Four VERY short first person vignettes placed within the season 1 episode Nerve. Um… bits of OOC, mostly on Chiana, since this was back when we didn't know much about her past. I speculated wildly and was wrong, as usual. Each section is preceded by its title and character, just so you don't have to guess, although they're rather self-explanatory if you've seen the episode. In chronological order.
It was getting harder to breathe.
She had tried to slow it down, to burn off the toxins by using her body, working out and fighting her eventual destruction. But even as she punched and kicked, she knew it was no use. She imagined she could feel her very blood curdling, turning to sludge polluted with the toxins her own body produced. She was killing herself just by living.
She had come to a decision, as she fought the padded workout dummy more fiercely than she ever had a live opponent. She would take her prowler as far away from Moya as she could and stay there until the end. She would die as she lived, isolated and alone. Perhaps she wouldn't even wait for the end; perhaps she would use her pulse rifle and do it herself, quickly. She repeatedly attacked her phantom opponent, as though she could defeat the enemy within as easily as she practiced the moves against the dummy.
I don't want to die, was the thought she would not allow. I don't want to die alone.
It was getting harder to breathe.
Superhero Girl
I didn't believe her at first. She's Aeryn, she's strong, how could anything be wrong with her? She was beating up that punching bag something fierce, just as ever. But then she took a swing at me -- and MISSED. That has NEVER happened before. Toxins, paraphoral nerve, and I totally didn't understand what she was saying; I was still focussing on the fact that she took a swing -- and MISSED.
Then I caught on.
Aeryn is going to die. Her own body is killing her from the inside out. We thought she was a goner from the blood loss alone, then she got better and we were all happy. Thrilled. Now she looks perfectly fine and she's dying inside. This doesn't work. It doesn't happen, it doesn't jive. This kind of thing just doesn't happen to Aeryn. She's indestructable, she can fight off seven of her former comrads without batting an eye or breaking a sweat, she can be stabbed in the side with a Klingon blade and go right back to beating up on poor defenseless workout dummies in no time.
She's Batgirl, Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, all three of Charlie's Angels. She's my Superhero Girl.
She can't die. I can't let her die.
Vigil
How can such a soft face hide so much pain? Or hold so much strength? A face so like the one I knew, the one I loved. She sleeps with a smile, but it is sad. I feel anger that a smile on her face should be sad. It breaks my heart to see her in pain. So like the face I knew…
I see my wife in her. I cannot decide if I am ashamed to admit that or not. I should tell her, this warrior who may die soon, that she reminds me of my wife. The same strength that let my beautiful Lo'Laan defy her family and her culture to be with me shows in the woman lying in front of me, waiting for her body to give out. I find myself wanting, just for a microt, to let myself pretend that she is Lo'Laan, the one I have loved and missed for so many cycles. The next microt I am ashamed, and I tell myself that I am doing my wife's memory a dishonor.
I do not want this warrior to die as my beloved once did, betrayed by the machinations of her own people. I do not want this woman to die at all. There must be a survivor between the two strongest women I have known, and if it cannot be my wife, it must be this warrior.
I can do no more than to stay with her and hope for a miracle.
Waiting
Crichton sang that once. I liked it. I took it and kept it. That's what I do.
Why did I come with John? What could I possibly have gotten out of coming here, putting my life on the line? For surely it will be my life, all our lives if we're caught. But I came, so now I'm here, waiting, trying to find John and get him and the tissue sample out of here, trying to get back to Aeryn in time. Remind me again, why am I here?
I don't like small spaces. I have spent more time hiding in small spaces than I have… doing anything else, I guess. It's not often I find a BIG space to hide in. So it's off to the small ones. I'm lucky; I'm small, so I fit in small spaces. But I hate them. And I hate the waiting. When I'm in a small space and I'm waiting for something to happen, waiting for someone to give me a signal or tell me what to do, where to go. The waiting is worse than the hiding. Even if it's in a small space. When I'm hiding and waiting… that's the worst of all.
There are different ways to hide. Different reasons. Mostly I hid for myself. So the Peacekeepers wouldn't find me, or so I could snurch something to eat, or just to keep away from the street-predators, to stay alive. Or there's hiding for someone else. When it's not just MY neck on the line, but a whole bunch of other people who would get in trouble if I got found. I never thought I'd be hiding like this. I never had other people in the same trouble as me, hiding for the same reasons. It's a weirdly intense feeling. Oh, so this is what it's like to have friends. I didn't know.
I hope we can find John. I hope he is all right. I hope we get back to Moya on time. I don't want Aeryn to die.
…and nobody cares for me.