"Pater Tot"

Title: Pater Tot

Author: CretKid

Rating: All Audience Approved

Spoilers: it's AU, in my derry-verse collection

Author Notes: kerne wanted happy family fic. I said yes, as happy family fic is speaking to me more than Moya is at the moment; stars and scrubs helped with the title

Summary: She is her father's daughter.

Pater Tot

If he hadn't known the bare essentials behind the stare-down, John would have laughed aloud at the situation.

His 4 year - cycle, he was never gonna get used to that - old daughter was seated at one end of the table, feet swinging like a metronome. His wife sat at the other end, most decidedly not swinging her feet. Nor was Aeryn going to be the first to break the staring contest.

Derry wasn't exactly ... pouting. She also wasn't spouting her usual babble of daily detailed diatribe of the goings on of her universe. Aeryn didn't look mad... she was wearing that expression of latent exasperation of which he was very familiar. It was directed at him more often than not.

As amusing as the Mexican standoff was to watch, Pooh Bear was hungry and wailing louder by the minute and he simply wasn't equipped with the proper plumbing. With the baby banshee secured against his shoulder, he entered the center chamber.

"Uh, Aeryn?" John patted the baby's back, hoping the gesture would comfort the child.

Nope. Wyn continued to keen as if her 2-month-old world was coming to an end. He stood behind Derry's chair in the hopes that Aeryn would catch an eyeful of the apparent apocalyptic seizure their newest addition was imitating to make her needs known.

An eternity later, Aeryn broke eye contact - shifted her eyes upwards and then back to Derry. Placing both hands on the table, she pushed up and out of her chair, focus never leaving the face of her first-born.

"You," she said to her daughter, "don't move from that seat." Aeryn held her arms open for her youngest child, her expression never changing but the tone of her voice definitely lighter. "You are coming with me."

John felt like a tag-a-long, but he wanted to know what Derry had done to deserve enforced confinement. He followed his wife as she crossed to the other side of the center chamber to one of the crash couches along the sidewall.

As Aeryn settled on the couch with the baby at her breast, John waited for an explanation with an expectant expression. Wyn had one hand wrapped tightly around Aeryn's index finger. John crouched down to be in Aeryn's line of sight.

The acerbic smile on Aeryn's face slightly soured as she shifted position to make herself more comfortable - much to Wyn's consternation. Whatever tale Aeryn had to tell, it had to be a whopper.

"YOUR daughter dismantled a DRD."

Flashes of Derry as Gene Wilder - she certainly had the hair for it - complete with lightening and a beetled-over DRD with eye stalks twitching and roller wheels spinning madly criss-crossed and cross-circuited his brain. He knew he shouldn't laugh, not with Derry less than a few feet away. It came out instead as a painful sort of snort.

"Again?"

"Pilot is not pleased," Aeryn informed him.

That was an understatement if John ever heard one.

"Is it repairable?" John asked. He'd already had his fair share of Derry's experiments with the inner machinations of DRD-dom. It took nearly a week to figure out why 1812 could only turn to the left.

"You'll find it in the maintenance bay. I knew she was either napping or doing something she shouldn't." Aeryn grinned toothily. "Even you can't stay quiet for that long."

His chin bounced off his chest as he tried to contain his laughter. Derry must have gotten a hold of one of the DRDs Pilot sent to help with babysitting duties while Aeryn worked on one of the transport pods.

John had to wonder how much coaching the tyke had from a certain Leviathan with a sadistic streak all her own. Poor Pilot. No wonder he was cheesed. He crooked his thumb over his shoulder. "I'll deal with the tiny techie while Hoover here finishes her happy meal. Do you want to talk to Pilot or should I?"

"I'll talk to Pilot. And Moya."

He tipped forward to kiss Wyn on the crown on her head, but the busy grunt of feeding veered him away from that venture. He knew better than to get between his baby girl and her meal.

Moseying over to the table, he found Derry seated with her arms on the table, hands fisted under her chin. The subtle shake of her shoulders belayed the fact she was still kicking her feet under the table.

He adopted a similar sitting style across from her. She smiled. He smiled back.

"Hey, kiddo."

Derry sucked in her lower lip, pushed it back out. He wondered if Aeryn had given her a 'Don't talk' directive as well. Derry, from time to time, would choose which parental requests she obeyed. 'Don't move from chair', follow to the letter. 'Don't dismantle the DRDs', a matter of semantics.

"Want to tell me what ya did?"

Derry shrugged her shoulders, sort of shook her head. The skin under his chin caught in her fists, not that it seemed to bother her.

"You know you're not supposed to play with the DRDs without me or your Mama to supervise, right?"

A nod and John couldn't help but think of that toothbrush commercial with the flip-top head cartoon. His own jaw ached with keep his chin planted on his fists, and he could hear things popping near his ears that weren't meant to pop.

