Blue Eyes - Chapter 21 B and 22A
Sep. 11th, 2003 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowI've obviously been doing a lot of bitching and moaning about my writing lately, and the complaints still stand. However, at least I've gotten the plot back on track, sort of. So, a little distraction for anyone looking for such a thing today. Oh, and the last paragraph of 22A. That will change, it just got a little out of hand:)
“How’s your head, D?”
D’Argo curled up his lip, shot back a vile of a viscous blue substance.
“My only consolation,” he said, “is that Teyvn still has to supervise the road crew. He will be more miserable today than I will.”
“That’s a hell of a boyfriend you got there, D’Argo,” John said, smirking at him.
“Oh, shut up Crichton. I’ve been up for frelling arns, already dealt with Aeryn, the Empress, and the gaggle of disgruntled lieutenants who were starting to like life planet-side since they hadn’t been shot at for over a monen, and in fact, had to haul Anix out of bed so that she’d make it to her duty shift on time because I’m not going to break up one more argument between her and Aeryn. Next time, I’ll let Teyvn beat the dren out of you.”
“All right, you win. I did have a better morning.” He tried to fight back the tiny grin, and D’Argo just hissed at him.
“Gimmee a break, D’Argo. I know, I know, but I just can’t help it.”
“That’s the problem,” D’Argo groused, “You two never could.”
The smile had completely disappeared from John’s face. “Seven days, huh?”
D’Argo nodded, “ And our troops are heading out to cover the planet this afternoon, which will leave the palace vulnerable for several solar days. I don’t like this, but Aeryn’s right, we have to do what we still can.”
“She’s completely committed to this rebellion, isn’t she?” John said, not really making it a question.
“Completely. And you are married. Let it go John. Let her go.”
“Yeah. I know, I do know, D. Stop looking at me like that. Can I do anything to help?” he asked, dodging the question.
D’Argo looked at him shrewdly. “Do you remember anything about Prowler maintenance? It’s that or hauling and clearing with the other troops.”
“Sign me up for Prowler duty then.”
D’Argo left Crichton with the techs, who actually put him to work on a variety of communications projects, their own focus shifting abruptly from rebuilding a structure to creating stable patches for the weaponry and civilian communications.
The other troops were preparing to scour the rest of the planet, landing in the barren lands and the smaller villages and checking for breaches, and trying to gather further intelligence. They’d been doing this work off and on since the rebel battalion had driven off the Peacekeepers, but so much work had been needed to restore the basic necessities, to triage the situation, that the efforts had been half-hearted at best.
D'Argo got all of the units out several arns before the change in duty shifts, which had also been restructured to accommodate the new schedule, and was about to com Teyvn and relieve him of road crew supervision when his com blared to life with the frantic voice of a young tech.
“Captain D’Argo,” the man squeaked. “Something’s wrong with Crichton.”
He was frozen when D'Argo got there, sitting at the makeshift map array, eyes transfixed, jaw slack. His arms were covered in numbers and symbols. Then he started to frantically write, the symbols blooming on his forearm.
“He’s been like that for the past arn,” the tech said, incredibly nervous. “He was helping us with the com array, splicing and such, and then Jeesa sent him over to the panel that monitors flight vectors and he started to sort of drift. And then,” the young tech paused, uncertain. Crichton had worked with the techs as well as the commandos over the past few weekens when they needed extra hands. He was well liked if considered a little strange.
“And then,” D’Argo prompted, fighting for patience. The tech swallowed heavily, and shook his head.
“It’s probably nothing, a mistake or a test,” he said, trying for confident, but ending up sounding desperate.
“Kelvis, if you don’t tell me this instant I will rip your arm out of it’s socket,” D’Argo said as pleasantly as possible.
The tech got a shade paler and licked his lips. “He tried to send some sort of signal, but it didn’t go anywhere,” he hastened to assure him.
“What kind of signal?” D’Argo asked, contemplating just how much damage he could do to Kelvis while leave him functional.
“Peacekeeper signal,” Kelvis said, voice small and tight. “He was broadcasting Peacekeeper signals, but they were old codes, not in use anymore. They wouldn’t go anywhere, noone would even recognize them anymore.”
