Spoilers: up through Dog With Two Bones

Rating: R (some difficult topics)

Summary: J&A angst, some Butch and Sundance.

Disclaimers: Blah, blah, blah. Not mine.

Huge thanks to my betas: Aeryncrichton and WalkingTheBeam



DISPOSSESSION

PART 3

***********

Cidra was trying hard not to glance too often at the human as she escorted him to the Commandant's office with four soldiers in tow. She would have preferred to already be there when he entered the room and observe his expression as he discovered what was awaiting him, but she had been so anxious about the outcome of the confrontation she had pitched to Commandant Grayza that she had barely slept at all during the short night and needed to reconfirm her impressions of the previous day as soon as possible. Besides, the Commandant had wanted a head start with the ex- Peacekeeper soldier to plant seeds that would fester during the confrontation and she usually preferred to run her interrogations alone, though sometimes she allowed Cidra to stay in the room when dealing with little known species.

The ex-Peacekeeper soldier, Aeryn Sun, was not the one Cidra was most interested in anyway. The human, John Crichton, was the key element. She felt a shiver of fear run down her spine, her only good look at him this morning had been quite unsettling. He had looked really tired as if he had not slept much either but his eyes were cold and determined. She swallowed hard and tried to reassure herself, she knew what she had felt the day before. She squared her shoulders determinedly at the sight of the door leading to the Commandant's office. Where her training supervisors had often mentioned her disturbing behavior interfering with the morale of her unit while extensively using her to outline the weak elements of adversary units, Commandant Grayza had used the word gift and encouraged her to develop it. Cidra had found her place here and she didn't intend to disappoint her superior's growing trust.

She palmed open the door and signalled the human to enter before her. His body stiffened ever so slightly but his pace did not falter and he went to place himself on the empty chair next to the one occupied by the ex- Peacekeeper soldier. Cidra immediately tied him to his chair the same tight way Aeryn Sun was tied. He had recovered enough of his physical strength for the Commandant not to take unnecessary risks this time around with possible reckless behaviors. She tested the last knot and looked up briefly, unexpectedly catching a swift exchange behind lowered eyelids between the two prisoners. A wave of nausea hit her with the force of the emotions contained in that exchange. Stay focused, Cidra, she admonished herself fiercely, forcing her gaze to settle on the lifeless features of the desk before her, don't lose control. She barely realized the soldiers had left and closed the door behind them as she rose to walk to her appointed corner. Trying to keep her hand from trembling, she reached down in her pocket and placed the pill the Commandant had provided her with earlier under her tongue then turned around and pressed her back against the wall for support as she prepared herself to watch events unfold.

She shouldn't have worried so much. It was unmistakable now that she could actually see them together and she had picked the right one too. Pain. And hurt. And love. Those had been there in both prisoners, either raging or smouldering but never well hidden enough for her not to make out the truth behind the controlled words and gestures. Aeryn Sun was not a reliable target. Cidra had sensed too much confusion in her last night when she had sat, transfixed, before the control monitors as Commandant Grayza had interrogated the ex-Peacekeeper soldier again, seeking confirmation for the human's tale. Aeryn Sun's emotions had kept swinging from one end to the other and her overpowering sense of duty would end up sacrificing all concerned. In John Crichton, the love went deeper than the hurt and the pain and he couldn't help hoping for more. Cidra repressed a shudder of dread mixed with eager anticipation. He was going to cave in. For Aeryn Sun and the unborn child.

"Well, well, well. Such messy times, don't you agree?" Commandant Grayza asked to no one in particular, lounging comfortably in her high-backed chair behind her desk, her fingers curling and uncurling around a small square-shaped device. "Brewing wars, exploding carriers, twinnings and unwanted lives." She sighed deeply. "I am so disappointed in you. I thought you would have proven different," she added, looking at the human, "or learned to think outside your breeding," she concluded for the ex- Peacekeeper. She got up then and walked behind the silent prisoners, tapping her finger pensively against her jawline, the small square-shaped device cradled in her palm.

