Fallout 9 (PG)

For the benefit of anyone (like at least one of my betas, LOL) who's forgotten what these fics are all about, the "Fallout" stories are a series of epilogues to A Day in the Life.... In that original story (written after Bad Timing, before PKW, so it is has become an AU future universe), Einstein charges John and his youngest child, Meara (Merry), with preventing an incursion into Einstein's realm about to be caused by Furlow and a clone of JC. John goes back to Dam-ba-da at the time of TJohn's confrontation with Furlow to prevent her from running off with Crichton DNA. While John is gone, Aeryn ends up telling their three teenage children about the other Crichton. Trouble ensues back on Dam-ba-da (gee, it's a Crichton plan, what a surprise!), and Aeryn and Meara end up coming to rescue him.... The "Fallout" stories follow on from the series of emotional discoveries that took place during that first fic - and that Fallout just keeps growing. After a gap of about 3 years, I've written the 9th installment! laugh

The only one of the previous stories you really need to read before this is Fallout 8. If you'd like to read more, you can find the complete series listing on my website, or search through this board.

Rating: PG
Setting: About 20 cycles after Bad Timing, and a couple days after Fallout 8.
Spoilers: Through Bad Timing in a general sense, but LATP particularly
Disclaimer: Not my universe, not my characters, no disrespect intended and no money being made!!

Many thanks to Loco, Shipsister, and MadScientist for beta duties! You helped greatly, as always! Thanks also to CretKid for a little geology! flower

I hope you enjoy this little offering.

Fallout: A Day in the Life Epilogue...

Part the ninth, in which TJ and Merry wheedle a skeleton out of the old family closet and Crichton learns a secret or two himself....

It had been a strained couple of days for the Sun-Crichton family, in self-imposed confinement on Moya. John blamed it all on the Empress Novia and her obsessive need to safeguard the throne. If she hadn't had them practically kidnapped from the public gallery in the palace and then gone and made cryptic remarks in front of the kids about a "service" Crichton had performed for the crown the last time he was on the planet, he and his family wouldn't be at each other's throats just now....

Mind you, John and Aeryn's middle child Olivia was presumably having a great time studying geology on her father's homeworld, but here on the Royal Planet, the couple, and their eldest and youngest children, TJ, 18, and 13-cycle-old Merry, were not having so much fun. Despite the Empress' un-asked-for assurances that TJ would be admitted to the Royal Science Academy, the teen was determined to cut no corners in the application process. That meant remaining nearby for another week until the class roster was announced, in case the admissions committee had any more questions or tests.

The kids wanted to play tourist while they waited, but John, more disturbed than he cared to admit by the memories brought up by being on the planet again, and especially by their encounter with Novia, decreed that they should remain aboard Moya, within easy flying range if the Academy should call. If Aeryn argued with him privately about it, TJ and Merry didn't see it, and they resented the apparently arbitrary edict. After a couple days' inactivity and brooding, not to mention numerous thwarted attempts by the kids to get their parents to explain Novia's comments about their last visit, the four of them were eyeing each other with undisguised irritation.

Morning meal on the third day was a quiet, brooding affair, everyone lost in his or her own cranky thoughts. Everybody except Aeryn was doing more pushing of food around their plates than actual eating. About the time his mother had finished her food, TJ smacked his hands flat on the table, and then shoved his chair back and stood up. As the teen reached for his plate to remove it, Aeryn said, "Finish your meal, Talyn."

In a low tone that could only be called surly, TJ replied, "I'm not hungry!"

Aeryn looked him up and down. "You still need to eat," she told him, with just a hint of an edge in her sympathetic tone.

It might have been the sympathy rather than the edge that set TJ off, but the teen snorted and, without answering, turned his back and carried his plate to the sink.

John growled, "Get back here. Your mother told you to finish your meal!"

"And I said I wasn't hungry! I think I'm old enough to know whether I'm hungry or not!"

"That's not the point! Your mother told you to do something, and you need to do it!"

TJ shook his head and started out the door.

"TJ! Where are you going?" John barked, getting to his feet.

