by Laura Folden
Spoilers: Well, every episode, really. Lots of quotes taken from the show.
Note: Thanks to Kevin, Rachel, and Natalie for the quotes from the (sob) tapes I can't find at the moment. This is from Aeryn's POV.
Archiving: wherever, if you want it, just let me know.
*****
Really cool quote by Howard Arnold Walter:
I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.
*****
Fear.
She stared down at the Peacekeeper guards, swallowing hard. How could this have...? She thought she'd be safe, back with her own kind. Crais hadn't been an unreasonable captain--a little absolute in his authority, perhaps, a little harsh with traitors. But traitors deserved what they got.
Now she was the traitor.
"...We take her too."
Her head jerked around toward the alien and the Luxan prisoner.
"What? Never!" The Luxan growled. "I will take you. You are manageable. She--"
"If she stays, we all stay."
The alien spun toward her and grabbed her hands then. She yanked them back away from him but he held on. He met her eyes.
"No," she protested weakly, "I will not come with you."
"You've been irreversibly contaminated, remember?" He shook the handcuffs a little.
"It means death." The Luxan glanced over at her.
Fear made the words rise unbidden in her throat. "It is my duty...my breeding! Since birth. It's what I am!"
He applied the keys to her handcuffs. "You can be more."
More? More than what? She stared down at the peacekeeper guards again. More like you? More than what I am? I'm a Peacekeeper. I always will be. If I leave with you I'll be going against my own nature, my breeding, my family, my people.
If I stay I'll be dead.
Life or duty...life or death. That's the choice. Fear lay in wait for her at the end of both paths.
Her handcuffs came off with a little click and she let them drop to the floor. She turned and gestured peremptorily at the prisoners. "Follow me." Action beat back the fear, just as it always had. "My prowler's this way."
*****
Suddenly it wasn't so simple.
For a month she'd been on the run with this...this band of convicts. She'd just helped them evade capture by a Marauder, which was no easy task. But in doing so she'd let the Draks on board, and the Draks were killing her.
No, not killing. Worse than killing. Living Death.
She fought against the sudden increase of heat, against the pain which wracked her body. Fighting but losing.
The Luxan hissed something under his breath, the little Hynerian spoke over the comms, the calm Delvian responded. She couldn't make herself care. The fear was worse than before. If only the heat hadn't abated, giving her time to *think* about what was coming. None of these prisoners would show her mercy. None, except...
She spoke directly to the human. "Before the living death takes hold, you have to be prepared to kill me."
"Not a chance."
"You said I'm not alone. A friend would do this. Family would do it swiftly."
He looked away, but she knew he would do what he had to do. The alternative was unthinkable. /Don't think...do./ But she had nothing *to* do, no way to dispel the fear. The human was talking now with the Monarch, through the Delvian. She focussed on him, trying the quell the fear of the living death.
The Delvian: "I will allow the thermal to lower."
Relief washed through her.
"No."
What? The human...she thought frantically. /Why no? I *need* the air to be cooler. I'm dying, Crichton./ She met his eyes. Sebacean heat delirium affected the Commandos also, made them less alert. The prisoners needed that advantage to survive. Fear flooded through her and she clenched her fists with the remainder of her strength.
This was no choice.
/Focus on the goal./ The goal was to survive. The goal was to get the objective accomplished while keeping as many fellow soldiers alive as possible.
"Do it." She would die but at least she would die fighting.
The human turned away. "Don't lower the heat. Crank it up."
The Delvian nodded.
The heat increased and she felt her muscles betray her again, her body curling in on itself. She felt the comforting touch of the Luxan's huge hand on her shoulder and glanced up at him. He squeezed her shoulder once, and she understood. Courage. Courage given to her in the face of death. From soldier to soldier. Then he was gone.
The human knelt beside her. For him she had only one comment: "I feel the living death."
"No, no you hold on. I won't let it happen."
"It's not your choice. Remember your promise."
Then he, too, was gone, leaving her alone with the pain and the fear. My choice, she thought, barely feeling the Delvian's cool touch on her brow. My choice. Remember your promise.
*****
"Force 'em? How're you going to force 'em? There's one of you and three of them..." Crichton turned around at the click of the gauntlet. "Are you nuts?" He exclaimed. "After what that thing did to D'Argo we agreed--only as a last resort. Besides, if we go in there, blazing like--"
/Absolutely useless. What a waste of breath./ She stared across at the human, ignoring the furious set of his jaw. "I'm going in there. You're staying here." Still, he might just follow her out of some misguided sense of...human...something. "When I get back you can put me under and remove the gauntlet."
