Originally posted 8/24/07Okay, this is exactly what you'd expect from me if you put the subjects John & Aeryn and Lost Weekend together, so be warned.
This is for the Third Terra Firma Beach Bash.
Thanks to Imloco2 for encouragement to get through this (I had a severe case of "Writer's Aversion" -- I swear, I could feel my brain actually physically TURNING AWAY from trying to write!), and thanks to Loco, Shipscat and CrystalMoon for some final sanity checking! (And please excuse me actually using "Lost Weekend" for the title, but it seemed to fit!)
Rating: PG
Setting: Shortly after "Twice Shy"
Spoilers: Through the beginning of MAA
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, no money being made.....
I hope you'll enjoy this!
Lost Weekend
Assorted members of Moya’s crew collected in the docking bay, preparing to take off for two simultaneous supply runs. There was a good deal of too-loud chattering going on as they waited for the last arrivals. John reckoned the noise was D’Argo’s and Chiana’s reaction to the fact that he and Aeryn were scheduled to be on the same transport pod – after a very public “breakup” a few days earlier. No doubt they were anticipating bloodshed....
He had to admit he was a bit nervous about it himself, though for different reasons.
The good thing about having fessed up about Scorpy’s spying was that since he and Aeryn were now playing on the same team, he didn’t need to take Granny’s drugs to keep himself from following his heart and giving the game away. The bad thing was, now he worried about
both of them screwing up, not just himself.... This trip was going to be a bit of a challenge, since not only were they on the same run, but Scorpy’s little spy, Sikozu, was going with them, if she ever got there, that is. He risked a glance at Aeryn, and saw that she was studiously avoiding making eye contact with anyone while they waited.
A sudden scream from the corridor sent everyone running that direction with coats flying behind them, and weapons drawn. Scorpius got there first, just barely, and was already kneeling beside a fallen Sikozu as Aeryn and John skidded to a halt in front of the pair, with D’Argo and Chiana right behind and Noranti bringing up the rear. The red-headed Kalish was massaging her ankle and looking more than a little chagrinned. She looked up at her audience and snarled, “That frelling DRD tripped me!”
“I hardly think it was intentional,” Aeryn countered.
“You should watch where you’re going,” Chiana agreed.
John sighed. “Are you hurt?”
Sikozu scowled and got to her feet, shaking off Scorpius when he tried to help her. “It’s not serious,” she declared, but they all saw her wince. She was obviously not putting anything like her full weight on her injured leg, and it was the same one that had recently been reattached after that damned spider woman tore it off.
“You should remain here,” Scorpius declared.
Sikozu’s scowl deepened. “I’m quite capable—” she began, but Aeryn cut her off.
“There’s no need for you to go if you’re injured. You’ll only slow us down.”
John could feel the suppressed hope radiating off her, and he shared it. The unexpected opportunity to spend some time alone together was priceless, however much the prospect made his stomach do flip-flops! Without daring to look at Aeryn, and without daring to hope that this was actually going to work, John seconded her. “I agree. We don’t need the help that badly.”
“It is a minor injury,” Sikozu protested, but given that Scorp was on their side for once, it was pretty much a done deal, and the discussion moved on.
With a rumble and a clearing of his throat, D’Argo volunteered, “You know, I’m sure Chiana and Noranti can handle the food run to Outback Station. I could come along with you two and help out with the tech supplies.”
Ah, frell. John knew D was just trying to avoid potential bloodshed, but he was sure making this harder. Now, how to manage to take advantage of this windfall without giving anything away....
Once again, Aeryn got there first. “We’ll be fine, D’Argo,” she said in her coldest voice. “Have you ever known either of us to fail to work together for Moya’s benefit?”
D’Argo looked back and forth between them, then over at Chiana and Noranti, both of whom shrugged.
“All right,” said John, trying to keep up the momentum. “Sikozu stays here with Scorp and Rygel, you three get on to Outback, and we’ll do the tech run.”
Aeryn stalked off ahead of him and he followed her at a safe distance, leaving D’Argo, Chiana and Noranti no choice but to head for the second transport pod....
* * * * * * * *
Aeryn called dibs on the pilot’s seat and John “reluctantly” took shotgun. He didn’t really mind, because he loved to watch her fly, something he hadn’t been able to do in a while. Together they did the final checkout of the pod.
