Blue Eyes - Chapters 10 and 11
Jul. 25th, 2003 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowCongratulations to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whitelight1 for being employed and to fbf for being done with camp. Have a glorious weekend ladies, and everyone else who survived the week. Yes, crankygrrl, I am looking at you, and you too raithen who was so productive on your dissertation.
I know it's been awhile, so I'm linking to Blue Eyes - Chapter 9a and Chapter 9B.
This is a little messy, and may not be as coherent as it seemed to me, but this was just a bitch to write and frustrating to boot because what I ended up with seems so paltry compared to the difficulty of getting through it. Ah well, that's what the editing process is for. So, in case anyone needed a reminder of the total roughness of this endeavor, here it is.
Chapter 10
He woke up again in the sun drenched room and started to laugh. At least this time, he thought, he still had on his jeans. Katralla stood by the window, her small mouth set in an unhappy line.
“You passed out,” she said, accusingly. “You passed out and Jack and DK had to carry you in here.”
She paused and narrowed her eyes at him. “Katherine said she’d stay, but I told everyone to go home.”
She came and sat on the bed by him, resting her small hand on his knee. “She’s pregnant again,” she said, conspiratorily. “No one is supposed to know, but DK just can’t keep a secret.”
“They’ll have cute kids,” he said, confused and bemused, and suddenly a little disturbed. Katralla rolled her eyes at him, and he wondered what this universe was calling her, what fucked up name had been dredged from his subconscious.
“They’ve been trying for years, John,” she chastised. “It’s not funny. She’s had miscarriage after miscarriage.”
He thought that had to mean something, must be a symbol for compatibility and babies, and allowed himself to drift, just for a moment into a vision of Aeryn, lush and pregnant, smiling at him as held her belly, stroking the taut flesh with his thumbs. He shook himself out of that fantasy, disoriented.
“This isn’t real,” he said kindly to his wife. “I’m not on Earth, we don’t have a teenage daughter, much as I’d love to think of her as mine. And there’s no way in hell that Aeryn would have married DK. He’s too big a geek,” he started to pat her hand, but she wrenched it away, hitting his leg with a sharp smack.
She stood up and there were tears in her eyes. “You really can be an asshole, John,” she said in disgust. “Anyway, the doctor is here. You need to talk to someone.”
He shrugged.
When she returned, he started to howl in laughter. Big, and tentacled and barely fitting through the doorway, D’Argo carried a black medical bag and wore an ill-fitting white lab coat and a reflective light on his head. Katralla turned to him in annoyance. “See, he’s been like this since he woke up,” she pointed at John, insistent. “I think something in his head got damaged.”
Tears of laughter ran down his face, but the hilarity broke off quickly as D’Argo set the bag down on the bed and proceeded towards John with a flashlight. John scooted back towards the head of the bed in a repeat of his earlier response, “Uh, no dude, I don’t think so.”
“John,” said D’Argo patiently, “It’s going to be okay. Jenny said you’d been disoriented and scattered, but that happens after an accident. You hit your head pretty hard.”
Jenny, he mouthed looking at Katralla and D’Argo nodded, inching closer. John feinted and rolled off the bed. “Sorry, dude, you’re not even human.”
He was quick, but his wife’s foot caught him up. He tripped, stumbling and was grabbed by a large Luxan hand.
“I’m so sorry Dr. Cox,” she said in exasperation. “I think we’re going to have to take him to the hospital.”
The giggling returned, accompanied by a wash of heat and John, sweating, shaking and trying desperately to slide out of his friend’s grasp, just yelled,” I don’t think so. I’m not going to any hospital.”
He lashed out, hitting D’Argo in the gut and was promptly dashed against the floor, his head ricocheting off end of the bed with a thump.
They loaded him into the car, everything a haze of movement and motion and earthlike scenery. “Not Earth, not the Royal Planet, not Moya, so where am I. Can’t be the ancients. Why would they care after all this time, not Maldis, same deal, so maybe Scorpy?” he mumbled to himself, trying to sort things out as D’Argo drove.
He was surprised to find himself in a small, very unhospitalish waiting room filled with the tinkling of fountains and chimes, and when the receptionist ushered him into another room filled with shades of pinks and greys, and whites, he stood under the ceiling fan, ignoring the white couch, and let the breeze blow over him. Katralla and D’Argo – he refused to think of them by their Bizarro names, although he was definitely gonna be calling D. Dr. Cox should he ever get back to the Royal Planet. –stood guard over him as he was shepherded into the office and it didn’t take him long to figure out that he’d been sent to a shrink, which was ok with him. He wanted to see what would happen next on this carnival. This was wretched and strange, but no stranger than a lost love, complete with a teenager and an army showing up on his doorstep.
“John,” he heard Scorpy say and just shook his head. That monstrosity he’d be happy to give away.
“What do you want Scorp?” he asked lazily, entranced by the blades of the fan. “I can’t figure out what you’d want from me, aside from wormholes, and I have no idea how you figured out I was awake.”
He straightened his neck, and looked shrewdly at Scorpy, sitting primly on the edge of the white couch. “Unless I’m still a statue, unless Aeryn and D. and the kid and that whole creepy rebel army are part of this illusion and you really are trying to get wormhole knowledge from me.”
