Johnny Loves Aeryn

[ShipsCat]

This was written for Starburst Challenge 24. It was originally posted at Terra Firma on April 21, 2008.

Placed second in the Best Characterization, Female Moyan (Chiana) in the 2008 Terra Firma Fanfic Awards.


G to PG rated, and I don't own Farscape or any other shows I might have stolen, that is, borrowed from. The setting is late 1st season for Farscape. Thanks to aeryncrichton for taking a look and helping me with the title. Any mistakes are mine, and please be patient, it's been a while.

----

Johnny Loves Aeryn


"What the frell are you two up to?"

John started guiltily, which he immediately chastised himself for. He had no reason to hide his activities from Aeryn. It's not like they'd promised-not like he owed her-oh, shoot, he was probably jumpy just because she had a tendency to suddenly pop him with a pantak jab or wipe up the floor with him. And she had no reason to scowl at the two of them either.

Chiana's wild white head popped up from where it had been pressed next to his, as they both stared intently at the table. "Crichton's conducting an experiment."

"And Chiana is-"

Aeryn raised an eyebrow. "Helping?"

"Bored," sighed Chi.

John flashed her a glance. "Just nosy. Like someone else I could mention. Why don't you girls find something to do and-"

"I was a big help!"  Chiana protested. "I was the one who showed you how to use the gravity blatter."

Aeryn took a closer look at the experiment. A tiny flying model of the Farscape1 was slingshotting around the model of a planet over and over.

"I'm having trouble getting it up to speed," John said. "But the basic idea is to simulate what happened when I first went through the wormhole and ended up here. If I can duplicate what happened in miniature and record all of the data about it, I can reproduce it on a larger scale." Aeryn was getting that closed off look on her face, the one that he hated and she always got when he was trying to figure out how to get home.

She swallowed and shook her head. "But is it safe?"

John looked at the toy ship flying around the toy planet, all contained in a bell jar. How could that possibly be a danger?

"Have you ever considered what would happen if it actually *worked*?" she asked impatiently. "That's not exactly a containment field."

John shook his head. "You don't understand. All that could happen is that the model spaceship would disappear from this end and-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence because that's when the wormhole engulfed all of them.

----
Crichton was disoriented not only by the whirling shifting sensation he'd just been through but by the change of scenery. He was outside with green grass and a beautiful blue sky, heading towards twilight. He remembered that the girls had been right behind him when he heard cries coming from behind him..and was that Aeryn swearing?

When he turned to look, he missed his footing. Actually, it disappeared from under him and he teetered for a moment, rocking back and forth, arms windmilling, trying to regain his balance before he went over what appeared to be a very large cliff.

"Watch out!" Aeryn yelled, far too late.

He didn't fall over the cliff but he did fall on his butt, immediately scrambling to the edge to look over it. To his horror he saw that both Aeryn and Chiana were clinging by their fingertips, both of them Paulines in peril. Without stopping to think he held out an arm to each, luckily being able to reach both of them but with his arms too wide spread to be able to pull very hard. As he was still trying to figure out the physics of the situation, the burden on his right was eased-a second later he figured out that Chiana must have found a purchase with her feet because she leapt over the edge of the cliff, virtually flying into the air to land beside him.

That freed both hands for Aeryn, with Chiana joining in, and they pulled her slowly and painfully up, her feet scrabbling for anything to stand on but finding nothing. By the time they had gotten her upper torso over, there were other hands helping them.

John rolled over and looked at the blue sky above him, muttering to himself. "Must be interdimensional travel. We're lucky we didn't land in something solid. Or the ocean. Or the vacuum of space..."

"You all right, Mister?" a feminine voice asked perkily. The voice came from the kind face of a young woman with short fluffy hair, dressed in a skirt and blouse. Her cardigan matched the skirt.

"Just a little shaken up," John replied. He couldn't believe how human the woman appeared. Had they landed on a Peacekeeper colony?

"I don't blame you. That must have been some accident."

John looked around for Aeryn. She was brushing herself off-not to mention brushing off the guy who was trying to help her up. The guy shrugged and turned his attention to Chiana. Not surprisingly, Aeryn turned around and glared at him.