The teen slowly turned around. He set his jaw stubbornly and announced, "You want to know where I'm going? I'm going down to the planet, that's where I'm going. It's frelling boring here!"

As an indication of just how unpleasant things had become, Merry flung a quick look at her mother, and then took her life in her hands while her father sputtered incoherently. She leaped up from her chair, abandoning her uneaten meal. "I'm going with TJ!"

John found his voice at last, and roared, "No, you're not! I said we were staying here, and that's just what we're going to do!"

Defiantly, TJ lifted his chin. "You think you can stop me? I don't think so!"

The teen started out of the room and John took a step in his direction, shouting, "TJ! You stop right now, boy! I mean it!"

Aeryn's harsh voice brought both of them to a halt. "Enough! Both of you!" Glaring, she looked from husband to son and back again, and then spared her daughter a warning look as well. Clearly, if they knew what was good for them, they wouldn't mount any objections to what she was about to say.

"Aeryn—" John began, but she cut him off with a sharp shake of her head.

"TJ is right. Sitting around on Moya waiting is no good for any of us. We're going down to the planet!" A triumphant grin began to spread on TJ's face, and Merry began to brighten, but their smiles faded as she went on, "We're not going shopping, and we're not going to museums or palaces! We're going hiking. Go get ready!" She fixed the three of them with her best steely-eyed stare, and they glared back at her. The teens, apparently deciding that anything that got them down to the planet was an improvement over the current situation, capitulated first, and scurried off to change and pack their weapons, water, and basic survival gear.

When they were gone, John took a step towards his wife. His mouth twisted into a grimace, and he sighed. "Things are really so bad you'd run away again?"

Aeryn's gray eyes softened, and she reached out and touched his cheek gently. After a few microts, she snorted softly and corrected him. "I'm taking all of you with me. That's not really running away, is it?"

John stared at her for a microt, wondering if she was making a joke, and then he shook his head and snorted back. "Just as long as you're not planning to push me off a cliff."

Her wry, gentle smile belied her words: "Don't think I'm not tempted!"

"All right, all right," he told her, resigned to trudging across half the planet to burn off some of the tension. "Come on, let's go get our gear."

* * * * * * * *

The weather was beautiful down on the Royal Planet, sunny and warm, but not too warm for physical activity. On this temperate Sebacean world, the sky was blue, the clouds were white puffs, and the grass and trees at the trailhead were green. Everyone in the family wore black leather pants, with T-shirts on the males, and tank tops on the females. Merry was still wearing one of the flowered shirts she'd snurched from her sister's wardrobe, but everyone else had stuck with basic black. Aeryn and her daughter had both chosen to restrain their thick dark hair in a single braid, a practical hairstyle that would also help keep them cooler as they hiked. After a check of the weapons they carried through sheer force of habit, they slung their packs over their shoulders and started off in the direction Aeryn had mapped out.

John had a pretty good idea where she was heading, since there was only one place she'd actually been on this planet besides the palace and its immediate surroundings. He wasn't sure he really wanted to go there, but he let her take the lead without arguing. There'd been enough of that. With a nod, he took up the trailing position, shooing their offspring ahead of him. They walked along without talking, the only sound besides the distant crash of waves being their deep breathing. As they got further along the trail, the area looked more like an arid wilderness than someplace you'd want to hike. But what had once been desert had long ago been turned into an uplifted plain of layered sedimentary rock, and it was obvious from the clearly identifiable path that was worn into the soft sandstone that people had been coming and going this way for many cycles. The scattered dark green vegetation made it look a little more inviting than it would have otherwise, and they continued along at Aeryn's steady pace.

Truthfully, the physical activity was good for them all. By the time they reached a plateau overlooking a cleft in the rocky cliffs and the sea beyond it, the friction was just about burned out of them, and though they still weren’t conversing, at least it was an easy silence. When Aeryn called a halt, they all gratefully pulled out their canteens and stood looking over at the sea and the cliffs as they took refreshing gulps of cool water. TJ and Merry began talking companionably, and John walked over to his wife.

