Aeryn Soon

Aeryn Sun was beaten.
Not overcome by an enemy, not other than herself.
It was time to regroup and counter attack.
But she had chosen retreat.

Chapter One

In authoritative stride, Aeryn entered the dining room and crisply stopped. Across the room, through the space between the shelf of food containers and the grill counter, Aeryn saw Chiana. Aeryn narrowed her eyes slightly to perceive the weight in the air about Chiana. Chiana's life weighs heavily upon herself now. Somehow she had not noticed. But then again, Aeryn reflects, somehow she knew.

"Chiana."

Chiana turned and smiled, frankly glad to see her again. Yet there was a forced air to her smile. A defiance of the gravity. "Aeryn. Uh, won't you come over, I'm making some gre -"

"Do you want to find your brother?"

Chiana froze in place.

"Do you want to go find your brother?" Aeryn repeated.

"Well, yeah, but he said I shouldn't and John thi -"

"You would fight for this 'Nebari Resistance' if you did?"

Chiana made a simple, blunt, sharp nod. "Yeah mbut -"

"And even if you couldn't be with him, what would you do? If you could still fight for the resistance? Would you do it?"

"Aeryn, look, I don't know what you're getting at, I know you don't like hellos, but can we talk about it? I thought you might like some of your favo -"

"There's nothing to talk about. Answer my question."

"Aeryn. I like it here. I like Pilot, I like Moya, I like John, I like D'Argo....the zeltic, I like, well okay it isn't so great here with the trelk-Princess from Hezmona, yeah I miss Zhaan, but I like my room, I like you and even froggie can be almost tolerable. Sometimes. It isn't lik -"

"I thought everyone was 'so lame' on this ship." It was not a tease; it was flat, and Chiana detects a stab to it. Aeryn had never mentioned or even referenced what she went though at the cemetery planet before.

"Well some maybe, but they weren't here then," Chiana glibly replied. Her smirk and humor hung naked under a bald spotlight, desperate and fragile.

"Right," Aeryn impatiently cut, not in answer to what was said.

"Aeryn," Chiana walked around the barriers to confront her, but held several feet before Aeryn. "You know I wasn't - ... You know I was frelled up inside when, when I said that. You know I never really thought that of you. I just," she looks away for a moment, "I didn't know what to think, o-or feel, or do, or... I didn't know what was inside and what was out. Or what was me. I didn't... I didn't know if I survived that. Frell, it was killing me," her voice and frustration grew intense. "Don't hold that over me anymore, Aeryn, I'm warning you."

Despite the harsh shadows of the mostly dark room, Aeryn could see the tears well in Chiana's eyes. And the ghosts. So she survived. And so has the shadows of her soul's misery.

"I thought you would, you would never bring that up. Not you."

Aeryn hardly heard, struck with the lasting marks she saw in the one she thought could run from the universe and ever preserve herself from it. Could even she not run from it? Could she not entirely let go? Did the pain imprint upon the soul? Could it not be buried? Did they follow the soul like the ghosts she feels in the air and sees haunting within the quantum singularity manner of the Nebari's endlessly black and deep eyes...

The dream that died was alive in her, haunting her. Would it be so with herself?

As the Nebari approached closer, her eyes locked upon hers no matter the slightly aside tilt of her face, Aeryn feels the answer, and inside she pains for this young woman, her face so exquisite, the character of it, the flawless silk skin, gray and colorless, so beautiful in the sharp contrast of shadow and light that plays across it as she nears. A face upon this spirit so young, so free, that she suddenly feels should not rightly have known those horrors it has. One she thought impervious. One like she thought she could be as well.

She fears Chiana knows. She fears Chiana can see. That the ghosts recognize themselves in their presence.

Chiana saw more. "He is here Aeryn, he's alive, and fine. Waiting for you to get the frell back here. Why? Why Aeryn? He is alive. And he's right here," she gestured angrily at the floor.

"Your brother is alive."

"Nerri, Aeryn. I know he is. And if I didn't care thi -"

"- You're afraid."

Chiana's mouth opened, but only a slight whisper of "What?" emerged.

"You're afraid if you are together again, you might find it dead. What you loved. What you lived for."

"No. No, we'll... be fine, just together again, I'll, we'll find a way we can -"

"- You're afraid you can't go back and do it over again." She saw in Chiana's eyes that it hit somewhere. Hard.

"No. No. It's not th - ..."

Aeryn saw Chiana's searching, implacable stare suddenly refiguring the perception she'd had of her.