His jaw tightened. "The *minute* you get back."
Arguing was a waste of breath. She was right, now, as she'd been right earlier to take the weapons into the docking bay. If she hadn't they'd never have gotten the gauntlet.
But she had things to do, aliens to attack. She looked down at the Tavlek hunting party. They didn't seem so large. How could they stand against a Peacekeeper? She'd had the best military training in the galaxy. She remembered contemptuously the niggling sensation of her own fear a few minutes ago. She felt *good*. With this gauntlet, nothing could stop her. She was afraid of nothing.
*****
He'd been the first thing she saw as she came around the corner of the building. She couldn't have missed him, really, in that ridiculous orange flight suit of his. It was just that she hadn't expected him to be lying on the ground, seemingly lifeless. D'Argo had run for Zhaan at her instructions while she checked his pulse, his breathing. Both were normal. So why wouldn't he wake up?
She reached out while the others weren't looking and shook his arm, trying to wake him. What the frell was the matter? No obvious injuries, not bleeding, not dead--was this some kind of human thing? Some kind of hibernation? No, it must have been an attack. An attack she could do something about.
The purple herbalist was talking. "You can't escape Maldiss' grasp. Even in space--hundreds, thousands of metras away--he can get at you."
Her mouth twisted in contempt. "And do what?"
"This." The alien gestured at Crichton's unconscious form. "He can rip your spirit from your body."
Spirits. Primitive superstition. She looked down her nose at the alien.
"How can we fight against that?" D'Argo murmured.
Frell. He was half convinced by all this mumbo-jumbo.
"We can fight," she declared confidently. "Where is this Maldiss?"
"He's taken over the complex at the end of the bazaar. None of us go near it."
Her eyes flashed. "He's done very well to terrorize primitive people. Let's go back to Moya, get some weapons and see how he does against a pair of soldiers." Her hand brushed John's as she walked out, fear spurring her to action.
*****
She forced herself to walk toward Pilot, one foot after the other. She'd tried action, tried forcing NamTar to undo what he was doing to her. He'd only laughed at her, and the Transformation continued.
Pain was the easy part--pain forced her to focus. She found herself almost welcoming the pain, using it to fight against the quicksilver thread of her own thoughts.
Nothing could fight against the terror. Terror or shame. /This is where fear leads you./ Fear of being alone.
"...not so much hear it, as sense it." She explained to him.
"But how?"
For answer she raised her now-blue hand. Fingers meant to hold a gun were fusing together. The scales ran down her palm, over her wrist.
Pilot gasped.
"Its not so much the noises as...as my own thoughts. It's like they're happening all at the same time." She wanted to scream. But giving in to the terror would not help her.
"Aeryn!" Crichton strode into the room, anxiety making him talk fast. "C'mon I want to take you back down to the planet. Hey, Pilot. Maybe we can find someone down there who can figure out what's wrong with you. Maybe this NamTar guy--"
"No." She kept her back to him, wishing he would go away. /He might be able to help me./ But stronger than that was the shame of her own weakness, and the horror of her mutation. To see that reflected in *his* eyes was more than she could bear.
"Dammit, Aeryn, I'm trying to help!" He grabbed her shoulder to pull her around.
Without thinking she slapped his hand away. He inhaled sharply and she knew he'd seen. Slowly, fighting her own terror, she turned to face him.
"It's NamTar. He took some of Pilot's DNA and he--"
His face paled. "And how did...um..."
Of course he would ask. She steeled herself with all the courage remaining to her. "I went back there. I wanted to find a place where I could belong. I didn't want to get left behind." Breathe, Aeryn, concentrate. /Maybe he can help me./ "I'm so scared." She *hoped* he would offer to help. She believed he would--that was who he was. She had to trust in him. And if he couldn't help her, then she would kill NamTar. And then...and then...her thoughts scattered and she was only aware of the terror.
*****
Step after step.
She heard the explosions on the other side of the dark blur that was the wall. The door slid open and people ran past, bumping into her. She hugged the door frame, waiting for them to pass before she stepped out into the light. The explosions and sounds of battle were closer now. She closed her eyes--not that it made any difference--and oriented on the sounds. The firing was somewhere to her right.