He glared at Scorpius. “Is that it?” he asked, his voice getting more and more shrill as he moved closer to his nemesis. “All of this has been a big game and I’m still all carbonized out, waiting for the big old thaw. Aeryn is still gone, and I’m still in that freaking palace?”
He got all the way to Scorpius, and shoved against the black carapace of his suit. “Tell me what you’re doing to me,” he demanded. Scorpius grabbed his hand, wrenching it away from him, and hissed back. “ I need you to focus, John. You need to get away, you need to listen to me.”
John started to laugh again, yanking his hand back, “Like I’d listen to anything you had to say, you freak,”
He was interrupted by a familiar, feminine voice behind him. “Who are you talking to Mr. Crichton?”
He whirled around, and a smile broke out over his face. “Chi,” he said softly. “My girl in grey. Damn I’m glad you’re here.”
Chiana shook her head, her white hair settling back into place and smoothed her long pink robes. “My name is Dr. White,” she said. “I’m a psychic healer. And you didn’t tell me who you were talking to? Do I have a ghost?”
John just looked at her and then shrugged. “You can’t see him, then?”
She shook her head again. “ I just see you,” she repeated.
He smiled softly at her. “It’s okay, Pip. It’s good to see you anyway.”
She glided towards him. “Mr. Crichton, why don’t you have a seat,” she suggested.
She gestured towards the couch, and he caught her hand, turning her palm over and pressing a kiss into it. “You’re awfully pale, Doc,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” she said, sinking down next to him and carefully extracting her chalky white fingers.
“Mmm, nothing much. Just losing my mind. Trying to figure out who’s messing with me and how I can get them to stop.”
She looked at him intently. “Would you like me to cleanse your aura?”
“Honey, is that a euphemism for something,” he snickered. “ ‘sides, that sounds more like Zhaan’s line.”
She looked taken a back, her black eyes glittering. “Mr. Crichton, if I wanted to have sex with you, I’d ask.”
His grin widened. “ I bet you would.”
She tried to look stern. “Your wife and your physician brought you here knowing that I’d been able to help Katherine Knox deal with some of her emotional strain. You can trust me.”
“She can’t have babies, right?” he said, remembering. The Chiana lookalike just regarded him stonily.
“Yeah, yeah, client confidentiality.” He waved his hands at the idea. “Must be something in my head that just can’t deal with all this.”
“I can help you,” she emphasized, “but you have to tell me what you think is going on?”
He looked at her closely, the resemblance so strong, but it wasn’t enough. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything.”
He looked up at the ceiling again, “I don’t know anything Scorp,” he yelled. “They’re just as big a mystery to me as ever. I don’t have any idea how to make you a wormhole. If I did, I’d have told you when you put me in the chair.”
She continued to stare at him, open-mouthed. “You got a back door to this place?” he asked. She got up and headed for the door.
“I think maybe Dr. Cox should give you a sedative,” she said.
“Cool,” he replied.
As soon as she closed the door, he sprang up, ducking into the corridor. Engaged in conversation in the lobby, none of his keepers saw him make a surreptitious exit from the office and the building.
The air felt real, not heaviy and thicklike the air on the Royal Planet. It was warm and breezy, very springlike. The Florida humidity was unobtrusive, It felt like home.
“Nice detail guys,” he murmured. “I never really thought about the atmosphere.”
He walked down the street, watching the people as they went about their make believe day, and headed into a local park.
Unsurprisingly, he saw a familiar face sitting on a bench, watching a host of school age children play on the swings. “Mind if I sit her,” he asked DK’s pretend wife. She was so damned beautiful here in the daylight, glossy hair and wide grey eyes, and Levi’s which he’d have sold his soul to give to her sixteen cycles ago.
He’d never seen that look on Aeryn Sun’s face, though. She been unhappy, angry, frustrated, and amazed, but he’d never seen her wistful, and even knowing that this was a fantasy, his gut twisted in sympathy for her.
“No,” she said, her whiskey/chocolate voice still immediate fire to his blood. She looked at him, squinting. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?” she asked.
He shrugged. “They got lost in the shuffle,” he replied. She tilted up the corner of her mouth and turned back to the children.
“What do you do during the day,” he asked, unable to keep from trying to distract her. She brushed away a loose strand of hair, and looked at him. “I’m a journalist,” she said with a grin. “You know that. It’s how we met, it’s how I met DK.”
He shook his head.
“You don’t remember?” she asked, her voice getting a little colder. “Lotsa stuff I don’t remember,” he added.
“So you don’t remember the Farscape module crashing, or meeting me in the hospital, any of that?” He shook his head again. “I don’t even know what I do.” he said. She laughed, sharp and brittle, and put her hand on his knee.
“Let’s go get drunk,” she said suddenly. He looked at her dubiously. “Thought you were pregnant?”
“Nope,” she said with false brightness. “No baby. Just another false alarm. I know a place where we’ll fit right in.”