"We can find a way," Chiana insisted. Her determination struck a sense of pity in Aeryn. The pity was true. It was the same pity for herself. She hated it, but could not let it go.

It was a dream. And its death gave it its own life. She will carry its life and its death ever on.

"You haven't gone, Chiana. To find out. I don't know if you can find a way. I'm not sure I care. But we're going."

Perhaps Chiana can live it. Perhaps her dream can be more.

"Nuh-uh. No. No way. Not me, not you, not 'we'. 'We' aren't going anywhere," Chiana smiled, but it was somehow eerie. Haunted.

"I will be in the transport hanger. I bought a Prowler. When you are ready, we'll be leaving." Aeryn turned and strode out, as authoritatively as she had walked in.

Chiana turned and swiped all the items on the counter off, sending them, with her meal, to the floor. She screamed. It didn't ease its grip within.

Chapter Two

"No, Officer Sun. You must reconsider. There is no cause for you to leave us," Pilot entreated.
"We, Pilot. Chiana is leaving with me. That is. I think she is," Aeryn flatly informed as she hurriedly prepared the Prowler, performing the necessary maintenance which the used black-market jet was in need of.

"I do not believe she will," Pilot contradicted. He was unwilling to accept.

She understood. "I think she will, Pilot." Aeryn looked for a moment at his image on the holo screen over the workbenches beside the Prowler. "She has to. I don't want to talk about it, Pilot. There is no point. You know how we feel about you and Moya, and the others. We may meet again. That is all there is to that."

After a pensive look down for a moment, Pilot turned off the connection. Aeryn returned to work.

Her room was dark and ringingly empty, as it usually was. Chiana laid herself down on her sleeping fur. As with most of the time she spent in it, she did not sleep.

She feels the life of Moya somehow. She thought, sometimes, that sense was all that kept her here. All that kept her from a dark loneliness.

She thought of Aeryn. Unbidden, the vision comes:

She stands beside Aeryn, their pulse rifles at the ready, their black capes, one soft fabric, the other tough leather, flowed in a bitter breeze stirring the night air of the off-world colony. Aeryn was aloof. Lost in her world. But with her, if no one else. They stood over a body. Aeryn liked this man. There were also others around. She could recognize them, but she didn't care to think of them. Only Aeryn.

She was saying something to Aeryn. Something meant to be comforting. Over Aeryn's shoulder. With her forearm, Aeryn lightly struck Chiana's chest to quiet her. She told her to shut up. To keep her 'feelings talk' to herself. But as they walk sideways towards their exit, keeping eyes ahead, Aeryn stretched protectively before Chiana, and she softened her pushing at the clasp of a hand around her for security.

It turned to a grab and a push, as she shoved Aeryn out of the way the instant after a shot glances Aeryn's arm. Chiana braces with full tension and fires a volley into the unprepared lot. It scatters them, for a moment, and one falls. Aeryn probably could not see them in the dark like she could. Aeryn scrambles to the protection of a pillar several feet away and curses her.

It hurt, but in this raw state, it didn't really matter. Chiana slipped over and checked Aeryn's wound. She would heal fine, but they'll have matching scars on their right upper arms.

Aeryn's eyes were like ice. Or was it fire? "Chiana I swear, the next time you try a stunt like that I'll shoot you myself."

Chiana found herself smiling, and she paused her hasty patching in spite of Aeryn's objection, as Zhaan had once done for her: "You're welcome."

"Shut up."

"Sure. Just as soon as we talk about who did the foolishness out there," Chiana rapidly and excitedly corrected. "If I want to stand and blaze the pulse rifle like a PeaceKeeper recruitment holo, that's my stupid choice to save your flat eema. But if you hadn't gotten yourself shot making yourself a target like that, I wouldn't have had to, would I?"

Aeryn locked into Chiana's eyes. "Chiana. Shut up."

"Right," Chiana agreed, quickly taking a squat facing the edge of the pillar to defend their position.

Aeryn pulled herself up to a squat, over Chiana's tense shoulder. "That makes it six I owe your bony eema, doesn't it?"

"Seven," Chiana corrected. "And it's not bony, just very very lean."

"Seven. Right. Sure. Well," Aeryn placed her hand on Chiana's shoulder for a moment, "we'd better be getting out of here."

"Yeah," Chiana crisply agreed as they scrambled to the other side of the pillar. "Seven," Chiana echoed over her shoulder this time, "you definitely owe. You do. Seven times. Definitely," she rapidly rubbed in.

Aeryn cast an irritable look over her shoulder, then broke into a smile as she looked back around the corner again. "Chiana. Shut. Up. Don't make me tell you again", she way-less-than authoritatively lectured Chiana. "Ready?"

