Two Birds, Two Stones
Chapter 28
Alpha Male
The impact of someone nudging her shoulder rouses her. A touch far too strong to be Deke's, yet too gentle to be the shove of John's hand. Doesn't have the urgency that his morning touches usually have because he has intentions—what he may consider tasks, though pleasurable at that—to complete before rising for the day.
The hand doesn't carry the temperature that John's does, how the heat of it almost burns against her, searing, leaving a trail of red-flushed skin in its wake.
In fact, it doesn't carry any discernable temperature at all.
Recognizes layers built over her skin, thick and thin, different materials of construction, but not the one she left their room in. Not the softness of what he said was fleece as he rolled the material between his fingers before tugging her closer to him to fit in the nooks of his body, but instead hardness—no, restriction—tightness in an unforgiving material that licks against her skin in smooth strokes, cold with a memory of wetness.
Indistinctly she hears a voice.
Words too accelerated to identify, for the graveyard of destroyed microbes to band together and translate, but what she can define is a cadence and a tone. Deep, familiar, with tenses and stresses fabricating a sense of unease and worry.
The hand returns to her shoulder again, not the two-part boyish shove of a man with objectives and very little time to attain them, it's quicker and a jounce, a code set out to her that, again, she does not have the prerequisites to be able to comprehend.
The ringing in her ears begins to settle, the loud, low-tone reverberating through her skull in a pitch she did not intentionally create, yet she knows is naturally manifested and not produced by any sort of machine these humans have tucked away in a closet just moments away from triggering another explosion because as John says, "bad things come in threes."
Three is a very scary number.
Through the constant force of sound created by pressure—by a trauma for which she doesn't remember—the voice gradually gains clarity, no longer sieving through a million different inputs, but braiding together and strengthening until words accomplish meaning.
"Come on."
They are repeated in time with the shoves to her shoulder, which are also growing in force from a light tap closer to what she's come to expect from John.
Two taps and two words.
Everything in English because there is no Sebacean equivalent for his pleas.
It is John after all as his voice returns to the sullen emotions she's experienced, like the grit biting into her forearms as she twitches, not really intent on reviving yet as her body is suffering from the same weighted exhaustion that she felt after delivering a baby.
There was no time for rest then—deeply exposed though fully clothed in a fountain—shots pelleted the massive pillars of the ruins which once stood tall and imposing. Comrades, acquaintances, and friends were surrendering their lives for the opportunity that they might make it out.
A Scarran held that pistol to her newly appointed husband's head as he also wore the mantle of father freely and proudly for the first time although his interaction with Deke was extremely limited which she attributed to him harkening to her promise of getting her and the baby—and by extension everyone else they cared for—out of a warzone alive.
She shot the woman, the Scarran, who had been responsible for so much of her anguish in the last monens from her capture and torture, to taunting her concerning her unborn child's life, threatening to extinguish such a little flicker before it was even able to take reeks of malice.
The Scarran, the means of her mutilated body in more than one way.
In the intense heat in the captivity away from Moya, from those she had just reunited with, from John whom she sat beside on something called a press tour on his planet and no longer felt like she mattered, that the little life in her that pressed in on her pelvis in an unforgettable pressure, was no longer important when the others confirmed to her that he had traveled through the uncharted territories in search for her, mounting a on whatever planet they landed on as if to scavenge the stars for her.
For her star.
To feel loved and then unwanted so quickly was worse than any poison she's grown immune to through resistance therapy.
The emptiness that hardened in her stomach was worse than any starvation training she'd gone on, dragging her body across verdant jungles and arid deserts with instructions not to eat until reaching the waypoint nearly a weeken later.
The coldness that consumed her was worse than any below freezing water she'd freefallen into from her prowler after being shot by the love of her life, the father of her child—children.
To just sit beside him and be unnoticed by one human while the rest either reviled her or celebrated her, while they asked her personal questions about her physiology, about her body, her rearing, and she answered honestly, under the presumption that if she gave John's people all the information they wanted, perhaps he would see that she was worth trusting.
That she was still worth being with.
