Originally posted 12/9/06Here's the latest entry in the annual tradition of ac Christmas fic...
Something a little different this time -- it's not set on Earth! (Only the first one,
Christmas Future, can say the same thing, and
it was written in the hiatus after "Fractures," so it's a very different story than those I've written since....)
Rating: G (maybe PG for some cranky language)
Setting: About 4 cycles after PK Wars
Spoilers: Through PK Wars
Disclaimer: In no way do I own any of these characters (well, maybe baby Hope), and I'm certainly not making any money off them. I'd much rather see the copyright owners play with them, but in the meantime...I need more Farscape.
Thanks to Loco, Shipsister and MadScientist for the beta duties, and those of you who told me over in Pilot's Den (on
Terra Firma) that you'd heard of "Oh, Tannenbaum"!
Hezmana Girl, I think I'm going to have to blame part of this one on you.
Oh, Christmas Tree
John Crichton breathed deeply, then exhaled in supreme satisfaction. Everything was going according to plan!
True, the chill night air didn’t smell at all of pine, or for that matter, any other vegetation familiar from his childhood on Earth, but still, here he was, out with his wife and kids, on the lookout for the perfect Christmas tree to take home to Moya. Also true, tree-hunting was usually a daytime project, but—
Almost as if she’d read his thought, Aeryn groused, “Why are we walking around in the dark, again?”
“Because this planet only has trees at the poles, and it’s tilted enough to have a long winter’s night—”
“No,” she repeated, cutting him off. “Why are
we walking around in the dark?”
It was a rhetorical question, but four-cycle-old D’Argo bounced several steps forward and then stopped and yelled, “To get a Cris-mus tree, Mommy! It’s Cris-mus!!”
John chuckled softly, because he knew Aeryn wouldn’t say anything to dampen the boy’s enthusiasm. He refrained from pointing out they’d only walked a scant half a metra from where she’d landed the transport pod, and risked saying, “It’s tradition.”
“That’s your explanation for any number of impractical activities, isn’t it?”
“Of course, darlin’. You know you love it!”
Aeryn snorted and adjusted their baby daughter Hope where the little one – bundled up against the cold – rested on her mother’s left hip. Aeryn’s right hand carried a portable cutting tool.
“You know,” he observed, “you’re carrying that like it’s a weapon.”
Aeryn shrugged, feet crunching on the icy snow. “It is a weapon,” she deadpanned, and then broke into a grin. “And it’s your job to find me something to wield it against!”
“Yes, Ma’am!” He saluted her sharply, and when she snickered, he went back to scanning the thin forest around him. Truthfully, Aeryn and D’Argo could probably see better in the low light than he could, but this was a man’s job! Fortunately, there were three large moons in the crystal clear, star-studded sky, and while he wouldn’t call it daylight, it was plenty light enough to check out the nearest bushes and trees.
Unfortunately, nothing he saw looked even remotely Christmas tree-shaped. The bushes were, well, bushes, and the trees, what there were of them, tended to have a few large limbs with big leaves. Maybe they could make do with a single limb?
“What about this one, Daddy?” D said, darting over to a scraggly bush that probably did look like a tree from the child’s height. “I like this one!”
“What shape are we looking for, D?” John prompted gently.
“A cone!”
“And what does a cone look like?”
“Pointy at the top and
big at the bottom,” D’Argo said, drawing an A-line shape in the air with his hands. He pushed the hood back off of his head, ran a gloved hand through his hair, regarded his chosen shrub again, and frowned. Looking back at his father he said, “That one’s too fat at the top!”
John pretended to think about it, and then agreed. “I think you’re right, son.” They might have to compromise on shape, as he had once or twice in the past few years, but not without taking the time first to really look around.
D’s attention was diverted to watching his breath steam in front of him, and the family continued their leisurely hike. As they walked, the vegetation became denser, improving the odds that they would find something appropriate for their holiday celebration. John and D’Argo examined several possibilities, but none seemed right, and they pushed on, chatting happily, man to man.
