Shadow's Past

Summary: Yet another attempt to get Aeryn and John to talk about TJ.
Time Frame: AU after WWS:FA

Rating:PG

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He hadn't meant to pry. Or maybe he had. It depended on what your definition of prying was. If you looked at it the American Heritage way, "To look or inquire closely, curiously, or inquisitively, often in a furtive manner; snoop:" then he only half was. After all he wasn't being furtive, she'd left the bag open for anyone to see. If it were a secret, if it had been "personal," then she shouldn't have left it there.

And she'd left it on the bed. "Their" bed, at least that's what it was now that she'd stopped sleeping in her own. Eight days it had been since he'd first seen her dragging a crate one handed down the hallway, her lips pressed hard against the pain and her shins banging against the edge every other step.

"What the frell are you doing?" he'd asked her and tried not to yell. Noranti had been adamant. 10 days she needed to heal properly. 10 days until there was no danger of infection to the puncture wounds, until the tendons knit properly, until the bruises began to fade. 10 days until her body was strong again, and lord knew how many to heal the effect on her mind.

And there she'd been, dragging crates around after only four.

She'd let the crate go with a bang and straightened up, an arm wrapped around her midsection and a quick lick at her dry lips the only outwards sign of what he was sure was considerable pain.

"Good," she'd said in a matter of fact voice made breathy by tightly-restrained panting. "You're just in time to help me with this." And she'd gestured at the crate like it like it was an errant bag of laundry to be tossed down to Moya's amnexus chamber rather than the ton or more he knew it must weigh, especially for someone in her condition.

He'd started to protest but one look at the set of her chin let him know it would only get him an argument or, worse yet, a complete dismissal. He knew her well enough to know when she was on a mission. And if he were ever to get her back in bed it would be quicker and less painful for both of them if he would just give in.

So he'd picked up the end of the crate and asked her where to.

"Over there." She'd pointed one shaky hand vaguely in the direction she'd been heading and started limping down the hall.

He'd taken about ten steps after her and then stopped. "That's my quarters," he'd said, hating to state the obvious but afraid her weakened mental state had made her take a wrong turn somewhere.

"Um-hum," she'd said, as though dragging crates to his room while in a precarious physical condition were something she did every day. She'd palmed the door open and then leaned heavily for a few microts against the frame.

He'd shaken his head, still unable to understand the workings of her mind after all this time. "What is this dren? Couldn't this have waited?"

She'd walked in and sat down heavily on the bed, wincing hard enough to bring him to her side to check the bandages on her stomach. She'd suffered him long enough for him to reassure himself there was no fresh bleeding and then lightly batted his hand away.

"No," she'd said, sliding the back of her knuckles underneath his chin, her face tilted sideways and down to look him in the eyes as he knelt beside her. "I'm tired of waking up to you sleeping on my floor. So I figured I'd better start sleeping in here."

He'd almost laughed. Subtlety was still new to her for all she'd changed in three cycles together and one spent away. She still tended to wrap it in a cloak of directness that had nothing to do with whatever she really meant. He'd first seen this strange juxtaposition of emotions in a waste conduit on a lightning-struck commerce station, and from that point on he'd found that even if he were afraid of the answer, it was easier just to ask.

"Babe, if you didn't want me hovering over you. All you had to do was say."

She'd asked him to stay that first night and he had. And every night since without fail. He'd told her it was so that he'd be nearby if she'd needed anything or to wake her if the nightmares got too bad. But that had only been half the truth. He'd needed the contact as much as she had. Being without her like that had been almost more than he could stand. For weekens whenever he'd closed his eyes he'd seen the bioloid's body on the ground by his feet but instead of fluid and metal he'd seen bone and blood, and bile had risen up and choked back the scream and he'd almost gone mad with visions that it hadn't been a bioloid at all. That he'd killed the love of his life in some terrible mistake.

"You weren't hovering," she'd said, flipping the hand under his chin so she was cupping it and forcing his head sharply up. "I just figured this was the only way to get you into bed."

And he had laughed then because the Scarrens had broken her body and frelled with her mind but they hadn't taken her ability to make bad jokes that somehow involved insulting him.