Cold, heavy fear tightened in D’Argo’s chest as he looked over at his friend, lost in something that no one around him could see. “Did you stop the signal?”
Kelvis nodded.
“Did you ask him about it?” He shrugged, “Crichton just laughed and looked puzzled, said he must have just pushed the right buttons at the right time, but them this started,” he said, gesturing at the human. “That’s why I called you.”
“Alright.” D’Argo tapped his com. “Aeryn, we have a new problem.”
***
“We are not locking him up,” she said, pacing back and forth in the tiny room they were using as a makeshift HQ.
“Agreed,” said D’Argo, “but we don’t have any guards to spare right now.”
“Guys, you get that I can hear you right.” John waved at them, eyes furrowed, exhaustion washing his features. They ignored him and he slumped back into the chair, bracing the top of his head against the wall behind him.
“Kelvis said they were old signals, that no one used them anymore. It’s probably nothing.”
Aeryn looked disbelievingly at D’Argo. “Of course they’re old signals, he’s been frozen for 16 cycles. Things have changed a little,” she said disgustedly.
“I didn’t send any kind of message,” John said, staring at the ceiling.
“Kelvis says you did,” Aeryn growled. “Even if you didn’t mean to.”
She turned back to D’Argo. “What if it’s not the first time?” she asked, throat clenching around the question. “What if Be’Ann didn’t send those transmissions?”
“We know she was a spy,” D’Argo responded heavily. “I suppose it’s possible that John could have sent some of the transmissions we picked up, but he didn’t open up the hole, he hasn’t sabotaged anything.”
“Anything that we know of,” Aeryn said, slamming her fist down on the table in frustration.
“Goddammit,” John yelled, standing up and moving towards her, shoving at her shoulder. “I am right here, Aeryn. Ask me if I did anything wrong!”
She whirled on him, shoving him back and going with him until he hit the wall, her arm under his throat and eyes dark with menace. “You wouldn’t remember it Crichton. So it doesn’t matter if I ask you or not,” she hissed.
D’Argo grabbed her shoulder, jerked her off of John who grabbed her arm when she turned angrily on D’’Argo.
“Aeryn,” he said sharply, shaking her arm. “Do you really think I’d do anything to endanger any of you, risk any of the people on this planet?”
She was as jittery as she’d been that morning, and the desire was still there, to soothe her, bring her down, so he held onto her arm, fingers digging into her flesh and she swallowed some of the anger and looked at him. “You wouldn’t know John, not if there’s something in your head that’s controlling you.”
His fingers slipped away, and dragged his thumb over his lip, “What do you mean, something controlling me?” he asked carefully.
Aeryn glanced at D’Argo, who sighed heavily and nodded. “Neural tech,” he said. “Scorpius has been experimenting with it for cycles. “
John pressed his lips together into a tight, white line. “And?” he asked flatly.
“He could have put something in your head,” Aeryn said softly, “when you were in the Aurora chair. You’ve been seeing him, right?”
John nodded once, sharply.
“It could be a neural chip, he was looking for wormhole tech, he could have been trying an alternate means of accessing it, and we would never have known.”
“And how, exactly, do you know this now?” he asked, cold and reserved.
Another exchange of glances, and then D’Argo quietly answered him. “For awhile, the Peacekeepers were experimenting with neural harnassing of prisoners, spies, seeing if they could control their movements with the tech.”
“Did it work?”
D’Argo nodded reluctantly, “For awhile, and then the subjects started to lose it. Went crazy, killed themselves, sometimes tried to kill those around them. That’s how we found most of them. They were uncontrollable, insane.”
“John,” Aeryn started softy, but he was laughing, bitter and frenzied.
“That’s fucking brilliant. I really am losing my mind, and you guys didn’t even bother to tell me. That’s really frelling great.”
“John,” she tried again, reaching out to him, but he slapped her hand a way.
“Leave me the fuck alone, Aeryn,” he snarled, “Unless your worried that I’m a danger to those around me, then lock me the fuck up.” He crossed his arms, eyes narrowed in anger and hurt, the underlying fear making him shake.
