Windows and Doors

Author: SabaceanBabe

Rating: PG-13

Word count: 3,510

Characters: Olivia Crichton, John Crichton, Aeryn Sun

Spoilers: for season 4's Terra Firma

Summary: Walking along the beach, slipping a bit in the shifting sand until she made it down closer to the water, Livvy could almost convince herself that there was nothing wrong.

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In a heart there are windows and doors / You can let the light in / You can feel the wind blow / When there's nothing to lose / And nothing to gain / Grab a hold of that fistful of rain.

Warren Zevon, Fistful of Rain

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Fully awake, Olivia opened her eyes to darkness. A glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand showed that it was 2:53 a.m. There was no sound save the faint whir of the refrigerator in the kitchen of her small apartment; the fact that she could hear it at all told her she'd have to start looking for a new one before too much longer. The laboring fridge wasn't what had awakened her, though.

The buzzing she'd thought was in her dream came from the dresser on the other side of the room. Her cell phone. She'd switched it to silent mode during the movie and must have forgotten to turn it off when she'd emptied her pockets before going to bed.

It buzzed again, the brilliant blue light from its screen dancing across the ceiling. Livvy threw the blankets off and swung bare feet to the tile floor.

"I'm coming," she said, deciding to suck it up and skip the slippers. The floor wasn't that cold and for whatever reason – because it was three in the morning? – the insistent buzz of the phone struck her as urgent.

In the darkness, she kicked something soft and warm that leaped away with an outraged yowl. "Sorry, Tristan," she called to the offended cat. What was he doing in the middle of the floor, anyway?

The phone buzzed one more time just as she snatched it from the dresser.

Heart racing, she said, "Hello?" Nothing good ever came from post-midnight phone calls...

"Olivia?" a man asked, his tone urgent.

"Dad?" She frowned.

"I need you to come over as soon as you can, Livvy."

"What is it? What's wrong?" Adrenaline surged and her pulse began to pound in her ears, its rate easily triple what it had been only a moment before. "Are you okay?"

She heard him take a deep breath on the other end of the connection. "It's not me. It's your brother."

"John?" Oh, God. "There's news?" John had been missing, presumed dead, for almost four years.

"Just get here as fast as you can." It was an order, something he had been very careful to avoid since John had disappeared. Livvy had always assumed that the last thing he'd said to his son had been some kind of order that John had ignored. Right now, though, something had him rattled, which had Olivia rattled to her core. Jack Crichton was unflappable.

xxxxx

Speeding along the deserted highway to her father's home, Olivia thought about the last time she'd seen her big brother. John had been almost giddy with excitement and D.K. had been nearly as bad, both of them drunk on the mere idea that they had cracked the nut of practical space travel for the masses. All that had remained was for John to test their theory. They had been so sure it would work. So sure.

That night had been the last time Livvy had seen John, the last time D.K. had seemed sure of anything.

The wind of her passage whipped past the open driver's side window, blowing strands of hair from her hurried ponytail into Livvy's eyes and back out again too quickly to become more than a minor irritation. In record time, she left the highway and entered the semi-rural residential area where Jack Crichton had lived for the past three years. There was very little traffic at 3:30 in the morning. Who knew?

She turned the corner into her father's neighborhood and jammed her foot onto the brake, shocked to find a barricade complete with armed guards blocking access to her dad's street. The car stopped with a harsh jerk. Heart hammering in her chest, Livvy saw an identical barricade in the distance.

A man in BDUs and a black beret, a rifle slung behind his shoulder, leaned down and shone a flashlight into her open window. "May I see your driver's license, please, ma'am?"

Frowning, Olivia grabbed her purse from the passenger seat and dug around until she put a hand on her wallet. A little nervous, she fumbled with the snap until it finally flopped open, exposing her license with its photo that looked nothing like her, really.

"What's going on?" she asked, pleased that her voice remained steady.

He didn't answer, instead shining his light alternately on her license and then on her face, then again on her license. A frown of his own made him look almost menacing in the orange light of the streetlights as it mixed with the ultra-white light of his flashlight.