Eventually John glanced at Aeryn, and realized that while he’d been talking with D, she had gone all soldier on him. A serious expression masked her face, and all of her attention was on their surroundings, not her family. She looked like she was ready to spring the microt she decided which way to jump. Crap!
He stopped looking at the trees, and gave himself over to figuring out what had her spooked. He didn’t see anything besides the same old vegetation, but after a short time he realized there was some kind of critter paralleling their path. He could hear its breathing, and the sounds it made as it crunched along on the snow. By the sound of its footfalls, it definitely weighed at least as much as an adult human or Sebacean male. What it wanted, he couldn’t guess. It wasn’t making tummy growling noises or anything else that sounded ominous, and it might not be a threat at all, but they had two little kids with them, and that was enough to start the rattlers going in his stomach.
He was still considering what to do when suddenly Aeryn thrust Hope at him. He took the baby instinctively, which was just as well, because his wife was in a hurry. “Take the children,” she ordered, voice low and tight, and gestured towards the left with her cutter. “Go that way! I’ll lead it away from you!”
“Aeryn—” he began in protest, but just like that, she was gone.
Moving as rapidly as he could without making so much noise he’d screw up Aeryn’s efforts to lure the critter away, John made sure he had a good grip on the baby, scooped up D’Argo with his other arm, and set off in the indicated direction.
* * * * * * * *
“Dad, what’s going on?” D demanded, twisting around awkwardly so he could see behind them. “Where’s Mommy?”
Straining to hear any relevant sound in the distance over his own heavy breathing and the pounding of his heart, John had to stop himself from biting his son’s head off. “D’Argo, I need you to be quiet now. Your mom’s gone to check on something, and we need to go where she told us to.”
“But
why? I wanna go with Mom!”
“Stop squirming, D, you do not want me to drop you!” The harsh edge to John’s voice brought immediate silence from his son. Hurt rolled off of the child, and John thought he heard a small sniffle, but he really couldn’t deal with hurt feelings right now. He was desperate to know what was happening with Aeryn, and the only way to tell that was by listening for faint sounds in the distance. “Just keep quiet for a little bit,” he repeated to D’Argo, trying to keep his tone civil. “I need to hear your mom.” Thank God the baby was simply looking around in wide-eyed silence as he strode along deeper into the forest, clutching his children in his arms and trying not to make too much noise of his own.
No crashing through the underbrush came to his straining ears, no screams (animal
or Sebacean), no humming sound of the cutter...no heavy breathing, except his own....
So far, he hoped, so good.
When he was pretty sure that the critter, whatever it was, had taken the bait Aeryn had offered, he paused briefly to take stock of their situation. He’d probably gone about a metra in the direction Aeryn had pointed him in. Unencumbered by the children, she’d probably gone twice as far in the opposite direction. Add it up, and you got three metras – that was pushing two miles. At that distance, even in the clear air, he wasn’t going to be able to tell what was happening, or if she was all right. Stomach curdling, he shifted the kids in his arms.
“Damn, D, you’re heavy,” he said, a little surprised to hear such a casual comment come out of his mouth under the circumstances. Normally D’Argo would have giggled or protested that accusation, but at the moment, he was still sulking. Listening to the quiet around them, John decided that it was probably safe to let his son walk, and set him on the ground.
“Where’s Mom?” D’Argo asked again, as if being on the ground had freed him from a vow of silence.
John wondered that himself. He didn’t want to scare the boy, but neither was he prepared to lie. “Not sure at the moment, son,” he said. “She’s taking care of something.” He made a sudden decision. “We’re going to head back towards the transport pod now, so she can catch up with us easier, okay?”
Miraculously, the boy said simply, “Okay.”
John breathed out a sigh of relief that this wasn’t going to turn into a power struggle with a four cycle old. He ruffled D’s hair, then kissed the baby on the forehead for being so good herself. Feeling just a tiny bit less worried now that he had a plan beyond “Run,” he took D’Argo’s hand and set off towards the pod. With luck, Aeryn would be there before them. If she wasn’t, he was going to have to decide whether to leave the kids alone and go after her....