"I told you it was dangerous."

"It was..an accident, Aeryn," he said, silently willing her to keep quiet.

"Wow. Your car must have gone over the cliff," said the redheaded young man who was clumsily dusting Chiana off, earning himself his own glare from the wearer of the cardigan. "Although I didn't see it go over.."

"Yeah, that's it," John said, seizing on the explanation. He got to his feet and peered over the edge, looking for the non-existent car. There was plenty of brush and trees to provide cover for it. "I don't know how we're gonna get it back up."

"Lori Beth and I can drive you into town, and you can call for a tow and call your insurance company," the young man assured him.

"Thanks," John said. "And thanks for your help. I'm John, by the way-John Crichton."

He stuck out his hand as if he were from earth. "Richie. And this is my girlfriend, Lori Beth."

"This is my-Aeryn. And this is Chiana." Chiana stuck out her hand and issued a one word thanks. Aeryn gave him a grave nod.

Richie's car was another big surprise to John. It looked for all of the world like a two-toned BelAir convertible.

John whistled. "Wow. This is a beautiful car. A classic. "

'I don't know about that," the young man shrugged. "It's only a couple of years old."

"Well, it will be a classic."

"Yeah..that's what my dad says about his old DeSoto."

John got into the back with Chiana and Aeryn. Aeryn took the far seat, turning her face away from him. Still ticked off, he suspected. Chiana was being uncharacteristically quiet, but looked cheerful and no longer bored. Lori Beth kept turning around to look askance at the two girls. Evidently he didn't look too far out in his khakis, but the amount of bare skin the girls were showing didn't sit too well with her. Fifties styles. Could they possibly be on earth in the fifties? Or was it a case of convergent evolution? What's more, the open and honest freckled face of their driver seemed eerily familiar to him.

"Have you ever been to Inspiration Point before?" Lori Beth asked.

Somehow John got the idea that the question was ladened with unknown meaning. "We're from out of town. Way, way out of town."

"Oh. Well, two girls at Inspiration Point.." she clucked and shook her head.

"So what's so wrong with -oof," Richie said, as he got smacked in the ribs.

"Chiana's my sister," John said hastily. "We were all just sightseeing."

Now Richie turned around and looked at them, apparently not worried about watching the road. John waved his hand toward the road. "I know we don't look alike. She has a- a disease. Porphyria. It's a blood disease."

"Oh, no..I am so sorry," Lori Beth said. She lowered her voice, as if Chiana wasn't right there beside him. "is it- like leukemia?"

"Oh, no. It's not fatal. She takes medication. It just makes her pale. It's what people had when they thought there were vampires," John said, warming to his lie, "But my mom and dad worry, so I'm saddled with her everywhere I go." It was his turn to be hit in the ribs. "Eh. Little sisters."

"Tell me about it," Richie agreed.

------

Richie's home was very earthlike, decorated in much the same fashion as Crichton's grandparent's house had been. Much to John's relief, Richie excused himself and Lori and went to the kitchen as soon as they got there, leaving the three of them alone in the living room.

"Thanks for not saying anything back there."

"We're not stupid, Crichton. We could tell that they speak that same backward language that you do," Aeryn replied.

"Is this earth? Are we really on your planet?" Pip piped up.

"Yes..no..maybe."

"Don't you know your own planet?"

"It's the same..but different. I think we're in my past. I'm not sure. Even for the past it seems kind of-odd. Anyway, I think we should try and fit in until we find out how to get you two back. Get us all back."

"It's not like we have any other choice," Aeryn grudgingly agreed.

Richie came in carrying a tray. "Lori Beth went home. She had some studying to do."

John was not surprised. He had heard snippets of conversation from the other room. Something about stray cats. "Tell her for me that I'm sorry we ruined her date."

Richie shrugged. "I may never get my thrill on blueberry hill. But she'll get over it. It's not your fault, you didn't choose to fall over a cliff."