After about a quarter of an arn, Chiana’s voice came over the comms, relayed through Pilot. “Uh, uh, hey!” she squeaked. “Are you guys sure you don’t need help? ‘Cos I, I could come with you, you know. D’Argo and Wrinkles can get the food....”
John hid a smirk. Aeryn’s irritation was unfeigned. “We’ll be fine, Chiana. Tell D’Argo I guarantee there will be no bloodshed.”
There was a long silence on the other end. Finally, Chiana replied, “If you’re sure....”
“I’m sure.”
Pilot came back on the communications line at that point, and after a final confirmation of their rendezvous in two solar days’ time, they took off.
Flying through Tormented Space took more of Aeryn’s attention than usual, and she focused on getting them on their way.
Under cover of watching her fly, John considered the nervousness that was tying his stomach up in knots. Getting into the pod and running preflight had helped get past some of the weirdness, because, however much they both wanted this, it was weird.... On the one hand, he wanted,
needed, this woman so much he could taste it. Hell, he’d had to resort to taking mind-numbing drugs for months to keep himself away from her! This time alone together should have been pure joy. On the other hand...there was still so much dren between them, and there’d been no time to sort any of it out. Now wasn’t the time to get into anything complicated, either, not while they were still playing a part back on Moya. Aw, hell. Life was never easy for them!
To take the edge off the attack of nerves that had his skin crawling, he got up and started searching the ship. He bent down to look beneath the consoles, ran his hands across the golden panels of the bulkheads, opened all the storage compartments....
Aeryn let him do it until she could stand it no longer. She turned to catch his eye. “What the frell are you doing?”
The exasperation in her voice amused him, because it was so normal, so
Aeryn. He looked back at her and shrugged. “Looking for bugs.”
“This area of Tormented Space plays havoc with transmissions.”
“Then I’m looking for
recording bugs!”
Aeryn rolled her eyes and went back to piloting. Without turning around again, she asked, “Do you think we have Pilot to thank for that? Sikozu?”
“Prob’ly. He’s on our side.” John still wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea that Pilot had guessed what his ruse with the comms was all about, but he had to admit, it did make their secret life just a little easier to have him looking out for them.
But Aeryn wasn’t amused by the stunt. “She could have been seriously injured! She’s not fully healed yet!”
John guessed that Aeryn’s indignation was driven not so much by concern that Sikozu might have been badly injured by something as simple as tripping over a carefully-placed DRD, as by the thought of someone else paying any price, however small, on their behalf. “Not hardly,” he said, trying to reassure her. “That girl is well nigh indestructible.”
Before she could reply, there was a huge bang. The transport pod shuddered violently and jerked towards its hamman side. Both occupants of the pod ended up sprawled on the deck with a huge spray of sparks from the bulkhead as the only source of illumination and sound in a suddenly darkened and quiet ship.
Two worried minds with a single thought, they called each other’s names simultaneously. Reassured, they scrambled to their feet. After a deep breath he regretted almost immediately, John coughed and nodded towards the flames. “I’m on it.” Aeryn gave a sharp nod in agreement and sat back down at the controls to try to figure out what was happening while he unearthed the fire extinguisher.
By the time he’d put out the fire and gotten the emergency lighting working, Aeryn had finished her survey. “The good news is, hull integrity is secure, and we have full oxygen supplies,” she began. When he came and stood behind her to see the displays, she added, “The engines are out, though,” not that that was any surprise. The lack of vibration had been a dead giveaway on that one.
John chose not to remark on it, just settled his hand on her shoulder. “Can you tell what happened? Are we on course?”
Are we going to hit something? the most primitive part of his brain was screaming, but he didn’t ask that, because he figured her gut was screaming it too.
Aeryn shook her head and answered his second question first. “We’re flying blind, though possibly drifting is a better word. For what it’s worth, there didn’t appear to be anything along our flight path before whatever happened, happened.”
He considered the situation. “Well, whatever it is, it hasn’t happened again, and we haven’t gotten any ‘surrender or else’ phone calls. It’s probably not someone shooting at us.”
She snorted. “You’re sure about that? That would have been my first guess, the way our luck usually runs.”
“All right, all right, don’t rub it in,” he muttered, and then dusted his hands against each other. “I presume you haven’t been able to get Pilot on the comms.”
Aeryn grimaced. “Tormented Space....”
No surprise there, either. “Guess it’s time for a little EVA work. Maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to fix the engines.”
