Title: One More Secret
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Natural Election
Summary: Aeryn and the last secret she will ever keep from John.
Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching taped episodes of her favorite shows :(



Aeryn Sun lowered herself gently into the cockpit of her Prowler. That wasn't exactly right... it wasn't HER Prowler. She'd lost hers to the neural clone, had similarly met her end as her vessel had its own. She'd been resurrected, and in some incarnation the Prowler had too. One Peacekeeper Prowler was pretty much the same as another, but Aeryn eased her body into the pilot's chair and knew from the feel of it that it wasn't hers. She'd been forced to demean herself with tech work on Moya, and she'd come to know her own ship in and out, better than any Prowler pilot knew his ship. She'd found a strange comfort and security in that... she missed the Prowler that had been lost over the ice planet.

Aeryn positioned herself in the chair awkwardly, finding it difficult to get comfortable. Her body no longer felt like her own after the pregnancy. Even though her flesh was hers alone again, it still felt ungainly and foreign. She would have to get used to her own skin again.

Aeryn let out a silent short breath when at last she felt halfway comfortable in the fighter ship, pulling the canopy closed and bringing the ear piece/oculars hanging on the maneuvering yoke to her head. Securing the device, she paused before doing anything more.

She had not recovered from the birth. The medics had told her she would be a noncombatant for a least a weeken... she'd not wanted to accept that, but her body was forcing her to do so. She ached in places she didn't know she had, constant burning pain that even her training wasn't equipped to deal with.

But she'd refused to stay down on the planet. Moya had loitered in orbit over a Sebacean colony world for two and half weekens nearing Aeryn's due date so that she might deliver in a medical facility in case something went wrong. When she'd finally gone into labor she'd been relieved. She hated Moya to be in one place so long... it was dangerous for everyone. She could have the baby, get back to Moya, and they could leave.

Early in her labor Aeryn had commed Pilot and told him that hopefully they could leave within the solar day. Crichton had been with Pilot in his den when she commed. He asked if she wanted him to come down. She'd said no.

It was the only thing she'd heard from the others, and soon it was quickly forgotten as Aeryn focused on more pressing matters.

It was a girl. For all the girth it had added to Aeryn's midsection, she seemed so tiny. Aeryn had been so exhausted that for the first three arns she didn't even think about getting up. She was wiped out, and the doctors were running tests and monitoring mother and child. In that time Aeryn was alone with her newborn, not even having commed the others yet to inform them of the infant's birth or gender. She'd laid in bed with her daughter, staring at her, looking for anything in her face.

She desperately sought something hauntingly familiar in her daughter's visage, seeking shadows of the one she loved, but she could only see a strange new creature that in all honesty frightened her. She knew nothing of children. Of course, a few cycles ago she'd known nothing of love, either. If nothing else, she held strong faith in her capacity to learn, especially when the desire to do so was also present. Crichton had taught her that... that and so much more.

Aeryn had an overwhelming desire to be back on Moya. Quite abruptly the medical facility was ominous, unwelcome and unsafe, and aside all that it just didn't feel right. She heeded the odd compulsion to take her offspring to Moya as soon as possible. The doctors had protested when she started to (with aching slowness) gather up her few things, now one more than what she'd come in with, but the medics had no more luck 'strong-arming' her than those on Moya ever did.

She'd picked up the Earthism from Crichton, which one she didn't recall anymore.

When she'd returned to Moya, everyone had been in the hangar bay to greet her (with the exception of Scorpius and Sikozu). The others had been eager to see the infant, and Aeryn felt a strange readiness to show them, but when she searched the faces surrounding her she found one missing.

Crichton was standing a distance apart, at the door to the hangar bay, leaning against the wall and watching. There was a cant to his head, a deceptive easiness in his crossed arms and legs with one ankle angled over the other. When she'd looked at him, expecting something but what she didn't know, he'd smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile she had longed for for so long, not the endearing expression she'd come to know better than her own face, but a nonetheless sincere, polite smile.

Aeryn had turned her attention back to her child and the infant's new audience and when she looked back up John was gone.

Aeryn had finally managed to escape her comrades, going back to her quarters and placing her newborn daughter in the creche D'Argo had found for her on a commerce planet. The furniture swallowed the tiny baby, who quickly fell asleep after the eventful first day.

She'd need a name, but Aeryn didn't have a single idea how to name something. When she'd named Talyn she went to her father; she knew she didn't want to burden her daughter with a name like Xhalax.

She could think about it later.

With the free moment allotted by her sleeping infant, Aeryn went back to the hangar bay. The others had cleared out to tend to their own business, leaving Aeryn alone to crawl stiffly into her Prowler and lock herself in.

After a long pause to gather herself, Aeryn keyed on her Prowler comms system and sought the attention of the medical facility she'd just vacated. She'd chosen to go through her Prowler comms, secured comms, so she wouldn't have to tell Pilot or Moya whatever she might discover. She had too few things secret from the others as it was, and she dreaded to think of this becoming another one if the news was bad.

The connection did not take long... the head medic was expecting her.

"Aeryn Sun," the man's image projected from the ocular into her right eye, "first I would like to repeat my protest of your leaving. It's standard procedure for–"

"Doctor," Aeryn cut him off, about to have no more talk of her staying longer than need be, "I commed to ask if you had the test results yet."