With her hand shading her eyes, she stared at the layered cliffs and the foamy sea and jumbled rocks at their base, and she looked like she was somewhere or some when far, far away. John stood beside her and slipped his arm around her waist. Still looking out ahead of her, Aeryn snaked her arm around his waist in return and leaned her head on his arm. He cleared his throat and nodded towards the cliff face that held her attention. "Is that where you fell?"

Aeryn sucked in her lower lip, and then murmured, "Uh-huh."

John had no idea what she was thinking. The other day, after Novia had ambushed them, they'd talked a lot about his behavior back in the day...and she'd owned that she hadn't given him the support he needed. But they really hadn't talked about her running off with some local fop so she didn't have to go to the wedding. It occurred to John for the first time that something had happened during that trek besides a broken leg, something that had changed her, and their future.

Just as he was telling himself he needed to ask her about it this evening, the kids, apparently realizing this was not a "get a room" moment, ambushed them.

"Dad?" came their son's voice, unexpectedly close. "What really happened the last time you were here?"

Frell! John did not want to talk about the past with his children, and he thought he'd made that very, very clear.

Into the silence, Merry implored, "Mom? Please tell us. Whatever it is it can't be weirder than there being two of Dad."

Aeryn flashed John a look of apology, and turned towards TJ and Merry. "Well, I fell off a cliff and broke my leg. That one," she added, pointing across the way towards the rock face. She looked at John expectantly.

Traitor, he sent, but maybe she was right. He'd known the first night after their encounter with Novia that he was going to have to do this. Trying to avoid it was what had gotten them all wound up and cranky in the first place. With a sigh, John looked out to the sea. Finally, he said, "And I got married to the princess and turned into a statue."

The wind whistled through a long silence until TJ and Merry gasped simultaneously, "What?"

John almost laughed.

* * * * * * * *

John was determined that this wasn't going to be a long story, so instead of having everyone sit down and get comfortable, he just launched into it, the whole family standing there, overlooking the cliffs and the foamy sea.

"You know the Empress' daughter is her heir, right?" TJ and Merry nodded. "Well, they've got rules here that you've got to be married to a person you're genetically compatible with before you can be confirmed as the heir. That way they can be sure there will be more heirs. And Katralla had a brother who was a greedy sonuva– Eh, the important thing is, Katralla's DNA got poisoned so she wasn't compatible with any of the men on the planet – Sebacean men – which screwed up her chances of being the next Empress, which did not make her mother the current Empress happy. And when Mama's not happy...well, this was not a happy planet. And then we turned up on Moya." John stopped dead, unsure how to continue. Frelling Einstein, sending him back to Dam-ba-da to derail Furlow's wormhole UR, and dragging way too many family skeletons out of the closet in the process!

While he dithered, Aeryn picked up the story, going straight to the heart of the matter. "As it turned out, human DNA is enough different from Sebacean that it could overcome the compatibility problem."

Merry looked completely confused, but TJ looked like he was beginning to figure it out. He frowned, and John decided to just spit it out. "So, Katralla's a statue right now, but in about 60 cycles or so, she's going to have a baby girl who's your sister."

The kids' eyes went from their father to their mother in stunned silence, looking for her feelings on this new revelation.

Aeryn shrugged, expression carefully neutral. "Scorpius was there. We were in a difficult situation, and Novia tends to get her way. And," she sighed, throwing a rueful glance at her husband, "we weren't actually together."

"And," John said, getting into more explanation than he'd planned, "for what it's worth, Katralla's brother would have made a hell of a bad ruler. He wanted to ally this planet with the Scarrans, and then the Peacekeepers would have come in to take it from away from 'em. And you know what that means." He shook his head.

"So you married the princess," TJ said, voice flat. "Did you love her? Did she love you?"

John grimaced. "We barely knew each other. And I never even slept with her."

"But you said she's pregnant!" Merry protested.

"Novia doesn't take chances. Her techs had lots of DNA samples to work with."

"But if you were married why did you leave?"

