I forgot this little story but that's all right because it was safely tucked with its fellows in a compilation called The Aeryn Years, which is archived here:
http://www.johnskeedvabbq.com/ficpics/seriespage-locket.htmlTimeline: 118 cycles
Rhys by Shipscat
Feedback: email it: Farscape Ally (
johnskeedvabbq@thevortex.com )
Rating: G
Spoilers: Anything up to and including The Locket
Disclaimer: The characters of Farscape do not belong to this author. No monetary gain is expected or will be accepted. The author does accept any other form of praise-- petting or grooming with a fine toothed brush is preferred. Fresh fish only, please. (okay, I'll stop now. *g*)
Summary: Faced with an important decision, Rhys talks to Aeryn about marriage and learns more than he bargained for.
Rhys found his mother standing on the hill where she often went to look at the stars, or rather, that section of sky where they would be if the mist weren’t, as she had complained more than once. There was no mistaking her ramrod straight posture for anyone else’s - no one in the colony had ever stood like that, and the cycles had not diminished or softened her stance, even though streaks of gray were appearing in her raven hair.
He knew she was disturbed about something by the set of her jaw, although the look she gave him was warm as were her first words.
”I am very proud of you,” she said simply.
”Thank you, mother,” he said seriously, waiting for her to continue.
”You know that being elected to the Council means that you will have to marry,” she said conversationally. “It’s a good rule. Married people are more settled...although I don’t know where they’re afraid some one would run off to,” she added dryly.
”I was thinking about asking Rhiana,” he said casually, wondering if this was what she had dragged him up here for. When she did not answer, but continued to look upward, her lips drawn in a thin line, he spoke again. “You don’t like her.”
Aeryn turned to give him her full attention, looking surprised that he had misunderstood. “No, she’s fine. She’s a good woman. She adores you. I just wanted ..*more* for you.”
This was getting a little embarrassing. “Everyone tells me that the excitement of first love wears off anyway, mother,” he said, clearing his throat. “I need a partner, someone who will make a good wife.”
”Oh, Rhys,” she said, “You’re always so responsible, always wanting to do what’s right and expected of you. I wanted you to find someone you really loved, someone who feels like a part of you, someone that brings you joy even when they drive you crazy.” she clasped her hands together and looked at the sky again.
”Someone, that no matter how many cycles or metras separate you, you never forget.”
Her face, when she turned it back towards him, was shining like the soft glowing wings of a night flutterby. He came to a startling realization. “You..aren’t talking about my father, are you?” For a microt he didn’t think she would speak. “No. No., I'm not,” she said gently.
His head was spinning. The annual trips, her insistence that she needed to warn her former crewmates, the time that he had gone in her place to chart the mists opening - it was all for a man, a stranger, someone he didn’t know. He felt a sudden stab of jealousy - he wasn’t sure if it was on his father’s behalf, or his own.
”That time I went in your place-when the mist opened- would you have left then? Never to return?” he asked sharply.
”I might have,” Aeryn replied honestly. “You two were grown and didn’t need me anymore, and I never promised your father I wouldn’t. He knew that, even when we were married, that I couldn’t promise him I wouldn’t go.”
”I still need you, mom,” he said, suddenly close to tears. “The whole community needs you. Dad needs you.”
”I know that now. I learned that when the flood came.” she said. “And I hadn’t changed so much then. The next time the mist opens I will be very old, if I even live that long. There’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s too late for me to leave.”
Suddenly he was reminded of the flutterbys again. Once, when they were very young, he and John had captured some and put them on the stand between their beds for night lights. His mother had been furious with them, pointing out how the insects were beating their wings against the jars, the phosphorescence rubbing off and pooling at the bottom of the canning jar. She had made them release them into the night, and they had waved good bye as they flew off into the darkness.
”I’m sorry, Mom.”
”It’s all right, really. I am very grateful for your father. It would have been unbearably lonely here without him.” She reached out and touched his hair softly. “And I had you, and your brothers. I never expected to have children, and you have been the greatest joy of my life.”
He shuffled his feet. “Aww, mom,” he said, as if he were a twelve year old again. She grinned at him.
Serious again, he spoke softly. “I knew there was something missing between you and dad. I just thought-that was the way things were, so it was all right”.
His mother winced. “No. Not if you have a choice. When I married your father I thought I would forget. Don’t give all the burden of loving to one partner.”
He nodded, to let her know he understood, deep in thought. He knew his father had been widowed, and he was thinking about how much easier it must have been for him to let go of Laran and care about someone else. He knew that his mom thought that very little time had passed for the people trapped in the mist. *He* was still there, just out of reach, but not out of mind.
Later, he quietly gave up the leadership in favor of his brother, and just as quietly broke things off with Rhiana, who married someone else within a cycle. And he never knew, because his mother didn’t tell him, that she felt responsible for his living his life alone. And because he never knew, he didn’t tell her that it wasn’t so much what she had said as it was a similar conversation with his father. His father had simply told him not to marry unless he found someone he loved as much as his father loved his mother, and he never had.
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Shipscat
Author