"Again, all you had to do was say, Aeryn. I slept on the floor cause I didn't want to hurt you."

Her hand had left his chin then and moved up to grab his ear where it was joined by the other one until she had pulled him into a kneeling position between her legs.

"You could never hurt me," she'd murmured and then kissed him with a warmth and fervor that belied how weak she'd been.

He'd almost cried at that, because hurting each other was a groove in their record that they couldn't seem to erase. He'd killed her, she'd left him and they'd each died on the other. But fate kept throwing them back in the match to try again and if it meant another chance at holding her like this, he'd have been willing to do the entire dance over again from "My name is John Crichton."

"You still didn't have to drag a crate down here to get me in bed. What's in that thing anyway?"

She'd sighed and drooped a little and when he'd slipped an arm under her legs to help swing her into a prone position she hadn't fought him. "Just some of my stuff," she'd replied with a yawn.

And his hands had faltered a little on the covers he was pulling over her body because although his kiss had convinced her that the Lakka was a lie, they'd never discussed anything like this after the Wolaxian spider bite.

"Are you sure you want to..." he'd started, but her cool fingers had stopped him.

"I need to be here," she'd said and her voice had shaken a bit. "I need to be here so I can still be with you even when you're gone. They took you from me, in that place. They made me believe you couldn't come. And I won't feel like that again John. I can't feel like that again. Do you understand?"

And he'd nodded and kissed her head and told her to sleep, because he had understood. He'd done the same thing when she'd been gone on Talyn and again when the Scarrens had had her. He'd gone to her quarters to search for her among her things. The smell of her on a garment, the feel of something she'd touched. The military neatness that she'd never quite gotten rid of. It had been his only comfort and the source of his greatest pain.

And so six more days had passed and each day a little more of her life had moved in on his. Clothing here, a tool there, her holster on a chair by the door. Her quiet breathing next to him in bed.

It had been enough. He'd almost started to believe. And now this.

He looked down at the vid chip in his hand and rolled it between his fingers. It was such an ordinary thing for a Peacekeeper to have. And this one had fallen out of the worn bag that had housed the emergency kit on her original prowler. The one Harvey had totaled with her still inside it.

It could have been there for cycles, probably had been, he'd thought. There had been no need for him to look at it. He should have just thrown it back in the bag and made room for the clean cover. That's what he'd come to do anyway wasn't it? Change the sheets and make the bed.

It had surprised him a little the night before when she rolled over and fit herself against his back. And when he'd turned to ask her if she were all right, if she'd been in any pain, she hadn't answered. Just kissed him and slid the long cool length of one thigh between his legs.

And he'd wanted to ask her if she were sure, if she were certain, but it had been too long and his body had short-circuited his brain, and suddenly there was nothing but her hair and the soft warmth of her body and the sound her voice calling his name as she came. And he'd been so happy and now he wondered ....

"What's that?"

Her voice startled him out of his reverie hard enough to make him jump.

"Nothing."

He heard her shuffle into the room behind him but he didn't turn around, just picked the duffle bag up off of the bed and tossed it lightly into a chair.

"If you say it's nothing, John, then it's definitely something. I know you too well for you to get away with that one."

He turned to look at her and found her smiling faintly at him, covered with sweat and looking like she needed a nap. She'd been down at the exercise room reacquainting her muscles with a proper work out. He'd told her to take it easy...she obviously hadn't.

"No, seriously, it isn't anything, Aeryn. You'd just left that bag there on the bed and I was going to change the sheets and I went to pick it up and a few things fell out and I had to put them back, that's all."

She shifted a bit, looked at the bag, and then her smile froze a bit.

"What fell out of the bag, John?"

"Aeryn, I told you it's not...."

"What fell out of the bag?!"

He sighed. She wasn't going to let it go, and if he kept trying to put her off it would only make things more heated when he finally did tell her.

"Some socks, a couple of chakan oil cartridges and this." He held up the small vid chip.

To her credit she didn't look away. She merely lifted her chin and stared straight into his eyes.