“Fine,” she said, jaw set, determined “Until I find someone to watch you, I’m quarantining you to the medical area. If the physician has time, he can examine you further, although I doubt they have the equipment to find a neural chip. I’ll let you know what I’ve decided after that.”
“Fine,” he responded. She nodded to D’Argo and left.
“I’m sorry, John,” he said, and indicated that he’d follow him out.
Chapter 22 A
As it turned out, he couldn’t be locked into the medical facility right away. When they arrived, the doctor was in a flurry and a grim faced Tyno was standing outside the doorway, hands clenched. When John saw him, his knees felt loose, watery and he stopped in place. This day had already been too much, and Tyno’s presence, the closed door, could only mean one thing.
“She lost the child,” Tyno said woodenly. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” John said, trying to get his voice to work. “Me too.”
He didn’t know what to do, whether to approach the councilor or remain distant, but instinct won out and he put his hand on the other man’s shoulder.
“Is she gonna be okay?” he asked and Tyno nodded, the lines around his eyes deepening with worry.
“They say this will help, that she’ll wake up in the next day or so, once all of her body’s systems can concentrate on healing her.”
John let go of Tyno, and slumped down the wall to sit on the floor. He looked up at D’Argo who’s gaze was full of sympathy for the two men.
“I’m not going anywhere, D. Tell Aeryn I’m contained for now.”
“John,” he started, but Crichton shook his head. “She’s doin’ what she needs to do, bro.”
And waved his friend off. Tyno finally gave in to his own exhaustion and sagged down next to John. The two men sat in silence until the doctor opened the door and announced that they could see the princess.
John stood, held out his hand to help Tyno up, but the Councilor just shook his head.
“I’ve known her since we were children,” he said absently, “and we always thought we’d be together.”
He looked at his hands, but then abruptly changed the subject. “You made the right decision,” he added.
“We need her now. Novia is too caught up in the legacy of this planet, too angry at the Peacekeepers and the rebels to make the kind of decisions that will protect us, allow us to still have a dynasty. Katralla can do that.”
“Yeah, I think she can.” John agreed absently, thoughts of holding his infant daughter in his arms still at the front of his mind.
Harvey had the good sense to stay away over the next few arns, and while the wormholes teased at the edge of his consciousness, he ignored their pull, concentrated instead on the woman in front of him.
They’d stood next to each other for 16 cycles, the time an odd, foggy blur, punctuated with visits from walking, talking people, gatherings of the senate and royal events. Through it all had been Katralla’s calm, steadying presence, explaining things to him that he didn’t understand, talking of the future, their child, and her dreams for her people. They’d become friends through the strange technology that encased their molecules, allowing them to communicate, but not to move, time dissipating into something only semi-real. Talk of their daughter tied them together, and now as he sat holding her hand, stroking the translucent skin over her fine bones, he felt his cheeks damp from the loss and brushed the moisture away with the back of his hand.
“There will be other babies,” he whispered to her, not seeing much comfort in that, but also not knowing what else to say.
He heard a soft knock on the door, and said,” Come in,” without turning around.
He’d know Aeryn’s step, or D’Argo’s, and in fact recognized the light tread of booted feet next to him and was unsurprised to feel Anix’s slim hand on his arm. She squatted down beside him and then, groaning a little, got up and found a chair.
He continued to stroke Katralla’s hand, but looked at Anix out of the corner of his eye. “How you doing, Anna?”
She curled her lip up, and then rubbed her temple with a scratched hand. “My head hurts like frell and I moved several tons of rock from one place to another today. How about you?”
He gave a half laugh. “Morning started out pretty good except for the hangover, spliced some cable, fogged out, apparently broadcast some sort of PK distress signal and your mom sent me to my room.”
“Cool,” she said, giving him a sly look. “Glad to see I’m not the only one on her bad side right now.”
John smiled at her, a genuine smile this time. “Aeryn’s not mad at you kid. She gave you what you asked for.”
Anix fiddled with the scab on her thumb. “I wanted to be a soldier,” she emphasized, “not move rock.” John laughed.
“The other guys are moving rock too,” he said.
