A Safe Place

This was written when we were all wondering what had happened to John's notebook after TJohn died.

A Safe Place

This is my little contribution to the Shippy notebook challenges.

It was the end of another long, tiring day. They had been searching for worm holes, following John- this Crichton's- nose for them, hoping that Scorpius' Command carrier would be close by if they found one. Nothing of note had happened that day, except that Chiana had dismissed some task she wanted Aeryn to help her with as something that could wait until she felt better. That gave Aeryn something to think about as she got ready for bed. Felt better? What made Chiana think she was ever going to feel any different than she did right now? As far as Aeryn knew, it was a permanent state of pain- the past wasn't going to rewrite itself- John, *her* John, wasn't going to come back from the dead. She didn't think about the days and nights ahead of her that would be empty without him-she simply kept putting one foot in front of the other because that was the decision she had made when she had chosen not to step off the balcony at that hotel for the damned.

It was when she had gotten entirely ready for bed and about to slide under the covers that she discovered it was missing. Her first thought was that she had mislaid it, but she knew that was impossible. She was certain that it had been in a safe place. She tore her bed apart looking for it, and then turned her attentions to the rest of the room. It didn't take long to go through her meager belongings and satisfy herself that it wasn't there. Besides the ordinary feeling of having had her space invaded and something taken, she felt a keen, sharp sense of loss.

Throwing her boots on and grabbing her pulse pistol, she ran to his room. She knew it was a mistake the microt she burst in on him. His hair tousled and his voice drowsy with sleep, he sat up in bed. "What is it? Are we under attack?" he asked.

She shook her head no, finding it difficult to speak. "You-" her voice cracked. "You took it. You came into my room and took it away from me. I need it back," she said desperately.

"Aeryn, I would never take anything away from you. Tell me what you're missing, and maybe I can help you find it," he suggested reasonably.

"No. It's nothing," she said, not wanting to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry. I made a mistake." Her anger dissipated, she turned to go. Suddenly he was behind her, his hand on her arm, holding her in a delicate but firm grip. She half-turned to meet eyes full of compassion. It was just like him, she thought resentfully. Worrying about her no matter how much she had hurt him. "Aeryn, if you need to talk..." he said very gently.

Talking was the last thing she needed. Didn't they understand? the slightest crack- the smallest connection, or warmth, or sympathy from any of them- and the gates might come down and the enemy come pouring in. There was a battalion of emotions battering at her from within.

"I- I can't," she said, trying to be straight with him. "When you- he died, I lost it. I fell apart. I was completely out of control." She didn't know how to explain to him how horrible it was- that she didn't want to go back to that dark place where she didn't give a fellip's ass about her own life or anyone else's, and she hurt so much she wanted to inflict pain on others.

He was stroking her arm almost imperceptibly with his thumb. "It's all right to fall apart if you're in a safe place."

A safe place...how easy it would be to relax against him and - no. It wasn't the kind of comfort she wanted. She could feel his heat -close enough to tell that he smelled the same, felt the same, undoubtedly tasted the same... "Not safe," she said. "It's not safe at all," she whispered, and fled.

Back in her room, she paced for a while until she calmed down, cursing her traitorous body that couldn't tell the difference between them. Not that there was any difference between them- she hadn't mean to choose one over the other but there had never been any doubt in her mind that the John she was with *was* John- her John- the one she had been with for the last two cycles. It had been so easy to pretend that this one didn't exist, wasn't even real. Was it just her bad luck that she had picked the one that had to die? Or was it his bad luck that everything she loved died?

She cleaned up the mess she had made of her room, and settled down to a sleepless night.

The next day she regarded everyone suspiciously. Crais had been on Talyn. She quickly dismissed D'argo. Not only could she not imagine him going through her things, but she couldn't imagine what he would want with it. Rygel was a good possibility, but what would it profit him? Jool was an unknown quantity to her- she had no idea what her motive would be. But Chiana- Chiana might do it. She didn't know what the reason would be, but the workings of Chiana's mind had always mystified her anyway.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she overheard John and Chiana talking.

"I only did it for you," Chiana said.

"I know I said I needed it, but that doesn't mean that you could take -"

They both stopped talking when they saw Aeryn. Later, when Chiana was busy in the galley, Aeryn went into her room and carefully searched it, lifting the clothes and things scattered around and replacing them carefully. She found nothing and was deeply ashamed of herself for invading Chiana's privacy.

John tried to stop her shortly afterward. "Aeryn- about the -"

"Never mind," she said. "It's not important. I lost it. It's gone."

Which is why she was really surprised to see it lying on her bed when she went to her quarters that night. She greeted it like a long lost friend, one that you never thought you'd see again. She picked up the notebook and looked at its pages. It was intact- nothing ripped out of it and nothing added. Anyone could have taken it but only one person would have brought it back, she thought, as she stroked the outside of the book. She had no idea why she wanted it so badly- she thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was real, concrete, something that she could look at and prove that the short time they had spent together on Talyn had even happened. She opened the book again and noticed how few pages had been used since the star chart that John had shown her- the book really didn't belong to her, she acknowledged. It belonged to the person who had written and drawn all the pages that had come before.

She got ready for bed and slipped it under her pillow where it had been before. She placed her hand on it, like she had every night since she had come back to Moya, and got ready to go to sleep. She would give it back to him, she resolved. When she didn't need it so much . When she felt better. But in the meantime, she would make sure it was in a safe place.