The bar was dark, filled with smoke and pool tables and twinkling lights. Aeryn sat him at a table, and went to get drinks. She plopped the pitcher of beer on the table, poured it into the mugs and then toasted him.
“Here’s to us finally getting what we want,” she said.
The glasses clinked.
“I’m either losing my mind, or this is the strangest trip I’ve ever had,” he replied.
She looked at him questioningly, and it all spilled out, getting more and more incoherent until the pitcher was empty, and the doppleganger beside him knew all about this false reality as well as the maybe other false reality of his life in the Uncharteds and the current insanity on the Royal Planet.
She asked pointed questions, laughed at his flawed logic, but never called him insane, which finally convinced him that he hadn’t really conjured up yet another Aeryn Sun to keep him company.
“We need more beer,” she said finally, shoving the pitcher at him. He laughed, leaning over to kiss her cheek, and stumbled up to the bar.
“Another of the same,” said a smooth, clear voice from his past. He just smiled at Zhaan. “Yeah, bluie. Good to see you here. Another round if ya don’t mind.”
While he waited for her to fill the pitcher, he watched the action in the room, seeing a variety of creatures from his travels playing pool. A Sheyang, shot a ball too far and it ricocheted off the table. The critter reacted in outrage, spewing fire onto the table, which was then put out by a quick-witted Zenetan. “None of that, now,” yelled the not-Zhaan. “No smoking in the bar.”
Bemused, though wary, he was reaching for the full pitcher when a heavy grip wrapped around his arm. “Enough is enough, Crichton,” Scorpy hissed vehemently into his ear.
Crichton turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “How many times do I have to tell you to get lost, Scorp,” he slurred. “You really are a friggin’ Pookha. You’re Harvey,” he giggled to himself and tried to shrug out of the grip.
Scorpius bared his teeth. “I tried to do this the easy way,” he said and slammed his head into John’s, the world going dark around them.
He woke up back in the bed. His head still pounding, his body still overly warm and his senses blurry. His hands were tied together and looped to the head board.
D’Argo in doctor gear stood over him, a cartoonishly large needle in his hand. “Now John, no more running away. We need to figure out what’s wrong with you.”
John struggled against the bonds restraining him. “There’s nothing wrong with me except that someone’s frelling with my mind, big guy.”
D’Argo flipped the covers off of John, revealing him in his boxers. He rolled John’s lower body onto one hip and jabbed the needle into his left buttock. John yelped and struggled some more. “Get away from me,” he yelled. “Or at least tell me what’s going on.”
D’Argo turned back to the door, nodding at the entrance, and people started to file in: Anix and Katralla, who was tucked under Tyno’s arm as he nuzzled her curls. She was pregnant, round and swollen looking sympathetically at John. “You don’t mind being the father of someone else’s child, do you?” she asked.
Anix sat by him, stroking his brow sympathetically. His wife and her lover were followed by Jack and DK, loud and boisterous, arguing about his condition. Next came Chiana in her pink dress and bartender Zhaan, and the critters from the bar, crowding into the tiny room until it felt like all the air had been sucked out. Everyone talked at once, laughing and shouting around him. Someone had a bottle of whiskey, which was being passed around, and confetti and party balloons descended from the ceiling. John tried to yell through the noise and confusion, earning him little more than a pitying glance from his daughter. Music threaded through the chaos, thumping in time with his heartbeat.
Sweat poured off him and he jerked against the ropes tying him, yelling for them to shut up, to let him go, and suddenly, the crowd parted for Aeryn, actually Aeryn he thought, hair pulled back tightly, Peacekeeper intensity mixed with pain in her gaze, supported by his mother. He whimpered and shut his eyes.
“John,” his mother called. “No,” he whispered. “No, you’re dead. Please no.”
“Don’t be silly John,” he heard his sister Olivia say to him from the foot of the bed as she motioned the two women forward.
“John, you have to help her,” his mother said insistently, her voice cleaving through the chaos. Everyone else ignored them except for Anix and Olivia who watched in silence. Aeryn stumbled, clinging to Leslie, and he saw that she was covered in blood. The jeans had been replaced by a white dress, stained and clotted with blood. It clung to her, as she clung to his mother, who kept repeating, “You have to help her, John, You have to help us both.”
He wrenched his wrists toward him, succeeding in doing nothing more than scraping his flesh raw. “No, no, no, no,” he chanted at the specters, pleading with them, with whomever was perpetrating this. He could feel tears on his cheeks, hot and stinging despite his raised temperature. “Please stop this.”
Aeryn stumbled again and fell, her knees hitting the floor, pulling Leslie down beside her. “Help me, John,” she whispered.
“I can’t, I can’t,” he yelled, “Please stop this.”
Leslie left Aeryn kneeling on the floor and came over to his side, gently pushing Anix out of the way. Her hands were red and sticky with Aeryn’s blood, and she mirrored Anix’s actions, smearing the blood over his forehead in a parody of comfort, and he started shrieking and couldn’t stop, the world going red and black and starburst bright as his heart thump, thumped thumped in his chest, pounding so hard against his ribs that he could feel the bone crack. His muscles spasmed and his throat clenched, blocking his screams and everything went supernova white.