"Ready," Chiana echoed, placing her hand on Aeryn's shoulder as Aeryn had on hers.

And they stole into the guarded night in their defended stealth.

Chapter Four

"Yes. We will provide escort for a distance," Crais agreed.

"And Talyn understands why?"

"Yes, Aeryn. He understands."

"And he will return here as soon as he's sure he's not being followed?"

"Yes, Aeryn. He will return. You don't seriously believe I'll follow you into Nebari Territory? The Nebari destroy command carriers, never mind a single gunship, however powerful."

Aeryn blinked to herself a moment. Somehow she hadn't quite thought of their superior military advantage, which struck her as being most unlike herself.

"Unless, of course: you ask," Crais clarified.

She knows he's smiling to himself. Really not expecting a positive reply. Aeryn felt a sense of fondness for him she'd never have expected to associate with him. She smiled. "Would you escort us to Nebari Prime?" she asks, barely holding the amusement from her voice.

"Officer Sun. Aeryn. You can't be expecting -" he stopped himself; he'd taken the bait for a second. He smiled to himself. "We would be pleased to escort you to Nebari Prime, Aeryn Sun."

"Why Crais. Thank you."

"Provided, of course, your Nebari friend is actually a secret ambassador and not a top stakes Nebari fugitive as we were led to believe, provided we had been invited there, and provided some reason to believe we would survive the journey."

"With eyeballs intact," Aeryn mused to herself. "I accept you kind offer of refusal," she then spoke up.

Crais made a perfunctory bow. "You are quite welcome, Aeryn." After tapping the comm off at the console, his amused face settled to a lost, blank stare at the console.

Chiana erupted with a cry of triumph, unable to resist piping in some excitement about the explosion she saw over her shoulder as they stole away in the Prowler. The Prowler which Chiana now flew for the injured Aeryn. It took a while to get the trust built, and she still felt the pride of achieving the confidence. She never thought she'd care.
"Frell," Aeryn complained from the cramped rear seat, "can't you get D'Argo any faster?"

"Nope. Always was the problem with him."

Aeryn laughed. "So is that why you called this thing the D'Argo? I thought it was some personal dren I didn't want to know."

"Well, that and his reliability wasn't, well, and he kept running out of energy, and he was a little clumsy, and he was a fighter that kept wanting to quit and get a farm, and -"

"-And sometimes you think this Prowler wants to quit and be piece of farm equipment?"

"Yeah, only I wouldn't say that while we're depending on it."

Aeryn shook her head, lost in pain and laughter. "Chiana you are too frelling funny sometimes."

"You're just too stiff. Sometimes," Chiana replied, too wryly for Aeryn to manage being insulted.

Instead Aeryn leaned forwards and rested her forehead on Chiana's shoulder.

"That's why I got the fur shoulder pads. Never know when someone might want a spare shoulder," Chiana explained.

Aeryn lifted her head and squeezed Chiana's shoulder with a hand. "Spare is right. I'm glad you had fur over these shoulder bones." Aeryn raised then as quickly dropped a smile. She picked up in an utterly frank voice, still near Chiana shoulder. "Do you miss him? D'Argo?"

"Uh, that would be personal dren you don't want to hear about," Chiana stalled, trying to think of some way to take advantage of this. It wasn't every day Aeryn was this present and open with her.

Aeryn bapped Chiana's upper arm in a jokingly scold: "I am sorry alright? Don't get smart, brat."

"Yeah. Sometimes," Chiana replied, having decided on a difficult honesty. "Then I remember what a painful fit he was, and forget the idea," she tries enlivening it.

It worked. Aeryn laughed. It was a wonderful thing to hear, and Chiana made a point of eliciting it. "Do you?"

"No, Chiana, I don't think D'Argo would've been any better for me."

Chiana felt Aeryn's need for diverting the question. She knew the answer. Someday, maybe, when she needs to be more, more than she needs to be satisfied and secure in herself, maybe then it will work, and they may find John...

Chapter Six

Aeryn paused while checking the Prowler's fluid levels, at a memory. And how long had it been since she serviced a Prowler completely without John coming in and frelling things up at least once?

One moment he would be harmlessly checking the - what did he call that lubricant? 'Oy el' - the next pestering her over some barely perceptible wound of carelessness he wanted her to notice, or else wrecking something by accident. When he wasn't hanging on her like he wanted to be a symbiont, as D'Argo once said of Chiana. Well D'Argo learned there's more to it than being a "hitching post," as John used to call it. The John that lives here, she resolved, will have to learn she may not be his hitching post. She drew a steeling inhale.

