Originally posted 12/11/03Okay, I warn you up front, this is kidfic....
I was reminded recently that I went through a phase after, oh, I think it was DWTB, where every time I saw a man out shopping or something with a kid or two, I really, really, really,
really wanted John to have that experience! So I kinda challenged the Bunnies to write me some kidfic -- John with one or more kids, any age from babies to adults -- and I think a couple of them are taking me up on it, so you may see a few more of these wandering out. (And anyone who wants to is welcome to get on the band wagon!
)
Many thanks to shipsister and MadScientist (otherwise known as my husband Jim
) for beta duties, and to Atana for a quick look-see.
This more or less fits in with my "....who only stand and wait" universe, a couple years down the line from that when J&A and brood are back on Moya.
Rating - "G"
Setting - About 8 years post-BT
Spoilers - Through BT
Disclaimer - Not mine, no harm intended, honest!
Hope it's not too sappy.....
Oh, and if you happen to recognize the little girl's name, and the history of the woman she's named for, Ships graciously allowed me to use the name she chose for Aeryn's mother in her "Traveller's Song" fics!
Midnight Tears and Mystic Spirals
"Daddy?"
The soft, high-pitched child's voice penetrated vaguely into Crichton's fuzzy brain. Small fingers patted his arm, and the voice persisted, "Dad-dy? Mewwy's cwying."
Of course it was Livvy, he thought. Even if the slight childish lisp on her sister's name hadn't made it clear which of the three children was interrupting his sleep, his second child, three-and-a-half-year-old Olivia, could be counted on to worry about the baby of the family.
"Livvy, honey," he groaned, "could you ask Mommy about that?" The tactic earned him a sharp jab in the ribs from the love of his life. And well it should have, as he remembered belatedly that it was his turn to deal with middle of the night munchkin crises.... He suppressed a sigh, touched Aeryn briefly in apology, and opened his eyes.
The room was very softly lit in Moya's "nightlight mode," and his daughter stood beside his bed, wearing a faded Kermit the Frog t-shirt she'd snurched from her older brother. Smart boy, TJ -- he already knew when not to argue with a woman, though truth be told, he'd probably outgrown the shirt by the time Livvy appropriated it. It had been almost two years since they'd visited Earth, and TJ was seven now, and a foot taller, it seemed.
"Daddy!" Livvy said indignantly, tired of waiting. She tossed her head and soft brown curls went flying. "She's cwying! Can't you hear?"
And, indeed, he could hear soft whimpering sounds coming from the girls' room down the corridor. "I hear her, sweetie. Sound's like she's not too happy, huh?"
Olivia nodded solemnly, and John dragged himself out of bed. He briefly thought about grabbing a T-shirt to wear along with the drawstring pants he'd been sleeping in, but the temperature was comfortable enough that he didn't bother with a shirt, or anything for his feet. He bent down and picked up his daughter, then looked back at Aeryn. He could see, even in the dim light, that she was smiling at the pair of them. He smiled back and said softly, "I'll be back soon, I hope."
"I'll keep the bed warm," she purred, which was laughable, considering her body temperature was lower than his, but he knew when he came back she'd be at least halfway on his side of the bed. It was one of the things he loved about sharing her bed...the way they were together even when they weren't together....
But the baby was beginning to sob in earnest down the hall, and he gathered his wits and said to Olivia, "Okay, let's go see to your sister, okay?"
Livvy nodded firmly and leaned her head on his chest. For all that she was worried about the little one, John could see she was very sleepy. He didn't even try to talk to her, just carried her down the corridor back to the room she shared with Merry, who was a few monens shy of two.
Once in the room, he plunked Olivia back in her own bed and kissed her forehead, saying, "Okay, sweetie, you go back to sleep now. I'll take care of Merry."
Livvy nodded as he handed her a stuffed toy that was green and lumpy and looked more like the Incredible Hulk than anything else he'd been able to conjure from his memory, but which had been a gift from Chiana, and was the girl's most prized possession. John pulled her blanket up over her and headed across the room to his youngest child's bed.
He and Aeryn had expected their third child to be a boy, that's what the midwife on Marjan had told them, so the arrival of another girl left them unprepared with a name. After several days' thought, Aeryn had come up with "Meara," after a Peacekeeper she'd heard of in childhood who'd single-handedly rescued two-thirds of her unit from a burning transport after a crash. It was a good, strong name, and beautiful, too, but nicknames were as natural to Crichton as breathing and the baby quickly became "Merry" to everyone in the family but her mother.