She shrugged in disgust. “She did it on purpose. She thinks she’s teaching me a lesson.”
“She loves you. She wants what’s best for you.” He said. “You’re her daughter, and she wants to protect you.”
“She wants me to do what she tells me to do,” Anix grumbled and John chortled again.
“Yeah, well honey, that’s Aeryn. She wants everyone to do what she tells them to.” Anix rolled her eyes, and then rolled her shoulders back, trying to work out the kinks.
“How long do you have to stay here,” she asked. “Technically, until someone comes to get me,” he replied. “I’m hoping that happens sometime before you all pull out.”
The girl’s blue eyes clouded at that. “It’s always like this,” she said. “We start to settle somewhere, meet new people, make friends, and then we leave.”
“I don’t think your Mom is all that excited to be leaving this soon either,” he replied, but she just shook her head. “Of course she is. The rebellion is the most important thing in the universe, to her. She’s probably been going crazy stuck on this planet for this long.”
John smiled at her, but stayed silent. Anix was upset with her mother on a variety of fronts and he was fairly certain that he couldn’t change her mind, but then in that way that he was starting to see as so representative of her, she shifted from being a disgruntled teenager to concerned adult.
“D’Argo told me that Katralla lost the child. I’m so sorry Crichton.” She squeezed his forearm shyly.
“Thanks, kid”
“Was it a male or a female,” she asked, and then quickly amended, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any right to ask you that.”
John patted her knee with his free hand. “”s okay. It was going to be a little girl. Probably with big blue eyes just like you.” He gave her a small half smile. “That’s why they wanted me, because Katralla’s brother had poisoned her DNA and she hadn’t found anyone compatible. It was a big deal for these culture, that she be married and be able to pass on the throne to her kid.”
“Your kid,” she said. “Yeah, my kid.”
“She’d have been a hybrid, then? Human/Sebacean?”
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“Probably the first one,” she continued thoughtfully. “She’d have been unique.”
John felt his jaw tightening at that phrasing, but he kept his smile in place for Anix, and then he looked at her shrewdly, dark hair pulled back, her profile like a blurry version of Aeryn’s and then she cocked her head, smiled at him and he bit down on his lower lip.
“Unique,” he said, softly. “Yeah.” He squeezed her hand again. “Hopefully, if we figure out a way to survive this war, we’ll have other babies.”
“You’re going to stay here, then.” She looked back down at her hands.
“I don’t know, hon. It looks like it,” he replied with a sigh.
“Do you want to stay here?” she asked shyly. “You could come with us. You could bring Katralla,” and then when he barked out a sharp laugh, she blushed.
“Or not,” she muttered. “You and my mom,” she started to say, and John felt his own cheeks starting to burn. “You’re friends.”
“We are friends,” he said. “She’s very important to me. So are you. So is D’Argo.”
She raised her eyebrow at that, reminding him so much of Aeryn that he blushed more deeply and tried to backpedal.
“Not that kind of friend,” he said and she looked at him shrewdly, but didn’t say anything else on the subject.
And he was incredibly grateful to not have to explain to Aeryn’s daughter that, “Yeah, I’ve spent some of the best hours of my life the past few days screwing your mom. And if she gave me a chance, I’d keep her in bed for the rest of our natural lives, or at least never get further than five or ten feet away from her, and yeah, I’m married to this nice lady in a coma here, who just miscarried our child so that she could wake up and help us not get pulverized by the intergalactic space Nazis or worse, and then of course, there’s you, and that thought that just slid into place in my brain, but I’m just gonna leave that one alone because well, your mom seems to be keeping some things close to the vest these days, and one of them might be that I’m about to go Night of the Living dead on everyone around me, and one of them might be something else entirely.”
But he didn’t say any of that, merely looked at her, gawking and then snapped his mouth shut.
“How’s your head, D?”
D’Argo curled up his lip, shot back a vile of a viscous blue substance.
“My only consolation,” he said, “is that Teyvn still has to supervise the road crew. He will be more miserable today than I will.”
“That’s a hell of a boyfriend you got there, D’Argo,” John said, smirking at him.
