Disclaimer: The characters and universe aren't mine. I'm just going to take them out for a ride and I'll return them unharmed when I'm done. Promise.

Commander John Crichton had been cranky the last few days. Not just cranky - downright impossible to deal with. It was driving Aeryn insane. There was a mixed blessing in the fact he'd been so reclusive, if only because he was so short tempered when he was among the rest of the group. In the past few days, particularly, he'd far surpassed even Rygel's talent for picking fights. Most of them had reached their fill days ago, and the carefully restrained animosity pouring from Crichton seemed to make everyone itch.

They'd been trying their best to avoid setting him off, but now Aeryn needed his help. With a deep breath and a voice that sounded like she already knew to prepare for trouble, she opened her comm and made her request.

"Crichton, I could use your help in command. I'm trying to access Moya's data stores to..."

"Nothin' doin', Officer Sun. I've got fish of my own to fry.", came the terse reply. His own voice was striated with irritation, but she couldn't imagine what she'd done to offend him. Placing her hands on her hips, she gave the ceiling a look that screamed "I've-had-about-enough-of-this-dren" and tried again.

"Crichton, where are you?" No response answered, and her head tilted to the side as she licked her lips to keep from shouting. "Crichton? Pilot, where's Crichton?"

"Commander Crichton is in the maintenance bay. He's been there for... quite some time. Working on his module."

"Thank you, Pilot."

She wasn't sure approaching him wouldn't make a bad situation worse, but ignoring Crichton's fits had never been her style. If there was a problem, she wanted to find out what it was and now, before it became a big enough problem that it put Moya or her crew at risk if something popped up.

And "something" always popped up.

She finally came to the bay and found him under his module, which had been set up on some type of makeshift rig to suspend it off the floor. She planted herself in front of the portable light he was making use of, her feet spread shoulder width apart and her arms folded, and waited to be noticed.

"Do you mind? You're blocking my- Oh. Aeryn." Scooting out from below the ship, he rested his weight back on his elbows and regarded her belligerently. "What?"

"What the frell is your problem? I've had just about enough of your pouting and your petty arguments. What's going on? What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

He looked at her silently for a moment. They stayed as they they were, the microts dragging out. John's tongue played with his lower lip as the silence went on, and Aeryn's stance never wavered. Slowly coming to the realization that his terse answer wasn't enough to satisfied her, John sighed.

"Nothing, okay? Not one damn thing is wrong with me. Now if you'll excuse me, this bucket of bolts needs my attention."

He slid back under his module and began working as if he'd never been interrupted. Not one to beat around the bush, Aeryn wasted no time in grabbing his ankles, pulling him back out from under the ship again. He didn't bother to struggle, she'd kicked his ass on many occasions; if this was going to be another notch in the bedpost, he might as well sit still and let her get it over with.

Nothing came with his assumption but a glare from the woman who then took up a sitting position on his legs so he couldn't move. His knees were trapped effectively under her weight, which bore down on a good portion of his thighs, as well.

"You're going to answer me, and you're going to do it now or you're not moving from this spot. You're dragging us all down with your attitude and as far as I can tell, there's no reason for it."

John sighed and lay back, stacking his arms behind his head. He knew she'd make good on her threat. If he didn't talk she'd sit there until they either died of starvation, or his legs went numb and fell off.

"Fine, you want to know what my problem is? It's my birthday, okay. In a week's time. I've got nothing to show for it, Aeryn. Nothing but a bad case of space dementia. No red bike with a bell on it. No puppy dog, no gifts, no presents, no family. No nothing."

Ha. Now she knew what his problem was, wouldn't she be sorry she asked? No, better yet, he hoped she'd get up, walk her sexy little ass straight out of the docking bay and leave him alone. Permanently. He missed home, he missed his friends and family and Earth customs and all he wanted to do was work on his module and stew on ideas for making wormholes.

"That's it? That's your problem? You're making everyone miserable because you're not receiving gifts on the day of your birth?", she asked in a tone that didn't need "you idiot" tacked on to get her message across.

"Yeah. That about sums it up, Officer Sun, now if you'll get yourself off of me, I'd like to get back to what I was doing."

"I most certainly will not. I can not believe you. You sound a bit like Rygel, if you ask me. How selfishly stupid!"

"Aeryn, it's not about the -gifts- okay? It's about the experience. If I were home, I'd probably be at some bar with Dad and DK. I'd be laughing my ass off, and having a great time. There'd be some sort surprise party some place; they haven't done that in a while, ya never know. Now, get the frell off of me, I'd like to get back to work so I can figure out how to use what I know to make a wormhole and get the hell out of Dodge."

There were many phrases she didn't understand in that monologue, she just had to ask:

"Sup-rice Party?" she looked confused, and one eyebrow hitched itself up at an odd angle.

"Yeah, you know. Lights are off, nobody's home. Or so you think, until you walk into the room and they all jump out and yell "Surprise!" and you have to act like your best friend didn't tip you off three days before." He sighed heavily, and struggled to move his legs as the tingling sensation set in from lack of bloodflow. He softened his voice. "Look, Aeryn, I...Ireally don't want to talk about this."

It wasn't much, and it had never been done in Peacekeeper society. Days of birth weren't considered to be different than any other day. If her own birth hadn't been confessed by her mother to have been out of love -something other than PK necessity- she wouldn't even have bothered to remember her own day of birth. If it would make Crichton feel better, she supposed she should start organizing. If it was a "sup-rice" party he wanted, if that's what it would take to snap him out of this attitude, the it was a "sup-rice" party he was going to get. No matter how badly she frelled it up.

Suddenly, she jumped up.

"What, that's it?" Crichton demanded, his voice turning lecherous and perverted. "You interrogate me and then just up and leave? I thought there'd be a least one scene from "Basic Instinct", Sweeheart. I'm disappointed."

"Shut up, Crichton."