But he spent more time with his father, with his family, with the institution he worked for, letting them explore the treats he'd return from space with, than noticing the passive effort she'd made in order to sway his opinion.
Despite him being newborn to space, having only remained there for cycles whereas she has been space fairing since she was born, he tries to dictate rules and impose methods on circumstances he is still learning of.
Doesn't understand the importance of poison therapy because his life has never been in danger due to one of the many various gases used maliciously. Doesn't understand that newborns, that infants, will not remember the pain of the curdling stomach, but will benefit from the sacrifice for the rest of their lives.
Doesn't assume that he'll ever be away from Deke long enough for one of the numerous enemies they've made on their exploits to come in contact with their baby. More importantly, he assumes nothing can hurt the baby as long as he's present, and she already knows the vast falsity in this allegation that she doesn't need an example of it becoming reality.
The hand returns to her shoulder, fingers digging in and shoving her, stretched and hard as if it's impossible to reach her, as if she's getting farther from him with each micron that passes.
"Hey, come on."
This is John's voice and hand, but not his vernacular or touch.
With a critical amount of her concentration, she manages to stir further, sliding her arms forward in the familiar caress of a coat. Rubs her face, her cheek against the cold ground discerning that the floor is constructed of metal, meaning that if she's still inside the complex, she's not in any room she's been in before.
More likely she's aboard a vessel as when she focuses her hearing, the dim hum of atmospherics, life support, and engines float to the foreground.
Those at the SGC have not allowed her to even see their space faring vessels, but now she is embarking on one?
There is a white space in her memory, in the specific and direct order of events that happened, that her memory—becoming slightly eidetic with the addition of Pilot's DNA—stores in chronological order for her to recall easily.
A white space.
Prior to waking she was in a lab with that doctor, the one who yearns for her, although she's not entirely sure his intentions are sexual. He's never spoken to her in puns or innuendos, hasn't touched her inappropriately since she punched him as a warning, whereas John makes himself known from the moment of waking.
Has never asked this doctor what his plans are or why he desires her counterpart so voraciously when it seems that all she does is annoy him, yet she learned that if she showed him a modicum of respect, of answering his most basic of questions, that he was more likely to bend to her whims.
To offer his aid.
That is how they ended up in a lab not his own, but of a more scientific nature. From walls to floors machinery whirred as it worked, scanning, examining, creating, acting as fabricated parts of a body but stemmed to only preform one task.
One of the other scientists greeted him, then her as her counterpart, but when the doctor shook his head, the scientist quickly lost his grin.
They handed over the Peacekeeper pabulum in order for a complete breakdown of it's contents to be listed. She didn't know the extent of the poisons present in the food—most likely the same food she ate as an infant—but she was willing to approach the argument with the facts instead of listening to his demands as he speaks of what he has not experienced.
They stood astride each other, watched as a nozzle headed machine advanced on the immobile formula packet from all sides. The way the metal bent, how the head moved down in curiosity as it flashed a holographic white light over the food, reminded her of the manner in which Pilot's arms move.
Whenever she thinks of him, she is able to take at least one inhalation of peace, because he is her dearest friend, and one she trusts without warrant. She knows Pilot would not allow anything to happen to her son, because when he promised and pledged his fealty to her, there was not a piece—no matter how small—that thought to doubt him.
The other scientist, a larger man, again bespectacled, with a smattering less hair than the doctor who'd been her companion for the last few arns, stood on the far side of her, speaking very nervously, and halting his words whenever the doctor lifted his hand.
"You've—uh—had the formula for more than three days now." Neither she nor the doctor acknowledged the shaky words. "Why are you—uh—interested in it's composition now?"
There was a pregnant pause as they watched the machine work and then ascribe more words to the screen before them, words she didn't understand because they weren't in her vocabulary yet, because John had never thought to spell them out phonetically in a notebook for her.
"I dunno," the doctor finally answered with an exaggerated sigh and shoved his hands in his pockets while watching the beauty the machine crafted, a three-dimensional model on the screen giving measurements and compound construction.
The number at the bottom of the screen dictated that it was ten percent away from completion.
"Why are we doing this now?"