“Oh, shut up Crichton. I’ve been up for frelling arns, already dealt with Aeryn, the Empress, and the gaggle of disgruntled lieutenants who were starting to like life planet-side since they hadn’t been shot at for over a monen, and in fact, had to haul Anix out of bed so that she’d make it to her duty shift on time because I’m not going to break up one more argument between her and Aeryn. Next time, I’ll let Teyvn beat the dren out of you.”
“All right, you win. I did have a better morning.” He tried to fight back the tiny grin, and D’Argo just hissed at him.
“Gimmee a break, D’Argo. I know, I know, but I just can’t help it.”
“That’s the problem,” D’Argo groused, “You two never could.”
The smile had completely disappeared from John’s face. “Seven days, huh?”
D’Argo nodded, “ And our troops are heading out to cover the planet this afternoon, which will leave the palace vulnerable for several solar days. I don’t like this, but Aeryn’s right, we have to do what we still can.”
“She’s completely committed to this rebellion, isn’t she?” John said, not really making it a question.
“Completely. And you are married. Let it go John. Let her go.”
“Yeah. I know, I do know, D. Stop looking at me like that. Can I do anything to help?” he asked, dodging the question.
D’Argo looked at him shrewdly. “Do you remember anything about Prowler maintenance? It’s that or hauling and clearing with the other troops.”
“Sign me up for Prowler duty then.”
D’Argo left Crichton with the techs, who actually put him to work on a variety of communications projects, their own focus shifting abruptly from rebuilding a structure to creating stable patches for the weaponry and civilian communications.
The other troops were preparing to scour the rest of the planet, landing in the barren lands and the smaller villages and checking for breaches, and trying to gather further intelligence. They’d been doing this work off and on since the rebel battalion had driven off the Peacekeepers, but so much work had been needed to restore the basic necessities, to triage the situation, that the efforts had been half-hearted at best.
D'Argo got all of the units out several arns before the change in duty shifts, which had also been restructured to accommodate the new schedule, and was about to com Teyvn and relieve him of road crew supervision when his com blared to life with the frantic voice of a young tech.
“Captain D’Argo,” the man squeaked. “Something’s wrong with Crichton.”
He was frozen when D'Argo got there, sitting at the makeshift map array, eyes transfixed, jaw slack. His arms were covered in numbers and symbols. Then he started to frantically write, the symbols blooming on his forearm.
“He’s been like that for the past arn,” the tech said, incredibly nervous. “He was helping us with the com array, splicing and such, and then Jeesa sent him over to the panel that monitors flight vectors and he started to sort of drift. And then,” the young tech paused, uncertain. Crichton had worked with the techs as well as the commandos over the past few weekens when they needed extra hands. He was well liked if considered a little strange.
“And then,” D’Argo prompted, fighting for patience. The tech swallowed heavily, and shook his head.
“It’s probably nothing, a mistake or a test,” he said, trying for confident, but ending up sounding desperate.
“Kelvis, if you don’t tell me this instant I will rip your arm out of it’s socket,” D’Argo said as pleasantly as possible.
The tech got a shade paler and licked his lips. “He tried to send some sort of signal, but it didn’t go anywhere,” he hastened to assure him.
“What kind of signal?” D’Argo asked, contemplating just how much damage he could do to Kelvis while leave him functional.
“Peacekeeper signal,” Kelvis said, voice small and tight. “He was broadcasting Peacekeeper signals, but they were old codes, not in use anymore. They wouldn’t go anywhere, noone would even recognize them anymore.”
Cold, heavy fear tightened in D’Argo’s chest as he looked over at his friend, lost in something that no one around him could see. “Did you stop the signal?”
Kelvis nodded.
“Did you ask him about it?” He shrugged, “Crichton just laughed and looked puzzled, said he must have just pushed the right buttons at the right time, but them this started,” he said, gesturing at the human. “That’s why I called you.”
“Alright.” D’Argo tapped his com. “Aeryn, we have a new problem.”
***
“We are not locking him up,” she said, pacing back and forth in the tiny room they were using as a makeshift HQ.
“Agreed,” said D’Argo, “but we don’t have any guards to spare right now.”
