nymeria_dw

AERYN'S JOURNEY - PEACEKEEPER WARS
(a Farscape fanfiction)

Author: Nymeria

Disclaimer: the Farscape universe and its characters do not belong to me - I'm just borrowing them for a little while.

Rating: PG

Setting: up to and including PKW

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You did it, John.
Holding the precious weight of our child in my arms, his warm, squirming limbs such a contrast to his father's frozen stillness, I keep my vigil by John's unmoving form. Watching. Hoping.

All fighting has stopped, there's no more dying.
Against the might of two formidable opponents bent on mutual annihilation, against individual greed and desires, against all odds, he won his battle. Pointed out the terrible flaw in their reasoning. Made them see.

And all of a sudden three is not such a scary number.
So many, too many, have lost their lives in this madness, a few of them leaving empty places that will never be filled again. I don't want John to be one of them, not now when we're finally free. Not now when we finally have what we wanted.

But no matter how wonderful this is... I will not accept it as a trade-off, for losing you.
So please wake up. Wake up, John. Stop staring at Moya's darkened ceiling with those sightless eyes and… be with me. Us.

***

Waking up, or coming back from the dead as we thought, is a strange sensation. What happened before the attack seems like a dream, and this - being surrounded by strangers, facing the unknown - the reality, the only kind ever allowed to us. Danger. Strife.

Never mind being crystallized. Never mind having spent sixty solar days in limbo.

"You said yes."

"I did?" Then it did happen, after all.

"Any regrets?"

"No. It's going really well."

Despite the Crichton-like quip - did some of his crystals end up inside me by chance? - this is the truth of it. We are two separate people thinking and acting like one, a well-trained unit that needs no words to move in unison. It's a heady feeling, one that carries me over some unexpected twists, like discovering that Rygel is now incubating our child or that John wants to get married. Now.

The whirlwind speed of it all makes me edgy, uncomfortable: I don't take well to sudden change, never have, and this looks like too much to digest in so short a time. But the excitement radiating from John's face is enough to quell my misgivings. Up to a point, at least. "You owe me."

For some perverse reason, the appearance of a Command Carrier in the skies of this world seems to take events back to a more familiar path. We are indeed wide awake now.

"You know, every time we get involved..."

"I know. People die."

Yes. And death's tally keeps growing. Suddenly I feel so tired of it all: some monumental change must have occurred while I was… distracted. Impending motherhood is probably the cause, much as it still looks like a frightening prospect.   He wants it so badly. So I do.   Whatever the reason, lasting peace through the Eidelons' intervention sounds like a good plan: anything that doesn't involve wormholes or their destructive potential looks worth a try.

"Not spoken like a true soldier." And how would you define a true soldier, Sikozu? I still am, at heart, but I've learned to look beyond training and redefine my objectives. I now understand that being more requires flexibility and the capacity to see past simple face value.

"You view Crichton as your superior?"

"No, as my equal." I realize my words puzzle her, or maybe it's only the lack of a common ground that prevents me from explaining my thoughts to this odd creature, whose exceptional brightness is sometimes obscured by black-and-white reasoning. Not much different from the way I was a few cycles ago, before I discovered that completeness can come from the most unexpected places.

Death does indeed stalk us. The more we try to avoid it, the more it finds a way to mock our attempts. Not good is the best odds we ever get. But 'not good' has just morphed into 'devastating': though D'Argo and Chiana were ultimately saved, we first lost Jool, then Yondalao and his knowledge, the feeble thread we were hanging from. Now becoming even feebler when entrusted to the tormented Stykera and his ravaged mind.

Onwards is the only way we can go, as hopeless as it looks. And hopelessness can lead you to choose the path you have so desperately been trying to avoid.

"Everybody wants to see the great big wormhole weapon."

"No, I want to see war turned into peace." I want our child to know safety, not to be always on the run from danger.

