The Song Remains the Same: Coda (PG-13)

[aeryncrichton]

Originally posted 8/28/08

Well, I've been saying I'd write this for about three years, I think; it's about time I got to it!      It took longer than I'd hoped, but I think it's ready for prime time now.

This is a coda/epilogue to The Song Remains the Same, Part 1: Cacophony and The Song Remains the Same, Part 2: Euphony.  That two-part story is one of my favorites of everything I've ever written, and I hope this doesn't turn out to be anticlimactic...but it will definitely not make any sense if you haven't read the earlier story (like why it's post-PKW and John and Aeryn's son is named Jack...).

Rating: PG-13
Setting: AU about 3 cycles after PKW
Spoilers: Through PKW
Disclaimer: Not my universe, not my characters, no disrespect intended, no money being made. But damn, these characters just LIVE, you know! 

It's fairly long (about 8500 words), but I'm going to try and get it all into one post here.

Many thanks to imloco2 and shipsister for the betaing, and to ShipsCat for a drive by.

The Song Remains the Same: Coda

Three cycles had passed since John Crichton had awoken from a wormhole god-induced coma, healthy enough physically, but missing three entire cycles of his life – the apparent effect of having had all knowledge of wormholes ripped brutally from his mind. He'd been lost, alone, and terrified, especially when he realized that those missing memories included nearly the whole of his relationship with the woman who said she was his wife, and the mother of his newborn son. But the terror had faded when Aeryn had persuaded him that they could overcome that loss. And indeed, in the cycles since, they'd built a life together with their young son Jack.

Part of that new life was atonement for sins John knew only by reputation, but regretted nonetheless. After Rygel and Chiana had departed Moya for the glamour of the royal life on Hyneria, John and Aeryn had talked long and hard about what they wanted to do with their shared life. Returning to earth was out of the question; even if he'd been able to get them there, he knew in his heart that as much as he longed for home, he had changed too much to fit in. Returning to the Peacekeepers, he discovered quickly, was the same deal for Aeryn, minus the longing. Whatever they did, it had to accommodate the fact that they were parents now; their first responsibility was to their son. And then a call came from Jool and Noranti on Arnessk. There was need of help in the enormous task of creating a new home for the peacemaking Eidelons – both the handful of ancient priests who had survived the attack on their temple, and those of their descendents who had escaped the destruction of Qujaga. Faced with such a worthy request, John and Aeryn had searched each other's eyes for long microts, and then said yes.

Oh, they'd had their ups and downs, who didn't, but they were good together, really solid. Life on Arnessk was hard, mostly physical labor, clearing rubble and rebuilding, but the results grew in front of their eyes, as did their happy, healthy son.

The diagnosian back on Arnault had told him he might heal one day, but in three cycles on Arnessk, John had never recovered even a hint of those lost memories. Sometimes, just sometimes, he felt a pang of regret for things he dearly wished he could remember. But screw it! Life was good. He had his wife, and his son – and now they were gonna have a new baby!

* * * * * * * *

"Push, Aeryn, push!" Jool said, cheerleading from the sidelines in the med center. "What are you waiting for? Push!" She shook her head, sending her red curls flying.

John, positioned at the end of the bed between Aeryn's bent knees so as to be able to "catch" the baby when the little one emerged, winced. He couldn't help but think that their Interion friend was taking her life in her hands with her perky advice. This normal-length pregnancy had not been fun for Aeryn, and her labor had gone on for more than a few arns as well. She was good and ready to have it over with, and she did not need "perky" from her medical attendant of choice. But his wife, perhaps remembering that she'd refused to allow the alternative practitioner – Noranti – even in the room, slapped the bed hard as another contraction hit her and ignored Jool's comment, and John decided it was safest to do the same. He wasn't going to remind her to breathe, either, not with her face all screwed up like that, and wisps of black hair plastered to her with sweat. She'd only tell him – again – in that razor sharp tone of hers that this was all his fault...and he felt bad enough seeing her in pain, even for a good cause! When he could see the contraction had passed, he said soothingly, "I'm here, Aeryn. It's going good, I can see the baby's head. You're almost there. Just give it a good push next time."

Aeryn glared at him, but said nothing, and when the urge to push hit her again, she raised herself up on her elbows, took a deep breath and pushed with all her might.

"That's good, baby, it's coming, it's coming," John encouraged, reaching for the infant as the head popped out. Instinctively, John rotated the baby slightly as the shoulders emerged, and the rest of the tiny body slid into his hands. After a few microts of apparent stunned silence, the baby screwed up his face and wailed. When she heard his indignant protests, Aeryn let out a joyful sob of her own and dropped back onto the bed.

John's eyes filled with tears of joy and amazement as he cradled his second son in his arms. He'd been sucking it up through the whole labor, trying to be whatever Aeryn needed from him, and now, as the reality of the moment hit him, he gasped. "Wow!" The tiny infant had a mat of dark hair plastered on his head, and, at first glance, anyway, all the requisite appendages. John raised his head and looked into his wife's eyes, the woman who had created this miracle. "It's a boy, Aeryn. Jack has a baby brother!" he told her, letting out a huge relieved breath. "We have a son!" She smiled at him, and opened her mouth to say something.

