Small Comforts
S. Hempel (AKA Lyme BloodTalon)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Farscape. A bunch of really creative people do. I'm just borrowing the characters for a while.
All of my fiction is available at http://www.lymophilia.com in the section titled 'Farscape Dren'.
RATING: PG
CATEGORY: Uhm, ep filler.
SPOILERS: Through IP2
SUMMARY:
Hmm. A little ep filler inspired after IP2. Aeryn grieves and gets comfort from
an unexpected source.
ARCHIVING: If you have something of mine already, take
it. If not, email and ask.
FEEDBACK: lymebt@lymophilia.com
NOTE: After a
long, extended absence, my muse comes back and attacks me and demands that I
write out a fic – longhand, with a leaky fountain pen, on my lunch breaks at
work. I finished this the afternoon before TC aired, and have been being
extremely lazy about typing it up and posting it (yeah, and she wouldn't let me
type it, y'know? I just *had* to write it out longhand. Grr.). Anyway, I just
was sitting, thinking, 'Wow, after that, who'd be the one on Talyn who would be
the most comfort to Aeryn after this?' the answer I deduced was actually really,
really interesting. Especially in light of TC.
~~~
She had never felt more alone in her life. Aeryn remembered once, cycles ago, telling John that she'd never been alone before. She had thought that she had been alone then – cut off from her regiment and cast out of the Peacekeepers, the only life she had ever known.
This loneliness was thousands of times worse.
It was deep into the ship's night on Talyn, but she did not sleep. She couldn't sleep. Instead, she wandered the corridors listlessly as she had for the past few arns. Aeryn had noticed the DRD following her – she did not care if Crais had assigned it to keep watch over her of if Talyn had done it of his own volition. She paid it no mind.
Had it been any other night aboard Talyn in the past monen, she would have been in bed with John, perhaps sleeping, their bodies tangled together comfortably. Or perhaps they would be awake, talking away the night as they had sometimes done. Or perhaps they would be engaged in other less sedate activities. But Aeryn knew that if she returned to the quarters tonight, they would be empty. There would only be John's possessions, which would only serve to remind her of what she had so recently lost; John Crichton was dead.
She had stayed with him into his last moments, hoping, praying to whatever deities may be that a miracle would save him at the last microt. But he had broken a promise made cycles ago – he had left her in such a way that he could never return.
She had then closed his eyes and crawled into the bed beside him, curling up next to his body. She had cried deep heartfelt tears of loss and anger. The others had found her that way arns later, her arms still around John's now cold body, her eyes still red from weeping. They had pulled Aeryn away from the corpse of her lover, and Stark had tried to soothe her.
Instead, she fled the room. She could not bear their looks of pity, nor being in their presence. She had to be alone to grieve.
Had it really only been half a cycle since she had sworn that she would not allow herself to act on her feelings for John? It seemed like it had been much longer. Yet Aeryn couldn't help but feel a terrible guilt.
I let my guard down, let John in, she had thought. Now he's gone, dead. He's left me, and I cannot bear this pain.
She had gone first to their quarters, seeking isolation. But she could still smell him – that unique Human scent which had first confused her but had so recently comforted and reassured her. His canvas IASA bag sat on the shelf next to hers – his belongings scattered throughout the room.
She felt the ache in her chest deepen, and she had left the room before the tears could start again. Ever since then, she had been wandering, avoiding her shipmates. She wondered morbidly what they had done with his body after she had left. Had they left him lying in the bed, his limbs stiffening in death? Had they already buried him in space? No, they would never do that without her consent. She didn't know how she knew this to be true, but she knew it was.
She paused for a moment, listening as the DRD behind her followed her to suit. She whirled, coming straight at the little droid, which panicked at her approach, backing into the nearest wall and letting out a bleep of distress. Aeryn grabbed the DRD by one of its eyestalks and spoke directly at them.
"Look," she almost snarled. "Crais, Talyn, whoever has this DRD following me, it will stop *now*. If it doesn't –" Aeryn pulled her pulse pistol from its holster and pressed it against the DRD's casing, "I will shoot and disable every DRD you send after me until you get the point."
She released the DRD and stood, holstering her weapon. Aeryn watched with a grim sense of satisfaction as the DRD scurried off down the corridor and around a corner. It understood that now was a not a good time to make her angry.
Aeryn realized with a guilty start that she was hungry. Her first thought was to be irrationally angry that she could think of food at a time like this – but then the soldier in her kicked in. People die, but a body does not cease its needs out of respect. She turned, making her way to the central chamber. Surely, she could find some rations to take with her as she walked the halls.
Instead, she found Rygel sitting at a table, an untouched plate of food in front of him. While it was not unusual to find Rygel in the central chamber, and even less so to find him with food, an untouched plate was cause for worry. Aeryn almost turned to leave – hunger be damned – when the Hynerian noticed her presence with a surprised squeak.
"Aeryn! I – I'm – I was just getting some…" he trailed off as he realized that she was paying him no mind. "Aeryn?" Rygel asked carefully.
"Yes, Rygel?" she answered tersely, desperately trying to keep her voice calm. She entered the room, now committed to her path, heading for the food storage.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, his earbrows drooping. He watched as Aeryn froze in front of the refrigeration unit, her back stiff. "Ever since Zhaan died, Crichton has been the only one who doesn't just put up with me. He was the closest I had to a friend."
Aeryn closed her eyes as she felt the lump in her throat grow and tears threaten again. She would not cry in front of the others, she reminded herself. "Thank you, Rygel," she said softly. Slowly, she returned to picking out her meal.
"He was a good man," Rygel continued. "I'm so sorry I never got a chance to tell him."
"He knew," Aeryn said, turning and placing her tray on the table as soon as she had regained her composure. She looked down at her plate. Suddenly, she didn't feel so hungry anymore. She noticed that Rygel had picked up his fork, but he was doing no more than playing with his food. "Not hungry?" she asked.
Rygel sighed. "For once; no," he answered. "It seems so strange. Of all of us, he's the one I expected to miss the least."
Aeryn looked up at Rygel. "John told me one of his sayings from Earth once: you never know what you had until it's gone."
"That is… a very wise saying," Rygel said.
Aeryn looked back down at her plate, lost in her memories of John. She had never needed anyone before meeting him. Now she needed him near, alive, beside her more than she had ever wanted anything.
Aeryn started when she felt Rygel's small hand on hers. She looked into the Hynerian's face, shocked at the level of grief she saw there. Rygel had known the Human as long as she had, she realized. Out of the others left on Talyn, no one knew John as well as he, save herself. "Why is it, " he asked, "that the best of us always die so young? First Zhaan, now Crichton. The brightest among us burn out so fast." He squeezed her hand once and then left the central chamber, his food still untouched.
Rygel paused his thronesled at the door. "I wouldn't have taken his things, you know," he said thoughtfully. "They're your belongings now."
Aeryn listened as his thronesled hummed to life and then faded as Rygel made his way down the corridor again.
She looked at the large splotches of wetness that had appeared on her tray, wondering if some conduit on the ship was leaking before she realized what they really were. It seemed that she had tears to shed for her John yet.
She needed to get out of here.
End.