural clone by the slick leather of his body suit and heaved, dumping him unceremoniously at his feet. "Because I said so."

Scorpius sputtered as he got to his feet. He brushed himself off and cocked a head in Crichton's direction. "Well, we are in a snit tonight, aren't we?"

When he didn't get a reaction, he pushed a little harder "What exactly bothers you about Officer Sun's condition? Hmmmm? The fact that she carries your child or the fact that someone sowed the field before you even had a chance to plow it?"

John's hands were around his throat before he even realized what he was doing. "First of all, I find that analogy disgusting. Second of all," John eased up and tried to shake the rage off, "second of all play nice or I can stuff you right back in the trash can."

Scorpy straightened his clothes and smiled at John, "But of course you can. But then, why would you have gone through the trouble of getting me out…hmmmm?" John grimaced as Scorpy purred at him. "John, dumpster or not right now I am the most impartial counsel you have. You know that, and you need me. Your time is running out, and so is Officer Sun's."

Scorpius smiled beautifically at John, and he wondered briefly what had gone through the mind of the when she had birthed this monster.

"Probably not much at all," Scorpius answered him, "She didn't survive the process. But, your Officer Sun, now there is some good breeding stock…" John closed his eyes against the crassness of the words.

"So," Scorpius ticked off on his fingers, "What you have is a Delvian priestess who assumes all life is sacred and wouldn't hear of it any other way. Her lover whose periods of lucidity are few and far between thus making anything he says suspect. A Luxan who wants to make up for his loss by living vicariously through you now." John turned and looked sharply at him, but he knew it was a correct assessment. D'Argo was more than the supportive friend, he was as confused as John was.

Scorpius paused to let the words sink in, then continued, "A Hynerian who couldn't care less one way or the other because neither circumstance benefits him in any way. And a Nebari whore. Who may be the one person who could actually help you."

"What the hell can Chi do?"

"Your darling little Chi has already planted the seeds of what must be done." Scorpius leaned casually back against the trash receptacle, stretching his arms out to either side of him.

"Look, when do I get a say in this?"

"John, John, you already have." The clone tsked like an exasperated mother. "You just need me to tell you it's alright. If such machinations come from me, you cannot be held accountable, can you?" The smile never faltered.

John heard himself shouting but didn't care "You stopped being accountable for anything I've done the day Aeryn was killed."

Scorpius was nonplussed by the outburst, "And that's the crux of it, isn't it?"

John's eyes widened in surprise and he found himself chewing on his thumb, circling.

"You have this inane human need to protect your females. And what is more vulnerable than a breeding female? Admit it John, you've rather been enjoying the past few weekens. You get to be the big strong man again. And yet," Scorpius pushed himself into a standing position and looked at John out of the corner of his eye, "you know how wrong it is. You know she is sacrificing her son for your child. How does that make you feel?"

John had been trying to ignore that fact. He had tried to concentrate on the child at hand, pushing his own daughter and Aeryn's son into a place of nonexistence. But he wasn't that kind of guy.

"You have a daughter who will be accorded every luxury upon her birth. Why should Officer Sun's son be any different?"

"You leave my daughter out of this! I had absolutely no say in that. That wasn't carelessness. That wasn't stupidity. That was taken from me!" Then realization dawned on him a cold fear crept from his gut up the back of neck. "You know about Kitralla's daughter."

"Of course I do John. But that isn't the discussion at hand, is it?"

Crichton stood toe to toe with Scorpius, grabbing him by the throat again. "You stay the frell away from them!"

"Don't tell me John, I'm locked in here with you. Remember?" The infuriatingly calm voice was making John panic.

His hand clutched harder at the throat, but there was little reaction from Scorpius. "Well, I can see this conversation is fast deteriorating. Allow me to leave you with this, then. You allow Aeryn to carry this child to term now and neither of you will be alive to see it mature. You will be creating a liability for yourselves and the last thing you need John Crichton is another liability. If you allow Aeryn to carry this child to term you will most likely be condemning that child to a short and pitiful existence even if you and your precious Officer Sun manage somehow to survive." Scorpius voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper.

"You know you can breed. One child is as good as the next. Why is your life so full of immediacy?"

Although John's hand did not let up it's hold, he had paused, digesting the words.

"Aeryn will never go for it…she's already made her decision."

"Then you know what you must do, don't you John. It's up to you to absolve her of her guilt."

John turned his attention back to the freakish clone. "You're a real son of a bitch, aren't you Harvey?"

Scorpius graced him with one last smile. "You wouldn't have it any other way, would you John?"

And then he was back in the dumpster and John was back in his bed, Aeryn awake and staring worriedly at
him.

"Hey baby, what's the matter?" he looked at her and kissed her gently on the forehead.

