Stasis (G)

[aeryncrichton]

Originally posted 8/23/04

Well, you can probably blame this one on my recent medical adventures.....

Be kind.....it's been written in the last few days since I've been home from the hospital, and I know I'm not all here -- you should see how I addressed a birthday card I was sending out today!  Many thanks to shipsister for making me actually address issues I thought were a given, and to Loco, MadScientist, and Casper F. Joke for the look-see.  Don't blame any of them, they're trying to encourage my recovery! 

Rating: G
Setting: mid-Terra Firma
Spoilers: um, through Terra Firma, I think....
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, no money being made....and I'm really sorry if you need tissues....

I do think this conversation has to have taken place....

Stasis

Aeryn finally tracked John down in the docking bay, where he was rummaging through a stack of spare parts. It was getting harder and harder to get him alone.

She took a deep breath to give her strength and walked into the bay. He looked up, and his face went blank, as she'd feared it would. Well, he was the one she needed to talk to, whether he liked it or not, so....she flashed him a small smile and said, "Do you have a few microts?"

A series of excuses ran across his face before he gave in and shrugged. "Sure."

He made no attempt to suggest they go somewhere more comfortable, and she supposed that was just as well. "It's about these medical tests your government wants us to take."

"What about them?"

He wasn't going to make this easier, was he? Well, maybe it was hard for him, too. She wanted to believe that.... She put one hand on her hip and said as casually as she could, "Can they detect the pregnancy?"

She'd apparently taken him by surprise with that one, and she saw him soften, just a little.

"They wouldn't know anything about Sebacean hormones," he said thoughtfully. After a pause he added, running his hand over his short hair and keeping his eyes directed anywhere but at her, "How big is it?"

"Really small, I should think," she told him. "The cells only divide a few times and then the stasis is activated to surround it."

John chewed on his lower lip just a bit and said, "I don't think they can detect anything that small."

She exhaled deeply. That took care of half her questions, anyway. "That's good. I wouldn't want them to ask about the father."

Cholak only knew what he thought she meant by that, but he got all snippy on her. "Oh, right, whoops, you don't know who the father is!"

She glared at his back as he started to walk away. "That's not the point!" she snapped, tired of his attitude and his assumptions.

He stopped and turned to look at her again. "What is the point?"

"The point is that your people are frightened enough of us--" and she gestured around Moya, indicating everything the ship represented -- "that even the possibility that your species and mine could interbreed --" She faltered there, because she wanted more than anything for the child she carried to be this man's offspring, and she had no idea how he felt at all, not inside, where it counted.

He flushed and looked away, which gave her the strength to finish. "It would terrify them. They would imagine Scarran breeding experiments and worse. I don't want to have to answer that question."

John turned back and looked at her again, just a little softness in his face once again. "I don't think they can tell if you don't tell them."

She searched his eyes, and thought, for once in recent months, that she saw truth there. She nodded gratefully and said, "Good."

Perhaps unwilling to stay in her presence any longer, he spun on his heels and once again started to leave.

"Wait!" she called, because she wasn't done, and when he stopped and turned to face her, she asked, "Can they hurt the baby?"

"What?"

"I want to do my part, John, but can they hurt my baby?"

She wanted to believe that that blank look on his face meant that it hadn't occurred to him that the baby might be harmed by his people's primitive tests, but she was afraid what it really meant was that he hadn't thought she would even care....

When he didn't answer, she repeated, "Can they hurt my baby?"

A hint of annoyance crossed his face. "I'm not a doctor, Aeryn."

She bit her lip and looked away, because she knew it was true, which left her no closer to making a decision than before. She was about to thank him for his honesty and leave, when he spoke, a hint of apology in the gentleness of his tone.

"How good is the stasis? What does it protect against?"

"Erm...." It was a good question. She pulled a strand of hair behind her ear and thought back over ten cycles. "It was designed to protect against most things the mother might encounter in battle. Radiation. Toxic gasses, I think. Even placing the mother in cryogenic stasis for severe injuries, if the fetus wasn't physically damaged...." She looked up and shook her head. "I didn't pay a lot of attention to the details when it was explained in training. I remember thinking it wouldn't be my problem." And it wouldn't have been, if her life hadn't taken the incredible turn it had when this man came crashing into her world and destroyed it....

"Of course you didn't," he muttered under his breath in that quiet way he had of expressing utter contempt.

And that stung, badly, because once again she knew they had totally missed connecting -- and oh, how she missed that! Always before, no matter how badly they'd misunderstood each other, or themselves, or hurt each other, she'd thought that they had at least wanted to understand. But this distance he called up, every time she thought maybe they were communicating even a little, and -- Caroline, her mind dredged up from where she'd been trying to ignore the human woman -- and Aeryn was suddenly too weary to deal with any of this any more....

She looked away, speaking low and soft. "I'm not the woman I was then any more than you are the same man who left this planet four cycles ago." She paused and looked at him, and saw his lip twitch, full of tension, and somehow that annoyed her. "This is not about me or you," she said. "It's about protecting a helpless child that is in my care." Annoyance growing when she got no reaction, she found herself threatening, "If you won't at least try to help me make a sensible decision, I'll find someone who can. Someone discreet," she added. "Olivia, perhaps. Or maybe I should just avoid all their tests."

They stood and looked at each other for long microts, hot anger, she knew, on her features, and John's carefully blank.

Finally he tossed an arm loosely her direction. "Ah, just tell 'em the truth."

"What?" Hadn't she just told him she didn't want them to start thinking about Human-Sebacean interbreeding?

"They'll ask if you're pregnant. Standard question for females. Tell them you coulda gotten pregnant any time in the last seven years, and you just haven't bothered to check."

There was that punch to the stomach again, but....but maybe it wasn't intended totally as a rebuke, because....