Chapter 11
They circled the tiny ship on the absolute outskirts of the town. It was hidden in foliage away from anything resembling civilization, and Aeryn wondered why the frell the Scarran hadn’t taken off, taking Crichton with him. She dismissed the thought. There were too many possibilities, and none of them were relevant to the matter at hand.
Heavily disguised as it was, there was still little doubt that it this some sort of flying vessel. Teyvn expertly directed the other commandos and they circled the pod, looking for an entrance or a weak point that would prove vulnerable to their strength and weapons. Scarrans rarely traveled by themselves, and none of them had seen this sort of ship before, but Aeryn had no doubt that this was what they were seeking. Readings on their scanners indicated high temperatures, life forms, and she prepared to decimate whomever she found inside. Quietly, carefully, they made an effort to not set off any sensors, to remain undetected and watchful and then they heard screaming. The agonized shrieks were muffled by the expert shielding covering the ship, but Aeryn still recognized the voice.
“Find the door,” she hissed at Teyvn, her stomach lurching at the obvious pain being perpetrated on Crichton. “Find the door and break it down. He’s still alive and I want to be in there now!” She hefted the neural stick, and narrowed her eyes, preparing for battle.
Teyvn nodded, and they both ignored the fact that the Scarran might kill John instantly. From the sound of the screaming, Aeryn thought that death might just be preferable and then the screaming abruptly stopped.
Teyvn signaled success, and leveled the pulse cannon at the door, blowing it open in a shower of sparks and twisted metal. He stormed into the ship, followed by Aeryn and the other commandos.
The Scarran stood in the center of a complicated array of monitors and machines. He looked puzzled and angry, glancing back and forth between the invaders and the body of John Crichton, which was twisting and spasming on the floor. The Scarran growled menacingly, sending a heat blast out at Teyvn. The other commandoes fired their pulse rifles at him and he transferred the deadly beam of heat towards them.
Looking at John, shuddering and streaked with blood and sweat, hand wrapped uselessly around his pulse pistol, Aeryn darted under the stream of pulse fire, surprising the Scarran by ending up directly in front of him. She smiled evilly at him, and jammed the neural stick into his flesh as hard as she could. The stench of burning skin was matched by screams of the Scarran as his muscles danced and twitched much like John’s were doing. He lashed out, knocking her to the ground, but couldn’t control his motor skills enough pull out the protruding weapon.
Head ringing from the force of the blow, Aeryn struggled to her feet and rushed at her enemy, knocking him over, and driving the stick further into his gut. He struggled on his back, flopping around, desperately vying for purchase on the neural stick, and finally, foaming at the mouth, lay still, his muscles sending tiny tremors through his body.
Breathing heavily, Aeryn rested her hands on her knees and looked warily at the Scarran. She turned to her commandos, saw that they were recovering, and gestured to the creature on the ground.
“If he’s alive, secure him. I want to know if this was on purpose or a blind luck reconnaissance mission.”
The commandos hurried to obey her orders, and she dropped to her knees next to Crichton’s body.
“He’s dead, Aeryn,” Teyvn said softly.
“No,” she said. “He’s not.”
Teyvn knelt beside her, placing his hand on Crichton’s chest. “He doesn’t have a heartbeat, Captain,” he said, keeping the emotion out of his voice, trying not to look at her.
“He’s survived worse,” she said, her teeth gritted, and knocked Teyvn’s hands aside. It had been cycles, lifetimes, since she’d been trapped with John Crichton in an airless transport pod, since he’d asked her to do something she considered beyond her – not only performing a delicate repair job, but bringing him back from the dead, should it prove necessary.
She straddled his chest, knitting her fingers together, and pumping down on his heart. She stopped, tilting his head back, ignoring the sweat slicked feel of his cooling skin, pinched his nose and covered his mouth with hers, breathing for him, feeling his lungs expand under her thighs.
She repeated the action, forcing back the fear and desperation, holding onto the part of her that had survived the last 16 cycles, and continued. She could hear Teyvn vaguely, telling her to stop, to let him go, but she continued, forcing the air into his lungs, willing his heart to beat. She ignored the angry tears spilling down her cheeks, the thoughts of what she’d have to tell her daughter and simply focused on willing him back to life, and finally, his chest expanded on it’s own, and he coughed violently, rolling to the side as she instantly released him from the pressure of her weight. He coughed and shuddered, and she knelt by him, not knowing what else to do, and when he fell back, his head bouncing slightly on the floor, she cupped his cheek, said his name, and waited.
His eyes were blood shot, the blue standing out so clearly among the red lines. He looked up at her, trying to move his hand to cover hers, and coughed again. “Damn baby,” he wheezed. “That hurt like hell.”
whitelight1 for being employed and to fbf for being done with camp. Have a glorious weekend ladies, and everyone else who survived the week. Yes, crankygrrl, I am looking at you, and you too raithen who was so productive on your dissertation.I know it's been awhile, so I'm linking to Blue Eyes - Chapter 9a and Chapter 9B.