Chapter Seven

Aeryn was what she felt best being. A soldier. And Chiana was so amazed to be so proud, seeing Aeryn so self justified, so satisfied in achieving her mission, as she stands watching Aeryn brief Nerri before the rebel assembly.

"... then the informants did not recover the holochip?" Nerri asked.

"Hardly," Chiana, beside and behind his right, couldn't resist chiming in, "they couldn't find their eemas after she got through with them, never mind a holochip. They got away, but empty handed and with a healthy respect for Special Ops Sun," Chiana wryly observed, with obvious pride and a head nod towards Aeryn.

"As we all do," Nerri praised.

"Proof the smallest minds can learn," one rebel piped up to a round of laughs.

"Hardly fair, as the mission was only a partial success," Aeryn devalued her achievement.

"Yeah, and several times more successful than we'd hoped!" Chiana enthused. "They were sure we'd never be able to plant explosives enough to blow their chemical lab off the planet, never mind make it out," she stepped between Nerri and Aeryn, to the center of the small meeting hall. "So I showed her how to crawl on knees," Chiana elaborated and demonstrated, "and still keep your hands free, and she cleared out, oh, about two dozen guards, about ten at once at one point. I was behind her, and uh she heard them, and it almost hit me, a shot, but she took it, instead, and then," she demonstrates, "blew them out of action like, like a frelling PeaceKeeper recruitment holo."

Aeryn rolled her eyes a tad, as Nerri's eyes beamed at Chiana. She was being a show off kid again, Chiana knew the looks she was raising from them. What the hezmona, it was attention, and a wonderful victory for the cause. The praise really helped Aeryn, Chiana knew. Despite the arguing, Aeryn liked her for building it, too.

Object she must, though. Aeryn had to pursue the matter into Nerri's command tent that night, just as she and Nerri were enjoying some company. There were always others around.

It was relatively cheerful, warm and colorful in Nerri's command tent, with fires in and out, colorful alien rugs and cushions. Chiana sat loosely in a petite seat of loud red, blue and yellow cushions that were just her comfy size. They just hit on a non-resistance subject when Aeryn walked in, clearly with something on her mind. Aeryn was hopeless at any pretense otherwise.

Nerri wisely gestured the company out, and they went, for a change. No one but Chiana was quite Aeryn's friend.

"Nerri," Aeryn tersely began, "I have to tell you that report was not accurate."

He blinked huge black eyes.

"Chiana misrepresented the confrontation with the guards -"

"Oh!" Nerri's face changed to its pretty, dark yet kind, sexy smile. Chiana smiled back to it, while putting her head in her hands, looking down, her fingers splayed through her mop. Embarrassed.

He made a head shift Aeryn found ambiguous; she looked to Chiana, who clearly had no problem interpreting, and even laughed.

"It was not correct that I shot down a dozen guards," Aeryn continued. "Chiana, if anyone, was the one resembling a PeaceKeeper recruitment holo, after I took a hit through my own carelessness. I could not see them, but I believe she hit two or three." She looked to Chiana for confirmation.

Chiana glanced up at her and kept a straight tone long enough to manage a reply. "That's about right, yeah, two, maybe three. The rest would have perished if they'd seen your look at me!" she dissolved into laughter.

"I believe you should get full and accurate accounts," Aeryn told Nerri while glaring to Chiana.

"Yes. Dear. Isn't she awful that way?" Nerri remarked, promptly snapping into a mimic of the demonstration of crawling Chiana had given, and then throwing a cushion at Chiana.

Chiana caught it in her teeth and shook it like a playful animal; Nerri bent before her and tugged at it, joining her in a tug of war complete with animal noises.

Aeryn almost smiled at the hilarious, playful sight, but she was simply too black in soul. She glared at Chiana when the Nebari glanced at her, and then stalked out. "Frelling child."

Chiana laughed and played a few moments, until he was done with indulging play, affectionately shoving her head and calling her hopeless. Her hand lingered on his belt as he stood up, until he stepped away to speak to someone outside. Her hand lingered in the air, slowly settling back onto her lap. After a moment she put her head in her hands again, lightly laughing, short of breath and keeping her face ducked. The tear in an eye was not only from laughing too hard.

He returned in a few minutes, taking some of her mussed up hair in his gloved fingers. "You should - why don't we get you a nice break at a good place to relax and play? Maybe your sour friend... though I can't quite picture that..." Nerri remarked out loud, as he fingered the hair. "You always go too hard, sis."