Livvy closed her eyes and waited for him to make whatever decision he was working on. A change in the soft breeze on her cheek made her open her eyes again – he had taken her license over to a man dressed just like him. After a moment he nodded at something the other man said and returned to Livvy.

"You're free to continue to Colonel Crichton's residence, Miss Crichton. You're on the approved list." He returned her license to her. "Please check in with Sgt. Reid as soon as you arrive."

The man stepped back and waved her forward without another word. Clearly, she had been dismissed. Approved list? Livvy started the car and put it into gear, wondering what the hell was going on.

Normally, there were very few vehicles parked on the street, but now it was lined with dozens of cars and vans and there was no mistaking which house belonged to her father. Every light in his house seemed to be lit.

She stopped as close to the house as she could and shut off the engine. For a good five minutes, she just sat in the car, strangely reluctant to leave the safe haven of her little Civic. At least a quarter of a mile lay between her and the house. All these cars, every light in the house blazing, a military blockade cordoning off the entire neighborhood… A feeling of unreality descended over her, as though she'd slipped sideways into some kind of dream. The jury was still out as to whether it might be a nightmare…

xxxxx

Unconsciously, as Olivia set foot on the sidewalk, she found herself walking slower and slower. Military vehicles with flashing blue lights were everywhere; the whole street had become an alien landscape. When she came to another sidewalk jutting off at an angle toward the beach below, she took it.

There were no MPs blocking the path, as there had been at both the entrance to the neighborhood and the entrance to the street. Livvy hoped that whatever it was that left this access to the beach unguarded didn't involve shooting anyone who appeared at Dad's house unannounced. That first MP had told her to check in with a Sergeant Reid; he hadn't said that she had to follow the approved route to get there.

The night – early morning, really – was dark but clear; the breeze from the ocean made it almost cold. Walking along the beach, slipping a bit in the shifting sand until she made it down closer to the water, Livvy could almost convince herself that there was nothing wrong. For that matter, there may be nothing wrong, she thought. Dad had said there was news about John and that he wanted her there, rather than telling her whatever it was over the phone. It didn't necessarily have to be bad news. Right?

Except that there had been no indication in the last four years that John's ship hadn't simply been destroyed. Footsteps slowing to a stop, she took a deep breath and held it for a moment. What news could there possibly be? IASA had given up hope years ago. As time passed and nothing new came to light, first D.K. and then Susan had also let go of any lingering belief that John might still be alive. Olivia herself had mourned John's passing. Only Jack Crichton had held on. If Livvy was truthful with herself…

She started walking again, her footing steadier on the wet sand, flattened by the tide. She wasn't close enough to the water to get her shoes or jeans wet. A gust of wind caused her to shiver violently. She pulled her sweater tighter and tucked her hands under her arms, clenching her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

When she was a couple of houses down from her father's, Livvy realized that she wasn't alone after all. The other didn't seem to be aware of Livvy's presence since the sound of the surf drowned out that of her footsteps.

She couldn't make out details, backlit by the house as the other person was, but she though that it was a woman. Long hair rippled in the freshening breeze. She was dressed in black, her face and one hand the only light spots in the heavier darkness. Staring up at the house, still as a statue, the only movement was the flow of her hair, mirrored by the tails of her long coat.

Livvy had thought the other woman wasn't aware of her, but then she turned her head to look over her shoulder and Livvy knew she had been wrong. Without a word, the woman in black turned her attention back to the house, apparently deciding that Olivia was no threat.

After a moment, she broke the silence, startling Olivia. "Do you belong here?" The woman's voice suited her – low and smoky.

Livvy stepped up beside the stranger, who looked at her from the corner of her eye, but kept most of her attention on the house. A man in uniform stood outside the fence, on the beach at the edge of the light, but Livvy didn't think this calm, still woman had anything to do with him. As they watched, her father opened the back door and stepped out onto the deck.

"Are you supposed to be here?" the woman asked again. Her words were carefully enunciated, spoken with an accent Olivia couldn't identify.

"I'm Olivia Crichton. That house up there," she nodded as she spoke, "belongs to my father." Shivering again, Livvy looked up at that calm face and abruptly asked, "Do you know what's going on?"