* * * * * * * *
Hefting the cutter in her hand, Aeryn jogged steadily – and noisily – away from where she’d left John and the children. The solid weight of the tool made her feel better, even as she berated herself for coming down to an unknown planet without at least a pulse pistol. She’d grown frelling soft in four cycles of peace! Well, if she needed it, the cutter would make an acceptable club just as it was, or serve as an edged weapon, if she activated it.
Straining to hear if their shadow was following her, she ducked under branches and stuck close to tree trunks in an effort to make herself a poorer target. She wanted to be a diversion, not dinner!
The crunching sound of boots hitting forest debris and brittle snow accompanied her, and she paused for just a moment to catch her breath and listen for pursuit. There! Steady deep breathing from somewhere nearby impinged on her hearing. A hint of movement caught her eye, and she realized that something large had just come to a halt in the bushes, only motras away from her. She looked carefully and saw something that looked like a cross between a lion from Earth, and a Luxan. From the way it was settled, she deduced it walked on four legs rather than two, and she could see it was covered with fairly short fur, color indeterminate in the darkness. Rather than a fluffy mane, however, it seemed to have tentacles arranged around its head. Its eyes gleamed brightly in the moonlight, and they were fixed on her.
The creature emitted a low growl, but made no move to come any closer to her. Perhaps it wasn’t hungry.
Perhaps, she told herself sternly in case she tried to let down her guard,
it wants to play with its food.
She shook her head and stopped trying to guess its motivations. The important thing was to lead it away from her family, and give John the chance to get the children to safety. She could feel her throat tighten with fear at the thought of something happening to any of the three individuals who were the center of her life, but she’d long since learned to use her fear for additional strength, not weakness or carelessness.
She took one last deep breath, and called conversationally to the animal, “Well, come on. Follow me.”
The beast cocked its head to one side as if it understood her, and then took several tentative steps in her direction.
She nodded sharply at it, almost a salute, and set off on her original heading at a more leisurely pace, looking behind her from time to time to make sure it was following. Every time she looked, there it was, neither closer, nor farther away. She began to be annoyed that she didn’t know the rules of the chase. She let herself feel the weight of the cutter in her hand, though she didn’t think she was going to need it. Surely if it was interested in a meal it would have attacked by now, and it didn’t appear to be herding her anywhere, either. It was almost as if it were simply observing her. But why?
She’d been walking for perhaps a sixth of an arn with no change in the situation when she decided new tactics were required. If it continued to follow her like this, she didn’t dare circle back to meet up with John. So, she stopped dead just as she got to the far edge of a small clearing and turned to face her unwanted companion. The animal, whatever it was, stopped at the other edge of the clearing. They stood looking at each other across the open space for a long moment, and then Aeryn said, “Well? What do you want? Hmm?”
Once again the animal leaned its head sideways and looked at her. She had the distinct feeling that it was wondering exactly the same thing about her....
“Look, I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to protect my family,” she offered.
When she finished speaking, the creature whipped its head around to look at something approaching from behind it. Aeryn thought for a microt it must be John. Frell! She was going to kill him for not following orders this time! But just as quickly as the thought entered her mind, she realized that it wasn’t John at all. Low profile and swinging tentacles said it was another creature like the one she’d been walking with.
Fear rose in her heart, as it occurred to her that she’d been herded or hunted after all. Two of them could probably overwhelm any defense she could put up. Furious, she lifted the cutter up in front of her and flicked it on. The blade made a humming reminiscent of a light saber from John’s Star Wars movies. Despite what she’d said to John earlier, it wasn’t designed to be used as a weapon, but it was what she had, and she knew she could do a lot of damage with it. Holding her ground, she cleared her throat and said once more, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Prepared either to flee, or to attack, depending on what the newcomer did, Aeryn was caught completely off guard when the second animal trotted into the clearing, stopping beside the first. It was larger than the creature she’d been walking with – and in its mouth, it carried an immature member of the same species!
