by Natalie Williams
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Farscape. It belongs to a lot of people who are not me. I mean no harm, I come in peace.
RATING: Um, PG for language maybe.
ARCHIVING: My site, and if Jill Dannay, Dani Royer, Laura Folden (I’ll send it to you) or April at the Farscape Zone want it, it’s yours. Everyone else must ask.
SUMMARY: A little tag to A Bug’s Life.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is based on the idea that the comment in the title indicated that Larraq’s feelings for Aeryn were mutual.
*****
Aeryn didn’t seem to mind that John stayed with her. Good. ‘Cause he wasn’t budging. When they thought she was going to die, it scared him like he didn’t know anything could. He was just not willing to let her go like that. He had stayed with her most of them time till she woke up, just to make sure she was all right. And now, even after.
And that left him to wonder what the hell she meant.
“You got lucky. He missed your heart.”
“Closer than you think.”
What? He hoped to God that didn’t mean what he thought it did. But he could rack his brains all he wanted, he wasn’t coming up with any other translation.
He hadn’t seen this one coming. After all, this was Aeryn. Aeryn. The same woman he had known for months before she started to warm up to him at all. And yet she was getting cozy with some Peacekeeper?
Did he even have the right to be jealous? Hell yes! Okay, so things weren’t serious serious, but things had happened. There was something there. Yeah, maybe he was being territorial, but he didn’t really care. He liked Aeryn. He could admit that. Hell, the whole crew was probably clued into that by now. And he desperately wanted to give this whole thing a chance.
Aeryn moved a little in her sleep, and John watched to make sure she didn’t move around too much. He did not want to see her start bleeding again. What he wanted right now, was for her to be healed, and to be walking around on two feet, and for things to be the way things were before this whole incident happened.
But that probably wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, anyway. Well, not all of it. He knew Aeryn would be back on her feet in no time, pushing herself to be better before she was ready. Which he would yell at her for, she would tell him he was overreacting, and depending on who was willing to fight harder this time, one of them would win. That was a given. He knew how that worked.
On the other hand, the concept of the two of them in a romantic sense was still pretty new. And he didn’t know how that was going to go. Who knew how this captain guy was going to affect them? He didn’t know why Aeryn was interested in the guy. She was never going to tell him that, either. So where did that leave John in this? Did she want him to prove how much he cared about her, how much she meant to him?
Well, fine. If that was what it took... He was willing to do it, any way he could.
*****
She blinked a couple times, ridding the blurriness from her vision as she woke up. As much as she hated feeling this weak and sore, she was also really glad to be feeling anything.
Aeryn turned her head, idly wondering if John was still there. She never expected him to still be sitting there- asleep. He was still sitting up, but was a little hunched over, his chin resting on his chest. She had to wonder just how anyone could sleep like that... How long had be been there? A while, obviously, if he’d fallen asleep. He’d been there the whole time she’d been resting, and he’d been there before, too.
Ouch.
She did care about him, she really did. And maybe there was something there worth looking into. But that ‘maybe’ also gave them some room. So why did she feel so horrible about this? No, she knew why. Because she saw that look on his face when she admitted that about Larraq. Was she attracted to him? Yes. Did she have feelings for him? Maybe. A very strong maybe, leaning towards yes. But it didn’t matter. Larraq was dead, and that was it.
This was going to take some work, though, she realized that. Whatever she did feel for Larraq, it wasn’t as strong as it was for John, but apparently it was there. She thought she had had some clue as to where things stood with John. Or, maybe not. This was more confusion than even she was used to dealing with. She hated being confused.
Aeryn slowly sat up, being very careful not to strain herself too much, or injure herself further. She tosses aside the bedcovers, and stretched slightly, feeling the stiff movement of a bandage on her skin, underneath the Peacekeeper uniform she was still wearing. When she’d felt the knife plunge into her, she hadn’t really noticed where she was stabbed. Her only thoughts were that it hurt, she was bleeding, and someone make it stop. But by the position of the bandage, John must have been right. It had been close.
So basically, she was almost killed by the man she had feelings for. Although Aeryn knew she couldn’t really blame him, no more than she could blame John for killing Hassan.