"Cut the cord, Crichton," Jool interrupted sternly, reminding him that they weren't done here yet.

"Oh, yeah." John pulled his attention away from his wife and set the baby down on the bed. He tied and cut the umbilical cord under Jool's watchful eye, then scooped the baby up again. He probably should have wiped the kid off and wrapped him up, but he knew Aeryn was waiting to see her new son, so he moved to the head of the bed to hand her the baby just as he was, still damp and messy from the birth. "Here you go," he began, and then stopped dead as he realized that her face was taut with pain. At the same moment, Jool said, "Uh-oh."

"What?" John demanded, his voice sharp with alarm.

Jool finished running a scanner over Aeryn's abdomen and sucked in a breath. John could see she was trying to keep calm, but he heard the concern in her voice when she said, "The placenta separated incompletely. She's still bleeding."

John's stomach tightened in fear, but not wanting to upset his wife, he, too, tried to sound calm, though he doubted he succeeded. "What exactly does that mean?"

Ignoring him, Jool pressed down on Aeryn's belly with the flat of her hand, moving from one side to the other and back again.

Aeryn gasped in pain, and John locked eyes with her. Fear was written all over her face. No question, she knew this wasn't good. He started to reach out and touch her, and realized abruptly he was still holding their newborn son in his arms. He threw Aeryn an apologetic smile, and rushed to wrap a blanket around the infant and put him down in the cradle they'd prepared for his arrival.

While John was doing that, Aeryn caught Jool's attention. "How bad?" she asked simply.

Still palpitating, Jool looked Aeryn straight in the eye. "Bad enough," she admitted, and Aeryn nodded.

Baby settled, John rushed back to his wife's side. He could see that blood was still flowing freely from between her legs, and she was losing color fast. This was not good. This was really, really not good! Every instinct said he had to do something to fix it, but what? His brain raced, looking for options. Try to reach inside her somehow and remove the rest of the placenta? Emergency hysterectomy? He wasn't qualified to do either, and if there was another alternative, he didn't have a clue what it was. Whatever they were going to do, it was going to have to happen fast, though – so much blood! Feeling utterly helpless, he took it out on Jool. "Do something!" he yelled.

"I am doing something!" Jool hissed, not taking her eyes off her patient and continuing to press on Aeryn's stomach. "This will encourage her uterus to contract!"

Still thinking in terms of more drastic intervention, he began, "What good will that—"

Aeryn abruptly lurched herself to a half-sitting position, up on her elbows again, and Jool and John stopped yelling at each other long enough to yell at her. "Stay down, woman!" John yelped, at the same time as Jool hissed, "Lie down and stop moving, Aeryn! You're making it worse!"

"Jack," she breathed, still struggling upward. "I want...to see...Jack!"

John's stomach did massive flip flops, because he suddenly realized that Aeryn thought she was going to die. Trying to divert both their minds from that terrible possibility, he gestured around them indicating the blood and the panic, and barked, "Are you insane? You can't bring Jack in here like this! He'll be traumatized for life!" He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to push her down, but she resisted with more strength than he would have imagined under the circumstances.

In the midst of the power struggle, a three-eyed whirlwind blew into the room. Before John had a chance to do more than register her presence, Noranti pushed past him and blew a handful of white powder directly into Aeryn's face. Aeryn's eyes rolled upwards in her head and she fell back onto the bed, apparently unconscious.

Heart pounding in fear and control hanging by a thread, John rounded on Noranti and bellowed, "What the hell did you do?"

"She's all right, Crichton. The powder will slow the hemorrhaging, giving us time to work. Now, get out of the way." Turning her back on him, Noranti added, "Jool, I need your assistance."

Jool spared him a sympathetic glance. "She's strong, Crichton." After a brief internal debate, she added only, "Take care of the baby, and let us work."

It was far less than a promise that Aeryn would be okay, but she was right. The best thing he could do for Aeryn was to stay out of the way, and take care of the baby she'd worked so hard to birth. "Do your best," he said with a sharp nod of his head, though Jool had already turned away to help Noranti.

Blinking back the moisture that blurred his vision, John bent over and picked up their new son. The baby had Aeryn's black hair, John realized, and lots of it. Somehow, that brought just a little bit of comfort. "Hey there, little one," he said softly, "let's get you cleaned up. You wanna look all pretty for your mama when she wakes up, don't you? Sure you do!"

The baby, oblivious to either the drama going on in the room, or the lump of ice that had settled in his father's stomach, looked curiously around the room....

* * * * * * * *

What a difference a couple of arns made! Aeryn, cleaned up now and ensconced in her own bed, was still unconscious, as much, John was sure, from the blood loss and general trauma as from Noranti's drugs. But her chest rose and fell reassuringly, her pulse was strong, and he'd been promised she was going to be fine. Absolutely fine! Honest! They swore! All she needed was some rest and a chance to replenish her blood supply....