At the Commandant's sharp glance in her direction, Cidra made a small nod and immediately focused back on the prisoners.

"Disappointed hardly covers my feelings though," Commandant Grayza continued in a pained tone. She circled back to sit on her chair and leaned over her desk. "To tell the truth, I'm appalled," she affirmed with a stern glance, "and I don't think your actions would yield any crowd support were it known that the weakest ones are those you are willing to sacrifice." She cocked her head toward John Crichton. "You were offered the opportunity to save a helpless unborn child, but you have let petty emotions win over to deny that child a chance to live, even refusing to acknowledge him as your own, though any Diagnosian would conclude otherwise. You think you're protecting your crewmates? Take my word for it, they will be hunted down and found, with or without your help, sooner rather than later and you will all be executed. This is not a threat but a promise." She turned her attention to Aeryn Sun. "And you? I don't even know where to start. You're a disgrace to the parents who stood against the rules for you, a disgrace to the Peacekeepers' values of loyalty and honor and a disgrace to your own flesh and blood that you would sell to save yourself." She snorted derisively. "And some people say love is beautiful. Fools!"

Cidra squeezed her hands into fists. She could feel Aeryn Sun's emotions flowing through her like heat waves and focusing on John Crichton only heightened their amplitude and frequency. It was working beyond her highest expectations. She blocked out her senses to fall back on sight only and felt her body expand inside the cracks as she embraced their pain and hurt. She knew she should have listened to what Commandant Grayza was saying to improve her own interrogation skills, she was much better at feeling the pain than inflicting it and there would come a time when she would need to master both. But today, she felt like indulging herself, for it would be intense but brief. The deeper the human would fall, the higher he would climb back.

Each precise stab widened the cracks even more, providing room for the hurt and the pain to dwell and throb. Cidra fed on the human's features, translating the tiniest changes into waves of emotions. They pulled out of the tide together with his unexpected direct stare at Commandant Grayza.

"… accuracy of a report. Jenavian Chatto had most interesting things to say about you, John Crichton, but I'm afraid her judgment was gravely clouded for her to even think of recommending you as a potential recruit."

Cidra was in complete awe. She learned so much every time she had a chance to see the Commandant's strategies at play. While she had had John Crichton's gaze set on her with her latest comment, Commandant Grayza had moved enough to lure him into trying to angle his gaze to take a swift look at Aeryn Sun but not too much to let him realize that that was exactly what she wanted him to do. He had been really intent on avoiding looking at Aeryn Sun, to keep up his attempted deception of complete indifference to her fate, but Commandant Grayza had now provided him with a temptation too great to resist. So he looked and he noticed. Cidra felt as if his spasming hand had squeezed on her heart and she found it hard to breathe. The pain of his understanding was crippling her. She glanced at Aeryn Sun. The Sebacean was still sitting tall and erect on her chair with her gaze fixed determinedly at an empty spot before her but her hair was quite damp by now and her face glistened with sweat, her cheeks glowing red from the heat. Cidra ran her tongue inside her mouth where the heat protective pill had slowly melted. It was working really well. She had not kept track of the Commandant's use of the heat control device but she would say that the present temperature in the office was only five levels away from living death warnings and she wasn't feeling any discomfort. She took deep breaths to relax and provide space for her heart to beat. Now that he had understood what was going on, it was only a matter of microts until John Crichton started to negotiate. It would be over soon and the overpowering emotions would finally leave her mind and body to rest.

Commandant Grayza placed a hip on the corner of her desk and fiddled with the device in her hand, making no attempt to hide the fact that she was cranking its switch up one more notch.

"Isn't the temperature too hot for you already?" John Crichton asked, his voice dripping with self-contempt.

"No. Why? Do I look sweaty to you?"

He tried to shrug in spite of his ties. "It's just that humans don't stand the heat so well."