"Did you look at it?"

Cut right to the chase, that was his girl.

"Yeah I did."

He didn't offer any explanation for why, after what he'd seen he didn't think he had to.

"And?"

"And what?"

She walked over to him, held her hand under his nose palm up until he unclenched his fist and let the chip drop into it. Let her have it back if she wanted it that badly. She'd kept it after all so who was he to care.

"And are we going to talk about it?"

He almost laughed at that. Little miss I have to keep secrets wanting to get it all out in the open.

"Do I really have a choice?"

"No," she said, rolling the vid chip around in her hand and then going to sit down on the now-stripped bed. "But I thought it proper to ask anyway. You weren't going to tell me about this were you? Why do you always do that?"

He took a step back, confused for a microt until he realized that she must be referring to something "John Crichton" had done but he hadn't. And that would stand to reason wouldn't it, since that's what he'd seen on the chip.

The perfect curve of her back as she'd lain shirtless with her feet kicked up in the air and crossed at the ankle. A look of intense concentration on her face as she'd carefully copied down words in his journal.

The sound of his laughter had made the vidcam jiggle and his voice had asked her to hurry up, the lesson was over and it wasn't fair to make him wait when Rygel, Stark and Crais were all off ship. How often did they get a chance like this, to be alone with no one listening in on the opposite side of the wall.

She'd looked up and laughed back and asked him when he'd turned into a voyeur and he'd better put that cam up because she wasn't into porn.

And then his voice had told her she could have fooled him, after the things she'd tried on him last night but not to worry the camera wasn't for that it was for something else entirely.

And when she'd asked what he'd heard, his voice replied that it was so he would always be able to remember for as long as he lived exactly what it felt like to be in love with her.

The Aeryn in the video had stopped smiling at that and rolled over and opened her arms and the last thing he'd seen were his own feet walking towards the bed.

"Tell you about it Aeryn? No. And why not? So we wouldn't have to do what we're doing right here. There's no point. Let's just let it go." He walked away from her a little bit and started rearranging some Chakan oil cartridges on a shelf. Anything to keep from looking at her.

And to give her credit she didn't force that particular issue. But he should have known better than to think she'd simply let it go.

"I know what you're thinking right now."

He laughed at that. She sounded like his mother. She'd used that same patient, tired tone when he'd gone into one of his teenaged funks.

"You have no idea."

"Yes I do," And he'd turned then, because her voice had been shaking a bit and the patience was gone.

"You're thinking, I'm not her husband, I'm not her boyfriend, I have no say in what she does and if she wants to keep a vid chip of her dead lover then who am I to say anything at all."

"That's not true," he lied, because he was stubborn and she'd gotten it absolutely right.

She didn't even bother to contradict him, just stared at the small piece of metal in her hand and wiped something, sweat or tears, he couldn't be sure, off of her nose.

"I nearly buried him with this. Thought that he should have something...of us. Of what we'd been to each other, to go with him where I couldn't. Something so he wouldn't be alone. You know how much you hate to be alone. And I can't think really why I didn't except I'm a coward and I'm selfish. Because in the end I closed the coffin and told Crais to find the brightest star he could and send him into it. Because it was your guide you see. And maybe it wouldn't fail him the way I had."

He bit his lip and stayed silent when her lips pressed tightly together and the tears started to slide out in earnest. After all, what could he say to that? They cut deep her words, and they cut both ways. Her pain, his pain, and the pain of one long gone. He'd have to learn to keep his stupid mouth shut.

"Aeryn don't. I'm sorry..."

"Of course you are. You're always sorry. So was he that he left me. And so am I that I hurt you. But it couldn't be helped, none of it. What's done is done and I should probably throw this away but I can't. Because... he lived John. He was alive and he lived and I loved him. And I knew it would hurt you if I gave myself to him, and I knew it would hurt you if you ever found this chip, but I couldn't help myself. Just like I couldn't help falling in love with John Crichton again."

He started to speak, wanted to stop her saying any more. From putting them both through the pain of something that should have been worked out and put to rest a long time ago, and would have, if either of them had been braver. But she put her fingers against his mouth and continued.