Now that the drama was over, John was exhausted, and he had one hell of a headache. More than once he'd had to keep Jack from climbing onto the bed to be with his mama, which hadn't gone over very well. Still, his overwhelming emotion was that of relief. Sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Aeryn with the baby sleeping in the crook of one arm and a very confused and grumpy three-cycle-old sitting in his lap, John leaned his head on the bed and fought off tears of joy. Damn, he was a wuss sometimes, but he'd just been forced to endure several terrifying arns fearing a bleak future without the woman he loved by his side! He was entitled to be a little emotional here!

He blinked and picked his head up and looked at Aeryn again. She still looked deathly pale, especially in contrast to the thick dark hair that framed her face, but the lines of pain were gone, and he tried not to worry. Jool and Noranti had managed to remove the rest of the placenta from her uterus and stop the bleeding without having to resort to major surgery. "You can even make more babies," Jool had told him, in a tone that said he'd be a fool to risk Aeryn's life again for the dubious benefit of more offspring. He'd thanked her for the information, of course, because if nothing else, Aeryn would recover faster and with less pain without having had parts of her body cut out. But at the moment, he pretty much agreed with Jool. After two complicated deliveries, this one nearly fatal, he'd be damned if he was going to ask Aeryn to go through this again, especially when she'd already made him two beautiful boys! Hell, he shouldn't even have asked for this one! he berated himself, ignoring the fact that Aeryn had wanted this baby every bit as much as he did. They already had a fantastic son! Just because he couldn't remember Jack's birth, didn't mean he needed a second kid!

He was distracted from his guilty thoughts when Jack pulled his thumb out of his mouth and twisted his head around to look up at his old man. "Daddy?"

"Yeah, Jack?" he responded, keeping his voice low to avoid disturbing either Aeryn or the baby.

"It's daytime."

John had no idea where this was going, but he took the statement to mean that it was light outside. "Uh-huh. It always is, this time of day."

Jack frowned in the exaggerated way of little kids galaxy-wide, screwing up his entire face. "Then why is Mommy sleeping?"

Ah! Why was Mommy sleeping indeed? Mommy could fall off a cliff and sew herself up on the way down...and here she was, sleeping in the middle of the day. John didn't blame the kid for being confused, but he didn't think he wanted Jack to know how close they'd come to losing her, even if he'd been able to think of a way to explain what had happened simply enough that the boy could understand. He smoothed Jack's unruly blond hair, kissed the top of his head, and gave him the preschool version of the truth. "Because growing and birthing a baby is hard work, sport. It takes lots and lots of energy. And now that your brother is here, she needs her rest to feel better. She's fine, Jack," he added, realizing belatedly that the little guy probably needed reassurance as well as an explanation. He glanced over at Aeryn, and then looked back at their son. "She'll wake up soon." He hoped that was true, because he needed to see her awake as much as Jack did.

Jack considered this for a while and finally said simply, "Oh." Apparently satisfied, he stuck his thumb back into his mouth and lapsed into silence.

John followed suit. The fact that Jack had reverted to sucking his thumb probably meant the kid had picked up a lot of bad vibes he didn't understand, but if he didn't want to talk about it, John was more than happy not to have to come up with words. His head was still pounding, but he figured what with the all night labor and the terrifying finish, a throbbing headache wasn't exactly a surprise.

His eyes focused somewhere beyond the stone walls of the bedroom, and he tried not to think of anything at all. His head hurt less that way. After a sixth of an arn or so, Jack's rhythmic breathing told him that the boy had fallen asleep, and without the need to keep an eye on his firstborn, John found himself dozing off too.

He was brought back to wakefulness sometime later by the feel of something gently ruffling his hair. Even in his groggy state, he knew instantly that that "something" was Aeryn's fingers. At last! Heart pounding, he looked up to see her, still flat on her back on the bed, watching him nervously, looking for signs that everything was okay. As he blinked back more damn tears of relief, she slid her hand down from the top of his head to cup his cheek gently. He quirked the corners of his mouth up in a smile meant to be reassuring and her eyes went from him to Jack to the baby and back. He was sure she'd already assessed her personal condition, and was more concerned about the rest of them. When she finished her visual check of her family and locked eyes with him again, she looked a lot more relaxed. Words seemed pointless in the face of their good fortune, but now that Aeryn was awake, John felt the need to hear her voice. He gnawed on his lower lip for a microt, and then broke into a grin to rival that of the Cheshire Cat. With the young'uns still asleep, he kept his voice low to give himself a private moment with his wife. "You gave us quite a scare."

Aeryn acknowledged that with a faint smile and a raised eyebrow, and observed, "You've looked better."

"I probably have at that," he admitted. "How do you feel?"

"Not too bad. Sore, mostly. I've felt worse." They grinned at each other again, and then Aeryn asked, apparently needing to hear it in words, "Is the baby okay?"

