Rating: PG

Setting: During the showdown between John and Aeryn in 'A Perfect Murder'

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters they belong to all the creative geniuses belonging to Farscape. I just borrow them for a while…..

Summary: Inside the minds of our far-crossed lovers during that tense showdown. Lost of shippy stuff, but hey, this ep gave us shippers the first signs of hope this season!!

Archiving: Sure just keep my name on it, an let me know where it goes

WARRING MINDS

By Ennix Sun

She didn't notice the last bug attack her with it's venomous sting, or hear as Chiana cried out, in her sightless state, for some explanation for what was happening in her dark world. All she could feel was the cold hard metal of the gun butt in her hand and the whirlpool of feelings and instincts churning through her body and mind. The impulse to pull the tiny trigger was ripping apart her insides, stronger than anything, any feeling, she had ever felt before. Except one. This was her relief, her knight in shining armour, the one thing stopping her from raining pulse fire on the one thing which made her life worth living. John. She loved John. And that was why her finger remained painfully still around the pulse pistol's trigger, while the rest of her body trembled with protest and pain.

It was going to happen. No way to stop it. He couldn't hold out. He'd been trying for a long time, since before they reached the castle, to fight these commanding impulses. They started as a nagging in the back of his head, a replacement for Harvey and his infernal mutterings. Then it spread, grew louder, filled his body completely. Every muscle, every tendon, strained against the urge to kill. Kill Aeryn.

It would be the perfect irony. All those times they'd saved each other's lives and in the end it was they who finished each other off. He knew she'd felt it too. Caught the sideways glances from terrified eyes, the beads of sweat lining her brow. He watched with interest as her fingers slowly curled around the butt of her pistol, just as he felt his own hand do the same. Then on the stairs. They turned, guns at attention. Point blank. Shoot to kill. He thought it was going to end right there. But they had a job to do. It was always the same, mission first, them later. So he'd waited. Fought it and fought it till his body was running on auto pilot, trained through three long years of trying to save his own hide. And all he could see, all he could hear, all he could sense was her and that voice telling him, persuading him, ordering him, to kill. He'd had enough of hearing it. He couldn't hold on any longer.

She felt the energy crackle past her and hit the wall behind. Just as she saw a yellow burst bloom from her own weapon, headed straight for John. Or the pillar right next to him. She had fought. And she had won. But that was a battle, not the whole war. That war was closing fast. And this time she wasn't going to come out winning.

Her hands felt weak and her grasp slippery with sweat, but her muscles were firm and they held the gun poised, aimed straight at her love's heart.

She wanted to tell him everything. About the baby, the assassins, Talyn, everything. She wanted her story straight and her feelings realised by the one man who they truly mattered to. But all she managed was a shuddering sentence while her eyes begged that he understand,

"I'm not sure I have the strength to miss next time."

The trigger compressed and he watched as the glistening stream of death sped towards the woman he loved and then veered off missing her by a whisper. Something, in some part of him that still struggled against the commanding impulses sighed with relief. But the rest hardened it's resolve and increased his grip on the shiny metal weapon in his now shaking hand.

He knew he hadn't missed on purpose. It wasn't possible. In that moment he felt it rise inside of him, the blood lust which consumes a killer, just before he does the deed, to push him over the edge. In that spilt second he'd wanted her dead. It was a lucky shot. For her. Next time though, it wouldn't be so lucky.

He heard her speak. At the sound of her voice a thousand images assaulted his mind, momentarily clearing his senses. He felt the cold iron fingers, grapple for his soul once more, but before he let them he managed a reply

"I'm just a bad shot"

It sounded cold, to him, heartless. Everything she had come to know from John Crichton in the past weekans. The Laka. It all seemed a mistake now. If he hadn't taken it would he have been able to hold off that little bit longer? So that even if he died, she would have lived on?

The fist closed. It didn't matter now. It would all be over in a matter of microts.

