Chapter 3

"John! John please stay with me!" Aeryn pulled and yanked on the stick, praying she could navigate the wormhole without killing them. The twists and turns were making her feel dizzy and she was worried sick about Crichton's head.

"You're…" He sucked in a deep gulp of air and moaned. God his head hurt. "Doing great, baby, doing great." He tried to keep his eyes open but the flashing blue and white of the wormhole was making his head pound harder. He must have hit the edge of the seat just right, or wrong, as the case may be, to do a real number on his skull. He'd been hit in the back of the head plenty of the times before and it had never hurt like this.

"When it splits which way should I fly?" She'd never felt this kind of panic flying before. Her ability in a spacecraft, plane, module, and anything and everything that soared through air and space was something she never doubted. Her emotions were now interfering with her common sense and natural talent. "You've ruined my life John Crichton."

"I know." He tried to smile through the pain. He was using every ounce of strength to hold on to consciousness. "Go which ever way feels right. I trust you, baby."

"I love you. Here we go!" She pulled hard to the right the next time they passed a split. The module careened down, spinning left then right. She growled at the steering and used every last bit of her energy to keep it centered. The path seemed to go on and on, but then another path appeared to the left and it looked like a planet was at the end. Was that Earth? She made a quick decision and tugged the module toward the exit. They dropped hard into that path and then just as quickly popped free of the wormhole. A loud banging sound followed them. Then it was gone. The wormhole was closed. There wasn't any evidence left of it's existence.

"Well done, Aeryn… Well…" He passed out, the blackness invaded his mind and the pain took over. He couldn't hold out any longer now that they were out of the wormhole.

"Don't you do this to me, John! Dammit! Frell you, wake up!" She had to look at his head. She angled the plane toward the planet looking for a spot that looked fairly uninhabited. She enabled the emergency landing system and aimed for a grove of trees. It appeared that the nearest towns were fairly distant from that particular spot, perfect!

She could hear some painful moans coming from him whenever they hit a rough patch of air. She whispered an apology to him about the rough landing and went to setting the module down as safely as possible. She was concentrating so hard on flipping the right levers and repositioning the proper switches that the beep took her by surprise.

"Great! Just perfect!" She punched the fuel gage with her fist. "We have no idea where we are and you decide to run out of gas? Only John's ship would do this to us…" Aeryn was banking tight and pulling hard on the breaks. She had to get them down now. The trees were coming fast and a woman in a white dress was suddenly there. She was staring at her! Why wasn't she moving? Aeryn yanked with all her strength to the right and watched as a man leapt from between the trees to toss the woman out of her way. It was too late to pull out of the crooked drop however and the plane jolted as they met the earth.

John was knocked out of his unconscious state for a micron when they collided with the planet.

"Christ, Aeryn, my ship! Damn, my head!" Was all he could mumble before being lost to the dark abyss of his coma.

"Good of you to emerge from sleep to comment on my flying." Aeryn was able to stop the ship before it was slammed into a rather large tree. "Hope I didn't do too much damage." She flipped the analyzer on and checked the outside atmosphere, making sure that it was breathable for the two of them before releasing the hatch. When the light flipped to green she let the seal hiss open and threw the clear roof up and out of her way.

She reached for the first aid kit and went to straddle John in the back seat. It was cramped but she didn't care about her lack of space, only that she had to check his head. She pulled him forward to lean against her breasts. There was quite a bit of blood, but being a head wound that was to be expected. She gently probed at his skull. Her fingers expertly searched through his dark brown hair for the source of the bleeding. She felt him flinch against her before the warm, sticky blood touched her fingers. The wound didn't feel that large and the bone underneath felt normal and intact. Both were good signs. She pulled a compression bandage from the kit and placed it against the torn skin. Then she wrapped it securely with the roll of gauze. When she knew it wouldn't move she taped the gauze off and put the extras away.