"He was never in any danger, babe. You're the one who scared the crap out of us!" She frowned, and he hurriedly went back to the topic of their new son. "He's fine. He's beautiful," he assured her, hearing himself babble. "He's been really good. He hasn't even been yelling for food yet. You've only been out of it for a few arns," he added, to bring her up to speed.

"Give him to me," she commanded, and rather than ask if she felt up to holding the baby, John went into, 'If Aeryn says jump, you ask How High,' mode and replied, "Yes, ma'am!" Besides, that was exactly what he'd been trying to do back when all hell broke loose right after the birth!

While John was trying to figure out the best way to hand the baby to her without waking Jack up, Aeryn tried to sit up, and discovered to her obvious annoyance that she was too woozy for that. John waited till she was settled back down again, and then disentangled his arm from around Jack so he could pass the baby to Aeryn. The baby woke up as they made the transfer, but he continued to be quietly curious. Wondering fleetingly if Jack had been this serene at birth, John settled the little guy on his back next to his mother, and she rolled over onto her side so she could see him properly. She wrapped her arm around the baby, pulled him closer and cooed.

"Look at you! You're beautiful!" Her voice trembled with a mixture of exhaustion and emotion, and she reached out a finger and gently stroked his tiny arm.

John turned to a puddle of goo just watching her. "'Course he's beautiful! Just like his mother," he grinned. When she returned his smile, he added, "He's got your hair, and I bet those eyes are going to stay gray. I think this one is going to take after your side of the family, babe."

"Do you think so? I don't know what anyone in my family looks like besides my mother."

She sounded so wistful, John couldn't help but try to soothe her. "Look in a mirror," he said softly. "That's all you need to know."

Aeryn snorted, but he could tell she was pleased.

Their talking woke Jack, who squealed happily. "Mommy!" he crowed. "You waked up!"

"Hey, Jack," she grinned. "It looks like we both woke up!"

John made no attempt to stop Jack this time when the boy scrambled out of John's lap and climbed up on the bed next to his mom and his new baby brother. He leaned against his mother, and studied the small creature beside her. "That baby comed out of your tummy?" he asked.

Aeryn smiled. "He did!" she assured Jack. "Just like you did!" Grinning, she reached out to tickle his tummy.

John watched as Jack dissolved in giggles and Aeryn continued to tickle him gently, just the way he liked it. He was prepared to intervene if it looked like the older boy was going to roll onto the baby, but for now...all was right with John Crichton's world. Too bad his damned headache didn't know that!

It was at times like this that he'd've given anything for one of his grandma's headache powders. Never mind. Having his family here all together, safe and sound, was the best medicine, for him, and for Aeryn, too. In a couple of days, they'd both be right as rain. Trying to ignore his head, John reached out and ruffled Jack's soft hair.

* * * * * * * *

"Uh, uh, uh, no way, woman! Go back to bed!" John said when Aeryn tried to stop on her way back from the bathroom and take over diapering the baby.

"I'm fine!" she insisted, jaw set mulishly.

John glanced down at the baby boy and made sure certain parts were covered by the diaper before pressing his case. "Aeryn, we all know you eat nails for breakfast. But you lost enough blood to knock even a big tough Peacekeeper on her eema for a couple days, at least! Don't be so damn stubborn!" He knew he wasn't going to win this battle for much longer – Aeryn hated inactivity, and she firmly believed the best way to get over an injury or illness was to work through it – but he was hoping to get her one more night of bed rest before she told him where to get off. He held his breath, watching her internal debate play out on her face, and to his relief, she sighed and headed back across the room to bed.

He watched her walk, admiring both her beauty – even a mere two days after giving birth, dressed in an olive-green tank top and light-weight drawstring pants, his wife took his breath away – and her determination. If you didn't know her as well as he did, you'd never know she'd been at death's door so recently. There was just the slightest hint of tension in her movements that betrayed how hard she was working not to wobble. When she reached the bed, she turned and gave him a look that very clearly said, "You owe me," and then smiled to take the sting out of it. She got onto the bed, lay back on top of the covers, and closed her eyes.

Satisfied, John finished diapering the baby, and put his new son to bed. Reveling in this second experience of new fatherhood, he stood there, looking down on the baby, watching the little guy squint as he looked around this strange new world. This tiny, beautiful creature was amazing! He looked so different from Jack in some ways, so much more like Aeryn, which only made him all the more himself. With his tummy full, clean diapers, and his dad's full attention, apparently the kid didn't have anything to complain about, because he didn't make so much as a peep. He squinted at John and abruptly yawned.

"Hey, Doc," John whispered, trying out the diminutive for the first time.

Jack wandered into the room just in time to hear the nickname. "Why did you call him dok-der?"

John laughed. "Not 'Doctor,' sport, 'Doc.' That's his name."

Puzzled, Jack said, "Mommy calls him 'Dacon.'"