It was a fair question, but as far as John was concerned, he'd divulged more than enough details for now, and he moved to cut the discussion off. "It was complicated." TJ gave him a questioning look, but John refused to be drawn out. "Okay, look, both of you. Here's how it was: I got married, I got statufied, I got unstatufied and then I got unmarried. Katralla's got a bun in the oven and the man she loves at her side. That covers it, okay." The words were a question, but the tone was not. John looked back and forth between his two children, making sure they accepted that he was done with the topic.

The kids looked at each other trying to decide whether to push it, and after a few microts, TJ grinned. "So, I guess that makes us members of the royal family."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Now, see, that is why I didn't want to tell you!" John yelped in alarm. "This is not something you can talk about, TJ. You do not sit around drinking with your buddies from college and say, 'Hey, my dad knocked up the princess!'"

"I was only joking!"

"You frelling well better be joking! I mean it, TJ, and you, too, Merry, this is totally classified. You do not breathe a word of it outside of family! Forget you even heard it!"

"But—"

"You saw that woman. There is nothing Novia won't do to safeguard her people. If there is so much as a hint that Katralla's heir isn't pure Sebacean—" John broke off and locked eyes with his firstborn, and much to his relief, he saw that TJ got it. The boy nodded and John looked at his daughter.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Merry promised, with the accompanying hand gesture. "The Empress scared me to death!"

"That's good. It means you've got a head on your shoulders!" Aeryn told her.

"Damn straight!" John agreed.

In the ensuing silence, Merry turned her attention to her mother, who'd gone quiet again. She eyed Aeryn speculatively and pointed at the cliffs across the way. Clearing her throat, she ventured, "Mom, you said you fell off that cliff."

Aeryn glanced across at the rock face and considered for a long while. Merry and TJ had given up hope of getting an answer when Aeryn spoke at last. "I went on a hike, something like this one. While your father was getting married." She turned abruptly and started back down the trail the way they'd come. "Come on," she called without looking behind her.

The kids started off after her, a gleam of satisfaction in their eyes. John, suppressing a twinge of satisfaction of his own, took up the trailing position again.

* * * * * * * *

Evening meal back on Moya went much more smoothly than breakfast had done. There was plenty John hadn't confessed – getting his statufied head cut off and thrown into acid, for one, and being rescued by the disruptor, Jenavian Chatto, for another – but with the biggest and most emotionally difficult secret out in the open, everyone was far more relaxed. The physical activity had increased appetites, too, so food preparation and the meal itself turned into an amiable family affair.

At the end of the meal, as TJ was handing slices of spicy kruid tort around the table, he cleared his throat and asked, "Dad, do you think tomorrow you and I can go down to the planet and look around the university some more? I'd really like to see more of the area...."

He trailed off, and Merry piped up with a request of her own. "Yeah, Mom, I want to go down and check out the commerce center. I really need some new boots, and maybe we could find some spare parts for the marauder."

John and Aeryn looked at each other. No question, this was the old 'divide and conquer' ploy, with each of their offspring hoping to wheedle a few more details out of them in private. Aeryn shrugged, as if to say, 'It's your funeral,' and John smothered a grin. As long as they were both on the same page.... Turning back to the kids, he said, "Sure, why not? We can get out early and make a day of it."

The kids barely resisted high-fiving each other, which made John wonder abruptly if TJ was really ready to be going off to university on his own. He bit his lip and thought, Too late for those worries now. If he gets in, we're committed to this adventure. And, truthfully, he remembered himself at 18 back on earth, and knew his son had grown up a lot faster here in the UTs. The boy would be okay.

He occupied his mouth with his dessert while the rest of them chattered on, making plans for the next day. When everyone was done eating, John chased the kids out of the galley to have a little time alone with his wife.

Aeryn collected the plates, and John washed them up and left them to air dry in the drainer. He kept his mouth shut as long as he could, thinking how to best approach her about that moody look he'd seen on her face out at the cliffside – and the faraway expression she was wearing even now. He decided he'd try to soften her up first. When the last utensil was clean and draining, he cleared his throat and said, "You were right."

"Hmm?" Aeryn looked up at him with gray eyes full of apology for her inattention.

"I said, you were right. About telling the kids."

