Originally posted 8/11/06Aeryn wanted to talk to me. Aeryn wanted to think about how she's changed, and not changed.... Took me a while to get everything from her, but....I think it works. Just remember it's kind of an emotional setting....
This is another more-or-less "Family Ties" story -- it takes place two months after little Nelja is born in
"Special Delivery".
Many thanks to Loco, MadScientist and shipsister for beta duties, Auna for a driveby, and special thanks go to Crash for help with, er, the crash!
I couldn't have done it without you all!
Rating: G
Setting: 11 or 12 cycles after PK Wars
Spoilers: Through PK Wars
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, and absolutely no money being made!!!
I am an idiot, because I'm going to be on a plane in something less than 9 hours, but....I wanted to get this posted tonight so I wouldn't be fretting about it. Hopefully I didn't miss any major typos in the rush! Enjoy!
Saving Private Aeryn
Aeryn Sun was piloting her infant daughter Nelja home from a routine visit to the local medic. The trip was boring, one Aeryn had made hundreds of times in the seven cycles she and John had made this rural planet their family's home. The baby was asleep, strapped into one of the rear passenger seats, and Aeryn was flying largely on what her husband called "autopilot."
Abruptly, the flight became anything but routine. The transport pod made a sharp nose-dive, and swerved hard towards the treblin side at the same time, nearly wrenching the controls out of her hands. Aeryn struggled to regain control, but the craft persisted in heading downwards at an alarming rate. Frell! "Nose
up!" she snarled, hitting the front attitude thrusters in hopes of leveling off. When the pod's gyrations increased, she just as quickly flipped the thrusters off again. Whatever else might be wrong, one of the maneuvering thrusters was obviously out, leaving her without any way to compensate for fluctuations in that direction.
"Frell," she muttered, yanking on the controls again, as she saw a stand of trees come into view not far ahead. "Up! Keep your frelling nose
up!" They cleared they trees with room to spare, but the pod was still losing altitude rapidly, and it was clear they were going down no matter what she did. These frelling pods were anything but aerodynamic in an atmosphere in the first place. The only good thing about this whole situation was that there was nothing much besides open country along their flight path, which meant a better chance of not smashing into anything
else once they hit the ground.
She hit the reverse thrusters to slow their airspeed, hoping she could keep the nose up and come in for a semi-controlled landing. Their forward speed came down, but not as much as she would have liked, and the ship continued to fight her. She muttered grimly to herself, "Steady, keep it level, level...." Hands firmly on the controls, she counted down the microts as best she could: "Ten, nine, eight, Nose
up, you frelling piece of dr—"
Despite her efforts, the ship hit dirt too fast, jerked around violently on the rough surface, then began to skid. The noise was deafening, but even so, Aeryn heard little Nelja when she woke and began screaming in terror. There was nothing to do but ride it out and hope that they didn't tumble....
* * * * * * * *
The pain in her right foot was sharp, no, more than sharp, it was excruciating. Aeryn had no doubt at all that more than one bone was broken. As the pod had skidded to a halt, everything not strapped down had been tossed around the cabin, and a heavy cargo container had landed solidly on her foot. From the pounding in her head, she'd hit it on something, too. The baby, thankfully, was still screaming her lungs out. It meant that she was still alive....
Except for Nelja's wails, everything was silent now. Aeryn glanced at the controls in front of her and saw that the communications panel was dead, as was just about everything else. A hiss of dessus gas came from somewhere behind her as a stressed conduit gave way.
She closed her eyes briefly to think. Not exactly toxic, but not good, either. Time to get the frell out.
Aeryn undid her seat belt, and with a deep grunt bent down and lifted the cargo container enough to shove it off her foot. She gasped at the renewed pain, and then resolutely set off to do what she had to do.
She hobbled back to her daughter's seat and told herself not to overreact to the sight of patches of blood on the baby's face – getting them both out of the damaged pod was her first priority. She unstrapped Nelja and tucked the infant into the crook of one arm. "Shh, little one, shh," she murmured, to no avail. Gritting her teeth against the pain of walking, she headed for the exit hatch, grabbing the baby's bag and the emergency supplies on her way out.
* * * * * * * *
The baby waved her arms in a determined but less-than-coordinated attempt to fend off Aeryn's attempts to clean her up and assess her injuries. Nelja didn't much like being probed for broken bones, but she seemed even more annoyed by her mother's efforts to get the blood off of her face. She squawked and jerked her head around, trying to avoid the sterile wipes from the medkit. "You really are a feisty one, aren't you?" Aeryn said with indulgent pride, having determined that the baby's injuries were superficial. Not that any of their four children were at all passive, but this one had made her wishes very clear from the moment a sixth of a cycle ago when she'd decided to come into the world two days early. "There, you look much better," she added with a grin, daubing some sealer on the scratches on Nel's face – over the little one's renewed protests. "That should feel better, too," she said, hoping she was right.