He wasn't going to ask if Moya was helping with the little science experiment, though it was tops on his mind. Derry had helped him with many a repair about Moya. She knew a hammer from a wrench and she knew how to use each. She even had a small set of tools inside his gearbox for her own special projects when he was working in the maintenance bay.

Though, he had to wonder how she got her hands on it; he was sure he had put it away, far from the reach of 4-year-old hands. The kid definitely had a close encounter of the Leviathan kind.

"Have you said 'sorry' to Pilot yet?"

Derry shook her head, frowned. John knew Pilot would not, could not be that angry. The big purple guy fell in love with Derry the first time Aeryn placed her in Pilot's claws. Aeryn had been the first to suggest that maybe the link between Derry and Moya went both ways. Perhaps Moya's recent rash of teasing Pilot was a reaction to Derry's delayed Terrible Two's?

John sat back in his chair, smiled. "Then why don't we go say 'sorry' to Pilot, and then you take me to the DRD and you help me put it back together."

It wasn't exactly punishment. Derry liked to work with the tools. But she'd been in time out, butt glued to that seat for at least an arn, and that was punishment enough for his overactive child.

Before Derry could take off for the Den, he grabbed her hand and swung her into a hug. "Go tell Mama where we're going, 'kay?" He dropped her to the floor and she was off running.

"Mama! We're going to see Pilot to say sorry!"

There was a bemused expression on Aeryn's face. Derry had stopped short of jumping in Aeryn's lap. Wyn was none to happy for the disruption and made her dissatisfaction known, loud and clear. Derry climbed into the couch, kissed Aeryn on the cheek and fluttered off towards the door.

John's longer stride easily caught her smaller, rapid steps. He bent at the waist, grabbed her about the middle and hoisted Derry up and over his head to rest on his shoulders.

He turned on his heel, ducking as he backed out of the Center Chamber to keep Derry's head on her own shoulders. "We'll be back after we fix Franken-bot."

"We'll be here."

"Bye Mama!"

With his hands wrapped securely around Derry's ankles, they plodded towards Pilot's Den.

* * *

Pilot was turned towards the treblin consoles when they entered. Derry's grip on his hair tightened as soon as she spotted Pilot.

"Pilotpilotpilot!"

"Good evening, Derry."

John didn't know if it was a translator microbe hiccup, but he was amused by Pilot's pronunciation: 'Derry' always sounded like 'Durry' to his ears.

John pulled Derry off his shoulders before she could mangle his windpipe or make a grab for his eyes. "Howdy, Pilot."

"Commander."

He dangled Derry in front of him at chest height so that she could see over the lip of the console. "Derry has something she wants to say."

She grabbed the edge and pulled herself so that her chin rested there. "Sorry, Pilot. I'm not s'posed to play with dee-dees."

Pilot nodded solemnly. "Thank you, Derry."

Derry tossed her head back to stare at him upside-down. "Now we fix the dee-dee?"

"Dee-are-dees, Kiddo," John prompted.

"Dee-dees!"

"I bet you can't even say 'dee-are-dees'. You've been saying 'dee-dees' since you were 12 monens old."

"Dee-are-dees!" she crowed.

John chortled. "I give up."

Derry responded with a raspberry, and turned back to Pilot's console. She kicked at the console as she tried to climb it. John saved her the trouble and swung her over the top so she could sit.

"I believe it runs in the family, Commander," Pilot lilted, choosing to focus on one of his monitors. "You seem to have a fixation on ending every species name with '-oids'."

"Thanks a lot, Pilot. Derry, be careful."

Pilot placed one arm across his console so that Derry had something to hold on to as she climbed around the top.

"Back to the subject at hand, what sorta damage did my mad little scientist inflict?" Aeryn hadn't told him exactly what Derry had done to the DRD.

"I do not know," Pilot replied, "I lost contact with it when your daughter dismantled the communications relay."

John whistled low, grimaced in sympathy. No wonder Pilot had his knickers in a knot: he took his baby monitoring quite seriously.

Though, Derry had figured out how to take apart the radio; he didn't know if he should be proud or worried.

"I'm sorry, Pilot. I didn't know she could do that," he said, trying to sound apologetic.

Derry clung to Pilot's arm as she leaned over to pat his cheek. "Pilot want to help fix dee-are-dees?"

John leaned over the lip of the console to grab his kid. "That's our job, Derry-Beary. And if we want to join Mama for dinner, we best get moving."

With a squee, Derry drew her legs close to her body as John hefted her over the console and into a fireman's carry.

"Say goodbye, Derry."

"Bye, Pilot!"

Pilot nodded, smiled. "Good night, Derry. Commander."

"Night, Pilot. I'll try to keep the ragamuffin and her tools away from the DRDs."

"And I will ask Moya to stop aiding and abetting your child."

Smiling, he swung Derry over his shoulder and headed for the maintenance bay.

fin