Chapter 2 – Where's Your Sense Of Adventure?

After many arns of whining, sulking and emotional blackmail, D'Argo finally consented to Chiana and Jothee accompanying the others to planet's surface.  Only Zhaan and Stark remained aboard Moya with Pilot, Zhaan because she felt too weak and Stark because he would not leave her.  Rygel had originally announced his intention to stay onboard too, but had been persuaded to change his mind by an angry Aeryn, determined that the Hynerian wouldn't wriggle his way out of all the work to be done. 

The plan was to collect as much food as they could and be on their way, unless of course Stark told them that Zhaan would benefit from remaining.  Maybe it was the relief of having food after going so long without, or maybe it was being planet side for the first time in weekens, but everyone was in high spirits as they explored and collected…everyone except Rygel. 

"Hey, Aeryn!  This is great!"  Crichton laughed, looking around.  " We've got a nice yellow sun…singular, that's always good… green trees and grass," he held up a leaf and twirled it to emphasise his point "very important, blue sky, blue waters…" He sighed contentedly. " This place reminds me of home."  He shrugged a little, his smile morphing into a slight grimace. "Well, except for the fruit of unusual colour…and some of the bird life is a little out there." His happy grin returned.  "But apart from that, this place is a dead ringer for Earth."

Aeryn stood on her tiptoes, reaching for a piece of fruit on one of the trees.  Once picked, she dropped it to the ground, bouncing it off Rygel's head in the process.

"You could at least pretend to aim for the bag."  The Hynerian grumbled miserably, recovering the fruit and putting it in the bag he was holding for Aeryn.

Aeryn ignored him and turned to Crichton.  "Every planet with trees and grass reminds you of Earth."  

"Only when they're green, Aeryn."  He smiled.  "They gotta be green." 

Aeryn moved to a larger tree and looked up into the branches at the clusters of fruit, just out of her reach.  Just as she started to look for a way to climb it, Crichton stepped forward and put his hands on her waist.  "Can I give you a hand, little lady?" Without waiting for an answer, he lifted her up so she could grab a higher branch and then stood underneath her so that she could lift her legs up to sit on his shoulders.  "OK?"

 

"Much better."  She said reaching up again.  "Now, hold still."  She dropped another fruit down and it hit its mark with a satisfying yelp.

"Say, Aeryn, how many bags of fruit d'you reckon we have now?"

"Seven, maybe eight."

"Eight!  Do they teach Peacekeepers how to make fruit pies and preserves?"

"What?"

"Hmm, I thought not.  It's just as well that I paid attention in my grandmother's kitchen as a boy, or we'd be looking at a whole lot of rotting fruit."  He laughed.  "She always said being able to cook would come in useful, but I don't think she ever thought I'd be passing on her secret apple pie recipe to a bunch of aliens on the other side of the universe."

"I think your grandmother's secrets are safe, Crichton.  We'll freeze the fruit."

"Your loss." He grinned up at her as best he could. " Old Grandmother Crichton was quite a cook."

"Yes.  Well.  I'll just have to live with the disappointment."

"Y'know, dissin' my grandmother's delicious recipes will land you on your ass, Officer Sun!"

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"  Crichton jumped a little as he felt Aeryn's weight shift and heard a laser shot behind him. It took him a microt to realise that Aeryn's anger wasn't directed at him.  "If you take another step, Rygel, I will despatch you to the Hynerian Gods you seem so fond of!"

"It's not right that I should be subjected to such humiliation, I am a Dominar of…"

"Well, you should have thought about that before you put yourself before the rest of this crew.  Again.  Now, come back here."

Rygel resumed his position. "To think that I mourned your passing," he muttered to himself "I must have been fahrbot."

After a moment, Crichton felt her weight shift back. "Maybe you should give Fluffy a break.  Don't you think he's suffered enough?"

Before Aeryn could retort, D'Argo emerged noisily from the trees nearby.  Each hand held a variety of furry animals in a variety of colours.

"Hey, hey, hey!  Heavy D!"  Crichton swivelled round to face D'Argo causing Aeryn to curse loudly.  He shot D'Argo a pained look.  "Sorry, Aeryn."  He slowly turned back.  " So, how's the huntin' goin'?"

"Good, John." D'Argo inspected his catch.  "A little longer and we will have enough meat to keep even Rygel happy for the next monen."  D'Argo opened his mouth to say something else but became momentarily distracted by the sight of fruit bouncing off the Hynerian.  Resisting the urge to pick some fruit and have a go himself he turned his attention back to Crichton.  "Have you seen Chiana and Jothee?  I had hoped to teach Jothee how to hunt today."