Both men looked at her, their heads lined up much in the way she used to trick her targets into staring at her in order to save on the ammunition and energy. It's always easier to aim when she doesn't have to swing her arm around trying to catch someone fleeing, alerted by the death of their teammate.
She never did answer, nor did she ever get a list of compounds and ingredients in the food she was responsible for feeding to her son, because as she opened her mouth to retort that it was absolutely none of their business and they should be thankful she's allowing them this level of insight into her species, the white came over her like a flash from the many cameras reporters brought to their interviews, and she teetered forward with a crash.
Her eyes open, flutter against the dark interior of a ship vaguely reminiscent of a Peacekeeper vessel—she was right, although this is not any form of human ship. The atmosphere is thick with something akin to nostalgia.
As she sits, a voice exclaims in a harsh whisper, "thank God," before wrapping an arm frontward around her shoulders.
Without a single forethought, she digs her elbow backwards landing against the soft tissue of a torso, resulting in a harsh intake of breath and something she presumes is an Earth curse. Turning she views John, his nose still recovering from its earlier displacement, the circles around his eyes growing darker with the trauma, and his body hunched over as he holds his ribs.
"What the hell?"
"Do not touch me."
"What's gotten into you?" He rolls his shoulders back, trying to regain his stance in order to draw attention away from the hurt expression on his face. His hand rubs over the area she impacted, his eyebrows falling sternly. "You got shot and didn't wake up—for a long time you didn't wake up and I thought—"
She glares at him, listening to his breathing, watching the way he favors his one leg even though his movement is stunted in the prison cell adjacent to her. Whomever captured them decidedly did not give them the opportunity to work together.
When he was trying to rouse her from the ground, he was stretching through the bars in order to do so, placing pressure on his leg, which she believes has a chronic injury.
"Sorry if I scared you—but you gave me one big—"
"You are not my husband," she interrupts, turning away from him, feeling the current created by the tails of her coat.
He's stunned silent for a moment, before asking and answering, "Officer Sun?"
"Yes." She angles her head, trying to view as far down the hallway as possible. Keeping her eyes on the dark corridor she asks, not particularly caring about his discomfort or his fear for her counterpart. "Now, tell me whose vessel this is."
"It hurts."
"It's fine."
"I'm bleeding."
"Vala, you've definitely been through worse."
Crossing her arms, she pouts at him, refusing to look at him or continue on with their conversation. She was perfectly happy having philosophical breakthroughs with Cameron on that commerce planet—although the pack provided to her was quite heavy—before being tossed back underneath a mountain with a friend who didn't think to catch her as she fell.
"It's bad, I can feel it."
"If it's so bad, then why are you a low medical priority?"
"I am not."
"Lam literally looked at your lip and told you she'd get to you when she could."
She sighs, not enjoying the cold steel of the examination table digging into the back of her thighs, even if Officer Sun has started wearing more acceptable clothing.
Maybe she can masquerade as her and request more black shirts for her own wardrobe.
"Well, I'm done waiting."
Shoves her hands into the edge of the table in order to boost herself off, intent on finding Crichton, or anyone else who can give her any idea what's going on. Cameron didn't speak of his plans last time, but he did say they needed outside help—that they might need more brains working on this 'teaser' idea which to her sounded blatantly sexual.
"Vala, you have to stay—"
As she attempts slides from the side, Daniel catches her, but the jolt to her body causes her to lose contact with the piece of gauze she's been pressing into her lip. He is right, the injury isn't that bad, and probably won't warrant stitches, but the pain is a little higher than usual.
Even the pressure in her—well, Officer Sun's—pelvis isn't hurting as badly.
"My head hurts. No one is able to tell me how long I'll be here for, and I want to lay—"
"Whoa, whoa—put the gauze back—" Daniel's hand flips up from his side, grabbing the white cotton square from her hand and taking it upon himself to pin it to her lip with his fingers. "You're still gushing blood."
"But it's fine," she replies with a voice distorted by the fingers pinching her lip.
Daniel waves her away, his spare hand coming up to rest on his forehead, a classic sign that he's getting irritated, and a stress migraine is forming behind his eyes. He keeps pain relivers in the top drawer of his desk just for that reason.
