A Small Warmth (G)

A Small Warmth
by CrystalMoon

Note: This is in response to AC’s challenge about when the stasis was released on Aeryn.
Spoilers: Most of Season 4.
Rating: G
Summary: Aeryn experiences first night back on Moya after Scarren capture.
Disclaimer: Farscape characters owned by Henson. I just play with them.

Aeryn woke with a jerk, kicking her legs out and twitching her arms from a dream in which she was certain she was falling. As she moved, burning pain seared two lines across both sides of her torso in eight distinct spots. Now, she remembered. Scarrens, capture, torture, the baby. The baby! She opened her eyes and brought her hand to her abdomen, imagining the tiny life that resided inside her. She suddenly wished she’d paid more attention to Zaahn and her gods. If anyone needed a prayer right now it was her baby.

She started to mouth what she hoped were the appropriate words she’d heard Zaahn say so many times. Who was it Zaahn had prayed to, Kahanyu? And what had she said, something about watching over them?

No, these would be her words, not Zaahn’s. And frankly, she didn’t care which god she prayed to as long as they did as she wished. Aeryn took a deep breath and began whispering quietly so as not to wake John. Please, let my child be healthy. Please, let it stay secure in stasis until the world was safer, until John wasn’t a target for every frelling government in existence, until we could pick a planet to raise it on, or until we no longer had a bounty on our heads.

No, she had to stop. She was getting greedy. Just please let the baby be safe and healthy. That’s all she wanted. That’s it. She refused to think beyond that. John had said the baby was okay, so she would pray that he was right and for nothing more. Not now, when she had come so close to losing everything.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she bit the inside of her mouth to keep from sobbing like a child with a skinned knee. She needed to be strong. The baby needed her to be strong. She’d come close to breaking at Jenek’s hands and she couldn’t afford to do so again. After wiping her face, she took a deep breath. She was safe. John was safe. The baby was safe. Be glad of what you have. If there was one thing she’d learned from her time away from Moya it was to accept the gifts she’d been given and embrace them while she could. Zaahn had not died in vain. She hadn’t.

A dark head moved beside her as John changed position in his sleep. He still wore his leather pants and t-shirt, but at least she’d convinced him to remove his boots, jacket and gloves before lying next to her. He’d wanted to remain alert and ready, as if to protect her from a Scarren invasion on Moya, even though Pilot had starburst three times since they’d left the border station and they were completely out of Scarren space. She hadn’t tried to convince him to leave Winona on the floor, though. It lay tucked under the pillow with John’s right hand curled around it.

And then, getting John to get off the floor had been another struggle. Aeryn knew she must’ve looked like dren for him to drop the argument so quickly. But she needed him next to her. She needed the solidness of him, the reality of his body, the warmth of it, and the way it didn’t fade away if she looked too closely. And from the looks of things, he needed her too. The way he’d come close to crying when she’d asked him to stay had told me more about his state of mind than the dark circles under his eyes or the tenseness around his mouth. She didn’t think she would’ve survived his capture if she’d been in his place. She can only imagine how he’d survived. Certainly not with enough sleep and probably with little food. Now, they both needed the other and if that meant the bed was cramped and Aeryn couldn’t spread out to relieve the burning in her sides, then so be it.

Carefully and very slowly, she rolled on her side toward him, wincing as the pain bit deeply in a couple of spots. As she did, she felt something shift inside her, on her left side below her waist. A tiny thing, just a bit of warmth and movement, as if her organs were realigning, adjusting to being back on Moya and out of Scarren hands. Or maybe it was hunger. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything. Maybe her stomach had decided it was safe to tell her it was hungry again. Or maybe it was the torture. Jenek had taken quite a bit of pleasure from his heat probes and the nurse had enjoyed stabbing her with needles a little too much. Had they messed up anything in her body?

Or maybe, just maybe, it was something else. She rubbed her lower abdomen in slow circles, praying to whatever gods would listen to her again. Then she brought her face next to John’s, kissed his jaw, and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. He was so warm and strong, even in sleep, smelling like leather and sweat and the awful soap Rygel had bought for all of them a monen ago.

Suddenly, a feeling of love filled her, like a sun had leapt into her body burning so bright it might burst through her pores to envelop John in its heat, to fuse him to her. She let herself relax into the mattress and leaned against his body the best she could without waking him or causing too much pain. Love. It was a feeling that always astounded her. How could she, a soldier, the daughter of the women who had killed her father and called it love, how could she love another man so much?

John stirred and opened his eyes. He must’ve felt her against him because he turned his head and stared, pale eyes fading to almost white in the low light. He reached out and stroked her arm, saying nothing, just staring. The two of them lay like that for a long time before John closed his eyes again and his breathing evened out. Aeryn continued to watch him, her hand on her abdomen. But eventually, sleep caught up with her too, and she drifted off.