"Don't they?"

"Makes us stupid," he muttered so low that Cidra almost didn't hear him but she sensed the shift of his emotions toward anger. Her stomach contracted uncontrollably and she felt a surge of pity for him. Anger had come first but love would speak last.

"What a pity! I'll be sure to remember that next time I meet with a human. I can't believe I agreed we could have solved the Sebacean heat problems with the help of some human genes."

Cidra's breath hitched along John Crichton's as they both caught the slight tightening of Aeryn Sun's features.

"Commandant Grayza?"

Cidra nearly jumped up in surprise as the comms burst into life with the voice of the ship's Second in command.

"I asked not to be disturbed!" Commandant Grayza snapped irritatedly.

"Except for this," the man replied with calm certainty.

The Commandant's attention immediately perked up. She briskly walked around her desk, sat down and swivelled her chair to face her desk. "Visuals only," she ordered as she called up a view screen.

Cidra could no more see what was on the screen than the prisoners could but, judging from the victorious expressions on the Commandant's features, she could tell that the topic of the message was an important one, though one she was probably not privy to. Commandant Grayza often had three paths able to lead to one end and rarely mixed the different people involved in those. Don't go, Cidra silently begged her, please don't go now. We're almost there.

"Prepare a Marauder with an escort," the Commandant ordered at last to the Second in command, "I'm leaving immediately." She snapped the view screen close and stood up to face the prisoners. "Stay warm and cozy," she told them with a smirk, "we'll talk again very soon." She tossed the heat control device on her desk and turned to Cidra. "Call the guards and see them back to their cells."

Cidra nodded meekly at the Commandant's fast retreating back. She watched the door swoosh open and close and yank the air out of her lungs. She pressed a fist against her mouth to suppress a moan of pain at the sudden crash down back to reality. The resulting emptiness had never felt so acute before. She turned away to face the wall and control the shudders running through her body until her stomach finally stopped rolling and her breath recovered a steady rhythm.

"You ok?" John Crichton's whispered question took her out of her trance. She turned around and realized with a start that he had actually been addressing Aeryn Sun. Had she been out so long that they thought she had forgotten about them and therefore dismissed her presence?

"I'm fine," Aeryn Sun whispered back.

"You sure?" He insisted, concern etched in his voice.

"Yes," she snapped, glancing in Cidra's direction.

"Aeryn, I…I'm…" he continued haltingly, looking at the floor, unaware of her forbidding stare.

Not between you, Cidra begged silently again, watching the two prisoners. I can't take that on my own.

"Shut up!" Aeryn Sun urged the human.

"I know, I'm sorry, I…"

Cidra saw his eyes round up in surprise at the sight of the pulse pistol pressed against his forehead.

"Shut up! Just shut up!" She ordered him, her arm shaking wildly. "Shut everything up and stop it!"

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" Aeryn Sun interjected.

"You stop too!" Cidra yelled at her, whirling to press her pulse pistol quiveringly against Aeryn Sun's sweating forehead.

"Yo, Eve! You wanna shoot someone, you shoot me!" John Crichton shouted. "Come on," he urged her, "be a good girl and kill me!"

Cidra stared at him uncomprehendingly, letting her hand holding the pulse pistol fall down along her side, her fury abating as quickly as it had fired up. "But you don't want to die," she murmured, her eyebrows creased in a deep frown. "The love in you blinds the hurt and the pain." She waved the pulse pistol before his face in an admonishing gesture. "I can tell the truth behind your lies." She saw his eyes slowly fill with something akin to pity, or perhaps rarer than pity, compassion, and she felt herself inexplicably drawn to him.

"Do you want to know a secret?" He asked her with a soft voice.

She nodded slowly, her mouth slightly agape.

"Just between you and me," he added, making a gesture with his head for her to come nearer.

She took a step closer to him and leaned her head forward, feeling his warm breath wash over her ear. His feet caught hers in a vice and he took her with him in his fall, his head coming to crash against hers before she had time to raise her pulse pistol in the fall. Blackness came over her.