“Sensors might be better.”
“All right, engines
and sensors.”
They stood and examined each other in the red emergency lighting. At last, a smile playing on her lips, Aeryn jerked her head towards the storage compartment. “We’d better get suited up.”
Half a dozen replies flitted through John’s mind, but in the end he settled for, “Let’s get going, then.”
They put on their spacesuits in silence, and headed outside to get a first-hand look at the damage.
* * * * * * * *
The lights were back on by the time they returned to the inside of the pod. A hiss of air escaped when John cracked the helmet seal on his spacesuit. Aeryn mirrored his action, and the two of them lifted off their helmets and wiped sweat off their foreheads in unison. Funny how they were still in sync in little ways, even after the rough times they’d been through in the past cycle.
Two arns of inspection and hard work had convinced them that there was no way to repair the damage to the engines without more tools and replacement parts than they had with them. So, here they were, back inside, stripping off their suits and facing a long wait before they missed their rendezvous and Moya came looking for them. On the plus side, they had managed to get the sensor array functioning again; they’d be able to see trouble coming, at least. Too, the pod had been provisioned for a two-day journey for three, with Sikozu; the fact that there were only two of them would extend their supplies even further, and that didn’t include the emergency kit. They certainly weren’t in any immediate danger of dying, except maybe of boredom.
As they examined and then stowed the spacesuits, Aeryn remarked, “At least both helmets were intact.”
John had no idea what she was talking about. He stared at her for a microt, wondering resentfully if she was referring to something that had happened with his twin. And then it dawned on him – she was talking about the time they’d been caught in the Flax, stuck together in a disabled transport pod just like this one.
When she saw understanding dawn, her eyes slid away, and just the hint of a pink flush appeared on her cheeks.
That pink flush was exactly why he wasn’t prepared to talk about it. Even now, three cycles later, the memory of them tearing at each other’s spacesuits raised his blood pressure – and other things – and he just wasn’t sure he wanted to go there just now....
Apparently Aeryn was just as weirded out, because she didn’t try to push the topic. After a microt or two, they both cleared their throats, and she said, “We should make sure the burn damage is contained.”
He agreed with alacrity – anything to keep his mind occupied with something other than the nearness of the woman beside him. While they were poking around the charred bulkhead, Aeryn remarked, “When I was a cadet, a training accident stranded me and several members of my squad on a small transport not too different from this pod.”
John pulled on a bundle of 3-K wiring leading to the transport linkage. Its insulation had been burned off, but that wasn’t really important until they had this baby stripped down for repairs, back on Moya. He made sure the circuit it connected to was switched off for safety. “So, how’d that turn out?” he asked, as much to hear her voice as anything. “Okay, I’m guessing, since we’re having this conversation.”
Aeryn smiled ruefully. “The command carrier caught up with us, but not before we began to discuss sacrificing the weaker members of the team to conserve air.” She shrugged when he gaped at her. “It was our duty to make sure the largest number of soldiers possible survived. If we’d all died because of insufficient oxygen when we could have saved some, it would have been a waste of our training.”
John suppressed a shudder. It still creeped him out when she said stuff like that, even though it was clear from her tone – not to mention her actions over the past several cycles – that she didn’t think like that anymore. Hell, she’d condemned herself to what she’d thought was certain death when she revived him in the Flax.... Damn!
Determined to change the subject, he rummaged in the corners of his mind for “trapped in a transport pod” stories of his own. Well, there was getting stuck on Rovhu with D’Argo, Chi and Jool because their transport pod broke down.... Oh, no, bad story, bad story! That led straight to Crichton number two which led to dead Crichton, and that was just not something he wanted to remind Aeryn of when they were stuck on a transport pod for the next two solar days!
“What?” Aeryn demanded, and he realized he’d been day-dreaming too long.
He said the first thing that came into his mind. “Zhaan!”
Aeryn stared at him. After a microt or two, she widened her eyes in question.
Warming to the topic, he asked, “Did I ever tell you about the time Zhaan and I were stuck for arns in a pod waiting for Moya because Rygel stashed his leftover dinner in the transfer linkage?”
She shook her head. “I remember that it happened....”
“We had a lot of time to kill, and Zhaan told me a long story about something that happened when while we were hidin’ out after blowing up Scorpius’ Gammak base. You ever hear of a place called Litigara?”
