Untitled Document

Title: Redemption
Author: Banshae, 2001
Rating: R (violence, implied rape, cussing)
Disclaimer: You know and I know that I don't own these characters. I'm just borrowing them for my own little passion plays. However, I DO own the original characters and places, so no snurching!
Spoilers: All of seasons 1 & 2, pretty much all of season three, up to IP: Icarus Abides
Archiving: You actually want this?! Just let me know: morgayne@hotmail.com, so I can jump up and down and do a happy dance.
Summary: Takes place after IP: Dadelus Demands. Talyn's crew stops off at a commerce planet and Aeryn turns up missing.
Special thanks to Felix, who argued with me and encouraged me and gave me great ideas. This fic wouldn't have been the same without him.

Redemption: Part 5


Aeryn.

Aeryn resisted the voice. She didn't want to wake up. There was something very wrong with her waking world. Much safer to stay here, where it was dark and quiet.

Aeryn.

Except for that frelling voice. Why was it so insistent? Only John could be so annoying.

Not John.

Of course not. John is dead. How could she forget that? He was dead and gone, and he took her life with him.

Aeryn, you live.

Living? This was living? This was a living death. Her soul had died with John, but her body kept breathing, her heart kept beating stubbornly. She willed herself to death every night, and every day her body betrayed her. The irony of it all: that she who was bred to die couldn't kill herself.

Aeryn. You must wake.

For frell's sake! Couldn't she get any peace at all?

Wake....

"She's waking."

Aeryn opened her eyes and flinched back, "What-" Her head was pillowed on the generous lap of what she recognized as a Firion, one of the humanoid space-faring races she'd commonly encountered as a Peacekeeper. This one was obviously female, ebony skin stretched tightly over the broad bones of her face. Her pale amber hair fell in a thick curtain over her shoulders as she bent anxiously over Aeryn.

"Be still, we won't hurt you," the Firion said, placing a restraining hand gently on Aeryn's chest as she struggled to rise. "Please, you have been injured and you need to be still."

Aeryn relaxed slightly at the sight of the control collar around the Firion's neck. "Who are you?"

"Mareet i'Liebh of the planet Firus. And you?"

"Aeryn Sun."

"Peacekeeper?" Mareet asked.

I might as well be wearing a frelling uniform! Aeryn thought bitterly, but she only shook her head carefully, "Once. No more. Not for a long time." Despite her care, the movement made her head throb, and she became painfully aware of the abuse her body had recently taken. She felt bruised inside and out.

Mareet's thickly arched brows drew together in sympathy, "Let Alaethe help you."

Another face came into view and Aeryn's eyes widened in surprise as she heard the same voice that had prodded her to wakefulness. "I am Alaethe. I will take away your pain if you allow."

"What the frell?" Aeryn croaked. She'd never seen anything like the Singer: the woman's skin, so pale it was almost translucent, glowed a pale silver and was covered with delicate whorls of darker pigment over her cheeks and neck. Her scalp was hairless but for a ruff of thick sable hair running over the crown of her head. Her eyes, lacking whites, pupils and irises, were depthless ebony pools both compelling and disturbing to look into.

"Alaethe is a Ka'rhau," Mareet said, smiling reassuringly. "Her people call her a Singer, one of those who serve as healers of the body and spirit."

Aeryn met the Pa'rhau's disconcerting gaze again, "You're anempath?"

Alaethe nodded, "Sworn in the service of the Bright Twins many cycles ago. I am still young as a Singer."

"Don't let her fool you," Mareet said, "She's got skills that come in very handy around here."

"May I help you?" Alaethe asked.

Warily, Aeryn gave her assent. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh as the Ka'rhau moved closer and put a hand on her forehead. Aeryn could feel some sort of energy radiating from the other woman's touch and a curious warmth spread from the crown of her head downward. Where the warmth touched, her wounds tingled and pain dulled. Alaethe was sweating lightly by the time she sat back and tucked her hands back into her robes. She said softly, "It is done."

Mareet helped Aeryn sit up, "Better?"

"Yes." Aeryn looked around: another white walled cell, except this one had three cots, a commode and sink. The same humming she'd heard earlier came from beyond the single door. Thankfully, she was clothed in gauzy robes and no longer bound. With Mareet's help, she stood shakily.

