One Split Second

by Analise

An attack on an alien world forces John to consider how to spend that one split second.

One Split Second by analise Spoilers:None Rating:PG Category: J/A, Romance, Drama Archive: Anywhere, just let me know Summary: An attack on an alien world forces John to consider how to spend that one split second. Feedback: Yes, please. analise@2cowherd.net Disclaimer: The Farscape characters don't belong to me. Obviously. Notes: Eternal thanks to my pal and talented beta and writer, Kirby Crow. Thank god for her infallible instincts. And I'm going to ask you, as the writer of this little piece, to please just read it through and not skip ahead. I'm begging politely. Thanks in advance. ***** He could feel a numbness, not really creeping, more like a slowly rising flood. It was as if he were submerging, inch by inch, into a pool of chill water that was only just below body temperature. There was a distant tingling in his hands, in his arms, but he could no longer feel his feet. Peaceful. His moon boots crunching up the hill, DK's laughter, the icy sting of cold air in his lungs. The frozen feel of his fingertips inside the wet wool of his mittens. "Crichton..." A cool gray sky overhead, the sun tucked beyond, skeletal trees forming helpless clawed hands against the monotone colors. Dawn and ice and cold. "Crichton!" There were hands on his face, fingers cradling his jaw with a desperate softness. He could feel cold air freezing the hairs in his nostrils, pricking at his flesh. All so far away. As if there were a thick plane of glass between him and his body. "John!" Was that a note of panic? Fear? He wanted to comfort the voice, but his eyelids were so heavy. He was held down by an inexorable net of leaden weariness. "Please...wake up." He could never turn down a polite request. Mama Crichton didn't raise a rude boy. He levered his eyelids up with gargantuan effort. And found he could barely pry them a hair open. But it was enough that he could see she was right there. Blue eyes liquid with tears. She was beautiful. He had to have told her that before, right? "That's good, that's good, Crichton. Stay with me. You have to stay awake." Was that blood on her cheek? A dark, evil smear against the eggshell of her fair skin. I'm awake, I'm fine. Somehow, the words never made it out of his mouth. Instead a weak, empty stream of icy vapor pushed past his lips, curling and dissipating into nothing before his eyes. "Shhh, don't try to talk. Just lie still, John." Why would he want to do that? ++++ "No...no, like this...here, punch me. Go for the gut." Her grin was infectious. He loved to make her smile. Funny how priorities changed. Pay bills. Remember Aunt Greta's 50th anniversary. Avoid the speed trap on Hwy 14. Make Aeryn smile. He grabbed her fist as it rocketed towards his stomach, barely catching it in time, barely getting a grip on her wrist. The little minx was actually trying to hit him! Laughter was not an option, not when his demonstration was suddenly reality. He shifted his weight, turned his body, dragged her captured hand with him, and slipped his free arm around her neck, settling her into a headlock. Noogie time. "Crichton! What the frell are you doing?!" She began to struggle as he applied expert knuckled fingers to the top of her head. "Ooh no," he laughed, hanging on with all his strength, "You wanted to know what a noogie was. I'm showing you - " With a whoomp of forced air from his lungs, his back suddenly hit the mat, his legs swept out from under him. A second later Aeryn was straddling him with her elbow at his throat. Her hair was wild at the crown, and there was a satisfied smirk on her face. "Then the demonstration is over." "Think you're pretty hot shit, don't you?" He was acutely aware of every inch of mutual contact between them. It was like his nerve endings were on fire where she pressed against him. She made a face. "I can only assume that is another one of your erp sayings, Crichton. And it's disgusting." She wasn't moving off him. Time was starting to slow down. "It's a good thing, really it is..." he didn't want to break eye contact. His hands began to inch their way up her forearms, creeping slowly to her elbows. The sudden quiet of the chamber echoed their heavy breathing back at them. He could hear his heart pounding loudly in his ears. All it would take was that extra inch too far and she would explode away from him like so much blown milkweed fluff. He was watching her like a man eyes an unbroken colt... just waiting for it to bolt out from under his touch. An intricate dance of trust. One step closer, one step back. His fingers brushed the bare skin of her upper arms. Time