Relieved that they had both come out of the accident relatively unscathed, Aeryn bounced the baby in her arms and tried to decide what to do next. The boot she was wearing made a better temporary splint that anything she could improvise, so she didn't bother trying to do anything about her injury. With the comms out, she couldn't contact John, or the local rescue team, for that matter. But John wouldn't wait more than an arn to set a search in motion once she failed to arrive home. Embarrassing as it was to picture herself being rescued by a squad of volunteers, it made no sense to try walking out on a broken foot when she knew help would be coming soon.
Logical or not, it didn't make her feel any better.
Frell and damn! The pod
shouldn't have malfunctioned! She was meticulous about the maintenance on the pod, as well as her prowler. And she'd run a full systems check herself before departing from home that morning, as she always did. Everything had checked out as perfect – and yet here they were, victims of a serious fault. She was never going to hear the end of this from John.... She scowled, and her mood communicated itself to the infant in her arms.
Nelja started crying again, her tiny face screwed up in indignation. Aeryn sighed and worked to soothe her, knowing that this child was not much for cuddling. No, Nel would rather be propped up in a seat with bright shiny objects dangling just inside her reach, or better yet, with her siblings chasing around within her view.
"Yes, well, I don't like the situation much either!" she acknowledged, bending down and kissing her daughter's forehead. "But I can't walk, and someone will be here soon, so we just have to be patient. Hmm?" she pleaded, smoothing Nelja's thick black hair. But the look on the baby's face was the one that John always described as, "Patience, my ass!" and Aeryn smiled softly. How could something so small be so furious?
Still, the crying was setting her teeth on edge, and she really wanted it to stop. It had been arns since Nelja's last feeding; perhaps she could be coaxed to eat....
* * * * * * * *
Aeryn willed herself to relax while Nelja nursed. She was using the steps to the pod as a seat, which maybe was a bad idea, because she kept going over the incident in her mind, trying to figure out what had gone wrong – and that only made her angry again, because, frell it, it
shouldn't have happened!
She fumed for a little while, and then abruptly emitted a sharp bark of laughter at her own indignation. Maintenance was tech work, for goodness sake. In her Peacekeeper life, the life she had been born to, she would never have considered
doing tech work by choice, much less taken pride in a job well done.
She ran a finger over her daughter's cheek, noting that a bruise was forming. The baby didn't flinch, but Aeryn nearly did, in sympathy. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Nelja ignored her and continued suckling, and Aeryn continued thinking, a habit she really wished she hadn't learned from dealing with Crichton.
This was hardly her first bad landing, and it had actually gone reasonably well. Part of the reason she was so upset, she admitted to herself, was because her daughter had been with her. This beautiful child could easily have been killed. If something heavier than whatever had caused the scratches had bounced into her.... Aeryn's chest tightened and her stomach tied itself in knots.
That didn't bear thinking about. She'd never have forgiven herself if—
She looked down at the baby again. Such a tiny, helpless thing, totally dependent on others to protect her, and make it possible for her to grow up. In her Peacekeeper life, Aeryn would never have voluntarily nurtured a child, any more than she would have done tech work. She'd been aware there was a place for that, of course, in the crèches, but it had never been in the future she imagined for herself.
And now, this child, like her older siblings, had a stranglehold on Aeryn's heart.
From somewhere deep in her mind, a question from an aptitude test given to her in childhood bubbled to the surface:
You are in charge of a group of civilians in a battle zone, she'd been told.
There is an infant among them, and it won't stop crying. Its noise is certain to give away your position to the enemy. What do you do?The "correct" answer had come to her immediately, but she took a moment to consider. Oddly enough, she remembered her reasoning quite clearly. It was obviously a condition of the question that the infant could not be quieted, muffled, or rendered unconscious, so that was not an option. She could use the infant to make herself a decoy, drawing the enemy away from those in her charge. But that would leave her charges defenseless if they were discovered. She could send someone else away with the child, with the same intent, but civilians were notoriously unreliable, and could end up betraying their position. No.... An infant carried potential for the future, she knew, but had no current value. It was not worth the sacrifice of even one trained adult. "If necessary, I would smother it, sir, to protect the rest of the civilians."
She'd been what, ten? Twelve? No more than twelve, certainly, and quite possibly younger. She'd known even at that age that any show of concern for the infant would take her out of the running for the things she wanted most, prowler duty, marauder duty....