John missed Aeryn's raised eyebrow at this remark because his attention was taken up by what was on the tray. "Milk," he said in the reverent tones of a man who had just found salvation. "And cookies." He thought for a moment that he was going to cry.

"My mom makes the best cookies. She's famous for it." He passed around glasses of milk and saucers of chocolate chip cookies. Crichton grabbed his with unseemly haste and gobbled down a cookie with a milk chaser.  Warm, gooey, chocolate. He sat back on the couch and sighed heavily.

Aeryn regarded her milk with skepticism. Chiana dived right in and got a milk mustache and a quizzical look. "It's-good,' she said, having picked up another English word somewhere.

'It's-just milk," Crichton said, realizing that she probably expected something a little more mind altering.

Someone walked in to the room from the kitchen. Of medium but not mediocre build, he sported a leather jacket and jeans with a white t-shirt. "Cookies," he said. "I thought Mrs. C was baking cookies. The Fonzarelli nose always knows."

"This is the Fonz," the fresh-faced young man said. "Fonzie, these are my new friends, Crichton, Aeryn and Chiana. "

The man looked Crichton and Chiana over quickly and dismissed them. His eyes lit up at the sight of Aeryn. "Whooaaa.."

She gave him a slowburning smile that left John hollow.

"Nice vest," he said.

"Nice jacket," she replied.

The Fonz flipped up his collar, running his fingers along the leather.

"What did she say?" Richie asked.

"She doesn't understand english. I -I told you we were from way out of town,"John stammered. Saturday Night Live came to his rescue. "They're from France."

"No," the Fonz said. "Look at the hair. That gorgeous nose. This is a nice Italian girl."

Aeryn preened... Preened! at the praise. "You aren't so bad yourself."

"I know," he answered seductively.

"You understand her?" John asked, disbelieving.

"The language of love is universal."

Chiana was giggling and chattering something at his discomfort, something definitely not english.

"Your *sister* is from France?" Richie asked.

"She's touched in the head. It's part of her condition. Ow. " That earned him a kick in the ankle. He launched into a long complex story about how his father died in the war although he wasn't sure which war to claim, and his mother remarried and moved to France, but he had stayed here, but met Aeryn when visiting and he wound down because he could tell that his audience was openly disbelieving.

"Oh, I know what the problem is," Richie said, slapping his thigh and speaking a little too loudly and broadly. He turned to Fonzie to explain. "He thinks they are our first aliens!"

"Na-nu Na-nu," Richie said, sticking his hand out with the middle fingers separated.  No one responded. "Well, I guess you're not from Ork."

"Good.Although *you* can take me up in your ship anytime," Fonzie  said, edging closer to Aeryn.

"You seem like nice enough folks. And this is the twentieth century! You don't have to worry about us. We'll help you out until your spaceship gets here."

"Actually, we got dragged through a dimensional porthole through a wormhole and I have to find a way to repeat the experiment to get back."

"Fine," Richie nodded vigorously. "We'll tell my mom and dad that you're out of town friends who had a car accident. They aren't home tonight anyway."

"I can help, too." A curly head poked its way around the staircase. "I'm sure I can find something for you to wear." A girl who defined cute came into the room.

"Joanie! I should have known you were listening. Maybe some makeup for Chiana?"

"Sure," she took in the room. "Pleased to meet you all. Hi, Fonzie!"

"Hey, Shortcake."

"That outfit is killer, Chiana. It really shows off your boobies, doesn't it? Jenny Piccolo would love it! She always wanted hers to look bigger. Do you want to come to, Aeryn?"

Aeryn shook her head no. She turned towards John. "No dresses this time."

They watched as Joanie and Chiana bounced upstairs together.

"Are you two hungry? After they get done we can all go to Arnold's and get some burgers and you can meet the gang."

John hated to disappoint the cheerful expectation Richie exuded. "We should probably lay low, don't you think? I don't think everyone will be as accepting as you two are."

"They will if Fonzie tells them to. And besides, Mom's not home. We don't go to Arnold's, we don't eat."

"It's cool," Fonzie agreed.

A burger was an overwhelming temptation for John. "I don't know how long it's been since I've had a burger and fries.."