She smiled, a little too brightly. "Of course I was. They're your children, John, they never give up when they sense secrets to unearth," she said, and looked away.

"So, are you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Don't get smart with me, missy. You know what."

"You scent blood, do you?"

"In a word, yes."

She sighed. "It's done well enough without being discussed for over 20 cycles. Do we really need to talk about it now?"

"Is it bothering you?" he asked, feeling just a bit like a hypocrite, considering how much effort he'd just put into avoiding talking about secrets.

"It wasn't, until we came here."

Aeryn looked away again and John took pity on her. "Come on, "he said. When she turned to look at him, he nodded towards the table. "Let's sit down with some manet tea, and you tell me however much you think needs telling."

With a faint smile, she said, "Raslak would be better."

He widened his eyes in mock horror. "On top of that kruid tort?"

Capitulating, she sat down at the table with a soft snort. With her hands tightly in front of her, she waited while he brewed up the tea. When he set some in front of her, she unfolded her fingers and wrapped them around the hot mug.

John sat down next to her with his own hot drink. "So?" he prodded when she made no move to speak. "It can't be that bad if it hasn't oozed out of you a long time ago."

She shook her head. "No, it's not bad, not really. I just—" She broke off, looking for the right words, or maybe any words at all to describe what was churning up her gut. Even after all this time, she wasn't one to talk about her feelings, not unhappy ones, anyway. Finally she looked him in the eye and took a deep breath. "I saw you in the test chamber with Katralla. Holding a baby. Cuddling it," she said, more precisely, and gave him a searching look.

John gaped at her in surprise. He still remembered that moment with the prototype infant well all these years later. Even though the wonder had long since been eclipsed by the reality of holding the beautiful babies Aeryn had birthed him, it had been a moment of pure joy in a nightmare circumstance.... What had she made of it? he wondered.

She must have seen the question in his eyes, because she looked down at her hands, still wrapped around the mug of tea, and continued. "I was, well, jealous to see how happy you looked when I was so unhappy. But also...surprised. For the first time, I saw what you must have expected of your life before you came here, who you would have been on earth. A gentle, loving father. A family man, though I didn't know the term then." She looked up at him nervously. "I thought maybe, maybe some part of you really wanted to stay on the Royal Planet and have that life. And...I was angry that I couldn't give you that."

John shook his head in denial of her last statement."You've done well enough," he said gently.

She shrugged, but there was a satisfied smile in her eyes, acknowledging that she had indeed met the challenge in later cycles. "At the time, I didn't think I ever could. My training, my breeding...crippled me. I felt like such a failure."

"And that's why you ran away?"

She looked up at him through dark lashes. "You know why I ran away, John. I couldn't bear to watch you marry someone else, even though I couldn't comprehend ever marrying anyone, including you."

"So, you picked up this guy who'd been hitting on you all week, and went climbing. To make me jealous?"

She laughed. "Probably some, though I didn't recognize it then. I was angry, and hurt. But I told myself it was standard safety practice to climb with a partner, and I thought Dregon would come along without asking questions."

"Well, that was probably a safe bet. He was a guy, and he obviously had good taste in women."

Aeryn acknowledged his attempt at humor with a raised eyebrow, and took a drink of her tea, wrinkling her nose as she realized how much it had cooled. When she set the mug down again, she continued. "So we hiked out the way we went today, and then down to the shore. It was when we were halfway up the cliff that I found out he'd no experience climbing beyond a training wall!" Her long-ago irritation came through loud and clear in the disgusted tone of her voice.

Picturing the scene from their hike today, John imagined what an inexperienced climber would have felt, hanging off a cliff like that. "Don't tell me. He freaked out on you."

She scowled, and nodded. "Halfway up he panicked, and instead of grabbing the wall as I told him to, the frellnik grabbed my leg, and down we went onto the rocks." She shook her head in remembered fury.

Oh-kay, that could not have been fun, but John couldn't see anything in the story so far to account for her hesitation in telling it, especially since it pretty much matched what vague explanation he'd gotten way back when from Zhaan about Aeryn's injury. He prodded, "That musta hurt."