"Don't you see John? This is all there is to say that he even existed. Everything else... including my heart...was given back to you."

He breathed against her hand and her skin tasted the same under his tongue as it had the night before. And he desperately wished he could go back there to when everything had been perfect and right. But wormholes had taught him that even memories could be ruined if you revisited them too much and he'd had his past frelled with enough without making things worse.

"It may not be the only thing Aeryn. It may not."

Confusion clouded her face until she caught his meaning and then she pulled her hand away from his mouth with a small gasp.

And he felt like dren for the second time in less than a quarter arn.

"Look, I didn't mean..."

"Yes, you did."

"I only meant that you may not need a vid chip to..."

"No." And her voice was so strong it made him rock back a bit. "You told me not to lie to you John... to get my story straight. How fair is it to either of us if you can't do the same?"

"Aeryn..."

"You meant that this child may be his. Or Velorek's or the man that existed before you were twinned. But not yours, because you weren't there for that. And I suppose you'd be right. You weren't. And it's why I never told you in the first place. I couldn't face it John. I'd only just lost him and you'd only just lost me and I couldn't face dealing with the idea that I might bring a child into this world whose father would always look at him and see another man."

He stood up and stepped away from her, the force of her outburst a little too much to take. She was right and she was wrong and he had no clue how to explain that to her in any way that made any sense.

"It wouldn't be like that Aeryn... it won't, I promise. A parent is more than a just a genetic connection just like a child is more than the biological material that produced it."

She sighed and wiped at her now tearless eyes with the back of her hand. "I know. You would try to love this child no matter whose it is. It's what you do; it's who you are. But it doesn't change the facts, or the fact that we both know. And who's to say it won't change us when we find out for sure?"

"It won't."

His words didn't erase the disbelief in her eyes but, when he took her into his arms she still held on tight.

"Death hasn't been able to change us Aeryn. If it can't, then how in God's name could something as wonderful as new life?"

"I want to believe that," she whispered. "And I hope it's true."

"Then believe it. Because it is."

She didn't speak, just simply held him tighter and didn't protest when he picked her up and put her into bed.

"You need some rest. I think you over did it a bit."

She looked up at him, a thousand emotions quick silvering across her face. Fear, doubt, love, resignation.

He waited, looking to see if she'd take the matter further. But in the end she only smiled and touched the side of his face.

"You're a good man, John Crichton."

He laughed and kissed her palm, oddly relieved they were letting it go for now. There was a lifetime worth of things still unsaid between them. Better to take it in small doses.

"Yeah, you say that now that you got me doing all your dirty work again."

She frowned, "Dirty work?"

"Who do you think's going to shift the last of your stuff down here?"

"Oh... I'd almost forgotten I was going to do that today."

"How convenient."

He smoothed her hair and then took the vid chip and started to place it on the shelf above the bed.

"Don't," she said catching at his hand.

"I was just going to--"

"No, put it in that box on top of the table. The one over there." She pointed to a plain metal box in which she kept an assortment of odds and ends that had never made sense to him. An old pulse pistol, one of Zhaan's rings, some pressed flowers Chiana had picked on some old excursion. A scrap piece of Talyn. "I don't think I'll be looking at it again. I don't need to. I just need to know where it is."

He leaned down enough to look her in the face. "Are you sure?"

She nodded sleepily and ran a hand lazily through his hair. "Why dwell on the past when my future's right here?"

He swallowed hard at that and marveled at her hold over him. She kept ruining his life, this woman. And yet he kept coming back. He couldn't help it any more than she could. One of these days they would both have to stop running. Olivia had seen that, it's why she'd chosen to give him that present.

"I love you," he said, and smiled when she pulled him down for a brief kiss.

"Love you back."

He left her sleeping there, his renegade soldier who'd been through so much to protect him, and headed down the hall towards what was soon to be her ex-quarters.

Father. American Standard said: "A man who begets or raises or nurtures a child."

His DNA or not, he loved Aeryn Sun and she loved him. They would have a child together.

Father. That's what he was.