seemed to be encased in ice. Frozen just for them. He was mesmerized by the damp curl of her hair against her forehead, the slight shine on her lower lip where she had licked it. "Aeryn? John? We've arrived." Zhaan's voice over the com shattered the moment with such ease that Crichton could have been convinced she had planned it. Which was ridiculous, of course. Aeryn rolled up and off him so quickly she might never have been there at all but for the slightest flush in her cheeks. She grabbed her towel and stalked from the room with a quick and nervous stride. He lay on the mat for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and listening to her receding footsteps. A soft sigh of exasperation hissed past his lips before he rolled to his own feet, wincing at slightly sore muscles, and gathered up his cast off shirt. Time, he reminded himself. You have time. She needs it. Pulling his shirt over his head, he loped off in the direction she had gone. ++++ Cold. The chill was turning to ice. He stared up at a slate gray sky, watching the cloud cover hang like a miasma overhead. A tinting of dirty brown smoke still drifted from the dwellings around them. Why was she crying? Well, maybe not crying exactly. But close enough. For her, it was a torrent of emotion. He wanted to ask her what was wrong. He wanted to ask her why he couldn't feel his lower body. Wind ruffled her hair, teasing it out of her braid, twisting it free of the gray scarf binding her head. He wanted to tuck it back in, behind her ear. But he couldn't move. The crunching of snow as he trudged uphill. The harsh scraping of his battered, plastic saucer sled against the frozen slush ruts of the street. He wanted to ask her if she had ever gone sledding. ++++ "This is it? This is all we've got?" When had he lost the wonder? When had each new planet become just that? Not another world. Not a miracle of discovery. Instead, just another commerce planet. Or, in this case, just a frozen chunk of rock with a scattering of population. "It is the only inhabited planet that we have come across in weekens." Pilot's voice was matter-of-fact and even a little irritated. "I suggest that we take the opportunity as offered." "Hey, hey, I wasn't complaining, Pilot. I was just sorta hoping that ... well, hell. Yeah, ok, I was complaining." He slapped his hands together and rubbed them in faux enthusiasm. "Right then. Let's suit up. Pack your mittens, kids, it's a cold one out there." "Don't stay down there too long." Zhaan looked over the planet's readings with a benign eye. "The temperatures are below freezing." "Luxans have no trouble with cold," D'Argo said as he walked towards the doorway, checking his Qualta blade as he went. "It'll be fine, Zhaan, we used to have winters where I grew up that would freeze your jeans to your ass." He grinned at the Delvian as he shrugged his purloined PK jacket over his shoulders. "I don't even want to know what that means." Aeryn muttered as she followed D'Argo out of the chamber, not even glancing his way. The worst Texas winter never had anything on a peeved Aeryn Sun. It was his fault, he knew. Sorta. As much as it could be his fault, anyway. Aeryn had started it. He'd dated a girl back in college once named Sandy. Foster kid, abused, she'd had more emotional baggage than anyone he'd ever met, but he knew that she was like a child compared to what Aeryn lugged around. Issues, baby. Issues. And Miz Sun had 'em in spades. With his favorite ex-peacekeeper it was always one step forward and six steps back. But where was he going? He had time. With a grin, he gave a little wave to Zhaan and trotted after Aeryn and D'Argo. The transport down to the surface was comfortably quiet. No chit chat, the three of them had developed somewhat of a camaraderie. There was no need to fill the silence. And even as jaded as he was getting, there was still the same old thrill as he watched the splotchy, gray-white surface of the alien world filling the viewscreen. This was no Sebacean colony, these were unknown aliens. A sort he hadn't seen before. Moya's scans told them that the locals had minimal space travel and a couple of scattered ports. Good for that. Would make it easier to go shopping. Oh, but what he wouldn't give for a Wal Mart. A bag of chee-tos would really hit the spot. They set down with a gentle bump, the transport chuffing up a cloud of ice and vapor, breaking John from visions of Slurpees and Slim Jims. There was dingy brown smoke churning up from the nearby settlement, icy blue-white stretching out in a flat plane in all directions. The bluish purple of a distant mountain range sketched out a boundary on the horizon. "Ok," Aeryn's voice