Watching John stalk around our quarters in a manic frenzy, I understand his feeling of being hemmed in - no matter what I do, I just keep circling closer to the flame! - but I also fear what this helpless despair might drive him to. The blood flowing unattended over his face looks like the weeping of his soul, the proof of his inner torment.

Suddenly that bleeding wound - a cut over his left eyebrow - glares at me like a warning beacon, and I'm gripped by an icy dread that I can't drive away. Keeping my voice steady takes all the strength I can muster.   "Then pull back. This war is not your responsibility." I will not let you sacrifice your life again. I could not bear it.

But he's not ready to listen, already committed as he is to the madness he wanted so much to deny. "Wormholes. What's inside my head. This is ugly, and it is malignant. But it will protect you and the baby..."

"You don't just protect me. We protect each other." As if to add strength to my words, a ripple travels through my distended belly, a jolt that is both physical and mental. "Did you feel that?"

John's touch is both tentative and reverent, "It kicked." Everything else forgotten, we can revel in the wonder of the moment.

"I can really feel it alive inside me." For the first time, this child is more than a concept both frightening and exhilarating: it's a being, the motion affirming its existence and the impact it will have on ours.   And for a while this small miracle helps us forget impending death.

Pain never was an issue for me. Training, breeding, willpower, all worked to help shunt it aside and concentrate on what needed to be done. But that was in the past.

This is a kind of pain I was neither trained nor bred for, and no matter how much I try to deny or submerge it in the mayhem of the bloody fight raging around us, it always threatens to overcome me. 
"I feel like I'm frelling helpless!"   This is the worst part of it, worse than the pain itself. To be at the mercy of something I can't control, something that requires my total concentration, stealing it from more pressing tasks.

"You're not helpless. I'm here."

Indeed he is. All this time, John has divided his attention between me and the battle, comforting and encouraging me, uncaring of - no, amused by - the empty threats I've aimed at him in my distress. If I weren't so frelling busy giving birth, I'd be amused too, probably.

A thought makes its way through the fog of pain and urgency, and it soon becomes a decision.

"Stark!"

"Do you want me to take your pain?"

"No. I want you to marry us." It makes no difference to me, but I know it does to John, especially now when we could die at any moment. Everything begins with family, he told Pilot, and I'm aware how important this has become for him now that he's forever cut off from his Earth family.

Body racked by contractions, ears ringing with explosions and the screams of the dead and dying - or my own - I find the clarity to think that our third try, the one that finally sees us through, is more appropriate to the persisting madness that is our life. Where a staid, formal ceremony, or a quiet gathering of friends on the place we call home did not work, we at last seal the bond on a battlefield, just in time to see our child - We have a son! - come into the world.

"We did it." The breathless awe of the moment makes me forget we are struggling for survival in an untenable situation. All that matters is this small creature - so small! - that stares at us in puzzlement for all the commotion surrounding him. I look back at those serious eyes and I'm swept by a sense of proud ownership that becomes fierce protectiveness.

"Could you do me a favor?"

"You name it."

"Can you get us out of here?"

"Done." That's enough for me.

Getting out from the devastated temple proved easier than expected in the desperate insanity that possessed us all, literally shooting our way out with a reckless drive that seemed to shock our assailants into ineptitude.

If I was afraid that motherhood would impair my usefulness as a soldier, those doubts are no more, because the need to guard my child made me stronger and more determined than I ever was in the past, one arm holding my son and the other wielding a gun with all the efficiency of my old training. The need to protect my family - It's a boy... in case you were wondering - made me more in a way I could never have expected.

Yet it's impossible to cheat death.

"Can you make it?" D'Argo's wordless denial cuts deeper than a mortal wound. I need all my fortitude to get back to my feet and respect his need not to make a fuss, yet I owe him this, warrior to warrior, I owe him the respect his sacrifice demands. Even if it tears me apart. Even if once back aboard Moya there is no time to properly mourn his loss, or to comfort a distraught Chiana.