The question was met with another silence and Olivia thought the woman wasn't going to answer. While she waited, her dad went back into the house. Then, "The owner's son has come home. His return… has not gone unnoticed."

xxxxx

Three days later, Olivia's concerns had been mostly put to rest. Her brother was home. Home, safe and sound, but not unchanged. She glanced up at him as they walked along the beach, very near to the place she had met Aeryn Sun on the night John had come home.

Once upon a time, John would have looked up at the swirling clouds – clouds that threatened to eventually obscure the blue of the autumn sky – and found whimsical shapes. Now he looked as stormy as the clouds themselves threatened to become and his gaze didn't deviate from their path. There was a hardness to him, a sense that anything soft in him had burned away and been replaced with caution and suspicion. The only glimpses she had caught of the man she knew were when he was with his alien friends.

The surf crashed and rolled, the remnants of the waves not quite reaching their bare feet. John stopped, turning to stare out at the gray water, at the shifting white line where the waves broke nearer to shore.

He must have sensed her eyes on him; he looked down and offered her a lop-sided smile. As if deliberately making a lie of her earlier thought that there was little left of the big brother she had adored, he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her off balance, trapping her against his side so she wouldn't fall.

Still holding her, he leaned his head in close to her ear and pointed up at one of the clouds, one still surrounded by blue. "See that one there?"

She shook her head. "Which one?"

He gave her a squeeze. "The one with the tail and the floppy ears."

Livvy smiled and frowned at the same time, following the line from John's finger to the racing clouds. Finally she spotted the one he had to be pointing at and said decisively, "Snoopy."

"Bingo!" He shifted away, freeing his hands so he could applaud, just as he'd always done when they'd played at this game as kids.

"But where's Charlie Brown?"

John shook his head and shrugged. Grinning, he said, "Your turn."

"Hmm…" Livvy turned in a circle, staring up at the sky. "Ha! There!" She pointed at a pair of clouds that, together, formed a somewhat elastic Yogi Bear and his pal Boo-Boo. He's not going to get this one…, Livvy thought to herself even as John raised a brow and hunched his shoulders, slipping into an imitation of Yogi that would've made Hanna Barbera sit up and cheer.

"Hey, Boo-Boo! What's a bear to do?"

Livvy heaved a heart-felt sigh and stuck her tongue out at John, who merely laughed. It was a good sound, not shadowed by whatever had happened to him out there.

He pointed to another cloud, a darker gray against a field of white. "See that cloud right there? The one that's dark in the middle and kinda tapers on one end?"

Smiling, Livvy pointed at the one she thought he gestured toward. "That one there? With the bright tail?"

"Yeah." He didn't give her a chance to guess. "That one looks like Moya, gearing up for starburst." He glanced back down at her with an expression on his face that was more open and unguarded than she'd seen since he'd opened the door and pulled her into a bear hug three days ago.

"You miss it, don't you, John?"

He turned his face back toward the clouds. "Her. I miss her. Moya's as much my friend as Chiana or D'Argo." And then he turned back to Olivia. "You'd like her, Liv. She's a beautiful lady, our Moya. As soon as Holt and his goons let up on the top secret crap, I'll take you up and introduce you."

Olivia shook her head and laughed as she said, "I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the idea that you've been living on – in? – a living ship for four years."

He snorted. "Tell me about it."

He fell silent, but it wasn't the awkward silence of before. A gust of wind blew in off the ocean, redolent of salt and seaweed and rain. Off in the distance, that rain made a darker gray connection between water and cloud.

"Maybe we should head back," Livvy suggested, but John just linked his arm more tightly with hers and shook his head.

"Not yet. The rain's a way off." He looked back down at her, his jaw working as he pondered his words. Finally he gave up on anything persuasive and merely said, "I don't want to go back yet."

She leaned her head on his shoulder and watched the distant rain approach, content to just stay here with John. After a time, the first drops struck her forehead and nose; she shivered at the cold and wet. "We really should go back in now, John."

Livvy started to pull away to head back up to the house, but John wouldn't let her. There was a mischievous look in his blue eyes. "What? Are you gonna melt, little girl?"