She winced inwardly. If she knew John, he would have a hard time getting over that. He wasn’t going to believe that it wasn’t really him that had murdered her. And she severely doubted that she would be able to convince him. He wasn’t going to be happy with her to begin with, and probably wouldn’t want to be anywhere near her.
He didn’t understand, though. He couldn’t understand. That whole time he was pretending to be a Peacekeeper, she had to pretend, too. There was no way for John to know how much that hurt. To be in this uniform, calling herself a lieutenant, the entire time knowing it was a lie. To hear that she could be a Special Officer when that was never going to happen. To hear that Larraq wanted her around.
She couldn’t expect John to know that. No matter how close she and John might get, there was always going to be such a large part of her life that she couldn’t share with him. There would always be things she couldn’t tell him without explaining everything first just so he could understand. That wasn’t an issue with Larraq. And that felt... nice. It was real, and comfortable. The question was, did she want comfortable?
She tilted her head a little to one side, so that she could see John’s entire face from her vantage point. Aeryn couldn’t help but smile a little at that. He was actually pretty... cute like this. She honestly wanted to fix this. Whatever she had with John, she was really beginning to like it, most of the time. She just hoped John wanted this fixed.
*****
John woke up to a stiffness in his neck and back. Not that it was a surprise; he had not meant to fall asleep here. He raised his head, rubbing the back of his neck, and saw that Aeryn was sitting, awake, watching him with a small amused smile. "Hey," he said. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," she said. "What about you?"
He knew what she meant, and he wasn't getting into that right now. He was concentrating on her. Besides, concentrating on Aeryn also meant not concentrating on what he had done. "About the same," he said.
Aeryn opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. "Have you left at all?" she wondered.
It was surprising to hear her ask such an honest question. Usually that was something she would gloss over, changing the subject. "If I had, I probably wouldn't have this crick in my neck right now," he admitted.
"You did not have to stay."
"I, um..." No, he was not going to do that again. He wasn't some kid anymore, he could formulate an actual response that didn't involve stuttering. "Yes, I did," he said.
She met his eye, and fell into silence. "I need to move," she said, seemingly more to herself than him.
Aeryn slowly stood, and in a second John had bolted out of his seat, blocking her way to the door. "Woah, what do you think you're doing?" he said.
"I'm going for a walk," Aeryn said. "No think about it."
"Sorry, babe. It doesn't work that way." He saw her raise her eyebrows, and knew he had to back that last statement up. "You nearly died a few arns ago, and you lost a lot of blood. I'm not about to watch you push yourself too far before you're ready."
"And how do you know I'm not ready?" she challenged.
"Because-" he started, and stopped short. He wanted to say, "Because I know you," but given the situation, that probably wasn't the best thing to say. "I just do," he said stubbornly.
For a moment they just stared at each other, waiting to see who would be the one to back down. But John was not giving up on this. Not when it came to Aeryn's safety.
Finally Aeryn let out a soft sigh of frustration and sat back down. "Was that really so hard?" he said, taking a seat next to her.
"You're worrying too much."
"Would you rather I didn't worry at all?" John asked. Yeah, like that was going to happen.
Aeryn was quiet for the briefest second, then looked him right in the eye. "No," she said at last.
He was definitely relieved to hear that. At least he was getting some positive signals from her on this. "Look, Aeryn, I-"
She reached out to take his hand, thereby stopping John's train of thought right there. "Could we postpone this talk for a while?" she asked.
Damn. That wasn't good. Then again, he knew to tread lightly, and that didn't mean pushing her to talk about this. He didn't even try to hide his disappointment, but he nodded. "Okay," he said. "In that case, I think it's about time I go off to my own bed."
"It might be a little more comfortable than what you were doing," Aeryn conceded.
"Promise me one thing," he said. "Stay here."
"I promise nothing," she said.
"Aeryn, I'm serious. Otherwise I'm camping out here for the rest of the night."
She was quiet for a second. "I promise nothing," she repeated.
John smiled. Okay, that was encouraging. "Fine," he nodded. "Then move over. You've got company."
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