The medic seemed to pause in consternation a microt, then nodded, "Very well. Yes, we've completed our tests. You'll be pleased to hear that your daughter tests clear for any genetic disorders or birth defects."

Aeryn's lips thinned tensely before she asked, "And the genetic test?"

The doctor continued, "As I said, no sign of abnormality. She's a perfectly healthy Sebacean infant."

Aeryn closed her eyes heavily, sagging back into the chair that had never been built for a pregnant (or recently pregnant) Sebacean's body.

The medic's voice regained her attention, "If you have a data chip in the processor, I'll transfer the results."

Aeryn checked the Prowler's recipient drive and nodded, "Proceed."

After a few microts of electronic clicks and whirs, the Prowler's cockpit grew quiet and the medic spoke again, "I'd still ask that if you refuse to come down to the planet for further observation, at least have your ship remain close for a few solar days in case something develops."

Aeryn was already reaching for the oculars, "That won't be possible," and with the removal of the device effectively 'hung up' on the doctor. Aeryn hung the oculars back over the maneuvering yoke and sat a long moment in silence.

"Aeryn?" Pilot's voice interrupted carefully. He knew Aeryn wanted privacy when she contacted the planet and he didn't know she was finished with her conversation.

"Yes, Pilot?" Aeryn asked, surprised at the fatigue in her voice.

"Your infant is crying."

Aeryn sighed, "Thank you," and turned to the data receiver. Taking out the small data chip and slipping it into her belt pouch, she struggled out of the Prowler and moved toward her quarters.

Halfway there she withdrew the data chip and stared hard at it in her hand. It held the truth, a reality she'd mentally rebelled against since the very beginning. Irrefutable now... irreversible.

She flipped the small chip over in her palm, watching the light play over the Peacekeeper symbol, plagued with the question of whether or not to tell him.

It might not make much of a difference. Even if this child had been John Crichton's, THAT John would have said that HE wasn't the father in any greater-than-genetic sense. Now she knew neither was. It was at best Velorek's, more likely one of any option of nameless recreating partners she'd had. Meaningless, purely physical tension release then, taunting her now because it could not have been from the relations that had had meaning. The real had been dashed by the cheap. Despite the things Aeryn had learned, those things shallow had emerged to wrest control. In a twisted sense, it almost seemed to fit Aeryn's life.

The newborn girl in Aeryn's quarters represented nothing. She was conceived of a Peacekeeper mother, to a Peacekeeper soldier... the story of her creation going no deeper than that, almost generous to say it went as far as it did.

Crichton would take it badly. Even if she'd been John Crichton's child it would have crushed him, but this was going to be worse for him.

'A relationship is based on trust.' She was still desperately trying to rebuild that bond that she'd shattered by keeping secrets from him. This secret would hurt him, but did she have a choice about telling him? She wanted to be allowed to love Crichton again, she wanted him to love her like she'd once been loved. She missed that, craved it, and for the human apparently everything hinged on trust.

She trusted him, but this truth wouldn't do either of them any favors. She even wished that she didn't know.

As Aeryn drew near her quarters she looked up, brow furrowing when she was met with silence. Chiana emerged from the shadows of the walls, an age-old trick from her but the girl herself not the sly and playful creature she was cycles ago. She was more demonstrative now, she had an air about her that dared those she faced to start something up with her. She was too old for the games she used to play constantly. She'd come a long way, too.

Chiana moved toward Aeryn as the ex-Peacekeeper began questioningly, "Pilot told me the baby was crying..."

Chiana cocked her head, mysterious half-smile playing across her charcoal and white lips as she said in a faint voice, "Crichton heard her."

Chiana left Aeryn with that, slinking off down the corridor again and silently back into the shadows. Chiana was like a ghost on the ship when she wanted to be, an elusive Nebari specter they'd all grown to live with. They'd learned to live with a lot of ghosts on Moya, so the living ones were hardly spectacular.

Aeryn turned back toward her quarters, moving forward again.

When she stopped outside her quarters' doors, she was stilled by the sight before her.

Crichton was standing in her quarters, rocking to and fro on his feet and muttering softly in a voice Aeryn had known well what seemed a lifetime ago. Held close against his chest with his gentle hands, Crichton had Aeryn's daughter with him. The tiny infant was tucked close against John's black T-shirt, his rough leather PK jacket discarded on the bed to save the baby's sensitive skin.

Crichton did not see Aeryn outside the room as he continued to rock with the baby, lips moving but in words that were too faint for Aeryn to make out. Whatever they spoke of, they'd quieted the baby. The little girl was silent in his arms, little hands splaying and balling into fists against Crichton's chest... not asleep, just letting him soothe her, basking in a body warmth Aeryn herself once knew.

Aeryn looked back down at the data chip in her hand.

Without a second thought, Aeryn discretely discarded the data chip into a nearby waste funnel.

Aeryn understood something new to her right then. There were truths that mattered, and truths that didn't. This one didn't, and she thought John would agree with her this time. Maybe it was part of 'getting her story straight', and she hoped she'd taken one more step in the right direction.



END