Batchin' It (G) (Companion/sequel to "Mockingbird")

Originally posted 9/30/07

This is a companion piece to Mockingbird, my fic for the 19th Starburst Challenge at Terra Firma. You'll definitely want to read that first, or this makes no sense.

Rating: G
Setting: A couple months after PK Wars and immediately after my story, Mockingbird
Spoilers: Through PKW
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, absolutely no money being made!

Many thanks to MadScientist, Loco and Crash for drivebys and some great feedback! Since "Mockingbird" was written in present tense for the challenge, I've kept that tense here.

So, Aeryn and D'Argo ran into a little trouble on a shopping run. What happens when they get back to Moya?

Batchin' It

Batchin' it is fun – for the first few arns, anyway. It gives John the chance to work on his latest project without interruptions. But then he hits a snag, and he wants to bounce things off of Aeryn, and of course, she isn't there. She's taken the rugrat to the nearest commerce center by herself – to give him that uninterrupted time!

Halfheartedly, he gets Pilot on the clamshell and tries to bounce ideas off of him. But it doesn't go very well and his mind wanders, wishing Aeryn was there. Pilot doesn't know when to make suggestions, or when to shut up and let him ramble on until he solves his own problem. And Pilot definitely doesn't have that grin that says, Wait till I get you in bed tonight! Okay, that mental picture makes John realize the futility of what he's doing, and he signs off and doggedly tries another tack to solve his problem.

He manages to make some progress in spite of himself, until his stomach tells him it's time for a break. He heads to the galley and rummages, but nothing looks good, so he settles for grabbing a fellip nectar, and wanders around aimlessly, stretching his legs. He's missing Aeryn and the baby, and how dumb is that when they've only been gone half a solar day, and it was his idea to stay behind in the first place?

But damn, it's quiet...and they aren't due back for arns yet. He scowls.

Pilot's voice breaks the silence. "Excuse me," he says diffidently, "but I thought you'd like to know that I have had a communication from Aeryn. She will be docking in approximately a sixth of an arn."

John pumps his arm in victory, and under his breath murmurs, "Yeee-esss!" He raises his voice and calls, "Thanks for the info, Pilot! On my way!" Before the sound of his voice has died away, he is off and running, eagerly anticipating having his family back sooner than he expected.

He is in the docking bay when the prowler touches down. As soon as the engines are off, he scoots to the ship. He waits impatiently as Aeryn takes her sweet time collecting the baby and climbing from the prowler.

"Hey, baby," he says cheerfully as she jumps the last little way to the deck. Without a word, she drops her backpack and walks over to him, slipping her free arm around his waist. She holds him tightly, baby and all, forehead resting hard against his shoulder.

John hugs her and the little guy, but frowns, because it's obvious that something isn't right.

After a few microts, Aeryn pulls back and just stands there in front of him, baby tucked safely in one arm. She sucks in her lower lip, and he can see in her eyes that she's gone somewhere else. And then, abruptly, she tosses her head and...smiles?

Her mood puzzles him, but he can't resist: he leans in and kisses her, and almost forgets what he was going to ask. Mmmm, wait, wait.... He frowns again, pulls back and asks, "Everything all right?"

She looks like she's going to brush him off, and then she says simply, "Later."

He isn't thrilled, but accepts that this is the best he's going to get until she's ready to talk. "You need me to unload anything?"

Aeryn grimaces, and says, "No. We had bad luck."

To give her a little breathing room, he reaches for the baby. Bouncing his son in his arms, he says, "Hey there D! Did you miss me?"

"I think he probably needs changing," Aeryn volunteers, the first words since she landed that haven't been dragged out of her. Well, that's an improvement, anyway.

John checks the baby's diaper, gets a whiff, and chuckles, "I do believe you're right. Come on, boy, let's go get you cleaned up."

Aeryn follows him back to their quarters in silence.

* * * * * * * *

D'Argo's in a phase where he hates getting his diaper changed. The microt he's uncovered, he starts kicking, and complaining, and tries to turn over. At the moment, John finds this behavior endearing. He chuckles and starts singing D's favorite song as he swaps out the old diaper for new. "Hush little baby, don't say a word. Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mock-ing-bird don't sing, Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring."

John looks up at that point, grinning, only to see Aeryn boring a hole in him, her gray eyes haunted. She looks not so much like she's avoiding telling him what happened on the supply run, as that whatever it is, is so terrible, she just can't find the words. Damn! This is not good!

Stomach churning acid, he blanks his mind and goes back to his job, finishes changing the baby and puts the little guy in his bed for safekeeping. Only once that's done does he turn back to Aeryn, who's been pacing the room. She doesn't look any happier as she stops in front of him. Trying to keep his tone light, he sighs, "Probably best if you just spit it out, Aeryn."

She holds his eyes and says, voice cracking on the next-to-last word, "We almost lost him."

That does not compute. "Who?" he says, completely confused by the bald statement.

Aeryn's gaze slides to Little D, playing in his bed, and moisture fills her eyes.

What the frell does that mean? Aeryn's distress is way beyond misplacing a kid in the mall, so it's got to be more than that. He stares at her, waiting for an explanation. When none is forthcoming, he prompts, "Aeryn?"