It was then that she noticed the two people she'd almost crashed into. They were standing right outside the ship weapons drawn. Unfortunately, it was primitive weapons, the man had a sword and the woman was holding to daggers.

"Great, just great, I pick the tunnel that leads us to the land of no technology. We are never going to get back to Moya. The puzzled looks that crossed their faces told her that they didn't possess translator microbes either. Which wasn't that surprising since even the Human's didn't have those and they were more advanced then this world. She switched over to english, she knew enough to struggle through a conversation.

"Hi. My name is Aeryn Sun." That language seemed to be more familiar to them. They looked like there was a possibility that they would understand. She decided to continue. "I'm not going to try to hurt you. I need to get him out of here. He's hurt."

She watched the couple glance at each other checking to see what the other one thought. They seemed to be quite in synch. The woman nodded and both of them sheathed their weapons. The man reached his hand up and she pulled him up to help her lift John out of the module.

"Thanks." Aeryn smiled at him and lifted his legs out while the man pulled him by the shoulders. They eased him to the ground and Aeryn knelt behind him letting his head rest on her lap. She pulled out two syringes and looked at the couple. How could she get them to take the translator microbes? "This makes it so we can understand each other. Very safe for all species." She hoped that was true.

They looked like they could comprehend what she was saying.

Kahlan looked at Aeryn's eyes, the woman appeared to be telling the truth. She didn't know if her ability to see that was at compromised by her being from another world, but she felt like she didn't want to harm either of them, despite almost killing her while landing that thing.

"Richard, I don't know about this." Kahlan grabbed his arm and pulled him a little ways from where the other couple was resting on the forest floor. "We could react badly, the second language she used was fairly close to ours…"

"I think we should do it." Richard was full of conviction as he spoke. He couldn't sense any danger from the aliens. Usually he was a fairly good judge of character.

"I doubt she really knows if it will effect us adversely. She could kill us with good intentions." Kahlan glanced over at the woman and saw her stroking the mans hair, trying to sooth the ache that was in his head as she waited for her and Richard to make a choice. "I can't lose you, Richard. It's a big risk."

"Well lets pray to the Spirits that it works. I think we need to do it. They could be allies in our mission to help people. We need to get that man to a healer and quickly. He is looking paler by the minute."

Aeryn looked on as they discussed it intensely. She tried to keep johns head cushioned while she waited. His breathing was too shallow and she knew he needed something to help take the swelling off his brain. A healer of some sort had to be available, everyone culture had healers. Just when she was going to become impatient the man came over and presented his arm. The woman in white glared at her while she pushed the needle into him and inserted the microbes. She watched him flinch and then talked to him in her native Sebacean language.

"I'm Aeryn Sun, this is John Crichton. I'm afraid we might be stuck here for awhile."

"Richard Cypher, Kahlan Amnell. Whatever you injected me with is some powerful magic." Richard smiled at Kahlan and nodded for her to present her arm to Aeryn for a dose of the little miracles. She chewed at her bottom lip and then walked forward and gave Aeryn her arm. She flinched at the poke but soon it was over.

"You guys sure know how to make an entrance." Kahlan shot her a strained smile.

"Believe me, you don't know the half of it." She watched the reaction on Kahlan's face as she understood her now as she spoke in her native language.

"This is amazing. I studied languages for most of my life in my training to be a Confessor and all I needed was a little pin prick and an injection of that stuff."

"They are translator microbes. They form a colony at the base of your brain stem and help you to understand all languages." Aeryn's lips turned up in a sincere smile, happy to have this couple on her side already. They just felt good. "I'm afraid he's getting worse. Do you have a healer nearby? Someone with some herbs to remove the swelling from his skull?"

Richard spoke up first. "I know just the thing. There are some Elfin roots right around these parts, just mix them with hot water and seechin weed and you have an anti-inflammatory."

Kahlan helped Aeryn move John to where they'd already set up camp. The man was heavy but together they had little trouble hauling him the short distance. She set about tending the fire, bringing the blaze up to a high heat. The pot was sitting next to it waiting to start the stew. Dinner would have to wait until after they'd brewed the elixir for him.