The toddler was sitting disconsolately in her bed, twisting the hem of her sleep shirt with one hand, fingers of the other jammed in the opposite side of her mouth, poor thing. Yep, just what he'd expected....those molars were still giving it the old college try. God, he'd be glad when they were in, but he figured the kid had to feel worse than he did. He leaned over and said, "Hey, Melly Belly!" taking advantage of Aeryn's absence to use his silliest nickname for the baby. He'd only used it in Aeryn's hearing once, but that had been enough for him to know he didn't want to repeat it.... "Teeth hurt, huh?" he asked, brushing strands of jet black hair out of her face.
"Hurt," she agreed, nodding, and sniffled.
Before he dealt with that, he went ahead and checked her diaper anyway, just in case. It was wet, so he changed her, figuring she'd be more comfortable, then lifted her over the railing at the side of her bed and settled her on his hip. Before she could bury her drool-covered face in his bare chest, he grabbed a wipe and cleaned her up, saying, "There you go. One clean little girl. Let's go get that bug juice for your mouth, huh?"
Still chewing on her fingers, Meara laid her head down on her father's shoulder.
After a quick check to make sure Olivia had gone back to sleep, John walked down the corridor for the family store of medical supplies, patting Merry on the back as he went. It somehow surprised him every time he was reminded that even with nearly two years separating them, the girls were close to the same size. This one had his solid build and was tall, while Livvy was slender as a wraith, like her mother, and a little short for her age. Odds were Olivia would shoot up again soon, but for right now, the two could be mistaken for fraternal twins. Ah, the wonders of genetics, he thought, as he entered the bathroom and reached for the medicine box with his free arm.
He quickly came up with the numbing agent the kids had dubbed "bug juice" when they'd seen it being made at a small commerce center. It kicked in almost immediately when he rubbed it on Merry's gums with his forefinger. She chewed on him for a few microts, a substitute for her own fingers, he supposed, and then stopped chewing and gave him a weary smile.
Yes! Truly, there were few things in the universe more miserable than an unhappy baby, and however tired both of them were, John very nearly broke into a happy dance, knowing he'd helped make it better. So many times there was nothing to be done but wait.... "Hey there, little girl," he said. "That better?"
She nodded, and managed to wrap her mouth around something that sounded like, "Gug goose."
"Yup, that's it, bug juice," he agreed. "Good stuff!" He yawned, and, hopeful that it might be contagious, he asked, "You ready to go back to bed?"
But now that she felt better, Merry had other ideas. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around as much of his chest as she could, holding tight.
"I take it that's a no...." he drawled. Well, what the hell. He rarely got any one-on-one time with child number three, so why look a gift horse in the mouth, even halfway through the night cycle? There were lots of quiet things they could do. He didn't think she'd manage to stay awake too long anyway, however stubborn she was. He headed for the family room, his daughter in his arms.
"You wanna read?" he asked, when they'd reached the room and he'd asked Pilot to turn the lights up a bit.
"No read now," Meara said, squirming to get down. When he turned her loose, she headed for a stash of paper and something that resembled crayons. When he bought them, John had made the conscious decision he didn't want to know how they were made, but they got the job done -- putting color on paper -- which he'd learned a long time ago was what mattered out here.
"Okey-dokey," he agreed, "let's color." Her coordination didn't allow for much at this age, but if that's what she wanted to do, why not? He grabbed a couple of pieces of paper, one for each of them, and set them on the round white plastic play table that was about the height of the coffee table in his mother's living room. "You bring some colors," he told Merry, and watched her choose a handful of crayons based on some criteria only she knew.
When she finished, John lowered himself to the floor and scooted up to the table. His daughter came and sat in his lap, dropping the waxy crayons on the table in front of him with a series of clunks. While he was contemplating what to draw, Meara picked up a bright blue crayon in one chubby fist and attacked the sheet in front of her, making swaths of color on the paper and humming happily, teeth forgotten. For his part, John worked on a simple drawing of Pilot, something he'd perfected over the years, as all the children loved the gentle being who guided Moya.
He started to pick up his drawing to show her, and found himself looking at her scribbles instead. She'd been making circles, or ovals, or...spirals.... Brilliant blue spirals. The image certainly wasn't smooth, or regular. It wasn't that different from things the other two kids had drawn when they were her age. But something about it made him feel gooseflesh, as if a cool breeze had swept across his bare chest, and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Whatcha got there, Meara?" he asked her, struggling to keep his tone casual while his stomach tied itself in knots.
"Go," she said cheerfully, pointing to the center of one of her spirals.
"Go where?"
"Go," she repeated. "We go dere. Out." She pointed vaguely in the direction of Moya's docking bay.
Go there.... Holy mother of God! He closed his eyes tightly. His tiny daughter, not even two cycles old, was drawing pictures of wormholes! That was going to scare the crap out of Aeryn. Hell, it was scaring the crap out of
him!