Aeryn wrinkled her brow. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s a pretty freaky tale. Planet of the lawyers. Now, there’s a hot tourist destination.” He paused, surveying the pod. “Looks like we’re done with the damage survey.” He touched her arm and said, “Come on, let’s make an inventory of our supplies just to be sure someone hasn’t been snurching, and I’ll tell you about it.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Do not say that,” he cautioned reflexively. Aeryn snickered, and they headed from the cockpit into the cargo area. While they went through the emergency supplies, he told her the tale of how Zhaan had been framed for murder, and Rygel and Chiana had become her unlikely advocates in a legal system where telling a falsehood could be fatal to them all. He downplayed Zhaan’s feelings of guilt over having abandoned the shipmates who’d been left behind by Moya’s starburst, but Aeryn must have picked up the vibes anyway.
By the time they’d finished their checkout, both of them had lapsed into uneasy silence again. With nothing more to do but wait, they headed back into the crew cabin and sat down on the bench.
They sat side by side, Aeryn’s head on John’s shoulder, for quite a while. The unspoken question,
Now what do we do? weighed heavily on them both. The scariest thing was, they both knew exactly what they wanted to do....
John snorted at his own nervousness. “I don’t suppose there’s a deck of cards in the emergency kit?”
There was a very long pause before Aeryn answered. She dropped her hands into her lap and stared at them. John chewed on his lip and waited her out. Finally, she looked up and ventured, “When we were caught in the Flax....”
“You killed me.” The ridiculous words just came out of his mouth, probably because he was still trying to avoid the inevitable.
She looked like she couldn’t decide between being hurt, or being angry.
“Joke,” John said hastily, because he didn’t want her to be either. “Little joke.” He held his thumb and forefinger a few denches apart and smiled winningly.
“A
very little joke,” she scowled, but there was a sparkle in her eyes nevertheless. She waited for him to say something, and when he didn’t, she prompted, “
After I killed you....”
Of course, he knew exactly what she meant. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t already standing at attention. Desire was almost palpable between them. But....was sex really any better form of intercourse than talking, when as soon as they were back on Moya, they’d have to go back to being self-proclaimed ex’s? Could they do that? (
Did he care? a little voice in the back of his mind whispered.)
They looked at each other, desire held tensely in check, searching each other’s eyes. Yes? No? Maybe? With a sudden softening of their expressions, a promise was made, and they reached their mouths tentatively one towards the other.
In the instant that their lips made contact, three frelled-up cycles melted away. It was as if they were back in the Flax, facing, not death, this time, but life. And life
demanded the sharing of their bodies,
immediately! Any remaining reservations were abandoned along with their clothes.
* * * * * * * *
Two days lost in lovemaking had done more to settle the awkwardness between them than two monens of talking would have done. The words would come later, when the universe was cutting them half a break, but for this magic time, they’d been beyond the need of them. But it was time for Cinderella to go home from the ball. Moya would be tracking them down soon, and given that you had to practically be on top of something out here to get a comms signal, they weren’t likely to get much warning. Reluctantly, they’d cleaned up, dressed, and settled themselves together on one of the bunks. John had his back against the bulkhead, and Aeryn sat in front of him, leaning back on his chest. Making the most of the time they had left, he had his arms wrapped around her and his head leaning on hers, occasionally kissing her hair. The silence was good. They were good....
The comms crackled to life. “John? Aeryn? Are you all right?” Pilot called. “What happened?”
“It’s show time!” John murmured into Aeryn’s ear, and then raised his volume. “Pilot, my man! What kept you? We were gettin’ all Starkish here!”
“Starkish?”
“You know, Starkish. Line down the middle of the pod, My side, your side, my side, your side!”
“I see.”
“He’s exaggerating, Pilot,” Aeryn said with a smile on her face that she managed to keep out of her voice. “The propulsion system is down, but we’re otherwise intact.”
“We’ll pick you up in the docking web shortly.”
“Thank you, Pilot,” Aeryn said. She turned around then, and searched John’s eyes. His reluctance to give up this closeness was mirrored in her dark eyes, but finally she smiled and said, “I love you.”
Grateful for her support, he whispered, “I love you, too.” He’d never meant those words more in his entire life.
They exchanged one last kiss, and then Aeryn climbed off the bunk and headed for the pilot’s chair.
John watched her go. These two precious days of making love and memories were going to have to last a long time....
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