Pay it Forward (PG)

Originally posted 11/26/06

Well, hopefully this all hangs together.

I pulled a whole lot of threads into one little story, which was written for the 11th Starburst Challenge at Terra Firma.... (The theme was "gratitude.")

Rating: PG
Setting: After "The Hidden Memory"
Spoilers: Through THM
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, no money being made. Many thanks to those who DO own them for letting us play....

Thanks to ShipsCat, Loco and Shipsister for beta duties, and to MadScientist for a read-through. You guys are great! The title was a killer, and I'm still not sure it's right, but....there it is.

Pay it Forward

Shoulders slumped, John Crichton sat beside the body of the blonde Peacekeeper tech who’d just breathed her last with his kiss on her lips. Damn, I’ve seen way too much death up close and personal since I got here, he thought morosely. Not simply death, either. This was violent death, something with which he’d had little experience back home, and it curdled his stomach.

He wondered what was wrong with him that he wasn’t more upset, though. He was sad about Gilina’s passing, angry at the waste of a vibrant life, but his sorrow was more for her than for himself. Even though he’d liked her a lot, really clicked with her, he’d barely known her. She hadn’t been a real part of his life, wouldn’t leave a gaping hole behind her as past losses had. But he couldn’t shake the bitter feeling that she’d died because of him. He reached out and smoothed a wisp of her hair. She’d been a nice girl, a sweet girl, who’d gone above and beyond to help him because she loved him. And now she was dead.

With a sigh, he took her hand, and then closed his eyes to shut out the image of her lifeless body. “Do you think...if things had been different...that you could've loved me?”

It had been easy to tell her, “Yes,” because it was the truth. If things had been different, they might have had a great life together.

But....

Damn, that was a huge “but.”

But, he acknowledged to himself, there was Aeryn.

He generally shied away from thinking too much about his feelings, but it was true. Aeryn Sun, warrior woman, definitely stood between him and any relationship he might have had with Gilina, or any other nice girl he might meet, for that matter.

“Do you want to be with her?”

He hadn’t answered, but somehow Gilina had seen what he’d refused to see himself, even after he’d slept with Aeryn, until he’d nearly lost her, twice in the space of a few days: That whatever objections his head insisted on raising, his heart had crossed the line....

“Crichton?”

His eyes flew open, and there in front of him was Officer Aeryn Sun herself. He hoped to hell she couldn’t see what he’d been thinking.

His expression apparently puzzled her, because she frowned and held out one of the ubiquitous gold blankets that came from Moya’s stores. Nodding towards the bed where Gilina rested, she said, “I came to help you prepare her for burial.”

He gazed at her in surprise, remembering how contemptuous she’d been of Gilina back on the Zelbinion.

Aeryn sucked in her lower lip and drew herself up straighter. “She was a Peacekeeper. She should have a proper burial in space.” Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded, and Aeryn continued. “We have a tak 2 torpedo casing that will make an acceptable coffin.”

It was funny how little things caught your attention, even at times like these. “We have torpedoes?” he blurted. “I thought Moya didn’t have any weapons!”

Aeryn shrugged. “She doesn’t. But there are several casings in the hamman-side storeroom on tier 3. They must have been used for transporting some other kind of supplies.”

“Oh. Guess it’s good they were here,” he said, thinking even as the words left his mouth that that sounded totally lame.

Aeryn didn’t seem to mind, though, and produced some cloths and a brush from underneath the blanket she was still holding. “Zhaan wiped her down when she was tending to her, but we should clean her face and hands again anyway, before we wrap her up. And brush her hair, I think.”

He nodded, though he had no real idea what needed to be done. He’d been about to ask if this wouldn’t be a better job for Zhaan, but obviously Aeryn had appointed the two of them to do it, and he couldn’t bring himself to look like a coward in her eyes. He glanced down at Gilina’s scorched and dusty clothing, and wondered aloud, “Do we have something nicer to, uh, bury her in?”

Aeryn frowned at him and shook her head. “She’d want to be buried in her uniform,” she said, as if that should have been self-evident.

“Uh, right,” he murmured, and reached for a cloth.

* * * * * * * *

When they’d finished cleaning and wrapping Gilina’s body, Aeryn took her leave to go bring the torpedo casing to the docking bay. Alone again with his guilt, John picked Gilina up in his arms and started for the bay himself.

It was a creepy feeling to be carrying the body of someone he counted a friend. He let his mind wander to distract himself from the, well, there was no other word for it, the dead weight in his arms.