John landed heavily on his right side and grunted in pain as the back of the chair broke under him. He clumsily disengaged his arms from the mess, the manacles making the process more difficult and checked that the girl was well and truly knocked out. He squirmed on the floor to slide the ties away from his legs and finally managed to kneel gingerly, his hands still held behind his back with the manacles. He caught the key from the girl's weapon belt and scooted behind Aeryn to place it in her hands, keeping his arms slightly bent to put his hands at the same level with hers.

"Can you open these?" He asked her urgently and felt her fingers work over the opening. His manacles gave way rapidly and he immediately turned to release her from her manacles and ties.

Her first reaction left him panting heavily with his back pressed firmly against the wall.

"That was a really stupid thing to do!" Aeryn fumed, her face a mixture of anger and worry.

"But it worked and that's what matters!" John countered. And don't feel like you have to thank me for it, he thought angrily. "She had to be stopped, she looked as if she was high on drugs and ready to pop."

Aeryn released him abruptly and turned to pick up the girl's pulse pistol from the floor. John waited for a second before moving, wondering if she was now going to aim it at him to stress her point but she went toward the desk instead and grabbed the square-shaped device.

He locked the office door and knelt by the knocked out girl to bind her tightly. She started to regain consciousness during the process and he gagged her to make sure she wouldn't alert anyone then half carried her behind the desk to hide her from view. He propped her up as comfortably as possible.

"Any idea how to get out of here?" He asked Aeryn as he watched her examine their surroundings. He heaved a small sigh of relief as he noticed that her cheeks were slowly losing their red coloring. She didn't answer him. He glanced at the girl's face, with her wide-opened dark eyes eating half her face and got up to follow Aeryn through the door leading to Grayza's private quarters. "What's gonna happen to her?" He asked, nodding toward the room he had just left.

"I don't know," Aeryn shrugged, "That will be for her superior to decide." She moved into the cleansing unit and stopped before a grilled opening. She yanked the grille away and peered through the opening then looked back at him. "Do you think you can fit through this?"

John raised his eyebrows. "Do I have a choice?"

"Not really," she replied matter-of-factly, "we will never make it to the hangar bay by the corridors, too many people in too small a spaceship. The size of the conduits is in accordance with the rest."

"I'll squeeze in then," John stated more convincingly than he felt and held out his hand. "Give me the pulse pistol, I'm going first."

She looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "I'm going first. You won't even know where to turn," she pointed out.

"You'll just have to tell me where to turn," he insisted.

She simply shrugged his argument away and turned to climb into the opening. He grabbed her arm to stop her and she jerked it free angrily. "What's wrong with you?"

"I want to go first," he said firmly and stared hard at her. "You don't know what's at the other end of this conduit, it could be dangerous," he added haltingly and bit his lip. "It's different now, Aeryn. It's not just about you."

Her eyes narrowed menacingly and her hands balled into fists. "I thought you said it wasn't yours!"

He felt the punch though she didn't actually swing it. "I was only trying to protect both of you from harm!" He stepped toward her. "I had to improvise, it's not like I had advance notice of what was going on!" He added accusingly and felt his anger flare anew. "I thought you said you didn't care about it," he blurted out, spurred by her stubborn stare. "I can't believe you actually offered to let the Peacekeepers have its genes!"

"Grayza made that up," Aeryn choked out. "I never said that!"

"Oh, then what DID you say?"

"I said… I said…" She shook her head in frustration, "Frell John, we don't have time for this!" She straightened up. "I'm a soldier, this is a Peacekeeper ship, I know what I'm doing."

"Do you? What the hell do you know about pregnancies and babies, Aeryn?" He shook his head wearily. "You took off to join a Peacekeeper assassin group! Do you really think you can wander around with such people, pregnant or with a little child?!" He took a shaky breath to try to control his temper. "It IS my child too, Aeryn. Why didn't you trust me?"