"Great!"

"Later," the Fonz said, leaving by the front door. A microt later John heard a motorcycle leave.

John was still in a state of shock, unable to accept the fact that their hosts had accepted the fact that they were not from this planet so easily. It had happened so fast that he didn't know how to process it.

"We-um, you know, Aeryn, we can't go around armed here."

Aeryn looked at him like he had lobsters crawling out of his ears. "Oh, no. You did not say that. You know what happened last time we were on some fake earth."

"It's just not done. People don't walk around with guns strapped to their legs."

Richie looked surprised at his words. "That's a gun? I thought it was a camera or something."

A camera? John was beginning to wonder if the kid had very much going on under that red hair.

"Oh, but you know what? My mom has a spare purse you can use." He ran off into the other room and returned instantaneously. Aeryn looked dubious but took her pulse pistol out and placed it in the purse, where it it perfectly. She hung the long strap over her shoulder like a seatbelt and tucked the bag to one side. It only added to the tough girl look.

"Now I'm incognito," she smirked.

"Perfectamundo." John smiled at her.

To John's surprise, Joanie and Chiana came flouncing down the stairs together. In the time it had taken them to holster Aeryn's weapon, they had done a complete makeover on Chiana. He didn't know how they had managed it.  He wasn't even sure that they had had curling irons in the fifties.

"Do you like it?" Chiana asked, twirling around and around to make her skirt spin. She had curly hair, a filmy pink scarf around her neck, and was wearing a white button front  blouse, a pink sweater, and a  poodle skirt.  The full skirt was belted and made her waist look impossibly tiny.

"Very cute. You look really sweet, Chi." And misleading, he thought. She was even wearing some kind of foundation that gave her a skin tone that was almost normal.

"You did a great job, Joanie," her brother said.

"That's some makeover." Crichton added.

"Makeover," Joanie tried out the word. "I like that. Well, we're going to go over to Jenny Piccolo's to show her. We'll meet you at Arnold's later." She picked up a large shopping bag and headed towards the door.

"Just one minute," Richie said. "Put the bag back. You are not putting that catsuit on Jenny Piccolo."

Joanie pouted and stomped her foot, but she put the bag down. "I am almost eighteen years old. When are you going to stop treating me like a child?!"

"When mom and dad get back home," he replied mildly.

"Sit on it, Richie!"

--------

[ShipsCat]

 "Look, Crichton, I fit in," Aeryn said. "At least my hair does."

She was right. He'd never seen so many ponytails in his life.

"How did you like your burger?"  He had snarfed down two in short order and now felt like he needed to loosen his belt. They'd been worth it, though.

"It's all right. But I really like the frenched fries," she said, dipping another one in the red mess on her plate with relish, " and the catshit."

Richie almost fell out of the booth laughing.

'CatSUP," John corrected her. "Or ketchup. But never..um..that word is something else entirely."

"It has two names?"

"Yeah. I don't know why," John said. He was relaxing,  enjoying being with Aeryn and sharing with her the food from this world. Arnold's was bright and shiny and determinedly cheerful.

"I'm going to look at the jukebox," he told Aeryn. Maybe he could find something he knew in there. The Little White Cloud That Cried. Never heard of it. Oh, Peggy Sue. That was Buddy Holly. Crichton wondered if he had died yet, if  Ritchie Valens and  the Big Bopper had gone to the big  jukebox in the sky and Don McLean had read the morning paper..but wait. Buddy Holly had only been rock and rollin' for a couple of years when he died. Wasn't it too early for him? Oh, well, he wasn't up on the fifties anyway. Richie gave him a holler and tossed a coin to him. That's right. These things were coin operated. He picked out Unchained Melody-now, that was a romantic song. But it didn't start when he put the coin in. He frowned at it. What had he done wrong? It was as frustrating as opening a door on Moya had been the first time.