cut through their perusal of the environment and both John and D'Argo turned to face her. She was tugging the collar of her black suit up and tucking her hair under a wide gray scarf. "Let's split up the list of what we need and get back here before we all freeze to death." She tore the flimsy with some difficulty and handed each of them a portion of it. "We'll meet back here in an arn. Don't get into trouble." She said the last looking right at him, and he furrowed his brow in protest. He hadn't gotten into trouble in a long while. Christ, you messed up a couple of times and suddenly you were typecast for life. There was no time for a patented Crichton Comeback, however, for she hit the door a moment later and all the cilia in his lungs froze. Even the Luxan was shocked by the frigid air. The three of them looked at each other and then rapidly exited the transport, a new impetus in their strides. It was too cold to dally. Too cold to even talk. Icy wind bit at his exposed head and face and he tucked his arms against his body as he walked, boots crunching in snow that was only a few density levels away from being called ice. The portion of the list he had received was simple enough. A few common herbs for Zhaan, any sort of fresh food he could find, and as much plasma conduit as he could lay his hands on. Squinting at the shabby settlement they walked towards, he mentally crossed the conduit off his list. There was no way this place was going to have anything of the sort. Sprawling and filthy, the squalid dwellings clustered together in clumps, the nameless port was not exactly the Ritz. In fact, he would have to say it was more likely to be in the running for the John Crichton Armpit Award. Easily the worst place he had been since he'd taken Mr. Toad's Wild Ride through the wormhole. And it stank. Old socks and landfill. With just a pinch of skunk. It certainly didn't help that his nostrils already burned with cold. The three of them split up as they entered the main marketplace, if the meager collection of huts could be called such. John surreptitiously watched as Aeryn walked away, swaying with her natural panther-like grace, likely snug as a bug in her flight suit. The thing was designed for the cold of space. Though if he had to stage a contest tomorrow, he thought this horrible planet might come in a very close second. "Trade? Sell? Buy?" The translator microbes carried an odd, guttural clicking across when the alien talked. The creature was a cross between the Nebari and a walrus. A pale, blue Jabba The Hutt. Only much smaller. John squatted down in front of the alien, eyeing what Wally had laid out for him. Not much. A few trinkets that might have been jewelry, a knife that had belonged to a Peacekeeper, a few small jars of something, and three or four long skins that may have once been a possum. A possum with leprosy. He could feel Wally eyeing him, blinking with slow, deliberate movements, thick folds of pale skin over deep, fathomless, egg-white eyes. "You like knife, Peacekeeper?" Another blink. "Maybe was yours one time?" He didn't even waste his time anymore. No, I'm not a Peacekeeper. I'm human. What? Never heard of my kind? Well, we never heard of you either. Seen Chilly Willy around? There wasn't a point. He knew how the conversation was coming out. And it wasn't worth it. Instead he reached for one of the jars, hoping it contained some of what Zhaan was looking for. Wally intercepted his hand, grabbing on to his wrist with soft, sucker-like hands and staring at him, hard. "Not Sebacean after all." The words startled him even more than the faintly repellent touch of its hand. He stared for a long moment at the creature before pulling away and pushing to his feet, trying to ignore the sudden chill that ran down his spine. A chill that had nothing to do with the sub-zero temperatures. Without another word to Wally, he turned and ambled away, absently rubbing at his wrist. Freaky. Sometimes aliens could be really... weird. He directed himself towards a much larger dwelling with a taller entrance than most of them had. It looked to be more aimed at offworlders. He scanned absently for signs of Aeryn or D'Argo, but saw no one but the squat, pale, slug-like Wallys. The locals seemed to need no protective clothing, and John suspected that they might have a physiology similar to the walrus that he compared them to. A thick layer of blubber or something like it, covered every inch of them, two fat little arms protruded from their fronts and a slug-like tail propelled them along with surprising speed. Two large, pale, dark-rimmed eyes faced forward like a predator's, and they had wide, lipless mouths. He'd caught a