The expression in his blue eyes softened just a little, even as he sucked in his lower lip. "Tell 'em about the Peacekeeper stasis pregnancy, they'll love it. They'll spend arns asking you how it works, and I'm sure they've set up a huge protocol for dealing with pregnant aliens, just in case."

She thought about it.

He was right.

It would solve the problem. She could say she could be pregnant, without implicating anyone on Moya as the potential father, and they would have to take it into account in their tests. After all, she could say "No" to anything they proposed, that's what they were promising....

John cleared his throat, suggesting he'd had an afterthought. The microt she turned her eyes towards him, he looked up and away, and then back at her. "Just don't let 'em use X-rays, or inject you with anything."

She nodded her agreement, touched by the additional thought, not sure what to say.

"So, is that it?" he asked into the silence.

She took a breath and admitted, "Yes. Thank you."

"'Kay," he said with a dismissive nod, turning back to the pile of spare parts he'd been looking through when she arrived.

She stood and watched him for a little while, wondering what was going through his head, his heart.

Then she pushed the ache from her heart and her mind and headed back to the common room to see if any of the others had decided what to do about the humans' medical tests....

[aeryncrichton]

A very interesting look at a very angst filled moment in time for both of these characters. I am not up on all of the particulars of the series at this point....stopped watching it long before this. You have done a good job at maintaining the distance and awkwardness that follows these two. Very much to character for both.

Not all that sympathatic toward Aeryn and her comments. Her actions and responses have kept her at odds with him......and she still seems to wonder why! Well played, considering the characters past actions and cultural differences. But she also adds to the wall with the continued referece of "her baby".....not a very inviting statement considering the circumstances. 

Well, capt31, actually, John's kept her at such a distance at this point that she really doesn't feel she CAN talk to him about it openly and comfortably, he's absolutely refused to let her talk (He's keeping her at a distance for reasons he feels are vital and she's totally unaware of).  She did TRY to talk about everything early on when she returned (and blew it by  telling CHIANA stuff when her attempt to talk to John got interrupted by trouble to fix), and since then, John's been keeping her at arm's length, despite multiple attempts on her part to get close enough to even have a conversation.

Not to excuse HER, either, you frequently want to throttle both of them, but in this case, John hasn't given her any reason to think he'd be willing to talk about the baby or anything else about their relationship, for that matter.

It's later in this episode that she finally pushes him to give her an honest answer about something....  I think if you'd seen the episode up to this point, you might see that she's actually trying NOT to pressure him here by linking the child to him...not to mention, she has no clue how he feels about the baby, or her for that matter, and it isn't HER doing that she's so clueless.

(And I am absolutely not bashing John for this.  This is where they stand at this point for reasons that *I* think are insane, but John thought were vital....)

Thanks for the added perspective! Sometimes I wonder if you all would not be better off with my views on certain stories. Especially since I decided to stop watching the series.....not that I lost the interest in the characters, but lost the faith in the creators of this series and the direction they walked off in.

Your added info has given me a bit more to ponder on. But I could possibly see John having difficulties in opening up to her again....espeacially given her history on leaving him behind. You can only allow that type pain but so many strikes at you. But that is solely my opinion....and a male one at that, so I might be a bit biased to John's reasons. Thanks again for the info, and the effort for providing this story!

AC, I concur with your assessment, and would like to add my take on why Aeryn would say 'her baby".  I can see Aeryn trying to establish that she, dispite her upbringing, wants to be an involved mother.  Does this John know how she feels about her pregnancy?  T-John (if he had known) might not have had a problem, but MJohn didn't get to have that dance and has no frame of reference for how Aeryn feels about it all.

Thanks for the added perspective! Sometimes I wonder if you all would not be better off with my views on certain stories. Especially since I decided to stop watching the series.....not that I lost the interest in the characters, but lost the faith in the creators of this series and the direction they walked off in.

Your added info has given me a bit more to ponder on. But I could possibly see John having difficulties in opening up to her again....espeacially given her history on leaving him behind. You can only allow that type pain but so many strikes at you. But that is solely my opinion....and a male one at that, so I might be a bit biased to John's reasons. Thanks again for the info, and the effort for providing this story!

Hey, capt, it's always interesting to see the perspective of someone who hasn't actually got the assumed background to the story! 

I'm assuming you have no interest in actually catching up with the series, so I'll go ahead and say that the break we have between J&A for the middle part of season 4 has its beginnings exactly as you suggest, where John feels he's been cut to the quick too many times, and he's not going to trust her with his heart, and tells her so.

What neither she nor WE know for quite some time is that shortly after this point, (although he's clearly softening and probably realizes that they WILL reconcile fairly quickly), he makes the decision that because he loves her (and the baby) so much he can't think straight, he's likely to screw over the universe if she's threatened, do anything necessary to save her, SO, he starts taking drugs to distance himself from her.

She's his Achilles' heel, and with Scorpius on the ship, he's determined to keep up the pretense....

While SHE does everything she can to try and win him back....

That's an oversimplification, but, at this point, he's been holding her at arm's length for quite a while (plus, he's pretty stressed out about being back on earth, and he's letting NO ONE help him over that....).....  So, at this point, she's not pushing (especially as an old girlfriend of his has turned up and he's spending quite a bit of time with this woman....).  Aeryn's totally out of her depth, and just doing the best she can....

(This is not to say that John isn't totally out of HIS depth and doing the best HE can, too....)

Obviously, if you've read the fics here, you know this all gets straightened out -- only after Aeryn is kidnapped, and John basically does exactly what he was afraid he'd do -- sell out the universe to get her back.  (Fortunately for him, it worked out okay....though I suspect the price gets paid in Peacekeeper Wars.....)