“Guys, you get that I can hear you right.” John waved at them, eyes furrowed, exhaustion washing his features. They ignored him and he slumped back into the chair, bracing the top of his head against the wall behind him.
“Kelvis said they were old signals, that no one used them anymore. It’s probably nothing.”
Aeryn looked disbelievingly at D’Argo. “Of course they’re old signals, he’s been frozen for 16 cycles. Things have changed a little,” she said disgustedly.
“I didn’t send any kind of message,” John said, staring at the ceiling.
“Kelvis says you did,” Aeryn growled. “Even if you didn’t mean to.”
She turned back to D’Argo. “What if it’s not the first time?” she asked, throat clenching around the question. “What if Be’Ann didn’t send those transmissions?”
“We know she was a spy,” D’Argo responded heavily. “I suppose it’s possible that John could have sent some of the transmissions we picked up, but he didn’t open up the hole, he hasn’t sabotaged anything.”
“Anything that we know of,” Aeryn said, slamming her fist down on the table in frustration.
“Goddammit,” John yelled, standing up and moving towards her, shoving at her shoulder. “I am right here, Aeryn. Ask me if I did anything wrong!”
She whirled on him, shoving him back and going with him until he hit the wall, her arm under his throat and eyes dark with menace. “You wouldn’t remember it Crichton. So it doesn’t matter if I ask you or not,” she hissed.
D’Argo grabbed her shoulder, jerked her off of John who grabbed her arm when she turned angrily on D’’Argo.
“Aeryn,” he said sharply, shaking her arm. “Do you really think I’d do anything to endanger any of you, risk any of the people on this planet?”
She was as jittery as she’d been that morning, and the desire was still there, to soothe her, bring her down, so he held onto her arm, fingers digging into her flesh and she swallowed some of the anger and looked at him. “You wouldn’t know John, not if there’s something in your head that’s controlling you.”
His fingers slipped away, and dragged his thumb over his lip, “What do you mean, something controlling me?” he asked carefully.
Aeryn glanced at D’Argo, who sighed heavily and nodded. “Neural tech,” he said. “Scorpius has been experimenting with it for cycles. “
John pressed his lips together into a tight, white line. “And?” he asked flatly.
“He could have put something in your head,” Aeryn said softly, “when you were in the Aurora chair. You’ve been seeing him, right?”
John nodded once, sharply.
“It could be a neural chip, he was looking for wormhole tech, he could have been trying an alternate means of accessing it, and we would never have known.”
“And how, exactly, do you know this now?” he asked, cold and reserved.
Another exchange of glances, and then D’Argo quietly answered him. “For awhile, the Peacekeepers were experimenting with neural harnassing of prisoners, spies, seeing if they could control their movements with the tech.”
“Did it work?”
D’Argo nodded reluctantly, “For awhile, and then the subjects started to lose it. Went crazy, killed themselves, sometimes tried to kill those around them. That’s how we found most of them. They were uncontrollable, insane.”
“John,” Aeryn started softy, but he was laughing, bitter and frenzied.
“That’s fucking brilliant. I really am losing my mind, and you guys didn’t even bother to tell me. That’s really frelling great.”
“John,” she tried again, reaching out to him, but he slapped her hand a way.
“Leave me the fuck alone, Aeryn,” he snarled, “Unless your worried that I’m a danger to those around me, then lock me the fuck up.” He crossed his arms, eyes narrowed in anger and hurt, the underlying fear making him shake.
“Fine,” she said, jaw set, determined “Until I find someone to watch you, I’m quarantining you to the medical area. If the physician has time, he can examine you further, although I doubt they have the equipment to find a neural chip. I’ll let you know what I’ve decided after that.”
“Fine,” he responded. She nodded to D’Argo and left.
“I’m sorry, John,” he said, and indicated that he’d follow him out.
Chapter 22 A
As it turned out, he couldn’t be locked into the medical facility right away. When they arrived, the doctor was in a flurry and a grim faced Tyno was standing outside the doorway, hands clenched. When John saw him, his knees felt loose, watery and he stopped in place. This day had already been too much, and Tyno’s presence, the closed door, could only mean one thing.