"Just—settle down, okay?"
"You did not just tell me to—" her attempt to wrench away from him is thwarted by the fact that he wasn't expecting her to be agreeable, so his hold on her didn't loosen one bit, and in return the cut on her lip from where she's sure her own teeth pierced the flesh is widened and leaking more.
Unintentionally, she whimpers, and he catches her before she accidentally topples from the table, placing one hand on the far side of her and adjusting the other one over her lip, lighting his touch a bit.
"Better?"
He's very close to her, usually the type of closeness she would revel in because despite it being obvious that Daniel is anything but interested in her. She's always on task to seek out his attention but now that she has it—is overly aware of the warmth spreading off his body, and the newfound gentleness of his thumb against the tear in her lip, that when their eyes lock—she's the one who turns away.
Her fingers come up to relieve his of caring for her as she is able—and more than ready—to reclaims the gauze for herself, because the intimacy between them no longer feels natural to her, instead feeling a bit awkward and almost forced.
Before, if any man had stopped and did what Daniel is doing now, it would have resulted in an awkward situation as even though she's a highly sexual person, she is not overly intimate. She keeps her secrets locked away, and instead drowns out her need to share, to bond with a flood of carnal acts.
But now this intimacy, this caring, feels uncomfortable because it's not Cameron's hands and Cameron's hisses of worries.
Not to say that he would worry, but she's sure if something like this happened back on Mayo, even a small papercut, he'd play along with her until she started to feel better, because perhaps he's starting to understand the way her mind works. That she draws attention to the small injuries but leaves the big ones unaccounted for because she doesn't want to be a nuisance—she doesn't want to be written off a physically weak or not capable of handling herself.
Feeling good for a minute in a tumble between the sheets, or in an empty conference room, or a deserted workout room is fine, but it's not long lasting, and perhaps how she views Cameron, how she's come to quite literally rely on him for a lot of her needs is slowly letting her be more intimate with him, whether it be sharing true stories with him about herself, or explaining to him why he's done something to upset her, and knowing that he will listen and not take it as a chance to pursue equal recriminations.
When her fingers move to reclaim the gauze, he mistakes her actions, instead thinking that she's vying for touch, for physical affection, and instead of shirking her away as he usually does with a wild flail of his arms and some usually very choice nasty words that she immediately forgets in order to continue to have a semblance of a professional and friendly relationship with him, his finger, aware of hers, curls around them to rest in her palm.
Her heart starts to beat faster because this isn't what she's after anymore—is not completely sure it's what she was after initially either—but she starts to panic because there is no way to refuse this without infuriating Daniel or divulging her relationship with Cameron—if it is a relationship, wishes they could just have a calm few minutes to discuss it.
A few simple seconds alone under a canopy of space dust.
Luckily, before the interaction evolves into something much more tactile and physical, Cameron—or rather, Crichton—charges in from the doorway. The skin around his eyes is darkened much in the same way that Cameron's are due to the impact on his poor face. She wanted so badly to sit and cradle his head in her lap more, to place a cold compress and offer him some relief as he dealt with shock of returning back to Mayo in pain.
Crichton doesn't speak a single word, just marches into the room stomping over the ground with his fingers drawn into fists at his side.
Daniel doesn't drop his hand, but turns to greet him, to explain that she is not Officer Sun though she does have her body and is thankful that someone finally found it necessary to fix the blockage in the HVAC on the floor above the lab—one she's been hinting that could turn sour for months now—but before either of them can get out a word edgewise, Crichton lifts one of his bounded hands and slams it directly into Daniel's face.
The force makes her flinch backwards and causes Daniel's glasses to fling from his face and skitter across the ground, as he topples over like an old sack of wheat, also slightly skidding across the ground.
"Daniel," she expresses, surprised although it really wasn't not expected, after all, from what she knows of Crichton, he's a very emotional person who rides his feelings high, when he's sad he cries, when he's happy he laughs, and when he's angry he tends to become physical.
"I didn't think I'd have to tell you this—" Crichton shakes out the hand he used for the punch, waggling his fingers, and clenching his teeth with a hiss "—because we're not in high school and third-wave feminism is happening, but if you're gonna make me say it Doc, then I'll say it."