She sighs, then takes a deep breath. "It was Furlow. She found us in the marketplace, accidentally, I think, and she was going to kill D'Argo. She wanted to punish you." Now that she's started speaking, she doesn't stop. She gulps air, almost a hiccup, and barrels on, words tumbling over each other. "I took him and I ran, but she, she followed us, and...she almost killed him, John! She would have done if I hadn't shot her first. She meant to do it. She would have shot our son!" Now she inhales sharply, her face working with the effort of not crying.

John stares at her some more, trying to let the sentences come together in his head, to make the meaning catch up with the individual words. He's too stunned to have a clue what he's feeling. All he understands at this moment is that their son's life has been threatened. The threat to his baby boy brings out fury, a fury that dies aborning, because he did grok some of Aeryn's words: "If I hadn't shot her first," she said. Neither fight nor flight are needed, so instead he struggles to understand what happened at the commerce center.

"She's dead? Furlow?" he asks, sounding stupid even to himself. "The mechanic? Why the hell would she want to hurt D'Argo? What did you do?" Sure, you always had to watch out for sawdust in the transmission when Furlow worked on your car, but...a baby killer? Aeryn starts to protest that she didn't do anything, but something she said earlier finally circles back in his mind: "She wanted to punish you." But I haven't done anything to Furlow! his mind insists, remembering only that she'd ripped off his wormhole data four cycles ago. And then the penny drops, and he gets it. Not me. Him...we...us.... Wormhole weapons and Scarran dreadnoughts...and radiation sickness.... "Furlow tried to kill D?" he asks again, stunned to have a past that wasn't quite his come back to haunt him.

Aeryn nods, and he can see in her eyes that she knows he's figured it out. "The Scarrans tortured her to make her tell them about wormhole weapons."

"Which, I take it, she didn't know anything about?"

Aeryn nods. "You and Jack kept her out of it." The topic of Furlow dispensed with in eight final words, she abruptly turns to the thing that's eating her up. "What if I hadn't been able to stop her, John? What if she'd hurt him?" Aeryn's losing the battle with tears. "What if he...died?" She barely gets the last word out, and tears spill out of her eyes and onto her cheeks.

His wife's fears resonate in John's very soul, because they both love the little rugrat way beyond anything they could have imagined before becoming parents, and he hates to see Aeryn in so much pain. He reaches for her, pulls her to him, whispering, "Shhh. Shhh. D'Argo's fine. He's here, right here with us, and he's fine. He doesn't have a scratch! You stopped her, baby. You stopped her good." She finally lets go of that iron control, and great wrenching sobs spill out of her. He holds her as she cries, stroking her hair, reminding her that she's a wonderful mother, a fierce mama bear, promising no one will ever hurt her cub....

Aeryn isn't easily soothed. "You didn't see her, John," she accuses, mumbling into his chest. "You didn't see the look in her eyes."

It's then that he realizes there's a lot she hasn't told him. For one thing, Aeryn would have been carrying the baby, so if Furlow was going to shoot D, she would have had to shoot D's mama, too. The very thought of losing both of them turns his blood to ice, causes his heart to skip a beat or three. He'd nearly lost his family, and where was he? Not where they needed him, that's for sure! No wonder Aeryn's been sobbing as if her heart is broken – it's not over killing a woman who obviously needed killing, but over the what-might-have-beens, the fear of failing her son. She clearly needs a change in perspective!

He lets loose his grip on her, and reaches a hand under her chin. He lifts her head gently, enough so he can see her face, and she can see his. "Aeryn. Listen to me." He waits till she ducks her chin just slightly, agreeing to listen, at least. "This was not your fault. You went shopping, and a lunatic turned up." He pauses for a microt, thinking, and then keeps it plain and simple: "You did not take D'Argo into danger on purpose, and you got him out of it, and that's all that matters."

She searches his eyes. "You're sure?"

He wipes her cheek with his thumb. "I'm sure."

Aeryn considers this, and John can see her calming down. She takes a swipe or two of her own at her cheeks, and the shiny patches on her face disappear. "I sang," she confesses at last, as if she was admitting to pulling the legs off of grasshoppers. "I sang your stupid song, trying to get D'Argo to be quiet so he wouldn't give away our hiding place."

Fascinated, he asks, "Did it help? Your singing?"

She snorts. "Some. I think it was the shock value of it."

As much as he's dying to ask her to sing for him, he can see by the set of her jaw that she's not about to do it again without the threat of life and death. He lets it go. A quick glance at the baby in his bed shows D'Argo is sound asleep after the adventure of the day. He has a sneaking suspicion that, even with the terrors conquered for now, Aeryn's not going to want D out of her sight for a while. "You stay here," he suggests. "I'll go get us a snack. We can eat cookies and chips in bed." He smiles winningly.

Aeryn's smile is much more tentative, but in the end she agrees. There's a hint of sparkle in her eyes that suggests she might have other things in mind for their bed besides chow, and he grins at her.

As he heads for the galley to dig up some comfort food, he vows that he's never going let Aeryn go shopping without him again. Not that he doesn't trust her, no way, she'll always be a better warrior than he is and he trusts her with his life and his son's life. But the universe is a crazy place, with old enemies popping up when and where you least expect them, and he'll never again leave her to face the terrors of protecting their child without his help.

Batchin' it is soooo not worth it!