This is a little messy, and may not be as coherent as it seemed to me, but this was just a bitch to write and frustrating to boot because what I ended up with seems so paltry compared to the difficulty of getting through it. Ah well, that's what the editing process is for. So, in case anyone needed a reminder of the total roughness of this endeavor, here it is.
Chapter 10
He woke up again in the sun drenched room and started to laugh. At least this time, he thought, he still had on his jeans. Katralla stood by the window, her small mouth set in an unhappy line.
“You passed out,” she said, accusingly. “You passed out and Jack and DK had to carry you in here.”
She paused and narrowed her eyes at him. “Katherine said she’d stay, but I told everyone to go home.”
She came and sat on the bed by him, resting her small hand on his knee. “She’s pregnant again,” she said, conspiratorily. “No one is supposed to know, but DK just can’t keep a secret.”
“They’ll have cute kids,” he said, confused and bemused, and suddenly a little disturbed. Katralla rolled her eyes at him, and he wondered what this universe was calling her, what fucked up name had been dredged from his subconscious.
“They’ve been trying for years, John,” she chastised. “It’s not funny. She’s had miscarriage after miscarriage.”
He thought that had to mean something, must be a symbol for compatibility and babies, and allowed himself to drift, just for a moment into a vision of Aeryn, lush and pregnant, smiling at him as held her belly, stroking the taut flesh with his thumbs. He shook himself out of that fantasy, disoriented.
“This isn’t real,” he said kindly to his wife. “I’m not on Earth, we don’t have a teenage daughter, much as I’d love to think of her as mine. And there’s no way in hell that Aeryn would have married DK. He’s too big a geek,” he started to pat her hand, but she wrenched it away, hitting his leg with a sharp smack.
She stood up and there were tears in her eyes. “You really can be an asshole, John,” she said in disgust. “Anyway, the doctor is here. You need to talk to someone.”
He shrugged.
When she returned, he started to howl in laughter. Big, and tentacled and barely fitting through the doorway, D’Argo carried a black medical bag and wore an ill-fitting white lab coat and a reflective light on his head. Katralla turned to him in annoyance. “See, he’s been like this since he woke up,” she pointed at John, insistent. “I think something in his head got damaged.”
Tears of laughter ran down his face, but the hilarity broke off quickly as D’Argo set the bag down on the bed and proceeded towards John with a flashlight. John scooted back towards the head of the bed in a repeat of his earlier response, “Uh, no dude, I don’t think so.”
“John,” said D’Argo patiently, “It’s going to be okay. Jenny said you’d been disoriented and scattered, but that happens after an accident. You hit your head pretty hard.”
Jenny, he mouthed looking at Katralla and D’Argo nodded, inching closer. John feinted and rolled off the bed. “Sorry, dude, you’re not even human.”
He was quick, but his wife’s foot caught him up. He tripped, stumbling and was grabbed by a large Luxan hand.
“I’m so sorry Dr. Cox,” she said in exasperation. “I think we’re going to have to take him to the hospital.”
The giggling returned, accompanied by a wash of heat and John, sweating, shaking and trying desperately to slide out of his friend’s grasp, just yelled,” I don’t think so. I’m not going to any hospital.”
He lashed out, hitting D’Argo in the gut and was promptly dashed against the floor, his head ricocheting off end of the bed with a thump.
They loaded him into the car, everything a haze of movement and motion and earthlike scenery. “Not Earth, not the Royal Planet, not Moya, so where am I. Can’t be the ancients. Why would they care after all this time, not Maldis, same deal, so maybe Scorpy?” he mumbled to himself, trying to sort things out as D’Argo drove.
He was surprised to find himself in a small, very unhospitalish waiting room filled with the tinkling of fountains and chimes, and when the receptionist ushered him into another room filled with shades of pinks and greys, and whites, he stood under the ceiling fan, ignoring the white couch, and let the breeze blow over him. Katralla and D’Argo – he refused to think of them by their Bizarro names, although he was definitely gonna be calling D. Dr. Cox should he ever get back to the Royal Planet. –stood guard over him as he was shepherded into the office and it didn’t take him long to figure out that he’d been sent to a shrink, which was ok with him. He wanted to see what would happen next on this carnival. This was wretched and strange, but no stranger than a lost love, complete with a teenager and an army showing up on his doorstep.
“John,” he heard Scorpy say and just shook his head. That monstrosity he’d be happy to give away.
“What do you want Scorp?” he asked lazily, entranced by the blades of the fan. “I can’t figure out what you’d want from me, aside from wormholes, and I have no idea how you figured out I was awake.”
He straightened his neck, and looked shrewdly at Scorpy, sitting primly on the edge of the white couch. “Unless I’m still a statue, unless Aeryn and D. and the kid and that whole creepy rebel army are part of this illusion and you really are trying to get wormhole knowledge from me.”
He glared at Scorpius. “Is that it?” he asked, his voice getting more and more shrill as he moved closer to his nemesis. “All of this has been a big game and I’m still all carbonized out, waiting for the big old thaw. Aeryn is still gone, and I’m still in that freaking palace?”
He got all the way to Scorpius, and shoved against the black carapace of his suit. “Tell me what you’re doing to me,” he demanded. Scorpius grabbed his hand, wrenching it away from him, and hissed back. “ I need you to focus, John. You need to get away, you need to listen to me.”