“Frell me dead!” she murmured. This had to be a family group, and she had the sinking feeling that she and John and the children had been heading straight for their home. Knowing the lengths she was prepared to go to to protect her own family, she found herself filled with caution. The new arrival – the male, she thought, based on its size – gave her the same long appraising stare she’d been getting from its mate, and she tried to look non-threatening. She turned off the cutter and lowered it, though she didn’t put it down.
A low growl emerged from the male’s throat, muffled by the offspring it carried. The female nudged his side and looked back at Aeryn.
Aeryn decided to take the risk that these creatures did, in some way, understand her. “I don’t want to hurt you, or your little one,” she said. “I just want to go back to my family, too. My little ones. Back there,” she added, pointing back the way she’d come.
The adults looked at each other, looking for all the world like they were considering her words, and then the male, still carrying the cub, abruptly trotted off in the direction Aeryn had just been heading. The female gave Aeryn another long look, and then followed him.
Heavy tool still clutched in her hand, Aeryn waited until they’d passed her before she let out the breath she’d been holding and headed off to find John.
Goddamn frelling Christmas trees!
* * * * * * * *
John heard Aeryn before he saw her, which meant she
wanted to be heard. He stopped and breathed a sigh of relief, because he couldn’t imagine she’d be leading trouble back to them. But, just in case he was misreading the situation, he kept his mouth shut and waited for her to arrive, and D’Argo followed his lead.
A few moments later Aeryn jogged up and stopped in front of them, breathing heavily.
“Mommy!” D’Argo squealed, and wrapped himself around her legs, indicating just how worried the little guy had been.
Aeryn dropped the cutter on the ground beside her and bent down to give D a hug. John waited, not all that patiently, until she stood up again and caught his eye. “You and your frelling traditions,” she said, a huge smile on her face.
He snickered, because if she was smiling, it couldn’t have been that bad, and then wrapped himself, baby and all, around her in a huge hug, burying his face in her neck. She wrapped her arms around him in return, and they stood there, holding each other tightly, until little Hope finally let out a squeal of protest.
They laughed, and turned each other loose. When Aeryn tried to step back, the baby reached for her mom. John handed her over without protest, just glad to have everyone together, safe and sound. “You have any trouble?” he asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “We were just trespassing.”
“Trespassing?
“The...creature...was just trying to keep us away from her family.”
“Ah.... First rule of hiking: Never come between a mama bear and her cubs.” He said it lightly, but he was more shaken than Aeryn appeared to be. They’d been lucky that whatever the critter was, it hadn’t decided to attack first and ask questions later. It could have grabbed D and run off before he or Aeryn could have done a thing.
He shivered, and looked around automatically for his son. The boy was nowhere to be seen, and he started to panic, but at that moment, D popped out from behind a tree.
“Daddy! Over here! I found a Cris-mus tree!!”
For the love of— Damn, that kid had a one-track mind! Here they’d almost been eaten, and he’s looking for Christmas trees! Aeryn bent down and picked up the cutter. She held it out to John wordlessly, and he got the message:
It doesn’t matter what it looks like. Cut it!John nodded his understanding and strode over to where D’Argo was bouncing up and down. “Wow,” he breathed, when he got a look at D’s latest find. You’d never mistake it for vegetation from Earth, but it had long, narrow leaves that resembled needles well enough, and the shape was dead on, and so was the size. “You did good, D!”
The boy beamed, and bounced, and in general got in the way while John cut the tree down, to the point where Aeryn called him over to stand beside her. As John dragged the tree back to the transport pod, he let the peace of a family Christmas settle over him. He found himself humming “Oh, Tannenbaum,” as he walked. You just couldn’t beat tradition....
Aeryn’s voice broke into his reverie. “You like tradition so much? Next year,” she declared, “we’re going to start a new tradition. We’re going to Earth, where you can
buy a Christmas tree in the mall!”
Author
