By Liss. Farscape and characters don't belong to me; I just sneaked them out for a bit. Shh - don't tell! They belong to various people who aren't me - like the Henson lot, and Rockne - what kind of name is that? - O'Bannon. Anyway, don't bother suing, cause I'm a student without a penny to my name.
This is set fairly early on in the first series, say after PK Tech Girl. Spoilers for that and…nope, that's it. Enjoy. I'll love you if you send me feedback.
If you want the story, go ahead, but keep my name on it, and send me an e-mail telling me where you put it. Thanks.
Summary: Companion piece to "Thoughts from a Depressed Human". Aeryn rambles on about John and the rest of her life, and gets quite melancholy.
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RAMBLINGS OF AN EX-PEACEKEEPER
They were under attack. Again. That happened a lot - even more than when she had been a PeaceKeeper. And that was saying something. Aeryn took a quick look at the manual she had been reading. It was a basic flying text - very basic. The last time she'd read it, she'd been about ten cycles old. A child. She wondered momentarily why it had even been in her prowler.
She put the manual carefully on the ground. After all, it was the only thing she had to read - she didn't want it to be damaged. Aeryn's mind was drawn - reluctantly - to Crichton. The Human. He was always talking about something, and just recently it had been about the books he had read as a child. Most of them didn't seem to make much sense. Toys made in the shape of ferocious creatures that lived in woods and went exploring and ate honey. Whatever honey was. Aeryn hadn't been too clear on that point. And a girl who fell down a big hole in the ground. Another girl who went through a garment storage compartment and discovered a new world.
They were Human stories, which no doubt accounted for their strangeness. But Aeryn felt…sad? No, cheated, perhaps. She had never read anything as a child. Well, except for those flying manuals. And manuals on armed combat. And unarmed combat, now she thought about it. Aeryn had been brought up never to question the ways of the PeaceKeepers, and she never had. But there was something so much more appealing about the stories Crichton had read than the things she had read.
Crichton had mentioned once that teaching children to kill and fight was no way to run a society. At the time she had scoffed, mocking his weak, Human ways. He had looked hurt, but would have continued, had Pilot not mentioned a problem that she had felt obliged to fix. So she had left him there, standing in the corridor after yet another one of their arguments. But maybe he had been right. What was that expression he used? Maybe he had a point.
He made childhood sound like fun.
He was in Command as she thought, jumping up and down - metaphorically speaking - in excitement. She shook her head in derision. Some new threat to their existence, and Crichton treated it like an adventure. Doubtless someone would try and kill them - it usually turned out that way. But for all that, the man still seemed to find something irresistible about the things they came across. He always wanted to talk to people, to find out about them. It didn't seem to occur to him that they would as soon kill him as look at him.
She had thought he was useless; a liability. He blundered along, attracting trouble like a magnet, apparently with no idea of how to get out of it. But he always seemed to manage it. Much as Aeryn would like to say that it was only thanks to her and D'Argo and Zhaan that the Human hadn't been - what was the phrase? - pushing up the dailies, she couldn't, because it wasn't true.
Pushing up the dailies. What kind of euphemism was that for 'dead'? That was another thing about these…this…Human. He never said anything outright. There was always some other way of saying something, a way that no one but he could understand. Why was that? Why couldn't he just say what he meant? But now he had her doing it. Why couldn't she just say 'dead'? Why did she have to try and remember his strange expressions?
Pilot and Crichton were concocting a plan to rid Moya of her newest threat. D'Argo was making deprecating noises in that way that only Luxans could. Aeryn offered her opinion, and looked scathingly at Crichton when he objected to what he called the "slightly excessive amount of violence" which made up the key part of her plan.
Whilycoyoty. Who was that? From the way Crichton had compared her planning skills to his, Aeryn suspected that this Whilycoyoty was no strategist. Another example of the Human's refusal to say anything straight out. Did she really use violence too much? Of course not. The man didn't know what he was talking about. PeaceKeepers had managed perfectly well using large amounts of violence; it hadn't done them any harm.
But the PeaceKeepers weren't exactly a good comparison, because it was becoming rather clear that they weren't always right. Something that should have shocked her more than it had done. Her entire way of life had been sacrificed, and though she regretted it - almost painfully - it was the security, and the sense of fitting in, of having a place that she missed, not the actual life itself. Now she was free. Did she want to be free? Probably.
The tech girl probably didn't use excessive amounts of violence. But then, why should she have to? She was a scientist, not a soldier. The Human was a scientist also, a comment he made quite frequently. Once he had added, "not a practice target" when D'Argo offered to teach him to fight, a comment that had amused him excessively. How strange. He had made some explanation about bones and the enterprise, but Aeryn couldn't see where they came into anything.
He'd kissed the tech girl. They probably had a lot in common. She'd told him that she had found him interesting in the beginning. But that was a lie, Aeryn noted, almost regretfully. She still found him interesting. Why, she had no idea. He was so different. He had told her that she could be more, and something about those words had struck her. Just for a moment. Just long enough for her to go with them, to start life as a fugitive. She told herself it was because she had been 'irreversibly contaminated'; because she didn't have a choice, but that was a lie as well. She'd gone because of him. Because he had stirred something in her. Oh, not lust, or attraction - although he had - but something else. Something better.
Crichton's plan was being executed. It looked like working, which was a miracle in itself. His plans often worked, which was odd, as he always seemed to be so clueless. He wasn't really a liability. He helped. Probably more than he realised. Because she didn't tell him. Neither did anyone else. They made him feel foolish when he was wrong, and ignored his successes. Was that fair? It was the PeaceKeeper way. Probably the Luxan as well. But that didn't make it the right way. Why had he kissed Gilina? Forget it, Aeryn warned herself. He was attracted to her. Why not? Forget that you want him to kiss you… Maybe if she was less violent? Maybe if she wasn't so aggressive? But then you wouldn't be you, she reasoned.
Should you change yourself for someone else? For a man? It didn't seem like a very good reason. It seemed…weak. Desperate, almost. She didn't want to be like the tech girl. There wasn't anything wrong with the way she acted. No definitely not. Not at all. And really, she wasn't that attracted to him. He was a just a…a novelty. That was it. Something new. Something different.
"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt." Aeryn jumped. She knew what the phrase meant, and for a moment thought that she had said it aloud. But it was just Crichton, talking to D'Argo. But it fit. She was denying what she felt. Maybe she should just tell him. Walk right up to him, and tell him, "Crichton, I am attracted to you." How would he react? With amusement? Scorn? No, she really shouldn't say anything. Besides she was just imagining it. A new feeling; she wasn't sure what it was; could be something else entirely.
Oh frell! He was looking at her strangely. Could he tell what she'd been thinking. No, of course not. He looked so…nice. Sebaceans never looked that nice. At least, the ones she'd met never did.
"I'm going out in my prowler." Some time away from Moya, that was all she needed. Time to get her thoughts into perspective. Thoughts about Crichton…