John started to laugh again, yanking his hand back, “Like I’d listen to anything you had to say, you freak,”
He was interrupted by a familiar, feminine voice behind him. “Who are you talking to Mr. Crichton?”
He whirled around, and a smile broke out over his face. “Chi,” he said softly. “My girl in grey. Damn I’m glad you’re here.”
Chiana shook her head, her white hair settling back into place and smoothed her long pink robes. “My name is Dr. White,” she said. “I’m a psychic healer. And you didn’t tell me who you were talking to? Do I have a ghost?”
John just looked at her and then shrugged. “You can’t see him, then?”
She shook her head again. “ I just see you,” she repeated.
He smiled softly at her. “It’s okay, Pip. It’s good to see you anyway.”
She glided towards him. “Mr. Crichton, why don’t you have a seat,” she suggested.
She gestured towards the couch, and he caught her hand, turning her palm over and pressing a kiss into it. “You’re awfully pale, Doc,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” she said, sinking down next to him and carefully extracting her chalky white fingers.
“Mmm, nothing much. Just losing my mind. Trying to figure out who’s messing with me and how I can get them to stop.”
She looked at him intently. “Would you like me to cleanse your aura?”
“Honey, is that a euphemism for something,” he snickered. “ ‘sides, that sounds more like Zhaan’s line.”
She looked taken a back, her black eyes glittering. “Mr. Crichton, if I wanted to have sex with you, I’d ask.”
His grin widened. “ I bet you would.”
She tried to look stern. “Your wife and your physician brought you here knowing that I’d been able to help Katherine Knox deal with some of her emotional strain. You can trust me.”
“She can’t have babies, right?” he said, remembering. The Chiana lookalike just regarded him stonily.
“Yeah, yeah, client confidentiality.” He waved his hands at the idea. “Must be something in my head that just can’t deal with all this.”
“I can help you,” she emphasized, “but you have to tell me what you think is going on?”
He looked at her closely, the resemblance so strong, but it wasn’t enough. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything.”
He looked up at the ceiling again, “I don’t know anything Scorp,” he yelled. “They’re just as big a mystery to me as ever. I don’t have any idea how to make you a wormhole. If I did, I’d have told you when you put me in the chair.”
She continued to stare at him, open-mouthed. “You got a back door to this place?” he asked. She got up and headed for the door.
“I think maybe Dr. Cox should give you a sedative,” she said.
“Cool,” he replied.
As soon as she closed the door, he sprang up, ducking into the corridor. Engaged in conversation in the lobby, none of his keepers saw him make a surreptitious exit from the office and the building.
The air felt real, not heaviy and thicklike the air on the Royal Planet. It was warm and breezy, very springlike. The Florida humidity was unobtrusive, It felt like home.
“Nice detail guys,” he murmured. “I never really thought about the atmosphere.”
He walked down the street, watching the people as they went about their make believe day, and headed into a local park.
Unsurprisingly, he saw a familiar face sitting on a bench, watching a host of school age children play on the swings. “Mind if I sit her,” he asked DK’s pretend wife. She was so damned beautiful here in the daylight, glossy hair and wide grey eyes, and Levi’s which he’d have sold his soul to give to her sixteen cycles ago.
He’d never seen that look on Aeryn Sun’s face, though. She been unhappy, angry, frustrated, and amazed, but he’d never seen her wistful, and even knowing that this was a fantasy, his gut twisted in sympathy for her.
“No,” she said, her whiskey/chocolate voice still immediate fire to his blood. She looked at him, squinting. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?” she asked.
He shrugged. “They got lost in the shuffle,” he replied. She tilted up the corner of her mouth and turned back to the children.
“What do you do during the day,” he asked, unable to keep from trying to distract her. She brushed away a loose strand of hair, and looked at him. “I’m a journalist,” she said with a grin. “You know that. It’s how we met, it’s how I met DK.”
He shook his head.
“You don’t remember?” she asked, her voice getting a little colder. “Lotsa stuff I don’t remember,” he added.
“So you don’t remember the Farscape module crashing, or meeting me in the hospital, any of that?” He shook his head again. “I don’t even know what I do.” he said. She laughed, sharp and brittle, and put her hand on his knee.
“Let’s go get drunk,” she said suddenly. He looked at her dubiously. “Thought you were pregnant?”
“Nope,” she said with false brightness. “No baby. Just another false alarm. I know a place where we’ll fit right in.”
The bar was dark, filled with smoke and pool tables and twinkling lights. Aeryn sat him at a table, and went to get drinks. She plopped the pitcher of beer on the table, poured it into the mugs and then toasted him.
“Here’s to us finally getting what we want,” she said.
The glasses clinked.
“I’m either losing my mind, or this is the strangest trip I’ve ever had,” he replied.
She looked at him questioningly, and it all spilled out, getting more and more incoherent until the pitcher was empty, and the doppleganger beside him knew all about this false reality as well as the maybe other false reality of his life in the Uncharteds and the current insanity on the Royal Planet.