He hadn’t really wanted Gilina to stay aboard the Zelbinion back when they first met, even though life on Moya hadn’t had much to offer her. Maybe he should have forced her to come? But he knew that was caveman B.S. The decision had been hers to make, and she’d chosen to stay in her world.

If she’d been brave – or foolish – enough to come with them instead of going back to her Peacekeeper life, what would have happened? Would things have been different between them? In a lot of ways they were two of a kind, he and Gilina, both techs, both with an unending fascination for how things worked and what they could do about it and with it. They spoke the same language. It would have been easy to fall in love with her, if she’d been here with him on Moya, very easy. And Aeryn, he thought – tough, “I don’t need emotions,” warrior Aeryn – would never have tried to interfere. Or would she have?

He paused and shifted the body in his arms, wishing he was somewhere, anywhere else. But his buzzing brain kept right on trying to answer unanswerable questions....

He still remembered how surprised he’d been back on the Zelbinion when he’d realized that Aeryn wasn’t angry with him for wasting time kissing Gilina when he should have been trying to fix the ship – she’d been jealous that he was kissing someone else! The longer he knew Aeryn, the more he understood how hard it must have been for her to have admitted that to him. She’d probably been as surprised as he was to hear those words coming out of her mouth.

Lord, how had he ended up in an interstellar soap opera?

Truth be told, a few arns ago on the Gammak base he’d thought it quite possible that Aeryn had deliberately discouraged Gilina from escaping with them today to avoid the competition (or maybe just because she didn’t much like techs), though he’d wanted to believe her when she said she hadn’t. It was only Gilina’s dying words – “Aeryn was right” – that took away the last of his doubts that it had once again been Gilina’s own fears that had led her to stay behind until she’d changed her mind at the very last minute.

Damn! “You should have listened to Aeryn sooner,” he murmured to the empty air in front of him, shaking his head. “Shoot him, Gilina!” His own words echoed in his memory. He’d been giddy, sure he was saved when she turned up on the surface of the moon holding a gun – but he’d forgotten she was a tech, not a soldier. One minute Scorpius’ weapon had been pointed at John’s throat, and the next, deadly energy had been leaping towards the nervous, indecisive girl.

He clamped his jaw shut to keep from spitting in disgust. Peacekeeper bastards! He always seemed to have one of them on his tail. The new one, Scorpius, might be even more insane than Crais. For the millionth time, he wished he was back on Earth, but that meant wormholes, and that, apparently, was what this Scorpius creep was all about.

He paused again, this time to make sure he was still heading the right direction after all this cruisin’ on autopilot. Yes, thank God, there was the docking bay, only a hundred yards or so ahead. Once again, he shifted the body in his arms, just a little, and wished things had turned out differently. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m really sorry.”

With a deep breath, he headed off again, hoping Aeryn would be there already, and he could lay down his burden.

* * * * * * * *

With Aeryn’s help, John got Gilina’s body settled into the make-shift coffin, and tightened up the wrappings. Once they’d finished, they stood there like idiots, trying to decide what to do next. He kept thinking, Doesn’t Aeryn know some basic ceremony? Don’t soldiers do this all the time? Better yet, where’s Zhaan? But he was incredibly grateful that Aeryn had come to help him with this in the first place, and he figured since they’d taken this on themselves, it was his responsibility to say a few words, if only he could think of something to say....

Much to his relief, and Aeryn’s too, he could tell, Zhaan appeared in a swirl of sparkling baby blue robes and sweet-smelling incense, and took charge of the service from their inept hands. John and Aeryn stood to one side as she invoked her goddess and began to speak. “The Goddess graciously receives into her bosom all those who pass from this existence, regardless of faith or belief. I was only privileged to know Gilina Mays in this life for a few arns, but I see the results of her kindness in the health of Aeryn Sun, and her bravery in the safe return to us of John Crichton.”

Before she could continue, sudden movement attracted both John’s and Zhaan’s attention to the doorway. Much to John’s surprise, Chiana and Stark, his not-so-crazy cell-mate from the Gammak base, stood solemnly in the shadows. Zhaan smiled beatifically and added to her previous comment: “Through her efforts, this girl brought freedom to the Banik slave, Stark, as well.” Embarrassed, perhaps, Stark ducked his head, though John thought he saw a small smile on the man’s face.

Zhaan surveyed the sorry band of mourners, which now included D’Argo as well, though, unsurprisingly, no Rygel. “Would anyone like to speak?” she asked.