hint of tusk-like teeth when the first one had spoken to him. They gave him the creeps. Ducking low, he entered the dwelling and found that it was an indoor market. There was a great deal more here than there had been outside and he immediately spotted a Wally selling what looked like fresh tubers of some sort. He didn't know how anything could grow in a place like this, but he had long ago stopped wondering about the diversity and tenacity of alien flora and fauna. Check one for the list, he thought, stepping forward and pulling out the meager sack of items Moya's crew had scrounged up for trade. The creature nodded at him as he squatted in front of the low, low platform and he nodded back. "Buy, Sell, Trade?" It gurgled at him. He nodded, grinning and pointing at the tubers. They actually smelled good to him after so long eating food cubes. They smelled real. He began the tedious process of bargaining, not noticing when the first Wally he'd talked to entered behind him and began whispering to the others. ++++ "Just a little longer. Look at me. Look into my eyes..." She was unfocused, blurring and tipping to one side. Was she holding his hand? It was possible. He felt something under his fingers. Something warm. Donna Richards. Now why Donna? He hadn't even known her that well. She was pretty enough, long dark hair and sad blue eyes. Jimmy had been her brother. He would never forget Jimmy. Never forget that day. The crunch of snow under his boots, the bite of cold morning air. The thudding sound of Dr. Randall's tires... "Don't try to talk, John. Just lie still for once." Those fingers on his face tightened slightly, and again he could feel her despair in that simple touch. He could see her now. Not Donna. She wasn't as pretty as Donna had been. But she was so much more beautiful. He wondered why he'd never told her. No. He knew why. 'Not ready to hear it'. It was something his Dad had always said. There had been the strident arguments when he was a kid. His mother always sticking up for him, his Dad acting out the frustration of having a son who was just like him. 'Not ready to hear it', that's what his Dad would always say in those overheard arguments. His dad had never thought he was old enough, smart enough, mature enough. Whatever it was. His dad had been right, of course. It only took distance and time to learn that his parents actually *did* know what they were talking about. That all those things he had felt so certain about when he was younger, all those things that he was positive 'they didn't understand'... they had been right about after all. Irony, of course, is the end result of maturity. When you look in the mirror and find that, despite your best efforts, you *did* end up like your parents. And so he could not tell her, this amazing woman, just what she had inside her. What he saw when he looked at her. She wasn't ready to hear it. Not from him. Maybe later. It was effort, it took so much effort to raise his arm, to lift his fingers, to wipe that streak of blood off her cheek. He succeeded only in smearing it. But it was enough, in his dazed mind, to reveal to him that she was not wounded. That the blood was not from her face. He held his hand, trembling with the strain, in front of his eyes. Not looking at her anymore, only looking at the blood. And then, slowly, he moved his hand down to his midsection, feeling something wet slide against his fingers. He lifted his hand back up again, a journey of inches, a slow process of painstaking effort. And looked upon a palm painted garishly with blood. ++++ Christ on a crutch, but the aliens were creeping him out. It was like watching Village of the Damned. Only pretend all the little blond children were slug-like aliens...on another planet. Ok, well, maybe not so much like watching Village of the Damned. He couldn't be sure, but it had seemed as if Wally 1, the first ice-slug he'd talked to, had started following him. And Wally 2, the one who had sold him the tubers, was with him. Not like he could really tell them apart, and it was entirely possible that he was just being paranoid, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they were *all* watching him now. He had the fresh food, and he'd found one of the mixtures that Zhaan had wanted. The conduits weren't really an option, so he was down to a couple of herbs. His arn was almost up, and he was more than ready to get the hell back to someplace warm. Someplace away from all those pale worm-eyes. He wondered if they just didn't like offworlders. "Crichton?" Aeryn's voice crackled at him from his com and he blew on his gloved hands before tapping it to life. "Yeah?" "We're heading back to the transport. I've