Chiana shook her head no. "No, Ner, me? Yeah, um, since when was that likely for me?"

"Sweet," he bent down, leaning his forehead right up to her head, or rather her hair, as she kept her face away. "You really have to. You never know when to cut yourself some care. You are far too overdriven. I know. I can tell when you're over strained."

"Nah I'm fine. I'm okay," she sniffed in.

Nerri detected it and tilted his head to try seeing her eyes: "You said that then, and what happened... Don't chance it. You have so much almost every day to live with, you have to take care. If that happens again -"

"- It won't, I won't let it. No, sweet, it won't," she ran her hand through the hair at the back of his head, "it won't. I'm okay. I am. I'm stronger. So much stronger, Ner. Been so much since then. You'll never know. So much to tell you. I'd love to tell you, and I will. I will someday."

And the others wandered in...

"Don't worry yourself so much, sister. Go rest and forget everything for a while. Okay? Hmm?"

"Mmm-hmm," she agreed quietly. He stood and picked up the resistance talk. She wiped her face and sets to playing the attention of anyone, if it's not too serious to play at, and controlled the laughing and the tears.

She knows the microt she stepped out, Aeryn would find her and argue. And Aeryn had to argue. But then, later, Aeryn was all the more willing to talk. It was in those moments that Chiana felt she did her best work...

Chapter Eight

It was hard to work with the sounds of him hitting and welding at the hanger entrance door in her mind. And his voice. "Dammit Aeryn if this is some kind of sick joke I swear -"
A joke. The irony was too bitter to laugh at. And her lies, that she'd break the door open eventually. Only Pilot's intervention had persuaded him not to camp at the door and return to do something else, promising John that he would be notified the microt the door was opened.

She knew she sounded a bit crazy laughing to herself. She doesn't hate him, this man. For he is one, and not a ghost of John in her mind, she knows. Yet somehow he might as well have been a ghost. He was the same man to her, as the ghost in her mind. They cannot both be there.

She had to sit. And laugh. And cry.

Chapter Nine

They bunked together to keep warm, sometimes in the same sleeping sack, sometimes, as now, in two, up against one another. It could be warmer if Aeryn were interested. No go. And Chiana wouldn't press with her. Too close. Wouldn't press that, that is. "Next monen or two we get the Krutahd Border project. Going to bust the border camps wide open," she enthused to Aeryn, a quiet whisper in the Sebacean's ear as she lay behind Aeryn, hazarding an arm over Aeryn's side. "Can't believe it's that far out. We might have to escape into the Uncharteds if they catch onto us. Hey," she scooted up more comfortably, "I didn't tell you how I had to escape out there, and Salis caught me, lucky for me I ran into you and Moya."

She had to wonder if Aeryn was awake; her training routine usually makes her tired at night, and anyway she wakes and sleeps at disciplined will. As for herself, well, hunger has her pretty wiped. She scolded herself to be more practical. Again. But she was not dozing; this was too good of a chance to plant persuasive seeds. Chiana leaned her head forwards and saw Aeryn's eyes were open. Good.

She worked her head under Aeryn's arm. "So tell me, would you really have spaced me if he hadn't been able to put up with me?"

"I never wanted to 'space' you, Chiana."

"Oh yes you did."

"Rygel might have said I did. Maybe I said it. You know I didn't mean it," Aeryn informed her.

"You didn't... ?" Chiana led.

"No. Besides, you saved my life. And his. And Moya's. And Pilot's and Talyn's. Why would you think that?"

"Jealous?"

"Oh don't be so childish. Go to sleep. For a change."

"Jealous. Yup. Definitely," Chiana persisted. "You're the one who's naive. You have to work at a thing like that, not wait for him to bust his way into your lap. So, if I hadn't ran out into the Uncharteds, the frelling officers would've had me mind frelled before I knew what way was Nebari Prime. And if I hadn -"

Aeryn grabbed Chiana into a choking head lock with her arm: "- you'd be sleeping better. Now let me get to sleep." Aeryn let go, but soon had to grin as Chiana laughed. Aeryn shoved Chiana's head off her side. "And stop talking about it. What happened, happened, Chiana. Now go to sleep."

Chiana turned over, facing away, feeling... alone. For the millionth time, she scolded herself to live with one of the men she can get.

"The Krutahd Border is in the region they call Felias?" Aeryn asked, as if to herself. "That's pretty rough territory."