She asked pointed questions, laughed at his flawed logic, but never called him insane, which finally convinced him that he hadn’t really conjured up yet another Aeryn Sun to keep him company.
“We need more beer,” she said finally, shoving the pitcher at him. He laughed, leaning over to kiss her cheek, and stumbled up to the bar.
“Another of the same,” said a smooth, clear voice from his past. He just smiled at Zhaan. “Yeah, bluie. Good to see you here. Another round if ya don’t mind.”
While he waited for her to fill the pitcher, he watched the action in the room, seeing a variety of creatures from his travels playing pool. A Sheyang, shot a ball too far and it ricocheted off the table. The critter reacted in outrage, spewing fire onto the table, which was then put out by a quick-witted Zenetan. “None of that, now,” yelled the not-Zhaan. “No smoking in the bar.”
Bemused, though wary, he was reaching for the full pitcher when a heavy grip wrapped around his arm. “Enough is enough, Crichton,” Scorpy hissed vehemently into his ear.
Crichton turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “How many times do I have to tell you to get lost, Scorp,” he slurred. “You really are a friggin’ Pookha. You’re Harvey,” he giggled to himself and tried to shrug out of the grip.
Scorpius bared his teeth. “I tried to do this the easy way,” he said and slammed his head into John’s, the world going dark around them.
He woke up back in the bed. His head still pounding, his body still overly warm and his senses blurry. His hands were tied together and looped to the head board.
D’Argo in doctor gear stood over him, a cartoonishly large needle in his hand. “Now John, no more running away. We need to figure out what’s wrong with you.”
John struggled against the bonds restraining him. “There’s nothing wrong with me except that someone’s frelling with my mind, big guy.”
D’Argo flipped the covers off of John, revealing him in his boxers. He rolled John’s lower body onto one hip and jabbed the needle into his left buttock. John yelped and struggled some more. “Get away from me,” he yelled. “Or at least tell me what’s going on.”
D’Argo turned back to the door, nodding at the entrance, and people started to file in: Anix and Katralla, who was tucked under Tyno’s arm as he nuzzled her curls. She was pregnant, round and swollen looking sympathetically at John. “You don’t mind being the father of someone else’s child, do you?” she asked.
Anix sat by him, stroking his brow sympathetically. His wife and her lover were followed by Jack and DK, loud and boisterous, arguing about his condition. Next came Chiana in her pink dress and bartender Zhaan, and the critters from the bar, crowding into the tiny room until it felt like all the air had been sucked out. Everyone talked at once, laughing and shouting around him. Someone had a bottle of whiskey, which was being passed around, and confetti and party balloons descended from the ceiling. John tried to yell through the noise and confusion, earning him little more than a pitying glance from his daughter. Music threaded through the chaos, thumping in time with his heartbeat.
Sweat poured off him and he jerked against the ropes tying him, yelling for them to shut up, to let him go, and suddenly, the crowd parted for Aeryn, actually Aeryn he thought, hair pulled back tightly, Peacekeeper intensity mixed with pain in her gaze, supported by his mother. He whimpered and shut his eyes.
“John,” his mother called. “No,” he whispered. “No, you’re dead. Please no.”
“Don’t be silly John,” he heard his sister Olivia say to him from the foot of the bed as she motioned the two women forward.
“John, you have to help her,” his mother said insistently, her voice cleaving through the chaos. Everyone else ignored them except for Anix and Olivia who watched in silence. Aeryn stumbled, clinging to Leslie, and he saw that she was covered in blood. The jeans had been replaced by a white dress, stained and clotted with blood. It clung to her, as she clung to his mother, who kept repeating, “You have to help her, John, You have to help us both.”
He wrenched his wrists toward him, succeeding in doing nothing more than scraping his flesh raw. “No, no, no, no,” he chanted at the specters, pleading with them, with whomever was perpetrating this. He could feel tears on his cheeks, hot and stinging despite his raised temperature. “Please stop this.”
Aeryn stumbled again and fell, her knees hitting the floor, pulling Leslie down beside her. “Help me, John,” she whispered.
“I can’t, I can’t,” he yelled, “Please stop this.”
Leslie left Aeryn kneeling on the floor and came over to his side, gently pushing Anix out of the way. Her hands were red and sticky with Aeryn’s blood, and she mirrored Anix’s actions, smearing the blood over his forehead in a parody of comfort, and he started shrieking and couldn’t stop, the world going red and black and starburst bright as his heart thump, thumped thumped in his chest, pounding so hard against his ribs that he could feel the bone crack. His muscles spasmed and his throat clenched, blocking his screams and everything went supernova white.
Chapter 11
They circled the tiny ship on the absolute outskirts of the town. It was hidden in foliage away from anything resembling civilization, and Aeryn wondered why the frell the Scarran hadn’t taken off, taking Crichton with him. She dismissed the thought. There were too many possibilities, and none of them were relevant to the matter at hand.