Seeing her destructive rage, I understand that we have run out of choices, except for the ultimate one, the one that's become unavoidable.

"It's worse than you think."

"Is it worse than D'Argo being blown to pieces? Is it worse than our son dying?" These blood-thirsty fools will never understand mere words, John, the only way of getting through is to give them a taste of their own madness. "Is it worse than living with this?" So be it. You do what you have to do.

Beyond all hope, he succeeds in driving his message home, but the price… the price is way too high, and my helpless screams fall unheard in the sudden silence.

***

"Thanks to you, I have found my own internal peace. Remember me, John. Till we meet again."

Stark's certainty and the comforting hand he lays on my shoulder fail to thaw the cold layer of ice that has taken residence inside my chest. For solar days now I've been staring at John's motionless form, willing him to move, to give me a sign that he's still there. That he will come back to me and our child.

Somewhere else on Moya a peace treaty is being signed, something that should be cause for rejoicing if we could just forget the devastation of our poor, battered home, or the silent despair that permeates this darkened room, its only spots of light the lamps shining on John and the golden sheet draped over him.

If it weren't for the slight, barely perceptible raise and fall of his chest, I would think he's gone, forever lost to us. That, and the warmth coming from him, that un-Sebacean heat that's so uniquely his and that manages to keep at bay the vision of another unmoving, cooling body, an image that nonetheless preys on my thoughts and feeds my fears.

So I keep talking to him, trying to quell those fears and in the hope of drawing him away from the place where he's gone.

"You know, it's strange. It almost took me losing this little one to fully understand motherhood." Holding our child in my arms offers me a measure of comfort, and at times I still wonder at the strong rush of emotion his sight can bring forth.

Now I can comprehend the joy I saw in John's face when I told him this child was coming and the delighted pride he showed when he first held our son in his arms. Family. Belonging. Completeness.

"All of a sudden, three is not such a scary number." Or more. Because it means the future. "But no matter how wonderful this is, I will not accept it as a trade-off for losing you." I want that future, so please come back to us, be with us.

The baby cries a little as I lay him beside John, then quiets down drifting toward sleep in the nearness of his father's warmth, and for a brief moment, watching them both, my soul stops hurting.

That's when John draws an audible, shuddering breath. And mine stops.

"What are you doing here?" his voice is hoarse but gentle as he shifts slightly toward our child and kisses his fuzzy head. I want to scream, call out his name, run to him, but I hold myself in place. Fearful that any motion will break the spell. Terrified that this might be only a waking dream.

"Boo! Did I scare you? 'Cause you scared me." Awake now, the baby makes some soft noise, not quite a cry but a sign of discomfort. "Shh… Crichtons don't cry. Often… or for very long." Seeing them together, hearing John talk to our son, drives finally home the belief that this is for real, "Where's your mother?", that I can breathe again.

That our family is now whole.

This has always been a special place to me, where I could feel at one with space even without my Prowler. It's also the place where John and I first started reaching out to each other, long ago, taking the first tentative step of a long and difficult road.

So it is fitting to hold the naming ceremony for our child here. It's just the three of us, as it should, but somehow it feels as if everyone we care about - both the living and those that are gone - is here, held in the embrace of Moya, home and shelter and friend.

D'Argo Sun Crichton. The choice was there even before we consciously realized it, and it soothed the pain of the still fresh wound. Despite the holding peace, we know our child will need that kind of courage and strength to go through life and face the obstacles that he will find on his path with fortitude and honor.

"Little D, we don't know what life has in store for you, but whatever it is," John looks at me, and through the tears of pain and joy that are the constant of our existence we share a smile for its unpredictable quirks, "you'll figure something out."

"But you will never walk alone." And this will be your bigger strength and your armor, my child.

"You ready?" John lifts D'Argo up in the air, pride and love radiating from his face, "This is your playground."

Your journey begins here.