Chiana's mind returned to the past, out there with Nerri, and without him... Chiana curled up. She might as well have been without him now. She was lonely for him, and could go be with him, and be an intimacy-spoiling guest between he and his latest girl. She curls tighter.

"Chiana?"

"Yeah. It can be pretty rough."

"I suppose you were there? Is there any dump or back world hole you haven't sold and stole at."

"Nope. I never miss one."

"Yeah. Well at least we're doing something more useful," Aeryn pointed out. After a moment's silence she prompted for a response: "Right?"

"Yeah. For every frelling person but us."

"Oh, shut up, Chiana. It was your idea. You wanted to help your brother."

For the millionth time, Chiana wanted to put it straight. But can't. "Yeah. My idea." Cut, she shed silent tears.

"Oh, stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Stop crying like a frelling child."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are. Do you actually think that kind of crap is going to work with me?"

She could take no more. Chiana bolted over to grab at the collar of the uniform shirt she slept in, clasping it in her fist and glaring down at a startled Aeryn, shameless of the tears streaking her face. "I am not trying to seduce you and don't blame me for trying what I know!" Chiana lashed out, although her voice shook throbbingly with fury and emotion. "And do you think you know about what works? You ran away from trying to find out what might work for you, to be what other people thought you should be and settle for what they made you, you frelling, ungrateful Sebacean drenhead! Do you think there's anything for me here? Well he doesn't need me here, he doesn't want me here, so unless you have some better idea, I'm going to find out if there's any time left to make my own place, where I chose to, preferably making the Uncharteds more welcoming to a lost acronot."

Chiana let go of her collar, her eyes burning intensely, uncaring of what that outburst frelled up, she felt she was frelling brilliant! She stood up with a nod and a smile to herself. Aeryn stared at Chiana as if she thought Chiana had gone mad.

Chiana grabbed her clothes and hurriedly dressed en route to the transport flat, ignoring the looks of a few who lifted their heads at the spectacle as she strode dexterously amongst the great hall of rolled up campers.

In delayed reaction, Aeryn bolted up, Chiana observed in a glance back.

Chapter Ten

But this was easy. It was natural, it was comfortable. With practiced ease, Aeryn calibrated the energy controls. She had never needed him, no, nor all the things that try her as he; not to do this, not to pilot her fighter into whatever may come, in contexts that were familiar, decided and immediately purposeful.
Oh, how could she not have understood Pilot? Her, born pilot as he, differing in dreams and all else, but not in being a Pilot.

She understood because she has had to, and came to; was it all John Crichton? No, it had to have been her, but without him? Would it have mattered as it did? As it does? No, and now that is done.

It was him too, it was them. It was alive; she lived it; and now she knew it dies. She will be what she was bred to be, she will find her own way to do it. It will stay special to her, within her.

There were more important things. She had to find them and apply herself to them instead. These Nebari. Chiana, she loves and hates that girl. She does respect her. But never so much as she did now. Chiana was a survivor, and as far as she was concerned, Chiana deserves to be. Surely her way, the PeaceKeeper way, serves, not destroys, such freedom to live as Chiana's. Or rather, it could, if it served the right ideal - and this she could now find. So surely it was best this way.

Chapter Eleven

Aeryn caught up to Chiana in the ruins between the camping area and the transport flat, nearly stumbling in the near total dark. "What we are doing is more important than us, Chiana."
"No. No." Chiana walked faster still and looked back over her shoulder. "This is all about everyone not being a frelling machine. Well everyone here can either do it in their life or do it because they lost theirs. Not me. Not me. I am not a frelling soldier and I'm not one of anything but me."

"Would Nerri agree with that? I very greatly doubt it!" Aeryn incredulously argued as she pursued. "You're not thinking, Chiana."

Chiana finally halted and turned to face Aeryn. "No. I am thinking. And it's been too slow. Nerri, he knows. He knows I have my own mind about things. He'll understand. That's the difference between them and me, and that's the difference between you and me. I'm here for everyone. You came here to belong with a frelling purpose, a - a gear in a machine. You just want to keep what you used to have and quit trying to be more."

"Chiana. You don't know what the frell you're talking about."

"I do. Oh, I do. And you know it." She closed the distance to several feet; Aeryn stood stock still and unreadable. "I learned... I learned you can still be yourself, through anything. You can feed your own self, if you have to. And you can appreciate what you get, and you can even let go. John wanted you to find out what yourself is, because you don't know. Even though you had him, and you thought that was it, you thought he was it, well, he isn't. And he'd tell you so. I know he would. He'd just want to be a part of whatever you are, and you be a part of him. Maybe," she closed the distance between herself and Aeryn, "maybe he still does."