Aeryn actually smiled at that. "My leg was broken, and I was dragging that fool Dregon back to the city. Of course it hurt." She shrugged as if it was nothing. "I was trained to deal with physical pain."

A-ha! But not emotional pain. She didn't say it, but John heard it loud and clear, and as they locked eyes, they both acknowledged the unspoken. That was hardly news to him, either. He'd had a lot of up close and personal experience with that in their early cycles. Still, he began to suspect that this was the heart of the matter, of what she was avoiding talking about. Somewhere between running away and getting back to Moya, she'd found it inside her to take a huge step towards him, and something about it bothered her. Deciding to take the risk of annoying her, he nudged her in that direction. "So, what, almost dying made you decide you should take a chance on me?"

She actually blushed. "No. Dregon...Dregon was pretty much useless, but he said some things to me on the way back. About the good and the bad things about love." She brushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear and continued looking for words. "He said, he said that emotional pain was worth it because of the good days, when you were happy. I thought that was dren, but...." She took a deep breath. "But, he made me think that it might hurt less if I told you that I loved you, even if you were a statue. Even if you were Katralla's mate. He made me think you should know."

"So, when you got back and I wasn't a statue any more, you brought me the compatibility test." John couldn't help remembering the vial of golden liquid, and the look of sheer terror on Aeryn's face as she brought it to him. The memory of that moment, and the honey-sweet taste of their kiss, had sustained him through many a dark time over the next cycle or so.

She nodded. "I took the coward's way out." After a moment she said wistfully, "I wish I could have told you how I felt."

Ah, baby, you were who you were...and bringing me that test was not the act of a coward! John blinked back a hint of moisture and said, "Oh, it came through loud and clear, baby. Loud and clear."

They searched each other's eyes for a long moment, and then, abandoning the conversation, John leaned over and kissed her. Aeryn kissed him back with a passion that took him slightly by surprise given that they hadn't been doing anything except talking until then. When they came up for air, she whispered, "I love you, John."

"I love you, too, baby. Always will." John wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, and one thing led to another.... Before they knew it, they had left the galley behind without taking the time to clear up their mugs and tea and were heading down the corridor to their quarters.

* * * * * * *

In the warm afterglow of their loving, Aeryn lay atop her husband, cheek pressed firmly on his chest above his heart. He ran his fingers through her damp hair, trying not to get tangled. "You know," he ventured finally, "there's no shame in taking advice from a playboy when he happens to be right."

Aeryn chuckled, the vibrations flowing into his chest heart to heart. "I don't even know the last time I thought about it. But somehow, being here...." She lifted her head up to see his eyes. "You're not the only one who's found the reminders unsettling. I should have been able to do more for you."

He lifted his chin and kissed her on the lips. "You were who you were, darlin', and I was who I was."

Aeryn thought about that for a microt, and added, "And Scorpius and Novia were who they were...."

"Amen!" John agreed. "And the past is the past."

Aeryn put her head back down on his chest and murmured, "You realize Talyn and Meara are going to ask more questions tomorrow."

John stroked her hair again and said, "I know. I know. Frelling Einstein!" he muttered. After rummaging around in his mind for a little bit, he said, "It's okay. Just tell 'em what feels right depending on what they ask. Katralla's kid was the thing that was really sticking in my craw." Yes, even the fact that he'd abandoned a child to be raised by another man could be explained: Emotional relationships, palace intrigue, and not being able to tolerate the statue-making process a second time all led to the inescapable fact that everyone's lives were better this way. Even the daughter he'd never see....

He thought for a little while that Aeryn had fallen asleep, until she let out a sigh, feathering the hair on his chest, and said, "All right. The same for you. Tell them what seems right if they ask about my hike."

"It's a deal."

"Fine."

Aeryn's breathing settled into a regular pattern, and John found himself matching it. "Lights," he muttered, and the illumination dropped to night cycle levels. He was drifting off, when a sudden thought struck him. "Frell!"

Aeryn started. "What?"

"We're going to have to do this all over with Livvy!"

"Go to sleep, John," she told him. "We're not done with these two yet!"