A muffled whimper in the other room caught their attention.

"We don't have time for this," Aeryn repeated angrily and turned her back to him to climb inside the conduit. "I'm going first."

"Fine!" John snapped. "Have it your way! It's always about what you want anyway!"

Aeryn froze on the spot and heard him stalk angrily to the other room.

John stopped before the girl and bowed his head to look wonderingly into her young face, his hands pressed against his sides, rising and falling with his panting breaths.

Aeryn watched him kneel before the girl. Get frelled, John Crichton. I'm not waiting for you to save another lost Peacekeeper girl. She turned back toward the conduit and started her slow progress into the narrow tube.

John removed the gag from the girl's face. "What's your name?" He asked softly.

"Cidra," the girl replied with a puzzled look.

"That's a nice name," John commented absent-mindedly. "Well, Cidra, I bet you're a smart girl so I'm sure you'll make it out of this unscathed, right?" He looked hard at her. "RIGHT?"

Cidra's puzzlement grew then turned into understanding and she slowly nodded in agreement.

John replaced the gag and brushed his thumb over the red welt on her forehead where his head had connected with her skull. He got up and walked toward the other room, leaving her behind though he knew she had just lied to him. He sucked in his breath and squeezed into the conduit with great difficulty.



************

Even though his progress felt painstakingly slow, John soon caught up with Aeryn, or to be more precise, with her booted feet. She wasn't moving forward and he snaked his head around to find out what she was doing. Her right arm was hanging out through an opening in the conduit and when she brought it back inside she was holding what looked like a grenade between her fingertips. She attached it to her belt and hung out her arm again. Approaching voices forced her to stop whatever she was trying to do and he saw her silently replace the grille over the opening. The voices and their owners seemed to want to settle in the room and Aeryn moved forward again with John following her in silence. They passed several bends until they reached the maintenance bay. The opening was thankfully situated behind a load of crates and John slid out of the conduit after Aeryn to hide behind the protective wall they created. He let his gaze roam over the premises, noting the positions of the ships and the personnel, mostly techs and too many soldiers. His gaze swept the length of the maintenance bay a second time then came to rest over his module and stopped. He could tell her mind had come up with the same idea when he felt her intake of breath by his ear.

"I'll do it," he cut in before she could actually speak up and held his hand palm up firmly in front of her, his gaze refusing to meet hers. He waited a dozen microts of heavy silence before turning to look at her, ready to stand firm before her stubborn gaze and was surprised to be met with an uncertainty that nearly weakened his resolve. His gaze moved back to his previous interest. "On your count," he added calmly, his hand still stretched out before her. He felt the air shift around him as she reached for the back of her pants before grazing his palm with her fingers, sending a tingle through his spine. His hand closed over the PK grenade she had procured a short time ago, his thumb flicked nervously over the trigger mechanism.

"I'll cover you," she replied needlessly and his gaze didn't even flicker his acknowledgment, too intent on his target. With her dark canopy gone, probably ruthlessly disposed of during his rescue, Farscape One stood in all her glorious white difference among the Prowlers and the Marauder in the Scoutship's landing bay. A harmless dove in a murder of crows. A much- needed diversion.

They knew they had to take a Marauder to stand the slightest chance of long- term escape, a Prowler could not provide them with the necessary fire power and flying range and neither could Farscape One, unless they happened to be near a star with huge solar flares. Besides, he didn't believe the Peacekeepers had had the presence of mind to re-supply her in fuel and oxygen just in case someone would like to take her out for a spin. The lack of fuel would keep the explosion from turning into a fiery blaze but the soft Earth materials were unable to withstand the power of a PK grenade without shredding into sharp metallic shards flying all over the maintenance bay, causing as much pain and mayhem as possible, opening a path for them to the lonely Marauder standing by the docking bay's outer doors all the way across from their present position. The other Marauder had been gone for half an arn by now, along with a couple of Prowlers and, hopefully, by the time those ships would be able to track them down, they'd be long gone.