John cast a quick glance over at the bed to see if Aeryn was listening. She appeared to be dozing, which was probably just as well, since he was mangling the name she'd chosen to honor a childhood Peacekeeper hero. He turned back to Jack. "See, his whole name is Dacon Oliver Sun-Crichton, like you're John D'Argo Sun-Crichton.... You take the first letters: 'D' for 'Dacon,' 'O' for 'Oliver,' and 'C' for 'Crichton,' and put 'em all together. That makes 'D-O-C' – 'Doc'!" Hoping that Jack's grasp of language was still shaky enough he wouldn't complain that his dad was leaving out the "S" for "Sun," John waited for a response.

"My baby brother has two names? A Mommy name and a Daddy name?"

Ah, kid logic. John thought about it for a bit and then said, "Well, yeah, I guess so. You have two names too, it's just no one calls you John."

"That's your name."

"Yep, it is. But it's your name too. Jack is a nickname, like Doc." How had he gotten into this discussion? Fortunately, Jack was tired of talking about names, and changed the subject.

Peering down at his baby brother, asleep on his back in the very same cradle Jack had slept in as a newborn, the boy announced, "He's really very little, Daddy."

"Yeah, he is, isn't he? You used to be that little, too. You were just this size the first time I remember seeing you!" His mind drifted back two days to Doc's birth, this tiny creature emerging from his mother's body, to be caught gently in his father's hands.... Damn, he wished he remembered Jack's birth! Not that it mattered much in the grand scheme of things; he'd been there for Aeryn when she needed him even if he didn't remember it, and he'd been there for Jack from the time he was two days old. But he wished, he really wished, old Einstein had been gentler on him when he removed the wormhole knowledge from his brain. A man ought to remember things like helping to birth his firstborn! Stubbornly, he thought back to what Aeryn had told him about Jack's birth during the battle on Qujaga. They'd been in a fountain, with the baby emerging under the water—

Abruptly, out of nowhere, he felt a sudden pressure inside his brain, then a...pop. A truly blinding headache followed hard on the heels of the popping sensation, blotting out awareness of anything outside of himself. In no time at all, John doubled over, vomiting. Microts later he collapsed to the stone floor, managing through sheer cussedness to land on his hands and knees. The pain in his head was agonizing, and he puked again. He just had time to think, "Am I having a stroke?" before he passed out and dropped like a rock the rest of the way to the floor.

Eyes closed, Aeryn let the sound of John's voice wash over her as he talked to their boys. Not that she was prepared to admit it, even to herself, but she was still far from fit. After Jack's birth, she'd participated in a full military retreat, carrying her newborn son the whole way. This time, she was helpless as a young meek'ta, and twice as bad-tempered.

The thing that frustrated her most about being confined to bed was that it was keeping her from getting to know her new son. Of course the baby didn't do much yet besides eat and sleep, but it was John who was tending to his needs during his short periods of wakefulness. The only time she got to interact with him was when he needed to be fed...and that was only because she'd insisted on breastfeeding even though she knew her body wasn't producing enough milk yet. Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow she would be able to bully her body into doing what she wanted it to, and then—

Abruptly, the background noises changed. John's voice stopped. She heard a new sound which took her a microt to identify as violent retching, and then there was the thud of something solid landing on the floor.

Jack screamed, "Daddy! Daddy! Wake up!"

Aeryn's eyes flew open. What she saw at the foot of the bed terrified her: John lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, limbs spread out at unnatural angles. Jack crouched beside him, calling his name, eyes wide with fear.

Heedless of her own condition, Aeryn leaped off of the bed and scrambled to John's side. The baby, she saw to her relief, was safe in his cradle, so she dismissed him from her thoughts. She knelt beside her husband and rolled him over, pulling him against her chest. He was a frelling mess! She drew in a sharp breath as she examined him. There was blood pouring from his nose, which had probably been broken in the fall, and his face was covered with vomit, probably from landing in it. Ignoring the acrid smell of the vomit, she grabbed his hand, and called his name sharply. When she got no response, she let her field medical training take over and evaluated further. He was breathing, thank goodness, that was the first hurdle passed. He'd obviously landed on the deck with the full force of his weight, so he must have been incapacitated when he fell. What the frell was going on? John wasn't answering, so she turned to the only other witness. "Jack? Jack, what happened?"

The boy had begun sobbing while she checked on John, but he did his best to answer her question. After a loud sniffle, he said, "Daddy puke-ded and then he fell down!"

That much she could have figured out by herself, but she tried not to snap. "Did he say anything?" she asked, hoping a leading question would get her something useful.

Jack shook his head vigorously from side to side.

Frell....

It was all there. All of it.... He was swimming in three cycles of memories, drowning in them as they tried to swamp the life he'd lived since he'd lost them.... Images, words, sounds, smells, feelings all swirled past in no discernable order, and he tried to make sense of them, grabbing them one at a time, examining each before it was ripped from him by the next. Black-eyed Einstein, telling him home was where he could do the most damage. Zhaan, her beautiful blue skin marred by ugly sores that portended death. Aeryn, eyes all but dead, managing to say just two words to him: "Hello, John." A chip! There was a chip in his brain, and Scorpius had put it there to find the wormhole knowledge! A boat, a proposal, a wedding, no, an interrupted wedding.... Playing rock, scissors, paper with D'Argo, knowing he would always win. Frightened nurses doomed by his actions. Bile rising in this throat as his body betrayed him on the cliffs of Arnessk. Aeryn, safe again on Moya, breathing, "Stay."