She could be wrong. This could be some other dispute that ended in battle. It might have nothing to do with John at all. She inhaled sharply. This was John Crichton. If there was a battle, he'd caused it, or blundered into the middle of it. If she could only *see*.
She stepped into the bright blur in front of her. Directly in front of her were three larger, darker blurs. She thought back, remembering. Two fountains--both dry--and the tower. She needed to be at the second fountain. To get there, she had to cross the open blur before her. Completely exposed.
She swallowed the fear and took her first step. Then her second, eyes focussed on the dark shading that she hoped was her objective. A third step. A fourth. Light and heat exploded behind her, throwing her forward.
*****
And, finally, there was nothing left to do.
She'd tried to break free, repaired the engine, nearly got killed, killed John, welded the atmosphere mix line, revived John, and...sat here, in the dark. Nothing left to do.
Nothing left.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "What did you see?"
"Hmm?"
"After the kill shot, when you were dead. Did you see the things humans believe--the light, friends?" /Give me something to believe in. I don't want to die./
"No, I didn't."
She stared down at her hands, trying to un-hear his last words, but he continued.
"All I saw was black. I don't know. Maybe Sebaceans were right. Maybe...I wasn't supposed to die that time."
Nothing. Nothing to do, no way to fight. "M-maybe you'll find out for certain this time." Terror swallowed her whole.
She reached for him, needing something warm and alive to hold on to. Someone to share the terror with. Not just someone. Him. John.
He kissed her, needing as much as she did. Terror melded with desire and she clung to the desire, letting it fill her like a talisman against the dark emptiness that waited for her.
John slid off the bench, pulling her with him, still kissing her.
*****
The old man held his knife out toward her, his eyes menacing. She was not fooled by his frail appearance. He was a psychotic, fully capable of murder. But he could never take *her*, inside, the part that was Aeryn Sun. That was her's forever.
"Tell me, Officer Sun," he whispered in his too-soft voice, "how is it that *you* are no longer a Peacekeeper?"
She'd chosen life, that day; she'd chosen to save herself. Should the need arise, she'd choose to die to save her friends. As long as she could fight, fight to the last shred of breath in her lungs, she was herself. No fear could overcome that. As long as she could fight.
She merely looked at him, afraid but defiant. He would either never understand, or he would understand too well. She didn't want to know which, really.
*****
Last time she had let this fear lead her, had taken a chance, and had almost lost everything. Now she couldn't act.
He was leaving.
She stared out at the shimmery blue light of the wormhole, legs drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them.
"Aeryn."
She kept her eyes on the view, swallowing hard. "You're going now."
"Yeah. Yeah, Pilot said we're running out of time."
She took a deep breath. /Last time I tried to find a home..../ "I can't go with you."
He shook his head. "Aeryn, this could be our only chance."
"No," she replied softly, "this is your only chance. I'm not certain I'll belong there."
"You would. You will. I...I...I promise."
/Last time I tried.../ "I'm sorry."
*****
"Hey." John found her out on the terrace, staring out at the stars. "Pilot said you were asking where I was."
"Mm." She nodded.
"So..."
She turned to face him. He was standing there, puzzled, his hands tucked deep in his pockets. "I was thinking."
His eyes narrowed, studying her. "You all right?"
She shrugged. "Fine. Crichton..." She trailed off. "What...what do humans say about fear?"
"You afraid of something?"
She stiffened. "Don't be ridiculous."
John spread his hands. "Okay, okay, don't bite my head off. I forgot the amazing Miss Sun isn't afraid of anything."
This wasn't what she'd wanted to happen. She hadn't meant...but how to change it back? Could she change it back? The temptation to retort was strong. But her fear wasn't conquered by staying safe, not always.
"John..." She swallowed hard. No, this was wrong too. Talking never helped.
She took the first step, then the second, closing the distance between them.
His face was bemused and a little puzzled. "Aeryn?"
They were toe to toe, now. She couldn't seem to find the air to breathe. She didn't want...she couldn't...She halted, not sure what to do.
/Just one more now. If you can. If you dare./
She drew all her courage around her like a blanket and took the last step forward. /I hope...I hope.../ Her arm rose and twined around his neck, pulling his head forward the inch toward her's. She stopped there, just resting like that, letting him decide.
He smiled. He kissed her.
/The only way out is through./
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