What had started as a scattered sprinkle morphed into larger, more frequent drops of rain. Livvy blinked away a drop that had made a direct hit in her left eye and said in as serious a tone as she could muster, "I might. I'm very sweet, you know."

John laughed again and Livvy couldn't help but smile. A sudden gust of wind sent a spatter of chilly rain into their faces and John grabbed her hand. He broke into a run, dragging her along with him. But instead of sprinting to the house, he headed away at an angle, toward the Sprague's dock and boathouse. They were almost there when the sky opened up, dumping what seemed like bucketsful of water in a matter of seconds.

Drenched and breathing hard, they giggled like a couple of little kids as they gasped for air. Livvy grinned up at John.

"Do you remember when Dad was stationed at Wright-Patterson? That picnic at the Colonel's house?" She frowned. "What was his name?"

John dropped down onto the dock and leaned back against an 8x8 support, a puddle forming on the old wood beneath him. Smiling still, he shook his head. "I dunno. D.K. and I always called him Colonel Fishface."

Livvy snickered and sat across from her brother. "Anyway... The time I'm thinking of, it was kinda chilly, like today, and it started to rain, also like today." She wrapped her arms around her upraised knees. "Colonel Fishface's daughter started screaming head off. It was a spectacular tantrum."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." John nodded and flicked water at Livvy, his expression daring her to protest, but she just stuck her tongue out at him. "Cally. Her name was Cally."

Olivia snorted. "Figures you'd remember her name." Livvy had been eleven at the time; John had been fifteen and he and D.K. had both had bad crushes on blonde and pretty Cally. The girl had been so upset by getting wet that day and ruining her hair and makeup...

"She was pissed at the rain for frelling with her makeup," John echoed. Livvy didn't think he was aware that he'd used a word that had never been part of any Earth language. "I tried to convince her that it was no big deal..."

"But she thought it was a big disaster. And then you made it ten times worse by—"

"... by telling her she wasn't sweet enough to melt." Livvy, young as she had been, had known that Cally and John would never be an item.

John fell silent, a faraway look in his eyes. The rain continued to fall, but had slowed to less than a downpour, and the wind had slackened as well. Livvy simply watched her brother, more than happy to sit here with him and just be. It was the first time they'd been alone since he'd come home and, in spite of what she'd said earlier, she didn't want to go back up to the house any more than John did. She liked his new friends well enough, especially Aeryn and the crazy old woman with three eyes, but the fact that they were under constant surveillance was unsettling. Even out here, she was sure that someone kept tabs on them, but at least Livvy could pretend that it was just her and John talking about old times.

"The first time Aeryn ever experienced rain…" John's voice startled her, brought her back to the boathouse, swaying on the waves. "She loved it. She was like a kid, playing in it, catching the drops on her tongue." He smiled again and Livvy thought he might have forgotten that he wasn't alone. "I think that was the first time I ever saw her really smile." He focused on Olivia again with a lopsided smile of his own. "The radiant Aeryn Sun."

Livvy had seen John in love and in lust over the years, but this was different. Save for right now, giving voice to his memories, he'd given no indication that Aeryn was anything to him but a friend, like D'Argo, like Chiana.

"You really love her, don't you?"

That made him focus his attention again on Olivia. "Yeah. Yeah, Liv, I do." His smile turned a little wistful before it faded, but it never entirely left. He said something else that she didn't quite catch.

"I'm sorry, John, what did you say?"

He didn't answer right away and she thought he might be embarrassed at giving away too much, but he surprised her again. "Unfortunately, we're not on the same page."

Replaying in her head things that had been said, glances that each had no doubt thought unnoticed, they way the two of them were careful to never be alone with each other… "I don't know about that, John." She smiled. "I think she might surprise you."

Abruptly, John pushed himself to his feet, offering Livvy a hand up. "The rain's stopped. We should head back before they call out the National Guard."

Sorry that the mood had been broken, Livvy took his hand and let him pull her up. As they walked back up the wet beach to their father's house, what John had said that Livvy hadn't understood finally clicked, troubling her.

John's first response, when Livvy'd asked if he loved Aeryn had been, I'd die for her. Something in his voice made Olivia believe that he meant it, that the words weren't idle and that there might be a time when that could come to pass.

fin