"You were talking in your sleep. Again."

Dread held him firmly. "What was I saying?"

She rolled her back to him again. "Nothing I could make out. Do all humans talk in their sleep?"

"Naw baby," he said, turning over to hold her again. "Just the one's with a guilty conscience."

The next morning they made love again, John savoring the moment like each might be his last. She fell immediately to sleep, her meager reserves of energy expended on the love play. John got dressed and lay with her for several minutes, memorizing the outline of her face, the pout of her lips, the flutter of her eyes as she dreamed. He picked up the empty plate and headed back to the main chamber, worry and satisfaction mingling into a tight knot in his gut. She was eating again. That was a good sign and part of him wished the decision had already been made. He knew it wouldn't be that easy. It was never that easy.

Chiana was alone in the chamber, counting through some produce. Her obsidian eyes were sad, but she greeted him with a large smile.

"Hey there!" she said, husking some large red vegetable that resembled a cross between an ear of corn and a squash.

"Hey there Pip," he smiled back at her. Both could see the hurt in the others eyes, like a brother and sister reading each other.

He offered her a cup of water and sat down, watching her work. "You're up awful early."

"Yeah, well, these things have to be exposed to open air for 8 arns before you can even THINK about cooking them." She grunted as a particularly tough husk finally came free.

"When did you take over the galley?"

"When I became the only one around here who can make real food taste like anything other than dren." She picked a rust colored husk off the floor and tossed it in the organic recylables chamber.

"Well, you're a woman of many talents."

She narrowed her eyes at him, pausing in her work. "Hey, hey Pip. I didn't mean it like that." John quickly backpedaled.

He took a deep breath, plunging forward. "Chi, I need help."

Her face softened with concern and she put a half-husked vegetable back on the pile.

"Is Aeryn, is Aeryn ok?" She sat down and leaned in close, searching his face, trying to read his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, she's getting better. But," the unsaid words hung heavy in the air.

"But that means time is running out for you?" she finished for him in a whisper. He nodded, fixing his eyes on a frayed patch of leather on her left glove. He hadn't eaten anything but he felt something rising in the back of his throat and swallowed hard against it. He hated this.

"I need you to steal something for me."

Her head wavered from side to side, each motion fluid, snake like as she took in what he was saying. He thought of poor dying Zhaan and how he was violating another shipmate's trust. Why did everyone he loved get hurt?

He heard Chiana purr low in her throat. A soft croon he had come to know meant that she was particularly pleased with herself.

"Look, Chi, I don't like being in this position, and I don't like putting you in this position."

"Naw, John," she said, rising to her feet and a wicked smile crossing her face "You can put me in any position you like." John frowned at her and she became immediately serious. "But I can do you one better." She walked over to one of the storage bins and removed a fair sized satchel. It rattled like it was full of beads. She hefted it in one hand and dropped in front of John on the table. He opened it and wrinkled his nose at the peppery smell of the placa seeds. His stomach lurched at the familiar scent and he quickly cinched the bag closed.

Chiana sat back down quickly, both realizing the few denizens aboard the ship would be coming for their morning meals soon.

She put her face right in front of his, resting her chin on the bag. "You know what these things did to you…they can take care of the problem."

John shook his head, "I can't do that to her. She doesn't deserve that."

Chiana grabbed his face and looked hard into his blue eyes. "Like the birth would be any easier on her? It's all a trade off John."

He tried to look down but Chiana held onto him. "Besides, it would never work. Aeryn doesn't like seasoning. She's too used to rations and ships food." He now had a solution, but he still wanted an excuse, any excuse that would deter him from what he now knew to be the inevitable course of events.

"That's no problem. I can grind them and soak them into a tincture. A few drops in her food, a few drops in her water…" she noticed his frown and smoothed a finger over the lines on his forehead. "Hey, a girl in my line of work has to know these sorts of things, y'know?"

She let go of his head and smoothed his hair. "She's going to be sick, John. Sicker than you were, sicker than she has been in days. Don't plan any big maintenance jobs, ok?" He nodded.

She got up and found a smaller satchel and started to quickly spoon seeds into it. Tucking it into her bodice, she leaned back over John. "I know it doesn't mean anything now, but it's for the best. Really."

He nodded again, then focussed on her for what seemed to be the first time since the conversation began. "I…we…" he wasn't sure what to say, where to go. She smiled indulgently.

"I know, we never had this discussion. Give me a day or two, and we can pretend we didn't have that one then, either."

John got up to leave, then paused and looked back. She was still looking at him, her shoulders pushed back and her head at what for him seemed an odd angle. "Chi, thanks. I owe you one."

She gave him a weak smile. "You don't owe me anymore than what you've already given me." And she turned her back and returned to husking her vegetables.