He saw Aeryn's raised hand at the edge of his vision, her fingers slowly counting down as she waited for two soldiers to finish walking away from the Marauder. Three… two… One small shitty craft for them, one giant hope for me… One…

They leapt out of their hiding in perfect synchronization, each knowing exactly what to do. John took two steps forward, using another stack of crates as cover and launched the grenade on its target with a smooth overhead throw. It landed in perfect aim on the pilot's seat of his module before the fascinated eyes of the techs and soldiers close to it, bounced off to fall on the module's floor and exploded immediately, sending bits and pieces flying all over the place. John instinctively tried to duck for cover behind the crates but Aeryn's forceful shove propelled him toward the Marauder, running at full speed, surprised not to be hearing the sound of pulse fires yet.

This is too easy, his mind warned him as they stumbled near the Marauder's hatch door and Aeryn went for the opening mechanism It's never easy. Not for you. Pulse fires forced Aeryn to retreat a couple of steps to return the shots taken at them by a couple of soldiers hiding behind two Prowlers, distant enough from the explosion for the soldiers to have recovered their senses more quickly than the others. John pressed the mechanism and turned to take one last look at what remained of his ship in time to spot a third soldier aiming at them. He flattened Aeryn's body against the Marauder's hull to get them both out of the way but not fast enough. Pain exploded against his side where the pulse fire connected with his lower ribs. Some months ago it would have gone through fleshy parts but those had withered away little by little, leaving only bones and muscles.

Aeryn grunted as her back connected sharply to the ship's hull and she felt the impact of the shot reverberating against John's side. She swiftly snaked her left arm around his waist as he nearly lost his balance and hauled him backwards through the opening, firing blindly all around them, covering the largest possible angle. Her foot smashed against the hatch's closing mechanism, breaking it at the same time and she let John's body slide down on the floor behind the protection of the solid door to run for command, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.

She was about to slide in the pilot's chair when a sharp searing pain suddenly shot through her body, cutting her in two. Her knees buckled, drained of all energy and her forehead missed the ship's controls by a hair breadth as her body connected sharply with the floor unable to control her fall. Sweat poured profusely on her forehead as she curled up on her side trying to gain control of the excruciating pain. A low moan escaped her lips and she fought hard against losing consciousness. Her right hand rose up shakily to get a hold of the consoles.

John tried to take only small breaths to avoid requesting too much from his ribcage at this point. As far as he could tell from his hesitant prodding, his ribs were more likely cracked than broken but it still hurt like hell. He turned his attention toward the corridor through which Aeryn had disappeared, as the pulse fires outside the Marauder seemed to intensify significantly. The Marauder had not yet powered up.

"Aeryn?!" He called out to her. "What's going on?"

The ship rocked as a more powerful explosion hit the hatch door.

"Aeryn!!" he cried out, thoroughly alarmed. "We have to get out of here!! Now!!" He awkwardly rolled on his knees and managed to stand up and limp his way towards command. His hand felt the shudder of metal as the ship finally powered up. "Aeryn, what's the matter...?" He stopped short in his tracks as he discovered her ashen and sweaty face. Her hands were shaking on the ship's controls yet hardly slowing down her usual fast-paced piloting skills. "Aeryn…" His voice croaked as he realized she had been hit as well.

"I'm fine," she replied through clenched teeth, her eyes intent on their task. "Get the main canon working. We'll have to fire our way out."

John forced his pain away and flopped down on the other seat, his hands reaching immediately for the controls, his gaze fighting hard not to look at her.

The ship finally rose in the maintenance bay and pivoted toward the outer doors. One well-applied powerful blast was enough to break a hole to pass through. The Marauder shot out of the maintenance bay, fired a couple of crippling blasts at the Scout ship and soon blended its hull with the darkness of deep space.