"Ah, yeah."  Crichton said, trying to look at his friend over Aeryn's leg. " They finished collecting those samples that Stark wanted, so I think they went to the water's edge to try their hand at fishing."

"Well, perhaps another time."  D'Argo sounded disappointed.  

"You should ask him, D'Argo.  I bet Jothee'd love to have a little father/son one on one time."

"I hope you are right, John."  D'Argo said.  "But sometimes he still feels so…distant from me."

"He'll come around, Big Guy, you just gotta give him time to get used to the idea of you being in his life again."

D'Argo nodded.  "I'll try comming him once I've cleaned and stored these."

"Good idea. " Crichton found his head being tipped forward as Aeryn pushed herself up to reach even higher.  "Hey!  Watch what you're doin' up there!" He scolded her, only to find a piece of fruit bouncing off his own head.  "OW!  Frell, Aeryn!  Fruit bruises, y'know …not to mention my head!"  Suddenly her weight was gone from him, but before he could look up to see what had happened she had placed a foot on each shoulder.  "What the…!  Aeryn, I don't know about you, but I was never in the circus!"  He grabbed at her ankles.  " I'm not taking the blame if you fall and break your…"

"Stop whining, Crichton."  Her voice came down to him.  "Most of my weight is on this branch not on your shoulders.  I won't fall."

He sighed and made a petulant face.  "Well, you could've at least taken your boots off first."  He grumbled. 

D'Argo shook his head slightly and went towards the transports to store his catch. 

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Chiana tugged Jothee's shirt "Come on." She whispered.

Jothee took both of her hands and held them in front of her. "We haven't got time.  My father could come along here any microt."

She smiled, mouth open. "He won't."

"Chiana, he told me earlier that he wants to show me how Luxans hunt…"

"Yeah?  Well, I want to show you something else." She laughed, tugging on his shirt again.

Jothee sighed, knowing that his resolve would not last much longer. "We can't, not out here."

"Okaay…" Chiana looked around and spotted something.  "What about in there?" She pointed over his shoulder.

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"Crichton?" 

"Mmm?"  He said around a mouthful of green fruit, a peace offering from Aeryn for hitting him on the head earlier.

"Do you feel that?"

The excitement in her voice caught his attention.  Excitement wasn't a normal reaction for Aeryn.  In fact it was almost unprecedented, in his experience at least.  "Feel what?"  He tried to look up at her as best he could and then he felt it for himself

"Rain."  She looked happily down at him.

Crichton felt her feet lift from his shoulders as she grabbed a tree branch above him, and he reached up to catch her and lower her to the ground.  She held her hand out, catching the large drops in her hand as they filtered their way through the tree branches above.  Smiling to herself, biting her bottom lip, she began to slowly walk towards the clearing where the transports were, as the rain got heavier.  Crichton remembered her sense of wonder at rain before, on the false Earth.  Given their desperate circumstances at the time, he had found her fascination with such a common occurrence irritating, but now he found it mesmerising.   She was standing in the clearing now, no trace of self-consciousness, with her face turned upwards to the sky, eyes closed and a stupid smile on her face.   

"What the yotz is she doing?"  Rygel said, struggling to drag his heavy bag towards the transport.

Crichton took pity on him and grabbed the bag, taking it the short distance to the transport.  "Enjoying the rain."

"She looks like she's enjoying it a bit too much, if you ask me."  The Hynerian was clearly unimpressed.  "I don't enjoy it that much and I'm aquatic!"

"Knock it off, Spanky."  Crichton said mildly as he continued to watch Aeryn.  When she opened her eyes and met his gaze, giving him a dazzling smile, he thought that he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life, on either side of the universe. 

It was really pouring now.

"How long will it last?"  She asked as he walked towards her.

"I don't know."  He brought his arms around her bare midriff, encouraging her to lean back into him.  He rested his cheek on her wet hair. "On Earth, the rain can last for minutes," he squeezed her a little "that's a couple of hundred microts to you, or it can sometimes last for days."

"Days…" She repeated to herself, bringing her hands to rest over his arms and turning her face slightly towards his. "Do you think that this will last for days?"

"I don't know, baby."  He said softly, smiling as she stuck her tongue out to catch a few raindrops.  He nuzzled her neck a little, pleased when she raised her hand to his cheek, holding him there.  His thumbs stroked the skin just below her ribcage and he heard her sigh.  This was what they had, Aeryn and he; perfect moments.  Sure, they were fleeting and surrounded by uncertainty, pain and chaos but when they came along they made all the other crap bearable for a while.

She began to turn to face him; one of his hands left her waist and swept her soaking hair back from her face as he bent down to…

"D'ARGO!  CRICHTON!  You'll never guess what we've found!"