Things began to swirl faster and faster, making it difficult for him to maintain context: images of his father on earth, older, grayer; a maniac called Kaarvok, a Leviathan that reeked of decay; the pain of the Aurora chair; Chiana, screaming in sorrow as he dragged her away from D'Argo; Granny's voice whispering, "Aeryn is with child;" his own voice – "Hey, Sleeping Beauty...Wake up and die...." Aeryn, lying cold and still in a coffin; Aeryn beneath him moaning in pleasure; a Nebari probe reaching for his eye; a command carrier, exploding; Rygel, huge with child; Stark's healing light....

So much sorrow and sadness, so much pain, so much joy...too much! Too much!

"John!" Aeryn's voice was sharp with fear, and her stomach fluttered as he remained unresponsive. There was movement behind his eyelids, but no sign of consciousness. Still holding him in her lap, she pulled up the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped the worst of the blood and vomit off his face. She pinched his nose and held it to stop the flow of blood, trying to think what else to do. Jack stood at her side, sobbing, which was making it very difficult to think. One thing was certain, though – she needed help! Unlike her days in the Peacekeepers, or even the cycles spent on Moya, she wasn't wearing a comms badge, and she would have to use the communication system in the central chamber of their home to summon help. But she didn't want to leave John, and she knew she couldn't carry him under the circumstances. She had to do something, and do it quickly. Inspiration struck and she turned to her son. He was young, but they'd taught him to use the comms in an emergency. If this wasn't an emergency, she didn't know what was!

"Jack!" She reached out and grabbed the boy's hand, tugged to get his attention. When he finally took a breath and turned his blotchy face towards her, she steeled herself against the urge to take him in her arms and comfort him, and said firmly, "Jack, go to the comms! Call Jool!" He looked more than a little confused, and, with the edge of panic in her voice, she repeated, "Go to the comms! Call Jool! Now, Jack!" More sharply, she added, "Tell Jool I need her!"

Jack stared at her for a microt, and then nodded and ran out of the room, still sobbing.

Hoping that she hadn't overwhelmed her son, Aeryn turned her attention back to the man lying limply in her lap. "John!" she called again. With every microt he remained unconscious she became more frightened, remembering those terrible days after Qujaga when she'd so feared he was never coming back to her. Desperate to have him awake, she grabbed his shoulders and shook him. When there was no change, no protest to quit shaking him like a dog with fleas, she pulled back one hand and slapped his face, hard, heedless of whether it was going to hurt him, but he didn't flinch, didn't protest – and didn't wake up. With a sob, she abandoned violence and grabbed his hand again, pulling it towards her face. "JOHN!" she cried, holding his hand tightly and hoping Jool would appear soon....

Too much, too much, too much.... Aeryn smiling...a gaping black hole...his mother...Elack...Pilot...hanging awkwardly in space...Aeryn crying...Gilina...D'Argo drinking...a wormhole...Aeryn laughing...Harvey in a bunny suit...an Ancient...the cockpit of his module...a bronze statue of a woman...Aeryn with a gun...Aeryn with a baby...explosions – faces, places, things swirled by, and he just had time to register them before each was snatched away and replaced by another from the whirlpool surrounding him. He couldn't take this, couldn't function, he couldn't breathe, he was trapped here inside his own mind....
   
A sound from the outside intruded, a voice shot full of pain and fear and love. "John! Frell you, John Crichton! Wake up!" Something gripped his hand.

He blinked, metaphorically. Aeryn! Yes! Salvation! He found the right nerve pathways to squeeze her hand in return, and, clutching it as a lifeline, he struggled toward her voice.

Aeryn gasped when John suddenly wrapped his fingers around her hand. Hardly daring to hope, she squeezed back and breathed, "John?"

For a few frightening microts, she thought nothing more would happen and then John's eyes fluttered open. His breath came in great gasps, as if he needed oxygen. Aeryn cradled him in her arms, blinking back tears. He gave her a shaky smile, and weak with relief, she leaned her forehead down on his. Little Dacon broke the silence with a wail.

Aeryn lifted her head and looked over at her son in amusement. He'd slept through all the commotion and the shouting, only to fuss when everything was fine. Giddy with relief she shook her head and observed, "Now you cry!"

"Just like Jack."

Aeryn looked down at her husband and frowned.

John worked his throat and licked his lips before he spoke. "On Qujaga. Pulse blasts and explosions didn't faze him, but when it got quiet...."

Aeryn stared at him, eyes widening, heart nearly stopping. "The memories?" she whispered.

John nodded.

Aeryn's eyes closed of their own volition. She leaned her forehead down on his again and he wrapped his arms around her, holding on as if his life depended on it....

* * * * * * * *

"What the frell? Aeryn?"