"What the hell are you talking about?!" Daniel is rightfully upset, resting on his back, raised up a few inches on his elbow, the palm of his hand covering the impact area just below where his glasses sat. There are tears in his eye from the pain as it came as a complete surprise—to him—and his voice is wavering probably from sorting through pain, through emotions.
"Don't touch my wife!" Crichton's face is an unnatural color of red and she thinks it might be growing redder. "Don't think about her—in that way—and don't talk to her—about naughty stuff—just—just leave her alone, because she's my wife and I'd hate to call finder's keepers but—"
"Crichton." The hand not hopelessly holding the gauze to her lip, reaches for him, placing an anchoring hand on his arm because she can see him getting more worked up, one of his hands is still wrapped in a fist, his jaw clenched, and his eyes haven't left Daniel yet.
"I—" he sighs, reclaiming his arm from her, and rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip. "I'm sorry, Baby—" his hand curls around the back of her neck, as he leans forward and plants a kiss in her hair, another move that makes her freeze on the spot again. "I know you hate all this alpha male shit, but sometimes the big dog's gotta bark before the neighbors finally get it and shut the hell—"
"She's not Aeryn."
Crichton freezes, his hand still tangled in her hair, warm and welcoming against her skin which is growing cold from being in the cool medical area and seated on this table for so long. She stares longingly at the fleecy sweater hanging over the back of the chair.
"What?"
"Aeryn and Vala switched." Using the side of the exam table, Daniel pulls himself to his feet, albeit rather wobbly. "That's Vala in Aeryn's body."
When Crichton looks at her, all she can do is flash a wide grin, hoping that he's not going to be as grumpy as he was during their last meeting. His hand goes heavy at her neck before falling and then bolting back to his side.
"Oh."
"Yeah," Daniel sputters, using a nearby circular mirror to examine the damage to his face which appears minimal. "Oh."
"Sorry, I—"
"You hit me for no reason."
"It was an honest—"
"Enough!"
Both men stop their bickering at her exclamation as she bounces off the table, onto her own two feet, intent on grabbing the sweater and then searching for Samantha in order to relay information. "You two need to—"
"Put you hand back to your—"
"Jesus, keep the gauze on—"
Again, both men step forward, ignoring their differences—and their own, probably greater injuries—and dash to meet her, both almost ramming into each other.
Crichton grabs her hand, bringing it up, and Daniel helps direct it to the fat lip, as little dribbles of blood tumble down onto the black tank top Officer Sun chose for sleeping purposes. They both pass off little glares towards each other, and it's like being on a soap opera—the ones she watches during the afternoon on her stagnant days spent in the mountain.
"What happened?" Crichton gently directs her hand away from her mouth again so he can examine her injury.
Immediately Daniel directs it back.
"She fell."
"How?"
"Officer Sun transferred out and I transferred in. Daniel didn't catch me so I—"
Now Daniel openly glares at her, and Crichton glares at him in return.
"You didn't catch her?" One day, if she ever gets to speak with Officer Sun, she'll ask about Crichton's latent anger issues and the way it roils within him until he erupts. "What are you, a sore loser?"
"It's not that bad, her teeth hit her lip—"
"They went through my lip," she corrects, sending her tongue out to test, but only getting the unpalatable taste of blood in return.
"Through her lip?"
"They didn't."
"Well, it certainly felt like they did."
Daniel, realizing that if she were a more malicious person, if she had an angle to play, she could very easily send Crichton after him, decides to change the subject. "What do you care anyway, she's not your wife."
"No—" Crichton answers over his shoulder as he walks towards the chair, retrieving the fleecy hoodie from the back and bringing it back to her to put on, like he can sense how cold she is. "But she is running my wife's body, and I have certain stock in that."
"If you two are done," she grunts, unfamiliar with the way Crichton holds the sweater for her, until he gestures how she can put it on. She slips her arms through, happy to be caressed by soft, warm material reminiscent of her favorite blanket back on Mayo. "I'd like to speak to Samantha about Cameron's ideas."