I would smother it, sir. And she would have done – well, she thought she would have, anyway, she couldn't truly be certain – if she'd been in a situation as desperate as the scenario she'd been given. John would be horrified if she told him that. And yet, she could look back on her younger self without flinching, even as she cuddled and soothed the child in her arms, and berated herself for putting her precious daughter in danger. She'd been a different person then, definitely the product of her breeding – different, and yet not so different at all. She'd truly believed then that it was the right thing to do to sacrifice one to save the many – and hadn't she and John been forced to do just exactly that more than once?
She breathed deeply and looked down at her little one again. She should probably switch the baby to the other breast, but after all the screaming, Nel was drowsing. Aeryn decided to leave her be while they waited, and went back to her musing, staring off into the distance.
Her youthful decision about the hypothetical infant had been the best choice she'd been capable of making back then. She understood exactly why she'd come to it. It had been the one option that held out the likelihood of upholding her ideals and responsibilities, and saving most of those who were depending on her – and, of course, it was the answer expected of a young soldier.
But she'd been a child then, one who'd been taught to discount emotional factors, one who'd been taught to follow rules, and not to take chances, not to improvise. Now, cycles apart from the Peacekeepers – cycles of living without rigid rules, cycles of dealing with unpredictable civilians, not to mention the
very unpredictable John Crichton and their offspring – had shown her that there were usually viable alternatives beyond the obvious. Civilians were frequently stronger than she'd been taught they were; love could grant people the strength to do the impossible.... Faced with the same choice now – even though the infant in the scenario would be a stranger to her – she had no doubt that she would have weighed the options differently, tried to find some other solution that carried acceptable risk without harming the child.
Obviously, she was no longer a Peacekeeper soldier. No longer fit for the once-coveted prowler duty, much less the even more coveted marauder duty. She'd realized quickly enough after being thrown out that she didn't want to go back to that life. She'd never really looked back (What would be the point?), but she still missed it, sometimes. As she'd told John once long ago, having rules for everything made it easier to get things right. Too, she had been born in space, born
for space, and every once in a while she admitted to herself that she missed it, badly, living on the surface of this world with John....
Aeryn sighed and looked back down at the baby sleeping in her arms. This amazing creature, born from her parents' love, so full of promise even at this young age, filled her heart with joy...and love, and yes, aggravation at times. Add D'Argo, Hope, and Pippin, and you had wonders (and aggravation) times four. Add Crichton, who even now made her more than she had been...and you had a life she'd never imagined she would lead. She smiled at her sleeping baby, and wondered suddenly what that younger version of herself would have thought, if she had been able to look into the future and see this moment.
Of course it was impossible to know. That girl was long gone. "I'd probably have been horrified," she murmured softly, so as not to disturb the baby. But maybe not. Part of that girl lived on in her; she still had her ideals, her strength, her determination to help the helpless.... Maybe that girl would understand and accept her, even as she understood and accepted her past....
Abruptly she shook her head. Enough sentiment! The girl she'd been, the Peacekeeper cadet who dreamed of being a marauder commando, couldn't even have imagined this existence, and certainly wouldn't have wanted it if she had.
She'd have to remember to thank John, once again, for ruining her life.
She sighed, and went back to scanning the horizon, looking for a pod above the trees.
* * * * * * * *
Where the frell was he?Counting the time she'd spent nursing the baby, it had to have been more than an arn and a half since the accident. Nelja was stirring after her nap, and John still hadn't arrived. If her foot didn't hurt so much, Aeryn would have been up pacing.
Well, frell this sitting and waiting for the cavalry to arrive!
She struggled to her feet, bouncing the baby soothingly as she did so. "Ooof!" she said, getting a whiff of soiled diaper. "You need a clean nappy." The thought of kneeling or crouching to the ground for the job almost made her decide to endure the smell until they got home. But she didn't want to leave the child in discomfort when she could fix it, so she set her jaw against the pain and climbed haltingly back into the pod where she could set the baby down on a seat. Nelja frowned at her, but didn't struggle enough to impede the process of cleaning her up and getting her back into her coverall.
"There, is that better?" she asked. The baby kicked cheerfully, her earlier anger apparently totally forgotten. Aeryn stroked Nel's cheek and turned her attention to what to do next. Her foot throbbed from all the activity, but waiting to be rescued was not one of her stronger gifts, and she'd pretty much reached her limit.
Her practical side insisted she make one last check of the communications system to see if it could be made to function. If she were certain that help was on the way
soon, she could talk herself into staying put and not aggravating her injury further. But the comms remained dead, and she gave in to the impetus to take herself and her daughter home. "Come on," she said, snuggling Nelja in her sling and collecting the necessary supplies. "Let's go for a walk."