A fist went by his shoulder and thumped the jukebox. The Righteous Brothers sang out their love as Arthur Fonzarelli stood in the middle of the dance floor and snapped his fingers. A couple of pony tailed and skirted girls ran up, squealing, but he waved them away, his eyes on Aeryn. John was smug in his knowledge that Aeryn would never let herself be treated in such a cavalier fashion until he saw her response. She raised up her hand and snapped back. The Fonz quickly went over to the table and slid in beside her, in the seat John had just vacated. John watched as he asked her to dance and she followed him out onto the floor. He pulled her close and although she was taller than he was, they managed to fit comfortably together and she laid her head on his shoulder.

He slunk back to his seat and flopped down in the booth.

"All the girls like Fonzie," Richie said.

"Aeryn isn't all the girls," Crichton said glumly.

"You should cut in," Richie said. "He probably won't kill you. Especially if he knows she's your girl."

"Yeah, but she's not..I mean, we don't..well, it's her choice," John said. And she obviously wasn't choosing him.

He pulled out a couple of napkins and started doodling equations on them.  Why did that song have to last so long?  When it finally finished and he dared look up again, it got worse. Aeryn flashed him a smile and a wave and disappeared out the door with the jacketed biker, leaving John with his mouth open.

"So what are your equations about?" Richie asked, hoping to distract him.

"Trying to figure out what happened and how we got here. We just materialized, it appears, out of thin air. It's different than when I went through the wormhole in the Farscape1."

"You know, I used to have an older brother. Chuck. He disappeared. One minute he's bouncing a  gift-wrapped  basketball, the next he's gone and we never heard from him again."

John looked at him in shock. It had been delivered with no emotion whatsoever. "Maybe there's always been wormhole activity here. You said you'd met aliens before?"

"Just the one. And we were supposed to forget it, but the memory came back eventually.."

Richie's two goofy friends that John had met when first coming to the diner appeared at the table.

"Did I see the new gal go off with Fonzie?"

"Potsie.."

'Yeah," Ralph said. "Why don't you give the guy a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?"

"My parents did that to me all the time," Potsie said irrelevantly. John suspected he knew why he was named Potsie. His brains certainly appeared to be fried.

"Guys like us always have our girls go off with guys like Fonzie," Ralph said, in an attempt at sympathy.

"What do you mean, guys like us?" John inquired.

"Nerds," Potsie said. "Those who are not cool. Who lack Mojo."

"No Machismo," said Ralph.

"No hope," concluded Richie.

"I'm not-" John started to protest.

Richie interrupted him with a comment and a sympathetic look. "You're doing math problems on napkins at Arnold's."

Oh, dren. They were right. Here he was doodling math problems while Aeryn was off doing who knows what with some aging teenaged reprobate. He was hanging with the bachelor herd while the male stallion was-oh, crap, he couldn't stand to think about it.

Joanie and Chiana bounced into the room. Chiana had evidently remade herself over. The pink sweater was gone. The white shirt was completely unbuttoned, as far as he could tell, and tied under her bust line. The skirt was pulled down to her hips and cut short, leaving the poodle decapitated and the poodle's leash disappearing a little lower than her waist. As the crowning touch, she had gotten some white hair extensions somewhere and now sported two ponytails out of her curls, somewhat like a cabbage patch doll.

"Oh My God. You look like Brittany Spears."

"Who?" the girls asked in unison.

"Who?" the guys asked.

"Uh-never mind. You'll find out."

"I had to make it me,"  Chiana said, tilting her head and smiling at Crichton. "I'm having a great time. Joanie's going to introduce me to Leather Tuscadero. She's got a band."

"I'm glad you're having a good time."

"See ya later, alligator," she said, proving that she was picking up even more english words.

Ralph and Potsie trailed after her swinging hips, drooling.

John laid his head on his hands, running his fingers through his hair.

"John," Richie whispered to him. "About your language.. we don't take the Lord's name in vain around here. Even Fonzie doesn't cuss."

"Damn," John said. "We have got to get the Hell out of here. Uh-pardon my French."

"I have to talk to Joanie," Richie said, and went to catch up to the two and pull Joanie aside.

John was still brooding and Richie was still talking to Joanie when Aeryn came back to the booth with a big smile and her hair out of its ponytail and flying around her face and shoulders.