She watched as Aeryn ran back to their transportation and came back with supplies. A shiny, metallic blanket that she placed over him intrigued Kahlan.

"What is that?" She set the pot of water on the hook to boil and started to skin the rabbit while she waited for Richard to return with the ingredients for the potion.

"It's a thermal blanket. It will help keep him warm to prevent shock."

"It's so thin though."

"The color and material make it help lock in heat and it's thin so it's easy to store in places that haven't got much room to spare for a full size first aid kit."

Kahlan hoped she could spend a lot of time with these people they had so much knowledge and new perspectives were always interesting.

"Are you two married?" Kahlan's hand went to her mouth covering it in surprise. She never pried like that. She'd already felt so at ease with her that she was asking personal questions. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business…"

"No it's fine." Aeryn was glad she thought that they were. She wished that they had exchanged vows already but there hadn't been time and she was sure that he still didn't trust her completely with his heart again yet. "We aren't."

Kahlan just nodded noticing the hint of sadness that appeared in the other woman's eyes.

"Richard and I aren't married either…" Kahlan was about to explain but Richard picked that moment to reappear.

"Not yet we aren't, we will be though. Soon." He looked at his fiancée and smirked. "Kahlan can't wait to marry me." The fist that jarred the side of his arm made him laugh. "What? I could tell her what you really can't wait to do to me."

She could feel herself turning a deep shade of crimson. He was right, of course, but to have it spoken aloud, in front of strangers, it was embarrassing her.

"Sex." Aeryn spoke in a factual manner. "I can't blame you, he looks like a nice specimen." She didn't know that it was possible for the woman to turn redder but her statement seemed to cause her face to burn. "No need to be ashamed. Sex is fun. You shouldn't wait. John and I try to participate often to prevent ourselves from tearing each other apart."

"Oh, Spirits!" Kahlan got up from the pot and went to lean against a tree. One that wasn't in the heat of the campfire. Her face felt like the flames had leapt onto her cheeks and she was fueling the boil on the water in the pot.

"She always like that?" Aeryn asked Richard, smiling like she knew what she'd done.

"She doesn't want to wait. I do." Richard winked at Aeryn and went about crushing the Elfin root and seechin weed with a smooth stone he'd collected from the creek that ran nearby.

"You're a virgin." Aeryn was puzzled by the thought. A man a well defined and good looking wouldn't remain untouched for that long in peacekeeper realms. He'd have been a favorite toy to recreate with, in fact.

Richard chuckled and then glanced in Kahlan's direction. She was listening intently for his rebuttal to the statement.

"No. I'm not." He smiled at both women and continued. "I just want to make her mine completely before I show her how much I love her."

"I don't understand. Maybe it's lost in the translation. Sometimes that happens. John says things that make no sense all the time…"

"No, I don't think its the translation, I think it's the way I was raised." He saw her scowl slightly. "No offense intended. I was just taught from birth to have enormous amounts of respect for women. Especially the one that I love more than life. I can't breathe without knowing she's okay."

"Why waste time then?" She bent over and kissed John's forehead. "You never know when something will happen. If you don't grasp every micron like it's the last one you'll regret it later." She felt the tear slip from her eye and she wiped it away. "If he doesn't…"

Kahlan was back and had her arm around the other woman's shoulders. She shushed her and held her.

"He's going to be fine. Don't worry." She could feel her stiffen under her hands and wondered if she wasn't used to being so open with her feelings.

"I'm not used to being touched." She smiled at Kahlan as she withdrew her arms. "It's something I hadn't had until him."

"You're a bit like our friend Cara. I can see a lot of similarities."

"Great, I thought we were free of her sarcasm for awhile." Richard winked at her, making sure that she knew it wasn't meant as an insult. The moan from the man on the ground made them all start and then set to action.