Aeryn diverted her gaze away.

"How do you do it Aeryn? How do you think so much of him and not appreciate what he meant for you?" Chiana felt as though the distance between herself and Aeryn might as well have been sectors. But she reached. And it was so very hard. Especially to reach for Aeryn, especially now. But she reached. "You still might have everything, Aeryn. Everything to gain. Come with me. Come with me, and we'll look for him. We'll look for Moya."

Aeryn glanced only for an instant before looking away again.

Chiana reluctantly turned and headed for the transport flat. Just past the doorway, Aeryn roughly backed Chiana into the wall. She was too livid - lost? - for words: just a raw glare, emptiness in it. A need. Chiana recognized it somehow; and she did not resist, despite the pain of Aeryn's fierce grip on her shoulder straps. For a moment Chiana thinks maybe a little of it is for them, but the excitement was just a flash, and just hers; Aeryn let up and absently fussed one fur pad between her fingers; she was not stirred of them in such passion. Aeryn's her head sank down; was she crying?

"Thank you Chiana," a rough whisper came from Aeryn. She put her forehead into Chiana's mop. Yes she cried.

"It's okay, Aeryn, it's..." Chiana ran a comforting hand on Aeryn's back, "... it's okay, we'll, we'll find out. That's all we can do."

"How can he have survived without me there? With only D'Argo to watch him?" Aeryn wondered, following with a juicy intake that would have been funny elsewhere.

"D'Argo's probably found some sop to run off with and farm, or maybe kill him... John, he'll be fine. He might be happily hooked up on Erth, mbut he's fine, I'm sure. We'll... we'll see." Aeryn juicily sniffed again. It wrenched Chiana's heart, seeing Aeryn like this. "Frell."

"And don't call him John," Aeryn warned her.

"Oh, listen sister, you call him what you want and I'll call him what I want."

Aeryn looked at Chiana, confused. A microt later both broke into smiles. They separated and walked together towards the transports, an arm behind the other.

"Well, I'm sure you have better names then that," Chiana teased, running the tip of her tongue under her lower lip. Aeryn laughed.

"For John -"

- John! - what of John - are we getting back -

The intrusion of her conscious thought stream snapped the link. Chiana abruptly found herself in her dark, silent room. Her heart was racing, her face streaked with tears. Chiana despaired to think how she would live all that, knowing this was the future. Maybe, maybe she could do better, she struggled to think, grasping for any thread of hope. She got up feeling like a thousand pounds.

Chapter Twelve

Aeryn grabbed the wrench. Wrench! Frelling Erp term! Frelling human! She struck it against the wing of the Prowler. "Variable size triangular leverage utility!" she said out loud, willing away John Crichton's abstraction. Hurriedly she finished the adjustment, and reached for the oy el can -

She grimaced and sat down heavily. It had pervaded her everywhere.

Chapter Thirteen

Chiana approached, stealthily, the room where D'Argo must be polishing his Qualta blade. She looked in to surprise him.

And there on the bed he sat, holding hands with Jool, and kissing her tenderly, in the soft way he had kissed her, as though afraid to hurt her. He had been that way to her, and then he had hurt her, and then she had hurt him. And their kisses had ended. He would never kiss her that way again. She would take whatever she could get. Instead, she decided that she would let him get what he wanted to take.

A kiss placed on her glove, then on the arch before his door, then the dream that could not let her live his carried her away from him forever, unseen. Perhaps not long missed.

Stealthily, she left as she had come.

Chapter Fourteen

"It should be easy. It's never easy," John lamented as he walked into his room. "Well, you waited this long, Johnny, you can wait for her to break that damned doorway open." He spoke louder: "Pilot? Any luck?"
"No, Commander. The door still won't open."

He flopped on the bed, then saw his tape recorder. He sat up and picked up the recorder. 'Here's one for dad.'

He pressed record and talked for a moment or two before it stopped. Out of tape! Impossible. He had used only a bit on this side yesterday. Or was he cracking up again? He backed it a ways and played.

Chiana! "Shhhhi-, that little, sh. Damn. Chhheze. Frell! Little thief. Can't leave anyone's stuff alone. Hey Pilo-"

"- and Aeryn won't let you. It's no-" the recording was saying. John cut it off. He felt a panic within. Apprehensively, he rewound to the beginning of the side, and played.

Under the hiss he heard a sad sigh, then the brittle, breathy sound of Chiana's voice through the recorder.

