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Aeryn walked into Pilot's chamber, Aken trailing after her.  "What's wrong?" she asked immediately.  Crichton looked up in surprise from where he was finishing pinning a communicator beacon to Kassandra's shirt. "Wrong? Nothing's wrong." He said. "Why, should there be?"

"No. I was just wondering why we were all called here."

"Oh." He finished fastening the beacon then, and turned toward her. "No, we just wanted to introduce them to Pilot-and Moya, of course." He peered at her closely in the dim light of the chamber. "Are you all right?" he asked, worry furrowing his brow. "You look a little tense."

"Who, me? Tense? Don't be ridiculous." Aeryn laughed the comment off, having to consciously relax her posture. She was still very aware of Aken's close presence. "Aken's already met Pilot; I brought him through here on our tour."

"Oh. Well," he leaned forward confidentially; "We're going to have a little pow-wow among us after we get rid of Aken and Kassandra."

"Pow...wow?" she asked, lifting a dark eyebrow.

"Group discussion, between you, me, Rygel, Zhaan, and D'Argo." Crichton explained with a touch of sarcasm, as though she should have known already. I bet Kassandra would've understood that, he thought. He frowned at himself, wondering, Where'd that come from?  He shook the feeling of vague disquiet off and said more gently, "We want to get each other's opinions on our houseguests."

"I could give you my opinions of them now." Aeryn said flatly, and moved away, attitude seeping from her.

Crichton, of course, followed her. "Hey, calm down..." hen began, laying a hand on her shoulder. He blinked in shock as she twitched a foot away like a nervous, high-strung horse. "...Aeryn Um...what's wrong?" You haven't done that in a while...

As she answered sharply, "Nothing's wrong!" Aeryn wouldn't meet his eyes. Instead she glanced around the room, to where the others were standing talking with Pilot. Her eyes slid over Zhaan, D'Argo, Aken, and Rygel, then back at Aken, to Kassandra, Aken, Pilot, Aken, Aken, Aken...

Crichton noticed all of this, and especially picked up on how she kept glancing sideways at Aken. His heart sank to about his knees. She likes him! He thought dispiritedly. I thought she'd hate him, and that I'd have more time to...get to know her, all that stuff. More time to get her to love me... His mouth firmed as he watched her avidly watch Aken. I don't think she's taken her eyes off of him since he and Kassandra arrived! And I did see them embracing...sort of. Well, two can play at this game! He decided. Yep, tomorrow, I'll begin to go after Kassandra. We'll see what the tough Peacekeeper has to say about that. Heh. Too caught up in his smugness at 'beating' Aeryn, he didn't hear the tiny voice inside him screaming, No! That's wrong! You're going after the wrong girl...

Two weeks later...

Aeryn awoke sweat soaked for the twelfth night in a row. The dream had gotten successively worse each night. This night, after she and John had been separated in the dream, Aken had appeared. As she watched in horrified fascination, he reached to her and pulled out her beating heart. Then, as she watched, he would crush it under his foot. It was obvious where that was coming from; it was how he always made her feel, with his comments on John and Kassandra's growing relationship. This night had been made worse, however, because then Kassandra and John had appeared out of nowhere and helped Aken crush her.

Oh, how I despise her, Aeryn thought. If she were Sebacean, I'd stick her in an oven in revenge... Unfortunately, Kassandra was not Sebacean, and sticking her in an oven would do no more than singe her, as far as Aeryn knew. Although singeing her might not be such bad revenge, either... Aeryn thought, then dismissed it. Besides, where would she get an oven in the Uncharted Territories anyway? She decided to go talk to Pilot.

Pilot's had been a surprisingly sympathetic ear, Aeryn had found. He seemed to understand instinctively what was wrong, and to know just what to say. She wondered where he'd learned such empathy... or was it just a part of his genetic makeup? At any rate, he was the only one who would believe her about Aken. John said she was holding their past relationship against him; Zhaan said that he was really quite a deep thinker, that she should give him a chance. D'Argo approved of him because he stood his ground, and knew how to defend himself, and Rygel liked him because Aken supposedly knew the locations of several 'lost' treasures. Rygel didn't seem to trouble himself with the rather obvious fact that Aken hadn't actually gone and gotten any of these treasures; he knew their locations, and that was enough for the greedy ex-Dominar.

No one, of course, seemed to notice that it was she who spent the most time with him.

She'd told Pilot, under the strictest of confidences, about her jealousy over John and Kassandra's relationship. He'd comforted her with his opinion that Crichton didn't really like her, he more accurately tolerated her. Aeryn would love to believe that, but... still. He spent all that time with Kassandra, and barely spoke one word to her, Aeryn, a day.

The one thing she hadn't told anyone about, not even Pilot, were Aken's increasing tendencies to violence (always bruising where it couldn't be seen) and his increasing number of dire threats if she told anyone about his abuse.

She didn't say anything, as these threats were usually against someone other than her, most often John. Unless of course she was angry with John, then the threats were against Rygel; instead of threatening Crichton, Aken rubbed in the fact that he'd chosen someone else over her, Aeryn. Aeryn that only Aken wanted, and she didn't want him, at all, in any way, shape, or form.

As she made her way to Pilot's chamber, Aken suddenly appeared in front of her in the corridor as though her thoughts had conjured him up. She stopped short with a stifled gasp of surprise.

"Heeeeeeyyyyyyy, Sun." he said with his most repulsive leer on his face. "Can't sleep? Why not?"

None of your business," Aeryn told him, and moved around him.

"It's me, isn't it, Sun?" he asked.

Yeah, but not like you're thinking, you frelling idiot, Aeryn thought, saying, "No. It doesn't concern you, so let me by."

"I think it does concern me, Sun...I think you're lying to me. You know I don't like liars."

"And I don't like people getting in my way, so leave me alone!" Aeryn replied.

"Oh, you don't, do you? You don't like people getting in your way like this? Huh?" he smirked, coming close to her and blocking her way forward with his body.

A cold rage enveloped Aeryn suddenly. How dare he--! She exploded into sudden motion, slamming her knee deep into his groin. She felt more than heard a sickening crunch. She didn't stay to see the damage she'd caused, only ran down the corridor away from him.

He yelled at her back, "You'll pay for this! I swear you will!"

She smirked to herself as she heard his voice, strained with pain.

Letting out your anger really can be therapeutic, she thought with considerable satisfaction.

On to part seven
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