Heavily disguised as it was, there was still little doubt that it this some sort of flying vessel. Teyvn expertly directed the other commandos and they circled the pod, looking for an entrance or a weak point that would prove vulnerable to their strength and weapons. Scarrans rarely traveled by themselves, and none of them had seen this sort of ship before, but Aeryn had no doubt that this was what they were seeking. Readings on their scanners indicated high temperatures, life forms, and she prepared to decimate whomever she found inside. Quietly, carefully, they made an effort to not set off any sensors, to remain undetected and watchful and then they heard screaming. The agonized shrieks were muffled by the expert shielding covering the ship, but Aeryn still recognized the voice.
“Find the door,” she hissed at Teyvn, her stomach lurching at the obvious pain being perpetrated on Crichton. “Find the door and break it down. He’s still alive and I want to be in there now!” She hefted the neural stick, and narrowed her eyes, preparing for battle.
Teyvn nodded, and they both ignored the fact that the Scarran might kill John instantly. From the sound of the screaming, Aeryn thought that death might just be preferable and then the screaming abruptly stopped.
Teyvn signaled success, and leveled the pulse cannon at the door, blowing it open in a shower of sparks and twisted metal. He stormed into the ship, followed by Aeryn and the other commandos.
The Scarran stood in the center of a complicated array of monitors and machines. He looked puzzled and angry, glancing back and forth between the invaders and the body of John Crichton, which was twisting and spasming on the floor. The Scarran growled menacingly, sending a heat blast out at Teyvn. The other commandoes fired their pulse rifles at him and he transferred the deadly beam of heat towards them.
Looking at John, shuddering and streaked with blood and sweat, hand wrapped uselessly around his pulse pistol, Aeryn darted under the stream of pulse fire, surprising the Scarran by ending up directly in front of him. She smiled evilly at him, and jammed the neural stick into his flesh as hard as she could. The stench of burning skin was matched by screams of the Scarran as his muscles danced and twitched much like John’s were doing. He lashed out, knocking her to the ground, but couldn’t control his motor skills enough pull out the protruding weapon.
Head ringing from the force of the blow, Aeryn struggled to her feet and rushed at her enemy, knocking him over, and driving the stick further into his gut. He struggled on his back, flopping around, desperately vying for purchase on the neural stick, and finally, foaming at the mouth, lay still, his muscles sending tiny tremors through his body.
Breathing heavily, Aeryn rested her hands on her knees and looked warily at the Scarran. She turned to her commandos, saw that they were recovering, and gestured to the creature on the ground.
“If he’s alive, secure him. I want to know if this was on purpose or a blind luck reconnaissance mission.”
The commandos hurried to obey her orders, and she dropped to her knees next to Crichton’s body.
“He’s dead, Aeryn,” Teyvn said softly.
“No,” she said. “He’s not.”
Teyvn knelt beside her, placing his hand on Crichton’s chest. “He doesn’t have a heartbeat, Captain,” he said, keeping the emotion out of his voice, trying not to look at her.
“He’s survived worse,” she said, her teeth gritted, and knocked Teyvn’s hands aside. It had been cycles, lifetimes, since she’d been trapped with John Crichton in an airless transport pod, since he’d asked her to do something she considered beyond her – not only performing a delicate repair job, but bringing him back from the dead, should it prove necessary.
She straddled his chest, knitting her fingers together, and pumping down on his heart. She stopped, tilting his head back, ignoring the sweat slicked feel of his cooling skin, pinched his nose and covered his mouth with hers, breathing for him, feeling his lungs expand under her thighs.
She repeated the action, forcing back the fear and desperation, holding onto the part of her that had survived the last 16 cycles, and continued. She could hear Teyvn vaguely, telling her to stop, to let him go, but she continued, forcing the air into his lungs, willing his heart to beat. She ignored the angry tears spilling down her cheeks, the thoughts of what she’d have to tell her daughter and simply focused on willing him back to life, and finally, his chest expanded on it’s own, and he coughed violently, rolling to the side as she instantly released him from the pressure of her weight. He coughed and shuddered, and she knelt by him, not knowing what else to do, and when he fell back, his head bouncing slightly on the floor, she cupped his cheek, said his name, and waited.
His eyes were blood shot, the blue standing out so clearly among the red lines. He looked up at her, trying to move his hand to cover hers, and coughed again. “Damn baby,” he wheezed. “That hurt like hell.”
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Date: 2003-07-25 09:58 pm (UTC)OMG! okay using both Mom and Aeryn at the end was down right evil! *shiver* Poor John. Poor Aeryn. It's never easy is it. BTW I really liked it. 8)
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Date: 2003-07-28 09:50 am (UTC)GAH! is right....
Date: 2003-07-26 08:55 am (UTC)Poor John. You are really messing with his mind , not to mention his poor head. How many times has it bounced off the floor or other surfaces?
Dr. D'Argo coming at John with a flashlight *snicker*
But I love Aeryn storming in to rescue John and then reviving him with CPR...*happy sigh*
I absolutely love how you ended chapter 11.......
His eyes were blood shot, the blue standing out so clearly among the red lines. He looked up at her, trying to move his hand to cover hers, and coughed again. “Damn baby,” he wheezed. “That hurt like hell.”
Looking forward to more chapters :-)
Re: GAH! is right....
Date: 2003-07-28 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-27 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 09:44 am (UTC)