met up with D'Argo and we've got nearly everything we came for. Minus the tech stuff. This isn't exactly a high-tech world." "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I noticed. I didn't fare too well, but I did ok. I'll meet you there." He paused a moment, hesitating to ask if the aliens were staring at her too, but changed his mind with a self-mocking snort and let the connection end. Hoisting the heavy bag of tubers over his shoulder, he began the trek back to the outskirts of the settlement, anticipating the warm interior of the transport. His ears and nose were burning with cold, his breath fogging the air around his head. It did bring back those rare winters when the ice-storms would hit in January. Trees glittering with a thick, crystalline coating, schools shut down, semis jack-knifing on the freeway. While commuters were panicking, he and DK would steal out on those early mornings with their beat-up sleds and make for Suicide Hill. The adults had tried to shut down the steep slope, tried to keep kids from sledding there, but to no avail. There was no fence that couldn't be circumvented, cut or pushed down. No sign or threat that couldn't be ignored for the sake of the thrill. They would catapult down that slick surface at speeds that would make him quail to think of now, timing it so they would shoot across the icy road that cut off the foot of the hill and use it as a jump that would hurtle them through the air to breathtaking heights. It was that road that made the run so great, and it was that road that had always been why the local parents hated suicide hill. Jimmy Richards had finally proved their fears founded. Crichton shook his head slowly as he started down the last row of dwellings before the outskirts. Jimmy. He sometimes wondered what had gone through that poor kid's mind as he saw his death hurtling towards him. Sliding towards your fate so quickly and just knowing that you were looking at your own end. Sure, he'd been in some life-and-death situations - a whole frelling crowd of them in the last year alone - but he'd never been faced with such inevitability. The sharp and clear and utterly unavoidable knowledge that you were going to die. Jimmy Richards had had that. What would he have done in that split-second just before? Had he relived the events of his oh-so-brief life? If he could have, what would he have done? Just one thing that might, perhaps, give him closure. Or even better...meaning? Another chill ran down his spine then, and he jerked his head up, his feet stopping in their tracks. The ole spidey sense. He'd learned to listen to it since he'd found he wasn't in Kansas anymore. Since he'd dropped a house on the Wicked Witch's sister. He was on the edge of the settlement, the wind blowing at a steady clip at his rear, freezing the back of his neck. He could see the slim shape of Aeryn ahead now, dark against the gray-white of the snowscape. The hulk of D'Argo nearly to the transport where it crouched in the distance. He lifted his hand to wave at Aeryn, for he could see the pale oval of her face outlined by the dark scarf she had wrapped around her head. He turned then, turned to look behind him. They were there, crowded behind him...at least 20 or more. Staring at him with what looked like desperation on their bland little faces. And they were Right. There. The pain hit him with shocking suddenness. A bolt of agony blazed through his body, shrieking through his nerve endings. White-red stars of pain blossomed behind his eyes and he felt himself crumple bonelessly to his knees. As the world's horizon slipped and swayed to one side, he caught a glimpse of Aeryn's slender form running towards him, a distant shouting against the wind. An explosion of snow nearby sent tiny gnats of stinging ice snapping at his face. Another. There was movement all around him, the snow was boiling with it. Wallys everywhere. Another debilitating jolt of pain. He felt something wet spatter on his cheek and knew it for his own blood. They were all around him. My god, they were stabbing him. He only caught a glimpse of one of the many red-stained blades - they looked like ice picks - raising again and again before he passed into a place where the dark was warm. +++ Wally Walrus stabbed me. His words were a pathetic wheeze. A bubbling sound that meant at least one lung had been pierced. Aeryn shook her head again and put her fingers on his lips. "Please, lie still. You have to wait for Zhaan. She's coming. You have to wait." Her words were a whisper, her voice pleading. Aeryn didn't plead well, but he gave her an A for effort anyway. He blinked up at her, distantly amazed by the naked emotion in her