"Be careful. Alaethe has dulled the pain, but you are still injured."

"How did you do that?" Aeryn asked, turning to the Ka'rhau.

"Hah, don't ask her that." Mareet towered over the two other women, large boned but perfectly proportioned so her size wasn't apparent till she stood. "Just take my word for it: you'll be glad she's your cellmate after the kraka boys have had at you."

"The twins?" Aeryn's stomach turned over at the thought of facing those two again.

"Whatever you want to call those two misbegotten sons of trelks," Mareet spat. "Oh, to get my hands on them without this fekking collar on" She noticed that Aeryn was swaying a bit and guided her to the nearest cot, "Here, sit down before I have to pick you up off the floor again. That stuff they drugged you with is really fa'gaa."

"Are we still on the planet?" Aeryn asked dazedly.

"I would ask you which planet you're talking about, but it doesn't really matter. Kelhvek took us all from different places," Mareet said. "We're on his ship, being taken to auction."

Auction? Aeryn went cold. "We have to get out of here."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" The sarcasm in Mareet's voice was not lost on Aeryn. "You do anything out of line and you'll spend the next couple of hundred microts wishing you were dead," she fingered her control collar, wincing.

"There has got to be a way."

"I am sorry, Aeryn," Alaethe shook her head. "I have been here a long time. Longer than Mareet. Others have tried to escape in the past, but none have left this place except by Kelhvek's pleasure."

Aeryn had to admit they were right. The situation looked bleak: even if she were somehow able to escape this cell, she would be incapacitated by the control collar before she got very far. And how far would she get without an escape vessel?

Does it really matter anyhow? she thought harshly, Where would I go? Not back to Talyn-I don't belong there with Crais and the others smothering me in pity. And even if I could find Moya, what then? The thought of seeing John againI can't! Grief threatened to overwhelm her and she was horrified to feel tears slipping down her cheeks.

"Here, don't get all soft on us," Mareet said not unkindly. "It can be quite a shock, we both know it."

Aeryn shook her head, "It's not that-" she scrubbed angrily at the tears despite the bruises on her cheeks. I can't believe I'm crying like a frelling trasnik in front of these two!

Alaethe moved close, "Aeryn-"

"It's nothing," Aeryn snapped, waving away the other women. "I don't need your help." Ignoring the glances they gave each other, she stretched out on her cot, back to them. She lay silently for a long time, feeling hopelessness creep up on her. She didn't really want to fight anymore. What was she fighting for anyhow? There was a great sucking wound in her chest and she didn't have the ability to close it without John. Just as she had been his center, he was hers. She could fight to leave this place, but for what? Her center was gone and without it she was cast adrift...purposeless and rudderless in a sea of grey despair. More tears burned behind her eyes and she bit her lips against a sob, knowing that if she allowed herself to start crying, she might never stop.

I never thought you were a quitter, sweetheart. John's voice in her head again. Don't give up, Aeryn, not yet. You have so much more to give.

She was getting as bad as he was, with all the traffic in her mind. But he was right again, damn human. No matter how much she hurt, she couldn't just give up and die; that wasn't how she was made. And there were others here who needed help

She took a hitching breath and once again pushed away the blackness that threatened to drown her. If she didn't know how to go forward, she would go back. She would be a Peacekeeper once again and clothe herself in the armor of moving, fighting, doing--until the pain in her heart was buried. She would fight and she would endure, because she had nothing to lose...and if she died...Maybe then she would find out if John was right about the afterlife. Maybe then she would see him again and be whole again. That was hope enough to go on.

Slowly, she sat up and faced her cellmates. Their softly murmured conversation stopped and they looked at her expectantly.

"Do you want to be sold as slaves or do you want try to free yourselves?" Aeryn asked hoarsely.

Mareet smiled slowly, "I would like to get home. Or at least take out one of the boys while trying."

Alaethe met Aeryn's gaze, "I cannot kill, not even to defend myself."

"Hah! If she was ever a Peacekeeper, she won't have any problems killing someone for you, Ala!" Mareet laughed.

Aeryn found herself smiling crookedly at the Firion, "It may not come to that." She settled herself a little more comfortably on the cot and leaned forward, "Right, then. Tell me about Kelhvek"

TBC..