"I love motorcycles! We need to get a couple of hogs. Fonzie told me Milwaukee is the hog capital. We could drive them up and down Moya's corridors." She put out her hands and pretended to drive. "Beats walking! Oh, it was great. Like flying only without flying."

John was torn between jealousy and enjoying her excitement. "We're walking around in some other time and place and you think it's a good idea to waltz off without as much as a-" Well, she had waved. " a goodbye?"

"We just went for a ride." Aeryn sat back, deflated.

"To Inspiration Point?"

Aeryn scowled and didn't answer.

"Do you like this Fonz character, Aeryn?"

"I don't know," she said offhandedly. "It seems he kisses a lot of girls. Like some other earth man I know."

"Earthmen are easy."

Aeryn smiled. "So it seems. How have you progressed on getting us back?"

John sighed. "Not too well. I have Doc Brown's problem. Unless I can find a clock tower that got hit by lightning, I can't get enough power to even begin to repeat the experiment. Not to mention that earth doesn't have artificial gravity yet."

"You need a clock tower?"

"Just an example, Aeryn."

"Well, tell me what you do need and what I can do to help."

"I don't know yet." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

"Maybe you aren't trying hard enough. Maybe you want us to stay here. That's what you've always wanted anyway, to get back to your own world," she said, with a trace of bitterness.

"This is so NOT my world. This is my parent's world, or maybe even my grandparent's. I haven't even been born yet. We haven't even gone to the moon. As an astronaut, this sets me back a generation. I don't fit in here any better than you two do. "

"It's going to be your world now if you can't get us back," she said, irritated. "Maybe you'd better find a way to adapt."


____________

Richie took Fonzie aside after he finished talking to his sister. "I really need to talk to you, Fonz."

"Into my office," he said grandly.

Richie started speaking as soon as they entered the men's room. "Look, it's about Aeryn. I know she's really hot and all that, but that poor Johnny's got it really bad for her."

Fonzie pursed his lips. "So?"

"You've got lots of girls, Fonz. You should let this poor schmuck have a chance at this one."

"You don't understand. I LIKE this girl, Richie. She's cool. She's tough. She wears leather great. She's a natural on the bike. She had no trouble driving it the very first time."

"You let her drive your bike?!" Richie exclaimed, shocked.

"She wanted to learn.."

"Oh, Fonz..I know this is hard..and I hate to tell you, but I talked to Joanie and she said that Chiana said that the feeling's mutual. They just never seem to get it together enough to do anything about it. You don't want someone that's always pining for someone else."

Fonzie hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked at the floor, kicking at a scuff mark with a booted foot. "She did talk about him a lot." He raised his head back up. "I got plenty of girls as good looking as that one. It's no skin off my nose."

Richie punched him on the shoulder, which earned him a glare. "I knew the Fonz would never take someone else's girl."

"He'd better treat her right, or he answers to me."

"If he ever has the guts to tell her in the first place."

"If she listens."

"We should do something about it," Richie said thoughtfully.

"What?" Fonzie asked.

"I have an idea."

---------------------------------


It was the next day when they ambushed him. Chiana, Joanie, Richie and the Fonz in the Cunningham's living room, with Mr. C floating by long enough to realize that he didn't want to get involved and leaving again.

"You've all come to talk to me?" Crichton asked apprehensively. "Where's Aeryn?"

"Lori took her driving around to look for clock towers. Aeryn said you needed one."

"So what did you want to talk about? Or maybe, I should ask, when's the wedding?" Crap, it's got to be bad news, he thought, or they wouldn't all be here.

"Never if we leave it up to you!" Pip said smartly.

Joanie sat down beside him and took his hand. "Now Johnny, we all know that you have had a thing for Aeryn for some time."

"Look, this is really none of your-"

"And we think you should ask her to the big dance at Arnold's tonight," Richie said.

"If you don't make a move, someone else will," Chiana added.

"I don't think she'd really be interested in a teenybopper dance."

"Hey, I'm a college student!" Richie protested.