At the sound of Jool's voice, time started up again. John loosened his grip on her and Aeryn sat up. John remained where he was, lying in her lap. The baby, poor little thing, had settled down and gone back to sleep while his parents' attention had been diverted by this new twist that fate had handed them.

Standing in the doorway with Jack on her hip, Jool looked at the pair of them critically. She gasped at the sight of John's bloody face. "What's going on, Aeryn? When Jack called, I thought it was you...."

Aeryn looked down at John for a moment, unsure whether he wanted Jool to know what had happened. He nodded almost imperceptibly, and she took a breath. "The memories," she said, trailing off.

Jool narrowed her eyes and looked at John. He gave her a weak smile, and she put Jack down. "Be a good boy and go get me my med kit, can you do that Jack? It's by the comms."

Jack looked at his mother for permission and then left the room to do as he'd been asked.

Jool came over and crouched down next to John and Aeryn, wrinkling her nose at the smell of vomit and blood. "Okay, Crichton, what happened?"

Still resting in Aeryn's lap, John said, "I was talkin' to Jack, and then I had this pain in my head, and I puked, and then I passed out." He reached a hand up and gingerly fingered his nose. "I think I mighta broken my nose when I fell."

"It's not broken," Aeryn volunteered. "I checked it while you were unconscious."

Jool studied the two of them carefully, and then focused on John. "You say you have your memory back?"

He grimaced. "It was like a dam breaking. There was this...pop in my head...and then...there was all this stuff swimming around that I couldn't remember before." After a brief pause, he looked away and added, "No big deal. I'm fine."

Aeryn and Jool consulted wordlessly. That sounded like evasion to both of them. Fortunately, Jack had impeccable timing, as the three cycle old came back in the room just then, lugging Jool's medkit with all his strength. He dropped it beside her, and she thanked him and opened it up and extracted her scanner.

"I don't need that," John insisted.

"You let me be the judge of that," Jool said briskly. She turned the scanner on and checked the calibration, even as John said flatly, "No."

As Jool moved the scanner towards his head, Aeryn tried reason. "John, you need—"

His reaction stunned the women. "No! No!" he shouted, pulling his arms up defensively. He batted the scanner away, and it clattered onto the floor. "Stay out of my goddamn head!"

In the ensuing silence, John gave Aeryn a pleading look. She had no idea what was going on in his mind, and her stomach tied itself in knots of worry, but he was conscious and didn't appear to be in any physical distress. If it was that important to him, she'd back him. "Fine," she said curtly, and when Jool objected, she overruled her.

Jool made one last try. "Crichton, I really think...." She trailed off when Aeryn shook her head. Sighing deeply, she shrugged and collected her things. After a farewell to Jack, she tossed her head and left the room with a sniff. "You know where I am if you decide you need me."

As soon as Jool was gone, John struggled to a sitting position, and Aeryn helped him to his feet. He touched her cheek gently, and her stomach relaxed a little – but only a little.

"I'm, uh, I'm going to go get cleaned up." He turned and headed for the shower without waiting for a reply.

* * * * * * * *

Grateful to be alone, John stripped off his bloody, puke-covered T-shirt and pants and turned on the shower. After a microt's hesitation, he turned the temperature up well past his wife's comfort level and stepped in. He told himself it wasn't that he was trying to keep her out; it was just that he really needed the heat right now. Having all that crap floating around in his head was giving him the shivers, and he needed to deal with his body, not his mind.

Eyes closed, he shoved his face into the streaming water. When the hot, stinging spray hit his nose, he yelped and jerked his head back in a hurry, wincing in pain. Damn! Easy for Aeryn to say his nose wasn't broken.... Stubbornly, he felt all around his injured face, judging the extent of the damage for himself. In the end, he had to admit that Aeryn was probably right about it not being broken, but it still hurt like hell. He was probably going to have quite a shiner (or worse, a pair of them!) as the blood pooled, too. Well, they would match the black and blue marks he could see were already forming on his knees and the heels of his hands. Reluctantly, he admitted that a visit with Jool and her medkit was going to be in order at some point today, at least for the bruises that were visible on the outside.

(Maybe, just maybe, came a whisper from deep within, he could get his face fixed by Noranti, and avoid the necessary apologies to Jool.... All right, that thought was unworthy, however tempting it was! Crichtons faced up to their responsibilities, no matter how unpleasant.)

He took a breath to reprimand himself, and realized his mouth tasted truly disgusting. Taking care to protect his nose from the full force of the spray, he used his hands as a cup and sucked in enough water to rinse his mouth out. Suck, swish, spit, suck, swish, spit.... When his mouth tasted clean enough that he was no longer afraid he'd kill the dentic he intended to use after the shower, he stopped and reached for the cleanser.

Standing under the hot water, soaping his body from head to toe, he made himself think about what had just happened to him. As near as he could tell so far, his memory was whole again. Everything from those missing three cycles was accessible to him, just like he'd been desperately wanting. He should have been thrilled.

Rinsing his torso, he tiptoed through his recovered memories, touching on this and that. Thank God the information was manageable now, after that first heart stopping torrent.

