Because You Were Closer

This is a small post- Fractures fic. The Usual Disclaimers apply.

Thanks to MALar for being my constant reader.

(Posted on the first Bunny Board on November 4, 2003. I don't know when it was first posted-shortly after Fractures, I'm sure.)

John was kissing her. It was sweet and slow and lasted forever, the kind of kiss that didn't mean to really get anywhere, just exist as an end unto itself. Contentment flowed through her body as she caressed his face. She never got tired of running her fingers along his skin. Lips, tongues, souls mingled as she brushed his hair back from his face. It was when she realized that the little scar she had become so fond of tracing was gone that she woke up to the harsh reality of her lonely bed. A fresh wave of grief washed over her when she remembered that her John, the one she had loved, was gone. She lay on her bed on Moya absorbing the impact of that truth. It was a little less painful, she knew, each time she woke to remember that he was dead, but she still wished that she didn't have the dreams, that her sleeping mind knew what her waking mind did.

When had she become such a connoisseur of kissing? she wondered. It had taken her a while to realize that kissing could be more than a prelude to sex. That's all it was in the Peacekeepers, if you even got that much prelude. And every time she and John kissed, it was like a bomb going off. But she had discovered after being with John on Talyn that kissing meant something. Sometimes it just meant 'I love you'. A quick peck to say hello or goodbye, I missed you, don't go. Don't go.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed abruptly. This was a very bad line of thought, one that she needed to stop immediately. She took a deep breath and got out of bed, leaving the room without so much as putting her boots on.

He found her on the terrace, looking at the stars as if she had lost something there.Her hair was down and mussed, and she was wearing a black tee (his? Best not to think about that) and a pair of calvins that most definitely had used to belong to him. He didn't know which alarmed him more- that she had left her room without her pulse pistol or that her feet were bare. He stood there silently for a moment, wondering whether he should speak and let her know that he was there.

"I didn't want to come back here, you know," she said without turning around, her voice a ragged whisper. "Not before, and not..after."

John said nothing. What was there to say? That he was unbelievably glad that she did anyway?

"After we left, when we were on Talyn-"

"I don't think I want to hear this," John interrupted her.

She made a little half-turn. He could see that she was hugging herself, her arms folded against her body. She looked cold and lonely.

"It's important," she said, still not meeting his eyes.

"All right," he said quietly.

"Talyn did something that made John believe that I had recreated with Crais. He was hurt, and angry, and it was..hard, even though I hadn't. And then," she stopped, obviously unwilling to tell the rest of the story. "I forgot about you. It was easy to put you out of my mind. I didn't even miss you- how could I, when you were right there beside me? And when I did think about you, I knew you had to be the copy, because he was you- real, and warm, and there."

"And now?"

"Now he is gone- a ghost, a memory, and you are here. I know you are not a copy, and I know I left you. I didn't - wouldn't think about it, when I was with him, and even right after he- died, but I hurt you, and I didn't want to come back here and see that. To see you hating me."

That was why it was important. He had been hurt and angry and felt betrayed, and she was letting him know she knew it. . "I don't hate you, Aeryn. It wasn't Crais. It was me, and I'd have done the same thing in his place. How could I hate you for that?"

"I'm sorry." She turned around fully now, and he could see that her eyes were full of tears. "What was I supposed to do, wait for one of you to die?"

"It turns out it would have worked," John said, his voice heavy with irony. He paused for a moment, struggling with himself, while Aeryn struggled to regain her composure. He badly wanted to know if she thought there was a chance for them, if she was willing to take the risk of loving again, but he knew that would be pushing it.

"Were you- did he make you- happy?" he asked.

"Yes," she said simply. She unfolded her arms and stood there, just a bit of the radiance and happiness she had lost emanating from her. "Very happy."

"Good," he said. Aeryn walked past him, evidently deciding that she should go back to her room. At least she seemed a little more at peace.

"Aeryn," he said, as she went by, "I would rather have been him- the one with you, who made you happy, and then die, then know that I will never have a hope of being with you." The painful lump in his throat made it hard to get the words out.

"No, you wouldn't," she said, her voice almost teasing, a variation of her usual way of contradicting him that he had never heard before. "You would hope anyway. That's what you do." And then, miraculously, she smiled at him.