The brew was complete and Richard poured it in a cup and handed it to Aeryn. Since John seemed to be somewhat aware she tipped him upright, with Kahlan's help, and leaned him against her chest. His head wasn't very stable so the confessor helped her hold him steady as she put the hot mixture to his mouth.

"Let it sit under his nose for a minute." Richard explained, "It will help wake him up a little. The smell is like a mild smelling salt solution. It will bring him to for a short time, enough for him to safely drink the elixir."

They all watched as his eyes fluttered and then opened just as Richard had predicted.

"Aeryn…" He mumbled her name barely able to form the word.

"Right here. I'm right here." The stress was evident in her voice, the tears she was holding back could be heard in her throat. Her voice had a tone that was even more deep and gravelly than normal.

"Hey, baby, nice digs you found us." The smile he tried to produce made him wince. His head pounded horribly. The ringing in his ears was making him dizzier.

"Drink this. It will make you feel better." She held the cup to his lips and he took a sip.

"I hope it makes me feel better than this tastes. If not I'm a goner for sure." He heard Aeryn choke out a sob trying to disguise it as a laugh. "I'm sorry, baby, I'm sure I'll be fine. Give me more of that stuff."

"He's looking better already, Richard." Kahlan observed John's eyes as he consumed the drink. She could see the intensity of the pain starting to retreat. "Does it have an anesthetic property in it as well?"

"Yes, not much, but with the level of his discomfort it's probably enough to make a noticeable difference." Richard went back to the fire and started cooking their dinner. He watched the women fuss over the other man. Kahlan was being very generous with her touch and he felt a coil of something in his stomach. How silly to be jealous of him. Kahlan loved him. She'd never do anything to hurt that trust. He just wanted her to run her hands over him. She would, happily, but he was the one who asked her to wait.

What if Aeryn was right? Was it wasteful not to take her immediately and make her his completely? Would it be something that he would live to regret someday? He still didn't think so. They were in so much danger for so long this quieter, more peaceful world was a welcome relief. Nothing, no one, was going to take her from him now.

The rabbits that Kahlan had trapped were nice and fat. The meat was juicy as he sliced it free of the bones. The water was ready, bubbling at a steady boil now. He dropped the meat in and stirred it. His pack was still over by John so he got up and retrieved it. The herbs he kept in it were perfect for stew. It was the easiest meal for them to prepare, especially for a larger group, so he made sure to stay well stocked on seasonings for it.

"How's the drinking coming along?" He checked on the progress while he was over there.

"He's almost got it all down." Aeryn reported with a grin. The worry lines around her eyes had all but gone and she looked relieved.

"Good. Dinner will be ready in no time." Richard moved back over to start preparing the vegetables.

"Do you need any help, Richard? I think Aeryn has John under control over here." Kahlan stood and walked over to him. She stirred the pot and kneeled down right beside him. Her arms and legs brushed his. She was so close she could hear his breathing increase tempo with her touch. She ran her hand down his arm until she reached where his hand had a potato grasped in it. Reaching underneath she clasped it in her hand had took it from him. She pulled the extra knife from the sheath at his waist.

Richard felt her lean into him and take his knife. After she had it she kept moving in until her lips were against her ear.

"You smell good." She inhaled his scent and placed a kiss behind his ear lobe. A shiver rippled through his body as her lips caressed the sensitive skin there. "Delicious." She pulled back with that and began peeling her potato as if nothing had happened.

"You're trying to kill me aren't you?" He shook his head and grabbed a carrot to slice, throwing the discs into the pot as he finished slicing each stick.

"No." She set down her knife, her potato peeled and sliced into the pot. She twisted her body around and raised one of her hands gripping his chin and pulling his head towards her. She leaned in, her face drawing closer to his. She hovered right above him, their lips brushing as she spoke. "I'm trying to get you to make love to me."

