Trepidation

Little repost here for those of you who have been around for awhile and something new for those of you who haven't.

I wrote this after Look at the Princess. You all know I love getting inside Aeryn's head and I always wondered what was going on in that remarkably complex brain of hers while she was trying to exercise and John was inanely trying to make stupid small talk in that scene in the maintenence bay just after they'd all gotten back to Moya.

I'll say right out that I think Aeryn planned the whole thing. She decided she was gonna go for the whole compatability test thing no matter how it terrified her and I think she grabbed that little crystal bottle and went and lay in wait in the one place she knew he was gonna show up sooner or later.

And I think she exercised to kill her nerves and keep her from running... cause I've never seen a woman who wanted to run more.

It says a lot about her that she didn't.

So here goes:

Trepidation (A state of alarm or dread or apprehension)
Rating: very mild PG
Time Frame: End of LaTp
Disclaimer: I own nothing and never have

*Oh and since this was an old one I didn't send it back through the betas so any spelling, tense, or gramatical errors are results of my own brain farts and no reflection on them *g*
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And one and two and three and four...

The rhythm calmed her. It always did. The simple play of muscles, the familiar strain of exertion, the sweat. It was mechanical, instinctive and instinctive was good. Instinct did not require thought and thinking was what got her in this mess in the first place.

And five and six and seven and eight...

"Come on Sun," she argued with herself "in the old days you could do a hundred of these easy, two hundred even. This is only your fourth set and you're panting already." She was getting soft; the fact that she was here now, doing this ridiculous thing, was proof of that. She must be fahrbot, completely out of her head. It made no sense her being here and it would undoubtedly turn out badly. She wondered idly if that's really why she was here, to prove them all wrong, to prove herself right, to set herself free from him once and for all.

But if that was the case why was she so scared?

The sweat stung her eyes and she paused, grunting as she balanced all her weight on her toes and one hand in order to push the hair out of her face. The muscles trembled and buckled but held in the end, and she was pleased. At least the past 2 cycles hadn't seen her go completely to pot. She allowed the other hand to flop back down gasping a little as the force of it hitting the cold metal caused it to sting. Not that she minded the pain. That at least was normal, the expected result of a known action. No confusion, no doubt, no strange words like… faith or hope. She hated those words, hated what they meant, hated the concept of them, hated the way they made her feel, the way HE made her feel with his strange ideals and alien thoughts.

But if that were true, why didn't she leave?

She shook her head and began the exercise again. Faster this time with her arms bending deeper to increase the strain. She looked at the ceiling, the walls, his module anywhere but the small ledge in front of her toes that held the tiny crystal bottle with the amber colored liquid. Dragon had pressed it into her resisting fingers before she had left the med- unit. "At least he'll know Aeryn," he'd whispered into her ear, "At least he'll know." Then he'd winked, deposited a kiss on the top of her head and let them wheel him out of the room.

She remembered not looking at it on the trip back to Moya, the feel of the leaded glass cool and heavy in her hand. She remembered flinging it onto a counter top in her quarters, then into a drawer and finally into the trash. She remembered fishing it out and sitting on her bed for the better part of an ahrn, just staring at it, as though if she looked hard enough, long enough, it would speak and give her the answer she so desperately needed to hear.

Am I doing the right thing?

She paused again. She heard them now, just like she'd known she would, footsteps, faint far away down the hall. She knew those footsteps well, had heard them a thousand times, especially along that corridor on their way to this place. They had filled her with anger at first, the sound of those footsteps, then annoyance and more recently with pleasure. But never before had she equated that sound with fear. Fear that wound through her insides like a hot poker and caused her hands to slick and slip on the edge of the bulkhead and almost fall. Fear that made her want to climb down from this frelling perch and stride past him in the hall, ignoring the question on his tongue and the confusion in his eyes. Fear that made her want to just… hide.

But soldiers don't flee.

She heard him come into the room. Felt him go over to the module, start… blathering on about some useless thing or another. She blocked out the sound, concentrated on her heartbeat, on keeping the motion smooth, on the push count, on… .anything except how….

.... She'd lain there in the cold and the dark trying to refocus the pain of her injured leg. Focus on the plan at hand, on completion of the mission, on destruction of the enemy. But there'd been no mission and no enemy to fight except the one in her own mind and it was giving her no quarter at all.

She remembered his face as he'd lied for her in front of Crais, she who had been sent to kill him.

She remembered his voice telling her she could be more, the simple conviction in it making her turn her back on everything she held precious and dear.

She remembered how desperate she'd been that day in the Flax, when she thought he was gone, how relieved she'd been when he began to breathe again even though it meant that they would certainly die. She remembered how the coolness of his lips contrasted with the warmth of his tongue as it entered her mouth. How desire had swept through her with primal force, leaving her mindless in its wake. How the pod, the cold, life, death, everything disappeared except the need to take and be taken.

She remembered the night they never spoke of. The night on the false earth when she had let him into something more than just her body. The soft words, the gentle touches, the slow languorous union so different from Peacekeeper sex. It had touched something in her, something deeper than the biological feelings of need and release.

She remembered the sound of rain as he'd cradled her to sleep.

She remembered the feel of his hand twining hers in the maintenance bay door, Crais glowering in the background. The way his eyes had memorized her face, the words largely left unspoken between them but felt nonetheless.

She remembered a million things. Touches, glances, laughter, moments shared and problems halved by being simply by being with each other.

She remembered the pain in his face when she denied him that last time, told him she wouldn't come to the wedding even when he begged her to be there. She remembered the pain in her heart when he held his child in his arms, the look on his face a mixture of emotions she'd never seen before.

She remembered how it felt when she thought that she'd lost him.

So why was she here?

Because her need for him was stronger than her training and bigger than the fear. Because the thought of losing him again was more than she could take, because she needed to know if she was capable of giving him the look he had had on his face that day in the holo-chamber. Because she was tired of fighting a battle lost a long time ago. Because maybe, just maybe, Dragon was right. Maybe it was worth it, just being in love.

" …and I HAVE noticed that you're not talking to me."

He shut up, she moved. Standing at last, ignoring the shaking of her legs, the thudding of her heart, the dryness of her mouth. She picked up the bottle and turned to face him. Saw the surprise flicker in his eyes followed by a kind of trepidation. He waited silent, unsure of what she would do.

She took a deep breath and one step forward.

"At least this way you'll know Aeryn" She thought.

And crossed the room.