“She lost the child,” Tyno said woodenly. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” John said, trying to get his voice to work. “Me too.”
He didn’t know what to do, whether to approach the councilor or remain distant, but instinct won out and he put his hand on the other man’s shoulder.
“Is she gonna be okay?” he asked and Tyno nodded, the lines around his eyes deepening with worry.
“They say this will help, that she’ll wake up in the next day or so, once all of her body’s systems can concentrate on healing her.”
John let go of Tyno, and slumped down the wall to sit on the floor. He looked up at D’Argo who’s gaze was full of sympathy for the two men.
“I’m not going anywhere, D. Tell Aeryn I’m contained for now.”
“John,” he started, but Crichton shook his head. “She’s doin’ what she needs to do, bro.”
And waved his friend off. Tyno finally gave in to his own exhaustion and sagged down next to John. The two men sat in silence until the doctor opened the door and announced that they could see the princess.
John stood, held out his hand to help Tyno up, but the Councilor just shook his head.
“I’ve known her since we were children,” he said absently, “and we always thought we’d be together.”
He looked at his hands, but then abruptly changed the subject. “You made the right decision,” he added.
“We need her now. Novia is too caught up in the legacy of this planet, too angry at the Peacekeepers and the rebels to make the kind of decisions that will protect us, allow us to still have a dynasty. Katralla can do that.”
“Yeah, I think she can.” John agreed absently, thoughts of holding his infant daughter in his arms still at the front of his mind.
Harvey had the good sense to stay away over the next few arns, and while the wormholes teased at the edge of his consciousness, he ignored their pull, concentrated instead on the woman in front of him.
They’d stood next to each other for 16 cycles, the time an odd, foggy blur, punctuated with visits from walking, talking people, gatherings of the senate and royal events. Through it all had been Katralla’s calm, steadying presence, explaining things to him that he didn’t understand, talking of the future, their child, and her dreams for her people. They’d become friends through the strange technology that encased their molecules, allowing them to communicate, but not to move, time dissipating into something only semi-real. Talk of their daughter tied them together, and now as he sat holding her hand, stroking the translucent skin over her fine bones, he felt his cheeks damp from the loss and brushed the moisture away with the back of his hand.
“There will be other babies,” he whispered to her, not seeing much comfort in that, but also not knowing what else to say.
He heard a soft knock on the door, and said,” Come in,” without turning around.
He’d know Aeryn’s step, or D’Argo’s, and in fact recognized the light tread of booted feet next to him and was unsurprised to feel Anix’s slim hand on his arm. She squatted down beside him and then, groaning a little, got up and found a chair.
He continued to stroke Katralla’s hand, but looked at Anix out of the corner of his eye. “How you doing, Anna?”
She curled her lip up, and then rubbed her temple with a scratched hand. “My head hurts like frell and I moved several tons of rock from one place to another today. How about you?”
He gave a half laugh. “Morning started out pretty good except for the hangover, spliced some cable, fogged out, apparently broadcast some sort of PK distress signal and your mom sent me to my room.”
“Cool,” she said, giving him a sly look. “Glad to see I’m not the only one on her bad side right now.”
John smiled at her, a genuine smile this time. “Aeryn’s not mad at you kid. She gave you what you asked for.”
Anix fiddled with the scab on her thumb. “I wanted to be a soldier,” she emphasized, “not move rock.” John laughed.
“The other guys are moving rock too,” he said.
She shrugged in disgust. “She did it on purpose. She thinks she’s teaching me a lesson.”
“She loves you. She wants what’s best for you.” He said. “You’re her daughter, and she wants to protect you.”
“She wants me to do what she tells me to do,” Anix grumbled and John chortled again.
“Yeah, well honey, that’s Aeryn. She wants everyone to do what she tells them to.” Anix rolled her eyes, and then rolled her shoulders back, trying to work out the kinks.
“How long do you have to stay here,” she asked. “Technically, until someone comes to get me,” he replied. “I’m hoping that happens sometime before you all pull out.”
The girl’s blue eyes clouded at that. “It’s always like this,” she said. “We start to settle somewhere, meet new people, make friends, and then we leave.”