It wasn't really new. He knew all this, or most of it, three cycles of ups and downs, sorrows and joys, betrayals and loyalty, love and hate...but now he truly remembered it, felt it. And the bad stuff – like, say, just one tiny for instance, getting the temple here on Arnessk nuked and Jool almost killed – felt so much worse remembering it as it had happened than the same event had when he'd only heard about it from others. But if the bad stuff from those three missing cycles was worse than he'd imagined, the good stuff, like proposing to Aeryn, or Jack's birth, was much, much better in 3D Sensurround. He grinned stupidly for a microt, and then his smiled faded.

It was just hard to make sense of it all.

That was probably part of what had driven him to take refuge here on his own, away from the love of his life, who was probably worried to death in the other room, wondering what was going on in his poor, battered head.

It didn't change his feelings for her one little bit, remembering all this dren. Aeryn was and would always be his center, and these last three cycles had been perfect. He could not imagine his life without her and their kids. If anything, remembering how close they'd been just before he'd been hurt, how hard-won their happiness had been back then, made him appreciate all the more what she'd done for him, stubbornly insisting they could rebuild their relationship, when he'd been scared to death. He only now truly understood that when he'd managed to lose his memory of everything they'd been through, she'd lost him a second time. It had to have been nearly as bad for her as the other guy dying. Thinking about it now, he couldn't imagine how she'd found it in herself to open her heart up to him again instead of taking the baby and running for the nearest convent! He shook his head. He did not deserve her...and he was going to have to tell her so when he got out of this shower.

He finished rinsing himself and turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and kept on thinking, because there was way too much stuff demanding his attention. It was going to take a little getting used to, this remembering. Inevitably, it was going to change his perspective on these last three cycles as well as the three cycles he'd recovered. There was a lot that Aeryn hadn't known, or hadn't remembered, places and events she (and the other friends he'd talked to) hadn't been at. And despite her best intentions, she could only relate what she thought he'd felt, what she'd thought his motivations had been. With his own memories in place now, some things didn't match up very well. He felt like he was looking in a fun house mirror, full of distortions. Aeryn had been honest, as far as he could see, but she'd also downplayed some of the horror.

His stomach clenched abruptly and he stopped toweling, as he realized that he now understood the visceral reactions he'd had to Scorpius and Grayza on the rare occasions he'd encountered them during these past three cycles. There was knowing he'd been chased, raped and tortured, and there was knowing. His body and soul had remembered the depth of their brutality even without the conscious memory of it. No doubt a lot of other pieces would be falling into place as memories settled into their rightful order in his mind.

Through the bathroom door, he could hear Aeryn, and their children. Itty bitty Doc was fussing about something, Aeryn was trying to soothe him, and Jack was keeping up some kind of running commentary. Warmth and comfort suffused him as he listened to his family. Screw the past! It was good to have it back, but it didn't change anything.

Stepping out of the shower, dry now, John saw that Aeryn had spirited away his dirty clothes and left him clean ones. He dressed quickly, eager to get out where he belonged.

* * * * * * * *

Aeryn had cleaned up the room and changed clothes while John was in the shower. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed with the baby in her lap, Jack beside her in the exact same pose (minus baby), when John stepped into the bedroom. She must have seen him out of the corner of her eye, because she looked up, gray eyes hooded and wary, and Jack, too, looked up anxiously. John smiled at them both, and the wariness in Aeryn's expression lessened just a little. "Hey," she said.

"You all right?" he asked, as much concerned about her physical condition as emotional.

She nodded briefly and threw the question back at him. "You?"

"Yeah," he said, and ground to a halt. He crossed the room and sat down next to her on the bed, trying to figure out where to begin. The obvious thing to say was "I love you," but Aeryn knew that already, and he never was one to go with the obvious. Stalling, he pulled Jack into his lap, then reached out and caressed the baby, beautiful little Dacon, named for a childhood hero of Aeryn's. That was another of those things that had new context. He cleared his throat and said, "You weren't entirely honest with me about Subofficer Dacon at the monastery.... He died because of me."

Aeryn quirked a rueful smile. "Because of us. Or maybe not. He died in the history I was taught, too. We were only trying to make it right." She shrugged. "Does it matter? He was a hero, and his name has meaning."

"No. It doesn't matter." He shook his head and caught her eyes and held them. "Thank you for trying to spare me some of the gory details."

Aeryn smiled through the tears that sprang to her eyes. "With you, John Crichton, there are always gory details."

He laughed out loud, tension broken. "I don't deserve you," he told her with all his heart.

Her grin got larger. "It's good you recognize that."

He leaned towards her, taking care not to squish Jack or Doc, and pulled his family into a hug. Aeryn wrapped her arms tightly around him in return. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you, too," she whispered back.

No doubt Jack would soon be demanding they let him go, the baby would be crying, and Aeryn would be insisting that he go let Jool tend to his injuries and check out his beat-up brain, but for just this moment, they were one...as they were meant to be.