He spent the day doing routine maintenance in the cargo bay, lost and alone. He missed her by his side, solid, strong, competent. Just when he thought he could get used to the way things were everything had to go and change again. He avoided the rest of his crewmates, slipping into the mess hall after he knew everyone had gone. His shame hung heavy on him.

Aeryn was up and awake when he returned to her chamber. She sat at the table in her underwear, her bare feet propped on the other chair as she cleaned her pulse rifle. There was some color back in her cheeks and her eyes didn't look quite so tired. She greeted him with a warm smile and put her work aside. Something inside of him withered.

"So, you're all better," he said, approaching.

"Hardly," she growled, rubbing her stomach, "but I'm functional again."

He sat on the edge of the bed and just stared at her. At the woman he had lost and found. At his unseen child. At his lover, the tomb of the unknown soldier.

"Aeryn, what, uh, what did you feel when they took Kez'ryth from you?"

She looked blankly at him, as though not comprehending the question. Then she took a deep breath and said "Relief."

She stood up and moved to kneel in front of him, taking both of his hands in hers and staring into his pale blue eyes. "But John, I wasn't capable of feeling anymore then. I had secured my place in Crais' command, or so I thought, and I was ready to get to my next duty assignment. My crewmates helped me get cleaned up and the next day I was back in my Prowler and that is all I wanted. It wasn't until…until I met you I started to wonder. And this one," she let go of his hands and pressed both of hers over her belly, "this one I will feel more for than any child has a right to be loved."

He closed his eyes against the tears but they slid past his eyelids anyway. He felt her brace herself against his knees as she leaned up and kissed them away. He reached out blindly and took her head in his hands, pressing his face to hers. "Shhshsh," she said, "I'll love our child, I promise."

He wanted to die. He hadn't felt worse since that day not so long ago he lay strapped to a table, his brain open and exposed and the wounds on his soul fresh from Aeryn's death.

He felt her slipping his vest off his shoulders, tugging at his T-shirt and pulling it over his head. Her lips were on his and he swallowed a sob as her tongue dove into his mouth, inviting him out for more to come. He felt her long hair brushing against his bare chest, her fingers running over his shoulderes and gently pushing him back on the bed. Instinct took over and he was stripping her bare, turning her to lay beneath him.

"Buckle!" she hissed against his lips, wiggling further up in the bed. He threw the offending holster into a corner of the room, and leaned back over her. She put a staying hand on his shoulder, the other running up to stroke the back of his neck.

"John, would you do that…thing you did…yesterday. Again."

"All in good time, Baby." He answered, kissing her, "All good things come in time."

***********************************

Two days later she lay in his arms exhausted, the retching and the sobbing and the bleeding finally coming to an end. He held her through all of it, except for the rare instances when Zhaan would come in to check the bleeding, shooing him out and trying to comfort the inconsolable woman. Stark hovered outside the door of the chamber with him, a steady hand on his shoulder.

"The others are respecting your privacy," he said. John had nodded, not saying anything. "The child feels nothing. It is a sleeping, and a forgetting." John had paced.

Now he sat with his back against the head of the bed, Aeryn curled between his splayed legs using his thigh as a pillow. He ran his fingers through her hair, listening to her breathe and sniffle.

"John?" her voice was hoarse, the past solar day finding her screaming in either rage or grief and pain. There had been so much pain.

"Hmm?" He was afraid to say anything more, knowing his voice would crack. Knowing if he spoke too much his guilt would come pouring out.

"Why did this happen? Sebaceans don't miscarry. We just don't."

"I don't know," he lied, "Maybe because the father was a human." It was a statement he found true. If the father hadn't been human, this human, she would still be pregnant.

But she seemed to accept the answer, curling a little tighter against him. He allowed himself the brief pleasure of feeling her body against his, knowing when she was well again it would be back to separate quarters. Just like when he had made love to her the last time, memorizing each line, each moment, each sound like a condemned man reveled in his final meal.

He thought she had fallen asleep when he heard his name again.

"Yeah, Baby," he answered.

"I need a favor," she said.

"I know. Don't worry, we'll find him. I promise."

He slid under the covers next to her, pulling her tightly against him, knowing that in the morning he would have to let go indefinitely.

"Thank you," she mumbled, barely awake anymore. Somewhere locked in her mind she remembered a time when two men had held her up under a shower, her legs aching and shaking, her belly feeling as though she had just been hit by a pulse rifle charge. They had cleaned the blood off her legs and the sweat off her brow and tied her hair back in a regulation binding. She had cursed at them as they moved her and they had joked with each other about her pain. But she had felt safe. She twined her fingers through John's, pulling his arms tighter around her and realizing for the first time in her life what feeling safe meant.

END