"Really?" Crichton said, distracted. But he wore his letter jacket and lived with his parents and had a curfew... "But-but- she'd say no."

"Don't worry about it. we'll get her there," Fonzie said.

Crichton looked at him, wondering. "What's it to you?"

'"I think she needs a fair chance to decide what she wants."

"But the thing is.."Joanie said sweetly. "You really have to make an effort.

"Oh. OH. This is an intervention."

"What's that?" two or three of them asked.

"When a bunch of people who love you and care about you ambush you and tell you that there's something about your life that you're doing wrong."

"Intervention. I like that," Joanie said approvingly, "but this is more like- a makeover!"

"We all know Aeryn likes that Peacekeeper/biker look," Chiana said. "That's why I've found you these great leather pants."

"Oh, no, no, no," John said. "Isn't there something to be said for being yourself. For not pretending to be-" he swatted Chiana's hand. "Stop that! All right, I'll put'em on!" He didn't relish the idea of being stripped by two avid women in mixed company. He picked up the pants and headed for the bathroom.

He came back out to mixed reviews. The girls loved the pants, but they weren't so sure about the white tee.

'It makes you look a little bit too much like Fonzie, " Joanie said.

"And kinda pale," Chiana said, cheerfully calling the kettle black.

"Inspired by is cool-a copy is not," the Fonz pronounced his verdict while leaning on the doorframe.

"lHow about a black tee?" Chiana suggested.

"Great. But we don't have a leather jacket!" Joanie complained.

"How about Dad's leather duster?" Richie asked. "You know? the one dad wore to the Halloween party when he was being John Wayne?"

Richie came back with Mr. Cunningham and the duster.

"Ah, this reminds me of the old days..I used to take your mother to the USO dances and we'd boogey the night away."

"Boogeying is not the same thing as rockin' around the clock, Dad," Joanie scoffed.

"Good," John said. "I don't boogey."

Surprisingly the duster fit him well.

"Well, that fits you so well, son, you might as well keep it," Howard said, putting a hand on John's shoulder. "I'll leave you young people to your fun. Oh, and you, young lady, " he waggled a finger at Chiana. "You should put a sweater on. You'll catch your death of cold."

"You might as well keep it-Dad's never going to fit into it again," Joanie commented.

"I heard that!" Mr. C said as he left.

"The black tee is kinda slimming," Fonzie said thoughtfully.

Then the girls set to work on his hair. While they were working he started thinking he could add something to the effort to win Aeryn. It might work-why not? After all, it was the fifties. He asked for a paper and pen from the hairstylists and started composing from memory. He had a lot of time to work on it because the girls were really unhappy with his hair.

When he showed it to Chiana, she giggled. "I can sing the girl part-and we can get Potsie Webber to sing the guy part. Leather asked me to join the band."

"No," Joanie blurted out. "I thought she was going to ask *me* to join the band."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you wanted to join." "Oh, it's okay." "No, it should be you." "But you're better." Both girls squealed and threw their arms around each other.

Eventually they got tired of working on his hair.

"It doesn't matter how much greasy kid stuff we put in, it won't lay back and it won't flip in the front!" Joanie exclaimed, exasperated.

"It just sticks up all over!"

"Leave it," the Fonz finally said. "It's cool that way."

They looked at him doubtfully.

"Do I know cool or do I not know cool?"

"Okay, okay..well, we're ready then," Richie said.

-----------------------------------

Arnold's was already hopping. The parking lot was a car collector's paradise. Lori Beth had brought Aeryn there ahead of them, as Richie had asked her to.  John hung back from the others so he could make his grand entrance, sure that he was going to make the biggest fool of himself that he ever had. And that was saying something.

The first thing he noticed going in was that there were bare midriffs everywhere. It looked like fifty percent of the girls had copied Chiana's style. The second thing that he noticed was that their eyes were following him across the room. He stopped a few feet from Aeryn and waited for her to notice him. She looked him up and down twice before she realized it was him. "CRICHTON!?"

"Tell me about it, Babe," he tossed the breath freshening gum out of his mouth and ground it into the floor with the toe of his boots, immediately realizing that it was a mistake. There was nothing to do, he had to keep going.