eyes. Not ready to hear? Maybe she was after all. He could feel it. He could feel the darkness battering at his borders. There were things that he still wanted to do. Sure, he'd had a good run down that hill, but he had time before the car hit. A split second can last an eternity. They were still on the ice plain. The outskirts of the settlement. The sky was darkening rapidly, night was coming on. A dark shape on the snow next to them showed the pulse rifle Aeryn had been waving about. The red pillowing under his head was not his own blood, but D'Argo's coat. The gentle fingers on his face were Aeryn's. There was no sign of the Wallys. Why had they stabbed him? He'd done nothing to them. Did they think he was a Peacekeeper? Maybe he hadn't given them a fair price for the tubers. "They won't be back. Don't worry." She was stoking his hair, fear in her every movement. Etched in her face. "Zhaan is coming. Just wait, Crichton. Wait a little longer." It must be bad, he supposed. He had been in bad shape before and she'd never done more than crinkle her forehead in concern. He knew it was bad. What would Jimmy have done in that split second? If he had had time? "They tried to come back, but I chased them away. What did you do to them, you crazy human?" She wasn't admonishing him, he knew. But he wanted to defend himself. Crazy human. He hadn't done anything! Or had he? It was hard to remember. It had seemed so simple. Buy food, get stared at. Creepy, but simple. When had they all started staring at him? Maybe that was the clue. He blinked sleepily and shifted his line of sight past Aeryn. One of the Wallys was there. Unmoving, its white little arms still stained red with his blood. It seemed to be twitching. As if it were nervous about something. Don't worry Wally, I won't steal all your fish. It was funny, he'd always loved Chilly Willy as a kid, but his sisters never had. That little penguin was mean, they said. The Walrus only wanted to have a barbeque and Chilly Willy was always stealing all the fish. He shook with silent, ironic amusement at the thought that Wally was finally gonna get him back for laughing at his torment. "Crichton? What's wrong? They've just landed, they'll be here any minute. Keep your eyes open. Look at me." Her voice was firmer now, more like the old Aeryn he knew. Never show weakness in front of others. That was her motto. He should buy her a t-shirt. Maybe with a little picture of Chilly Willy on it. He started to laugh weakly again, the pain of the laughter nearly sending him into unconsciousness. "John? Oh Goddess, your stomach. He's lost so much blood..." Zhaan's soothing voice and hands surrounded him. He let his eyes fall shut again, too weary to tell anyone that the Wallys were there. That they had the lot of them surrounded. What did he choose? Not much time left after all. Meaning? Purpose? He could tell Aeryn how much he cared about her... but was she ready to hear? He could tell himself that he had been to the corners of the universe and that it was a good run. That he was the man he wanted to be, that he had always done what he'd believed was right. But he already knew that. He could absolve his shipmates of guilt and let them know what they meant to him. But what he really wanted was to know why. So in the end, he needed meaning. It was more, he supposed, than Jimmy had gotten. "Why?" There. It was a word. A whole word. He had their attention. D'Argo leaned over him, his brow furrowed. "Why what, John?" Aeryn had not moved his head from her lap and he was glad for it. Even if he couldn't feel her warmth. He could sense it from them all, could sense it himself. He was fading fast. "Why. Ask th..em...why" A whisper...harsh, bubbling. But they understood. Aeryn's face went hard with an expression that he recognized as frustrated anger. For once, it was not directed at him. D'Argo wasted no time, bless his hearts. He stood to his full height and pointed his Qualta blade at one of the surrounding Wallys in a way that had them all slithering back fearfully. "You! Why did you attack this human?" John couldn't see who D'Argo was pointing at. "Him must be inside. Now. Quick. Soon." It was Wally 1. He was sure of it. The one who had known somehow that he wasn't Sebacean. "You stab him and now you want him inside? What for?" Aeryn's voice was strident, hostile, every inch of her tense. But he was floating gently on a soft sea. Words sounded like echoes, movements felt blurred. "Begging. Inside. We help. We explain. Please." Meaning. He needed it. Soon. A small boy with a sled stood on the side of the road. Pain was fading. He only felt dim now, like a candle on the verge of flickering out. His