Originally posted 11/8/04This is one of those fics that comes from an image that won't go away.... It's just a little thing, set shortly after PKW.
Thanks a lot to CretKid and MadScientist for their beta work, and to Loco, Shipsister and Auna for a look-see! As always, blame ME for anything that doesn't work!
Rating: G
Setting: About 2 weeks after PKW2
Spoilers: Through PKW
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, no disrespect intended.... I love these guys!
In the Still of the Night
She couldn’t have said what had woken her, but Aeryn Sun was instantly sure of two things: She hadn’t been asleep more than an arn or so, and her husband of a little over two weekens wasn’t in the bed with her. She smiled into the dark, thinking, there was an aspect of motherhood she would never have guessed: the ability to tell the passage of time by how full of milk your frelling breasts were!
As to John’s presence or absence, well, she’d always been able to sense him, but to be practical about it, put it down to the lack of warmth radiating from the other side of the bed. It wasn't that she was cold, of course -- Moya kept the temperature regulated comfortably, and she was wearing underpants and a large T-shirt she'd liberated from John for sleeping. But still, their bed was....warmer....when he was in it, even sound asleep.
She lay there on her back, listening for noises in the near-dark around her, over and above Moya’s ambient sounds. Maybe the baby had been fussing and John had gotten up to try to soothe him so she could get a bit more sleep. But she didn’t hear either her son’s endearing gurgles and squeaks, or John’s soft rolling tones of comfort -- or love. She frowned and quietly pushed the blankets aside, then sat up, cross-legged, on the bed, considering what to do. She was more curious than worried about where John had gotten to in the middle of the night cycle.
"John?" she called into the semi-darkness, more softly than she would have in the past, so as not to wake the baby. Of course, that assumed John hadn't scooped young D'Argo out of his tiny bed and gone walking.
She heard a soft intake of breath from the other side of the room, so hushed she'd never have noticed it if she hadn't been listening carefully. Concerned now, Aeryn got out of bed and headed in that direction.
Though it wasn't pitch black in their quarters, she was looking out, not down, and she almost walked into John before she saw him. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back to her, dressed as she was in a dark T-shirt, which had made him that much more difficult to see. Shoulders hunched, he was facing the baby's bed. "John?" she said, walking around him where he sat so that she could see his face.
He didn't reply, and she saw him make a swipe at his eyes with the back of one hand.
Her heart sank. "Increase lights one level," she directed quietly, and as the brightness increased just a little, she took a quick look at the baby. His little chest was moving up and down, and he was sleeping, one tiny fist on either side of his head. Satisfied, she sank down to a crouch in front of John and rested her forearms on her knees.
His cheeks were still wet in places, despite the opportunity she'd given him to completely remove the evidence, but he met her gaze unflinchingly. She reached out one hand and gently stroked his cheek. His skin, usually warm to the touch, was cold beneath the dampness. How long had he been here? "Are you all right?" she asked softly, knowing he certainly was
not.
John took a breath that she wouldn't have dared to actually call a sniffle, and gazed past her toward the baby's bed, despite the fact that their child was completely invisible from this angle. "Crichtons don't cry," he declared. His voice, though gentle, was heavy with irony.
Aeryn searched his eyes for a bit, wondering what had upset him, and whether he would tell her. Finally, she offered, "If soldiers can cry, so can Crichtons. When they need to."
John wrinkled his nose and cocked his head sideways and finally said, "I, uh, I was just looking at little D, and...." He paused, breathing in sharply, and then gathered his thoughts again. "That's my son, Aeryn, our son, and I can't believe how much I love him. And I just thought, we almost lost him. We came so close to losing him...."
It was probably the wrong thing to do, but she reached out and put her fingers over his mouth to stop him talking, because she understood that nightmare all too well. So many things had gone wrong during the pregnancy, they could have lost him at any turn....it didn't do to dwell on it.
John kissed her fingers where they rested on his lips, and then reached up and took her hand and set it gently back on her knee.
Let me talk, she understood. She nodded, just a tiny bob of her head.
"I almost killed him, Aeryn. I almost killed him, and you, and this whole frickin' end of the galaxy...." It came out in a rush, and she wanted to grab him by the shoulders and tell him it wasn't his fault, he hadn't had any choice, and he'd saved them all in the end and given everyone a real chance at peace, but before she could even begin to command her arms to move, her voice to speak, John shook his head and hurried on. "But you know what really got to me?"
He caught her eyes and held them, and she could see the tears gathering again. She knew if she answered him, he would hear answering tears in her voice, and she couldn't do that to him, so she shook her head and smiled to encourage him.
"I was just looking at this beautiful child, my son, Aeryn, my son...." His face wrinkled up with the effort not to cry, and he took a deep breath and managed to choke out, "And I really, really,
really want my dad to see him."
The words hung there between them, his own self-accusation that he had made that impossible by closing the wormhole to Earth, and Aeryn's empathy for his pain made all the stronger because she would have liked that too. She liked Jack Crichton very much, and he was alive, where her own parents were dead. And fathers and sons -- well, she'd seen from the beginning how much John missed his father despite their conflicts, and seeing him now with his own son, she began to truly understand the depth of the bond.
Sighing with sympathy, Aeryn swung out of her crouch and onto the ground, settling next to her husband, close enough that their hips touched. She could envision it, now, how he'd gotten up to see the baby, and then been ambushed by his emotions, sinking to the floor where she'd found him, in tears.
Well, he wasn't alone now. They were married, bonded for life, something she'd never imagined before meeting him, and yet now seemed the most natural thing in the universe.
She leaned her head on his shoulder and said softly, "If it's meant to be that our son gets to know his grandfather, it will happen."
John leaned his head onto hers, and said wistfully, "Fate?"
"Why not? Here
we are."
He didn't seem to have anything to say to that, but he wrapped his arm around her and held her close, and that was a very good thing for both of them. They sat in silence until little D'Argo let out a single sharp cry.
They tensed, waiting to see if he was going to wake up, demanding to be fed.
When he didn't, Aeryn thought a little diversion was in order. "Rygel says the baby has his nose, but I don't think so," she said, head still on John's shoulder.
"Uh-uh, no way," he affirmed, some life coming back into his voice.
She picked her head up, and suggested, eyes twinkling, "What do you think, Noranti's?"
"Grandma? Baby, she wasn't anywhere
near little D! There is no way he has
anything of hers." He shook his head decisively.
With a grin, she pounced. "Pilot, then. I do still have some of Pilot's DNA, John."
He shook his head, and kissed her gently, and pulled her a little more closely to him. "Love you, Baby," he whispered into her hair.
"Love you, too," she smiled softly. The warmth of her husband beside her was all that her heart needed. But her body, still tired from baby making and feeding, let out a very large yawn.
John raised his head and looked over towards the baby again. After a few microts he turned back to Aeryn and said, "Come on, Mrs. Crichton. Let's get you some more sleep before D wants his happy meal." He stood up and reached a hand down to her.
Aeryn looked up into his eyes and, satisfied that he was feeling better, let her husband pull her up and lead her back to bed.
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