Okay, get a grip, he told himself firmly, forcing his eyes open.
It doesn't mean anything. She's smart. All the kids are smart. And she's seen wormholes before. She's just drawing something she's seen. She doesn't even know what it is. But he didn't believe it, as he looked in her eyes and saw the proud gleam there. She knew what she was talking about, all right, and she knew she had his attention. He took a deep breath and asked, "Merry, baby, listen to me. Is there a wormhole here now? Outside Moya?"
She didn't even think about it, just shook her head
no, and climbed off of his lap to go get another piece of paper.
He blew out his breath in relief. He was awfully glad she'd said no, because if she'd said yes, even though
he didn't feel one, he knew he'd've been up the rest of the night, badgering Pilot and searching for some sign of a wormhole in the vicinity.
Because looking from his daughter to her drawing and back again, he knew in his heart of hearts that Meara had inherited his affinity for wormholes. How, he had no idea, because he'd never been able to make himself believe that the knowledge the Ancients gave him had ended up encoded in his DNA, no matter what the bad guys seemed to think. That still seemed like bullshit to him. But...inherit it, she obviously had.
The question that was making his stomach churn was, what did that mean?
Considering how much trouble the frelling wormhole knowledge had been to
him over the cycles, what would it do to a little girl? Could she begin to understand the dangers?
He resisted the urge to rush over and enfold her in his arms. Dammit, she was just a baby....
The Scarrans had almost killed Aeryn to get their hands on TJ before he was born, on the off chance that the baby had exactly what this little girl had: Wormholes, in her genes. The Scarrans were still out there, even if they were weakened, and there were war drums beating on Nebari Prime. Who knew what either race would do to get wormholes! And before her untimely death, Grayza had made it clear the Peacekeepers were still interested....
The thought of his daughter enduring any of the tortures he had suffered was freaking him out, his mind conjuring up horror upon horror. He could feel the pain, deep in his bones, and he couldn't stop a shudder. But then Meara called him back to the here and now when she put a clean piece of paper on the table and climbed back into his lap, twisting around to look at him curiously.
"Hey, baby," he said softly, trying not to let her see how upset he was. "You gonna draw another picture for me?"
She grinned at him, a wide easy smile, and carefully chose a crayon, some odd shade of red this time. She set about trying to copy his picture of Pilot, sticks for his arms -- three of them -- and something vaguely resembling a circle doing double duty for his head and body both....
And just like that, the sense of panic that had been trying to grip his heart went away.
He was sure that Meara grokked wormholes. He'd confirm it next time one was around, but he had absolutely no doubts about her ability.
But she was still only two cycles old. She couldn't put her clothes on, she couldn't buckle her shoes, she couldn't write, she couldn't string more than three words together in a sentence yet. She couldn't count to five, much less do wormhole equations in her head. She wasn't going to be telling anyone what she knew instinctively, and no one was going to be torturing her to talk, because she couldn't. He snorted softly. She didn't even have all her frelling teeth yet, which is how this whole thing had started....
There was plenty of time to deal with this newly-discovered talent of hers, no matter how potentially dangerous it was.
Hell, some part of him was already thinking it was going to be really cool to have a wormhole buddy....
In the meantime, he and Aeryn would do everything in their power to protect her, and TJ, and Livvy, as they had from the moment they'd known they were going to be parents.
Business as usual, that's all. And
that started with not making so much of a fuss over the wormhole picture that Meara figured out she could use it to get a rise out of them, like a kid with a new four-letter word.
John took a deep breath and released the last of the tension from his neck and his gut. "Time for bed, punkin," he told Merry with a yawn. "We can show these to Mommy tomorrow, okay?"
This time she did yawn back at him, and said, "Bed."
He put the crayons back in their box and the pictures up on a shelf, and then picked the toddler up and headed for her room. Once there, he tucked her into bed and kissed her good night, and made sure that Livvy was sleeping too. On the way back to his own room he stopped for a few microts and listened to TJ breathe....
He closed his eyes and let out a satisfied sigh.
Parenthood was everything he'd dreamed of when he imagined his life -- and a whole lot stranger, too.
He was
so glad he had Aeryn to share it with.... It wouldn't have been half as wonderful without her.
He padded back to his own room, and, just as he'd expected, Aeryn was sprawled in the middle of the bed. He stood there for a moment, just watching her, enjoying the curves of her body under the drape of the thin golden blanket. Then he smiled to himself in satisfaction and climbed in, nudging her just a little so she rolled over sideways and scooted over to give him room to wrap himself around her from behind.
"Aer?" he whispered softly when he knew she was awake. He couldn't keep a hint of pride from his voice. "Guess what Merry can do."
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