Chiana started singing.


I got chills.
They're multiplyin'.
And I'm losin' control.
'Cause the power
you're supplyin',
it's electrifyin'!

Of course Aeryn didn't know her part, but she did start swaying to the music and smiling. John started mouthing the words to his part and started dancing..or attempting to.

You better shape up,
'cause I need a wo-man
and my heart is set on you.
You better shape up;
you better understand
to my heart I must be true.

Chiana: Nothin' left, nothin' left for me to do.

Potsie and Chiana:

You're the one that I want.
(you are the one i want), o,o, oo, honey.
The one that I want.
(you are the one i want want), o,o,oo, honey.
The one that I want
(you are the one i want want), o,o, ooooo
The one I need.
Oh, yes indeed.

John and Potsie:

If you're filled
with affection
you're too shy to convey,
meditate in my direction.
Feel your way.


By the time they got to the second chorus, John had her in his arms and they were rocking back and forth-and Aeryn was singing that he was the one she wanted.  He didn't think he could possibly be happier but a microt later he was because he noticed that a small wormhole had opened up beside the stage, and D'Argo was stepping through it.

"I hate to interrupt-again-but the wormhole's not going to stay open long."

Chiana squealed and jumped off the stage and into his arms, covering him with kisses. Rygel floated up beside them and took a look around. After a brief reconnaissance, he took advantage of a startled waitress and grabbed the tray she was carrying, filled with burgers, fries and shakes, and floated back through the wormhole.

"Sorry it took us so long to get here, but it took Zhaan a while to figure out what you did..and then how to reverse it..and then how to trace you. C'mon!"

Chiana waved furiously, still in D'Argo's arms, as he stepped backwards. She even blew a few kisses to the audience.

"You wanna come home with me?"John asked.

"I thought you'd never ask, " Aeryn said. With John's arm around her waist, they walked towards the wormhole. John turned around as he reached it, taking one last look at Arnold's, and the crowd who was still cheering, dancing and clapping to the music that was still playing. Evidently they thought that it was all part of the act.

The Fonz gave them two thumbs up and a giant "Aaaayy.."

"This is the finale, Aeryn."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you get to take a bow."

Hand in hand they bowed deeply to the audience and disappeared.

As the room around them went wild with applause, Richie turned to Fonzie. "I don't know about this, Fonzie. I think we might have really jumped the shark this time."

"Don't be stupid. We did that at the beginning of the season. Remember?"

The End.

-----

More author's notes: the song is from Grease, with some of the words changed, and it's late fifth season for Happy Days. And this may be my first crossover fic!

This was the challenge:


posted by ScorpSik, March 17, 2008


Right-e-ho.....this thread will explode in 5 minutes.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write an 'ill-fitting' crossover.

What does ill-fitting mean?

Take the character you love to write most ('cause they're always easiest to 'get into') and write them into a show where the character is totally out of place.

Example:  Aeryn in Desperate Housewives  or Stark as a doctor in ER (would you trust him to give you an injection?  Question excludes BBB)
It can be ANY kind of show at all - reality even -  (John/Aeryn on Wife Swap...?) just nothing Sci-fi.

Sam Beckett always tried to fit in when he leapt into different guises, but the Farscape characters are more the types that just won't be pliant


Rules:

1. Funny is good

2. You can use any show - but NOT a sci-fi show
(LOM/A2A/Lost etc I don't consider sci-fi.
To me, sci-fi is aliens, spaceships, other worlds ... BSG, SG-1/A, B5, DRWho, Heroes etc)

3.  The 'reality' is of the crossed over show - not Farscape.  So, if you went with Stark as a doctor on ER, he'd be locked up for trying to cross a person into death  LOL  So bear that in mind    If you use their 'Farscape' talents, they need to have consequences because they won't be in a sci-fi show.  If that makes sense

[ShipsCat]

Very Happy Days for our favorite pair! Liked the way you had the gang work on John and his approach to Aeryn. Nice work and a fun read!;)