"Cri - ... John. Hope you won't hate me for using your data recorder. I know I'm a frelling thief and a trelk. If you ever hear this, I- I want you to know why we had to. Once, once you told me people like you and me, we don't usually get... get what we want... I know that John. I wanted you too. And, and so does Aeryn. But we can't stay with you..."

Chapter Fifteen

Chiana broke into the hanger where John could not. Aeryn knew she would. Aeryn checked the console calibrations again. Landing in the rear seat, Chiana reaches around her alongside, and enters a correction.
"I didn't know you knew Prowler inner relay combinations," Aeryn remarked, looking aside with a smile, not quite at Chiana.

Chiana stared at Aeryn's smile a moment. "Yeah. Sometimes I surprise myself," Chiana smirked.

"Yes," Aeryn flatly agreed. "You're full of surprises."

"You're not surprised I'm here."

"No. We have to prime the Rotak emitters first." Aeryn got out and performed the task under the wing.

Chiana pursed her lips at Aeryn's touchiness and cued the emitters to fire in order. Aeryn frowned an impressed face to herself. Returning to the cockpit, Aeryn closes the top and avoids meeting Chiana's look. But Aeryn was relieved that Chiana at least spared her the "Don't you want to say goodbye" dren. She knew Chiana did not. Except to Pilot, whom she probably told everything to.

"Have you everything you want to take?" Aeryn asked, as impersonally as possible.

"I have everything I came with."

Aeryn took a long look over her shoulder, seeing Chiana in the same clothes which she had first seen her in. "Fine, but I have our shares of the currency," Aeryn gestured to the storage hatch. "We will have to buy weapons and supplies. At least one of us has to be practical."

"Yeah, shut the frell up, Aeryn. Let's go."

The hanger opened.

Chapter Sixteen

The frelling Human played it every night.

Rygel approached the room and heard the sound of her voice. The one he misses more than any non-Hynerian he has known. He was here in hopes Crichton would be playing it again, true to habit. It didn't say anything for him, but that he understood.

"... so you can't follow us. We'll be all right when we find Nerri. I'm sure they'll want an ex-PeaceKeeper fighter pilot and commando and I'll... I'll work myself in there. A-after she finds out she's more, and the important thing isn't the guy, I mean, what happened... frell. It's what you mean, and what things mean to her. She'll want to... she'll work it out. She will. Aeryn. Soon."

"Aeryn. Soon," he repeated with her.

"I know it's stupid, but I'd like to think you're having fun, I mean, you're fine and... find someone too. For a while. It may be. Don't think we won't miss you too... Frell I can't think of things for a few hours without your Erth crap working the draz in my head," her laugh was joined by his chuckle.

Rygel's mind wandered; he knew every word, every inflection, just as well as Crichton. It took only a few moments of his wondering what became of them to gladly return to the here and now.

"... and I will bring her back, John. I know I will. I know... you can't trust me. Much. 'Any farther than you can throw me', you say. Don't forget: you can throw me pretty far," she made her tense giggle - oh, Chiana, what resilient spirit, Rygel considered - and she fell silent a moment.

On preprogrammed cue, John smiled and chuckled, then fell silent.

"Just trust me again. An- and take care of yourself old man, you- you have to be careful out here, you're pretty lousy at it. Take care of Pilot. And Moya. Hey if you get a way home, tell Pilot and Moya, so we'll know how we can find you, maybe. We... we miss you already."

The voice ended, and after a long silence, there came a sound that her lips made kissing the recorder before leaving it. And Rygel turned away with a heavy exhale, to leave after Crichton kissed the recorder on cue to match. He eased away on his Thronesled knowing Crichton would be lying down now, the recorder in his hand. Probably dreaming of that flat-assed PeaceKeeper bitch. Why, he can't imagine.

Still, however misguided, it is a loyalty Rygel begrudgingly had to admire. He didn't doubt Chiana. For a change. He didn't have as much stock in Aeryn, actually. But who knows? It's probable to him. Very probable.

Didn't stop him from being concerned. Why shouldn't he be concerned? Dangerous territory out there. But he grinned. A lot more dangerous for the territory, he's always said.

"Attention," Pilot's voice crackled through the comms. "A Prowler is in approach."

"This would never happen if he wasn't so popular with Sebacean females."

"I beg your pardon, Your Eminence?"

"Or Nebari females. What? Nothing. It couldn't be them this time?"

John bolted up and looked at the view screen Pilot thoughtfully put the image on.

John wiped his eyes dry. "Yes. Pilot! Open the hanger and the door this time!" he bolted out of his room.

The lights were blinking - S - O - S

The End