Before he could lean into her touch she left him. She was across the campfire before he even knew she was gone. The stifled moan that escaped his throat made her smirk at him. She was trying to kill him. He watched her hands sift through the small jars and pouches of spices. She was looking for the perfect combination. When they first began traveling together she hated cooking. He'd been teaching her about the subtle difference in flavor that each herb and spice made. She was a quick learner and was now even more effective then him at making their meals taste delicious.

"That's just mean, Kahlan." He saw her shrug and went back to finishing the vegetables. "Can you grab the blackberries?" She tossed him the pouch that he'd moved them to and he started to slice them into small pieces until he had a handful. "We'll add them right at the end so the meat flavor doesn't overpower them."

He glanced over at the other couple. John's eyes were closed and Aeryn was stroking his cheek. She'd sat down and laid his head on her thigh. One of his hands was cupping her knee the other seemed to be shoved under her thigh, treating it like it was his pillow. They were so comfortable touching each other.

Richard dreamed of the day it would be like that with Kahlan. He knew that she loved his touch, but she still held back, still unbelieving that she couldn't harm him. He knew she never would. It was another of the reasons that he wanted to wait. He'd never tell her that he could see that part of her. The part that she kept holding back from him. He knew that when he captured that small piece of her she would be all his. Then, no matter where they were, he would make her his.

The stew was bubbling nicely and he tossed the berries into it. Kahlan stirred them in as he dug the bowls and spoons from their bags.

"Are you hungry, Aeryn?"

She started to shake her head when she heard her stomach rumble.

"I guess I am. I wasn't thinking about it until you mentioned it." She reached for the bowl that Richard had walked over to her. "It smells like food. I haven't had real food in far too long. We've been out of anything but the cubes for weekens." She took a bite of the stew and hummed her delight.

The Seeker grinned and went to serve Kahlan, who'd sat down next to Aeryn, and then he fixed himself a bowl.

"This is good, Richard." Kahlan spooned it into her mouth quickly. She wanted to put together a poultice for John's head now that the bleeding had stopped.

"Slow down, I don't want you to choke on it. Enjoy it." He smiled at her and winked. "Nice and slow, Kahlan. Taste it." He saw the scowl at him when she realized that he was trying to be seductive.

"Two can play, huh? Well your frustration shows a lot easier than mine, just remember that Richard Rahl."

Aeryn chortled at her come back. "She's got a very valid point." Then she leaned over, closing most of the distance between herself and Kahlan. She looked at Richard as she whispered into her ear. "You'll break him, if you aren't careful. Just make sure you're ready for the consequences."

Kahlan worried her lower lip between her teeth. Was she truly ready for it? She thought that she was. She felt ready, very ready. She was constantly wet around him, her body was so needy for it, him, them to be one. She nodded at Aeryn.

"How will I know?" She hadn't had a woman to speak to about this. Cara wouldn't understand the love part. She understood the sex, but not the emotional bits that went with it.

"I'm probably not the best person to talk with this about… I wasn't in touch with my feelings until John."

"You're all I have. I just… I just don't want to let him down. I've never done… that before…" She looked away, embarrassed by her inexperience.

"Do you have something I can rest his head on? I'll walk with you to make the poultice. We can talk, in private."

"Yeah, I do and I'd be grateful to talk to you." Kahlan finished her food and then took Aeryn's bowl as well. She placed the dirty dishes in the pot to haul down to the creek to wash. The green blanket was pulled from her bag and she folded it nicely to make a good pillow for his head. She handed it to Aeryn who carefully transferred him to it while she extracted her thigh from his grasp. "Richard we're going to go do the dishes."

He nodded and smiled at her. He knew it was more than that, but he didn't mention it. He was happy for her to have someone to talk to and with the little he knew of Aeryn he was sure that she would be frank with Kahlan. The confidence that he observed in how she interacted with the man she loved made him feel that she could help Kahlan let go more with him.

"Have fun, don't fall in. I'll set up camp for the night." He saw that the sun had almost reached the horizon and added that they should bring a candle with them for the way home.