thumb was twitching and he was unable to stop it. D'Argo's face loomed close and the world wrenched suddenly sideways. His head lolled uncontrollably to one side. The darkness was all around him. Aeryn's voice was too soft to hear now, Zhaan's reply indistinguishable in the silence. He was trudging up the hill again, DK bragging about the last time he'd run the hill. Made it all the way down to Mrs. Brinkman's yard. Which was nonsense of course. No one had ever gone so far. And since John had *been* there the last time they'd run the hill... There was Jimmy Richards with Nelson Davies, already up at the top. Silhouetted by the pre-dawn sky. They were arguing about who got to go first, who got the fresh run. There was a scattering of snow blowing about, an icy bite to the wind. It was still dim out, hard to see in the gray light. He and DK had only been halfway up to the top when Jimmy had hurtled past them, yelling like a banshee, his pompom hat flying off his red hair. They had turned to watch, and that was when they saw Dr. Randall's old Caddy coming down the road, moving quick like the doc always did. The old man claimed that Cadillac never slid on ice. Good ole American workmanship. Solid. Steady. He had dropped his sled and started running back down the hill, stumbling and slipping, DK right behind him, hollering at the top of his lungs and waving his arms. Nelson was shouting too, but it was too late for Jimmy to do anything. Too late for Dr. Randall. In that split second, Jimmy didn't even have time to yell. "John...John, you aren't going to believe this." +++ The world was back. The ceiling was familiar. And thank god, it was warm. He blinked at his surroundings. He was in his own quarters on Moya, lying in his own bed. Aeryn sat slumped in a chair nearby, her arms folded, her eyes closed. Disoriented, he tried to sit up and found it to be a simple thing. He had expected it to be painful. It was not. His eyes and hands went to his midsection, feeling for bandages, feeling for pain. He found neither. Frowning, he lifted up his t-shirt and stared at his stomach, a clear image of his hand painted with blood still fresh in his mind. There was a network of red scars there, but they appeared to be mostly healed. He blinked. "They said you would be fine." Aeryn was standing up now, stretching like a cat. "They? The Wallys?" His frown did not vanish. The last thing he remembered was... well...dying. Sledding? She shook her head, her own frown matching his. "I'm not even going to ask. No, not the 'Wallys', Crichton, the Ucklutians. She moved closer to his bedside and pushed him back down against the pillows. Not ungently. "They should be voted worst diplomats in all the universe." He just stared at her. "Ok, the Mucklucks...or whatever. Why did they say I would be fine? They were the ones who turned me into their own personal pincushion, if you didn't notice." "I did." She sat back down, leaning her elbows on her knees in a posture uniquely hers. "After D'Argo spoke to them, they told us to take you into one of their dwellings. They didn't explain very well, but apparently the aliens *weren't* trying to kill you. For once." "Oh? Were they trying to sell me life insurance? They need to work on their people skills." She shook her head. "They said that once they realized you weren't Sebacean, they had to act fast. They said that if D'Argo and I hadn't interfered and driven them off after they'd stabbed you, you would have never been in any danger at all." He took a deep breath and let it out. "You realize that you are making no sense, don't you?" "Be still, John." Zhaan's quiet voice entered the conversation with little fanfare as she stepped into the room carrying a glass of a mysterious green liquid. "I am glad to see you awake. The others will be relieved." She moved to sit on the side of the bed. "The Ucklutians are a dying people," the priestess stated. She folded her hands carefully in her lap after she handed him the glass. "They are parasitic breeders, and the host animal that used to populate their planet quite heavily is now extinct. It was a warm-blooded creature, very like you, John. From what I was able to gather, as soon as they realized that you were not Sebacean... Sebacean physiology is quite different and unsuitable for hosting ...they had to act quickly." "Parasitic breeders?" John was starting to get a queasy feeling in his stomach. He lifted the elixir Zhaan had brought and downed it quickly, just to give himself something to do. "When they stabbed you, they were artificially injecting you with their eggs. They saw that you were leaving and they couldn't take the chance that you would not agree to help