Aw, hell. John could feel Zhaan’s eyes on him, and he knew he should say something. They were all looking to him as chief mourner, and he guessed he couldn’t blame them. Gilina’s feelings had been obvious to everyone. He looked off into the distance and thought. What he really wanted to say was, “Thanks for saving Aeryn.” He was way more grateful to Gilina for that than for saving his sorry ass. But he couldn’t do that to either Gilina or to Aeryn, who was standing stiffly beside him. So, what could he say?

The silence stretched while he dithered, and suddenly Aeryn took a step towards Gilina’s body. She flicked a glance towards John, and then took a deep breath and said, “She had a warrior’s heart.”

For the first time since Gilina’s passing, John felt his eyes fill with tears. It was the ultimate compliment from Aeryn, and it was the absolute truth. In her own world, Gilina was braver than anyone, had been willing to take any risk to protect others. He blinked once and swallowed a couple times to get his throat working. “She was a way better friend than I deserved,” he managed to get out. “I owe her a lot.”

But damn, he wished he’d said that when she could hear him. There just hadn’t been time to say thanks for everything before, and he didn’t believe she could hear him now.

Aeryn threw a concerned glance his way, but he shook his head. I’m okay. She frowned, but didn’t comment on the denial.

Letting Zhaan’s rhythmic words wash over him as she continued with the ceremony, John found his thoughts once again on Aeryn, more than on the girl they’d come to bury. Still thinking of gratitude left unsaid, he wished he could say something to Aeryn about her trying to get Gilina to leave with them. It had been an incredibly generous thing for her to do, given that soap opera he’d been thinking about earlier. But his relationship with Aeryn, whatever it was at this point, whatever his feelings, was way too tenuous, and he had no clue how she’d take him talking about “the other woman.” Maybe there’d be a time later when they could really talk about these things. Maybe.

“John?” Zhaan’s voice pulled him back to the reality of the funeral ceremony.

“Huh?”

“It is time to commend Gilina’s body to space.”

His stomach tightened, but he nodded, and bent to help Aeryn seal the casing.

As the coffin was launched into the blackness beyond Moya, Zhaan chanted a final blessing. “Ahmet,” she breathed when she finished, and the little gathering echoed her.

The small black casing disappeared from sight far sooner than John expected. He reluctantly gave up scanning space, only to see Aeryn eyeing him again. As soon as she saw he’d seen her, she bit her lip and took off without a word.

The others moved to follow her, but John didn’t quite feel ready to go. Aeryn, D’Argo, even Zhaan, would probably whack him upside the head and tell him that Gilina had made the choices that lead to her death of her own free will, that it wasn’t his fault. And, some part of him knew that was true. But some part of him would always blame himself.

A slight movement to his left made him realize that Stark was still in the docking bay. His ex-cellmate’s one good eye was full of sorrow. Now, here was someone who had a really good heart, someone else he owed a lot to. “Hey, Stark,” he said, without all the dithering and second-guessing. “Thanks.”

Stark regarded him gravely, tilting his head for a better view. “What for?”

John shrugged. In his mind’s eye he saw, no, felt, Stark’s yellow light washing over him in that dungeon-like cell, bringing unexpected comfort, and then saw it again, helping Gilina at the end. “For everything. For helping me cope, back in that cell. For giving Gilina something peaceful to hold onto.” He paused, and then repeated, “Thanks.”

Stark dipped his head slightly. “My freedom is far more thanks than I deserve for my small services. I owe a great debt to you all.”

Without any real thought, John observed, “Well, if you want to stay free, you probably don’t want to stick around with us.” Thinking of Gilina again, he added, “We seem to have a talent for attracting trouble.”

Stark’s eyes widened in sudden alarm. “But surely you’re going to run from here? Run fast? Scorpy will come after me. You too! He never gives up!”

John sighed. “Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t you? But we can’t run yet, not with Moya’s baby to look out for. We won’t be able to starburst for a while yet.” Damn, if Stark was still with them when – if – that freakin’ Scorpius caught up with them, the Banik was going right back to the Aurora chair. The look of panic on Stark’s face struck right to John’s heart, because he knew he could never face that again. He wanted to curl up in a fetal position just thinking about it. “Look, Stark,” he said, “there’s no reason you have to stay here with us. You can take one of our transport pods and get the hell away.” He imagined the others were going to argue about that, because they had few enough resources as it was, but he’d find some way to make it stick. This was one debt of gratitude he was going to pay....

Stark broke into a smile, and John felt the weight on his shoulders lessen some. No matter how guilty he was or wasn’t, brooding wasn’t going to bring Gilina back. He gave one last look outside the docking bay where her coffin had disappeared, and then deliberately turned his back. “I don’t know about you, Stark, but I could use a drink.” He clapped the man on the back. “Come on, let’s go see what’s in the fridge.”