Crichton groaned.  His eyes never left Aeryn's as he spoke into his com.  "This had better be good, Pip!"

"Are you in danger?"  D'Argo came running out of the transport.  Seeing the Luxan, Aeryn stepped quickly out of Crichton's arms. 

"Oh, sure," Crichton narrowed his eyes "we wouldn't want D'Argo to see you cosy with the human, now would we?"

She seemed a little taken aback by the anger in his voice, but she glanced over at D'Argo and said nothing.

Crichton couldn't help feeling furious at her reaction.  Everyone on Moya knew that their relationship had progressed beyond friendship.  Hell, they probably thought it had gone a whole lot further than it had, and it would have, if it hadn't been for Aeryn's theory that acting on their feelings would prevent them from being effective in battle.  It was funny, when Chiana and D'Argo got together, no worlds ended as a result, the Uncharted Territories didn't implode, the crew didn't break apart and, as far as he could make out, D'Argo's abilities as a warrior hadn't been impaired.  They liked each other; they got together.  It was as simple as that.  But over two cycles, a death, a sacrifice and an admission of mutual love later, Aeryn was still keeping him at arms length, unable to demonstrate or acknowledge her feelings for him in front of the others.  It was as if she was embarrassed of him.  As if she felt what she did against her will and better judgement. Well, he was an inferior species after all, he thought bitterly. 

"No. D'Argo.  We're both fine."  Chiana's voice came back over the comm. "But you …you gotta see this."

"Care to tell us where you are, Chi?"  Crichton said tersely, rubbing his temple.

"Ah, yeah.  We're down by the water's edge.  From the transports, just head east until you reach the water.  We'll look out for you.  And bring some flashlights."

D'Argo had started off before Chiana had even stopped speaking.  Crichton looked at the sky; the rain was easing off now.  The perfect moment had passed and comedown was a bitch.  He walked past Aeryn without comment and went to the transport to get the flashlights.

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"Hey!  There you are!  We…ah…we thought you'd got lost!"  Chiana looked at Jothee beside her and then at the others as they picked their way along the water's edge towards her.  "It's over here!"  She was sounding very pleased with herself.

"Did you trip and fall?"  D'Argo asked her, concerned.

Chiana looked down at her muddy clothing.  "Ah, yeah.  I'm fine though.  It was really slippery here when it was raining."  She smiled suddenly at him "That's why we took shelter here."  She stopped in front of a cave mouth.

"And?"  Crichton prompted her.

"Well…see for yourself."  She grinned.

Throwing her a look, D'Argo exhaled loudly through his nose and led the way, with Crichton and Aeryn close on his heels.  The cave was quite shallow, a narrow entrance led to a circular chamber.  Water covered the floor up to Crichton's ankles.  At the far side of the cave, were two rafts.

"Well?"  Jothee asked.  "This means that there are other people here, right?"

Aeryn knelt down, examining the crafts. "Or at least there were other people here."  She said.  "These rafts are crudely made and look quite old.  They may have been put together by someone who was only visiting."

"Hate to put a spanner in your PK logic, but have you looked at this place?"  Crichton indicated the cave itself.  "This doesn't look like it was made by the sea.  It looks like it was hand carved to me, by somebody with time on their hands."

"Well, it...ah…wasn't made by the sea, at least not the normal kind."  Chiana grinned and waggled her foot in the water. " It's all fresh, not salt and I don't know whether you've noticed but it doesn't seem to be tidal." 

D'Argo looked at the ceiling.  "You're right.  Nature did not do this."

"Kinda begs the question; who did?"  Crichton raised his eyebrows at his friend.

"Pilot said there was no sign of any settlements on the planet.  We don't know how old this cave is.  Or whether the same person who made the cave, made the rafts.  Whoever it was could be long gone by now."  Aeryn reasoned, standing up, wiping her hands on the seat of her pants.

"So, they…ah…probably wouldn't mind us borrowing them, then."  Chiana said, looking hopefully at D'Argo.  "It could be fun."

"Chiana…" D'Argo began reprovingly.

"No, Father, wait.  We might be able catch something to eat in the water."  Jothee said, well aware that his father would do just about anything to make him happy.  "I've never been on a boat before and Chiana's right, it would be fun to try."

D'Argo looked helplessly at Crichton, who shrugged.  "It isn't far to the other side of this stretch of water.  We could go over and take a quick look.  Providing these things are sea worthy of course."

"Well, I'm not going!"  Rygel said firmly.

"Well, you're not staying here alone."  Aeryn shot back. "I don't trust you here with the transports and the food."

Chiana put her arm around the Hynerian's shoulders.  "Aw, come on, Ryg.  Where's your sense of adventure?"

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To Be Continued