* * * * * * * *
They'd only gotten a few very halting metras in the direction of their residence when a dull roar announced the arrival of the family's second transport pod. Dropping the improvised crutch she'd picked up along the way, as well as the bag of supplies, Aeryn stopped dead. She rested her weight on her uninjured foot, and waited for John to arrive.
"What the hell are you doing, woman?" he roared, as he scrambled out of the pod and ran towards her.
"Pod malfunctioned."
"I figured that," he snapped. "I meant why the frell are you out here walkin' home?"
She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. "I waited over an arn and a half before I started."
Guilt played over his face. "I was playing football with the kids and I didn't realize you were overdue till just a little while ago. D's babysitting." He tried a winning smile, and added, "I'm sorry." Belatedly, he asked, "You both okay?"
"Nothing serious," she said, not wanting to have him fuss over her. But either she'd sounded insincere, or he could read the pain in her eyes. He looked at her suspiciously, and she gave in and told him, "The baby's fine, just a few scratches. And...my foot is broken."
"And you're walkin' on it? Of all the bone-headed stunts—" He broke off, shaking his head. "Come on, arm around my shoulder," he commanded. "I'll come back for this stuff when you're in the pod," he added, pointing at the supplies.
Grateful that he'd dropped the reproaches, she shifted the baby so that it was possible to lean on her husband for the trip back to the second pod. She wasn't sure if it physically hurt less to be hobbling along with his support, but she definitely
felt better. John took the baby at the base of the steps, and hovered below her while she climbed. He had sense not to say anything, but she appreciated him being there, and she knew he knew it.
Once inside, he shooed Aeryn to the copilot's seat and got Nelja settled. Aeryn closed her eyes and relaxed for a moment, until he fired up the engines and took off, and she realized he hadn't turned to head towards home. Her eyes flew open, and she said, "I don't need the medic."
"Your foot is broken! Of course you need a medic!"
He was right, of course, but stubbornly, she shook her head. He caught her eyes and held them, looking for an explanation. She wasn't quite sure she
could explain, but she just wanted to go home for now. The frelling foot would keep. The silence stretched for while, until she finally said, "Take me home, and we'll see if we can get this boot off without cutting it. Once we get a look at it, if it's really bad, I won't argue. We'll go to the medic." It wasn't much of a promise, because she'd held out the right to determine what "really bad" meant, but John snorted and agreed. He changed course for home without any more argument.
* * * * * * * *
She should be getting ready for bed. It was what she'd intended when she came into her bedroom. She was tired after the adventures of the day, especially since John had finally bullied her into letting him pack up the children and take her to get her foot taken care of. But here she was, standing beside Nelja's bed in the low light watching her daughter sleep, her thoughts whirling around in her mind without coming to rest on anything in particular.
"You're quiet tonight."
John's voice from the doorway startled her, and she spun around. She shrugged. "I suppose I am."
He crossed the room in a few long steps and stopped beside her, looking down at the baby for a few microts. He reached out and took her hand. "She's okay. You don't have to keep watching her."
Aeryn nodded. "I know. But she is...beautiful." He searched her eyes in the dim light, brow furrowed in question, and she laughed softly and nodded her head in the direction of the other bedrooms. "All of them. I can't believe that I'm their mother."
John bent down and kissed her gently on the lips. "You are their mother," he assured her, "and a very good mother at that."
"Mmm."
He cocked his head and looked at her closely. "What?"
She tried to gather up her thoughts so they made some sense, even to her. She wasn't about to tell him about her childhood memory, but she could tell him how glad she was that she'd been taken from that world.... She quirked the corners of her mouth into a smile. "I was just thinking that if you hadn't frelled up my life, I would never have known how wonderful this is."
He slipped his arms around her and held her, and nuzzled her neck. "I'm not going to apologize," he chuckled, breathing softly in her ear.
No, she didn't think he was going to. He needed her as much as she needed him. They were a perfect match..... She hugged him back, and then changed the subject. "We'll have to go out tomorrow and see how much damage the pod took."
"Guess we will. And I think you had better get some sleep."
Her Peacekeeper self would have resented the hezmana out of him telling her what to do. The woman she'd grown into appreciated that he cared – as long as he didn't get too annoying about it! "You're right," she agreed, because he was. "You coming?"
He snickered. "Is that an offer?"
"Probably," she deadpanned, knowing she wasn't
that tired....
"Give me fifty microts to check on the kids and get the lights out."
"Forty."
"I'll be back in thirty-five," he called from the hall.
She grinned in the dark, took one last look at the baby, and went to get ready for bed.
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