The rough hands which dragged her to the floor, were like a warm blanket in an icy storm. Saving her, stopping her from making the biggest mistake of her life. Yet as the friendly hands pinned her to the ground, she felt the last of her resolve slip away as her mind began to succumb to the torturous voices. She had to do it. Stop it, kill him. If she pulled the trigger it would be over, they'd both be dead and there would be peace. A feeling lost to her for so long.

Yet as she felt her fingers grasp desperately at the tiny metal trigger and as the darkness began closing in around her, she suddenly found something. In her minds eye. Or was it her actual sight? It didn't matter, all she could see was him. His eyes. John's eyes, calm, caring, intense, loving. Every time he had looked at her, with that gaze that made her heart stop, all melded into one maddening glare which pierced the membrane of the nightmare enclosing her and gave her one last will to fight. One final weapon. One last chance. She just had to hold on.

As he struggled madly against his friends, he felt his mind fill with the impulse he was desperately evading. It could all end here. If he pulled the trigger, one of them at least would be dead. Even if it wasn't Aeryn, she would be next, followed by every other person he loved or cared about in that room. Then he'd turn the gun on himself, and finish the job completely. As his senses jammed and he felt the trigger compress slightly on his spring, he almost wished for it to happen. So it could be over, finished. And he could have some quiet at last.

Then he heard it, a small cry, maybe words, his feverish mind couldn't discern the difference now. But he knew one thing, as surely as he knew he was about to commit mass murder. It was Aeryn. Aeryn's voice. And she was struggling, fighting, with every last ounce of her strength. Not giving in. Something in that, that distant realisation, struck a chord hidden deep inside his imprisoned mind. He felt the strength, that sudden power he'd felt every time Aeryn had given him that little half smile, or taken his hand, or said a kind word. In the old days, when he'd impressed her in some way, or just gotten through a day without almost getting himself killed. And it was all he needed to give this resistance thing one last try.

"D'Argo just knock me out!"

It was no good, she couldn't stop it. The wave was about to swallow her whole. She didn't have the strength to fight any longer. She was going to kill John Crichton.

He felt the hand strike his head. To no avail, his controller was strong. Stronger than D'Argo. Stronger than him. It was inevitable. It was over. Aeryn was going to die.

Then.

It stopped.

Just like that.

No gentle loosening, no gradual release. In a microt the whole world span on it's axis and both John and Aeryn felt the weight of their actions tumble down upon them. Along with their friends. As their minds stopped spinning, their bodies relaxed, the muscles seemingly exhausted, just gave up all pretence of strength and bore them both to the ground.

Inside it was as though the presence, or being, or power controlling their every instinct and action had simply disappeared. Died, just as it had been willing it's target to do. And in doing so it had short circuited every thought which had been rushing around in the mad chase of memory and feeling and emotion. It was just empty. For a microt, no thoughts at all except a great calm and even greater relief. Finally consciousness began to slip back piecemeal. As heavy weights lifted themselves from their tired bodies, Aeryn and John lay still, chests heaving, as simple notions began to make themselves known. He saw her. She saw him. In some distant place of time and memory, it hurt to see that face. But in that instant, they had no comprehension of why. All that mattered was that they had done it. They had won. Neither one of them was dead and they had both, for a time, found a sanctuary of peace.

Reality slowly began to creep around the edges of their abused brains, but a sub conscious want to remain in this dream like state held it off, as fiercely as they had been fighting only moments before.

But this did not hurt. Instead it merely slowed their return to the real world where, they realised, they would have to feel and know things which would hurt them both badly.

So for now, all either Human or Sebacean knew was that they were alive, they were together and they had won. It was a triumph they could share with none but each other. Which was acceptable to both of them. They didn't need words. Just a gaze between two pairs of locked eyes. A sigh, breathed from a set of flushed lips. And a hand reached tentatively at first, across a gap in space and time, bigger than either at that point could imagine. Fingers dressed in black robes of leather, curled around those laid bare in pale white skin. It was over. They had won.

For now…