them. They said that if Aeryn and D'Argo had not driven them away from you, they would have been able to settle you comfortably and extract the rapidly growing embryos in under an arn." John swallowed, trying to wipe the image of worms growing in his stomach out of his mind. "So ...but...how did I heal?" His hand went down to his midsection involuntarily. "Their young have evolved to the point where they excrete a healing agent unlike anything I have ever seen. I suspect it was evolved specifically so they did not lose the host animal every time they were ready to breed." She sighed and smiled. "They were kind enough to give me a sampling of the agent. It is a fascinating find." Crichton was shaking his head. "You have got to be kidding me. You're saying that these crazy Ucklucks saw me, saw I wasn't Sebacean and decided that I needed to be the mother of their children?" He waved his hands around in the air as he searched for words that wouldn't come. "If you hadn't asked D'Argo to find out why they'd attacked you, I suspect that you would have died there in the street. Only the Ucklutians would have been able to remove the embryos and stop your bleeding." She smiled benignly at him. "In a way, you saved your own life." "And brought a whole new population of white slugs into the world." Aeryn was grinning now. "Congratulations, Papa." Zhaan hid a smile as she stood, retrieving the empty glass. "Thanks a lot," he grimaced. Slugs. The Delvian swept out of the room, pausing in the doorway. "You should be fine, but don't exert yourself too much. You've been asleep for a few days, recovering. I'm sure you're hungry. You should try some of the trivin bulbs you bought from the Ucklutians." There might have been more she wanted to say, but instead she gave him another gentle smile and left. Aeryn stood to follow the priestess, but John reached out and snagged her wrist. Oh no you don't, he thought. Time was not the surplus he had assumed it was. She looked down at him, but didn't try to pull away. That was a good sign. He slid his grip down her hand and tangled his fingers timidly in hers. "Hey. Thanks." She raised her eyebrows. "You did it for me. You were there when I woke up..." "I didn't mean that. Though that was nice. I meant thanks for keeping me alive down there." She nodded sharply, but still didn't pull away. John took a deep breath. Was she ready to hear? Had she been all along? He couldn't be sure. But here he was...and he hadn't been hit by that car. Who knows what would happen tomorrow? How many seconds did he have left? He was forestalled from saying anything by Aeryn herself. "Crichton...down there. When you were ...injured." She did pull away then, but she didn't leave. She sat down in the chair again, her eyes trained on the floor, her hands clasped together. "I thought you were dying. I'd seen it before, that look...the look of death. I'm supposed to be immune it. I've been trained to accept it. But when it was you - " She took a deep breath and finally looked up at him. Her lips were trembling. She was terrified. Was *he* ready to hear? Suddenly his heart was racing. Her fear played itself out in her words, panic strung tight on each painful hesitation. "I didn't have the courage to tell you ... how much I care about you...then. I swore to myself that I would... if you made it. And I didn't think that you would. I just... I just wanted you to know that I feel stronger - better - when you are around me. That I don't want to give you up." It was rough and awkward and not at all what he had envisioned. It was better. The recycled air was roaring in his ears. He couldn't count the number of times that he had imagined what he would say to her, how he would say it. Never the right time. Never believing that she wanted to hear it. Over and over again in his dreams with so many variations, but always the same ending. She had beat him to it. He sat up then and grabbed both of her hands, pulling her down to his bedside, off the chair, until she was on her knees and they were looking eye to eye. Now that the time was finally here, he found he could say nothing. She was more than the sum of her features to him. More than luminous blue eyes and a strong mouth that trembled imperceptibly with the words she had found the courage to say. She was his voice in the snow, warm hands on his face. The strength at his back. He lifted one hand to her cheek, the same spot where his blood had marked her, tracing the faint lines around her left eye, stroking the pad of his thumb lightly across the gossamer flesh of her eyelid. Time shivered to a stop. And in one split second, their lips touched. END Comments appreciated: analise@2cowherd.net