“I don’t think your Mom is all that excited to be leaving this soon either,” he replied, but she just shook her head. “Of course she is. The rebellion is the most important thing in the universe, to her. She’s probably been going crazy stuck on this planet for this long.”
John smiled at her, but stayed silent. Anix was upset with her mother on a variety of fronts and he was fairly certain that he couldn’t change her mind, but then in that way that he was starting to see as so representative of her, she shifted from being a disgruntled teenager to concerned adult.
“D’Argo told me that Katralla lost the child. I’m so sorry Crichton.” She squeezed his forearm shyly.
“Thanks, kid”
“Was it a male or a female,” she asked, and then quickly amended, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any right to ask you that.”
John patted her knee with his free hand. “”s okay. It was going to be a little girl. Probably with big blue eyes just like you.” He gave her a small half smile. “That’s why they wanted me, because Katralla’s brother had poisoned her DNA and she hadn’t found anyone compatible. It was a big deal for these culture, that she be married and be able to pass on the throne to her kid.”
“Your kid,” she said. “Yeah, my kid.”
“She’d have been a hybrid, then? Human/Sebacean?”
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“Probably the first one,” she continued thoughtfully. “She’d have been unique.”
John felt his jaw tightening at that phrasing, but he kept his smile in place for Anix, and then he looked at her shrewdly, dark hair pulled back, her profile like a blurry version of Aeryn’s and then she cocked her head, smiled at him and he bit down on his lower lip.
“Unique,” he said, softly. “Yeah.” He squeezed her hand again. “Hopefully, if we figure out a way to survive this war, we’ll have other babies.”
“You’re going to stay here, then.” She looked back down at her hands.
“I don’t know, hon. It looks like it,” he replied with a sigh.
“Do you want to stay here?” she asked shyly. “You could come with us. You could bring Katralla,” and then when he barked out a sharp laugh, she blushed.
“Or not,” she muttered. “You and my mom,” she started to say, and John felt his own cheeks starting to burn. “You’re friends.”
“We are friends,” he said. “She’s very important to me. So are you. So is D’Argo.”
She raised her eyebrow at that, reminding him so much of Aeryn that he blushed more deeply and tried to backpedal.
“Not that kind of friend,” he said and she looked at him shrewdly, but didn’t say anything else on the subject.
And he was incredibly grateful to not have to explain to Aeryn’s daughter that, “Yeah, I’ve spent some of the best hours of my life the past few days screwing your mom. And if she gave me a chance, I’d keep her in bed for the rest of our natural lives, or at least never get further than five or ten feet away from her, and yeah, I’m married to this nice lady in a coma here, who just miscarried our child so that she could wake up and help us not get pulverized by the intergalactic space Nazis or worse, and then of course, there’s you, and that thought that just slid into place in my brain, but I’m just gonna leave that one alone because well, your mom seems to be keeping some things close to the vest these days, and one of them might be that I’m about to go Night of the Living dead on everyone around me, and one of them might be something else entirely.”
But he didn’t say any of that, merely looked at her, gawking and then snapped his mouth shut.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 05:45 pm (UTC)That's pretty incoherent, sorry. I really like these chapters. Frell, I like the whole blooming thing.
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Date: 2003-09-11 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 08:45 pm (UTC)Hmmmm, how will they save John??
I'm loving the interaction with John and Anix.
blushing/gawking John is just too cute *g*
I've said it before, I can read stuff like this all day.
I'm enjoying all the snippets that you post.
Oh, BTW, seeing Neil Young's Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere listed as your listening to song, well, now I have to go search out my album. yes, I have that album, the vinly record, not a CD and now I have a yearning to listen to Neil Young... isn't that the album with Cowgirl in the Sand and Down By the River?? (It's been awhile since I've listened to it )
no subject
Date: 2003-09-12 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-12 07:56 pm (UTC)How cool is it that Aeryn and D'Argo already know about neural tech? At least they're somewhat prepared for Harvey's presence. I'm so curious as to what's going to happen next. Feed me, Seymour!
no subject
Date: 2003-09-14 01:05 pm (UTC)