The Embodiment of Hope
by AstroGirl
Summary: We find out what Stark's been up to for the last year.
Rating: PG
Warning: May contain story elements that ordinarily make most people run away screaming, though I've tried to handle them reasonably. Read at your own risk.
Author Notes: Many thanks to Kernezelda and Merlin Missy for the betas, to Nico (aka Vilakins) for support and enouragement, and to the entire gang at StarMS for inspiration. And don't blame me for the story idea; I got it from David Kemper!
Story Notes: This takes place some time shortly after "Bad Timing," but assumes that the cliffhanger has been resolved somehow, and that things are pretty much back to status quo.
Stark had been acting really strange lately. And, yeah, OK, there was a certain "well, duh" quality to that thought, John had to admit, because Stark had never exactly been the poster child for normality. But ever since they'd picked him up again on Katratzi, he'd been acting odd in different ways than usual, and it was really starting to bug Crichton, all the more so because he couldn't quite put his finger on exactly how or why.
Take right now: the guy appeared to be engaged in an eating contest with Rygel. They'd piled up a big plate of that crunchy whatever-it-was that nobody but Rygel ever ate, and Stark was doing a valiant job of matching the Slug with Three Stomachs mouthful-for-mouthful. Which would be disturbing no matter who was doing it, but as far as Crichton could remember, Stark always used to eat like a bird. The result of two years spent on nothing but Peacekeeper prison gruel, probably.
"Ah," said Noranti, suddenly materializing at his elbow and nearly making him drop the drink he'd forgotten he'd come in here to get, "I do like to see people properly enjoying a meal."
"Properly inhaling a meal, you mean. Hey, listen, Grandma..." He dropped his voice, though it was kind of doubtful the Glutton Twins would be able to hear him over the sound of their own slurping. "I've been kind of wondering about Stark. Do you think-" He was fishing for a polite-ish way to ask whether her supposed healer credentials gave her any clues about diagnosing possibly-sick Baniks, or whether there was some Lunatic Secret Code that let crazy folk recognize what was wrong with one another, or possibly whether she'd been slipping him drugs on the sly. But she interrupted him before he could get that far, her own voice growing louder in about the same proportion as he'd lowered his.
"Ooh, yes!" She beamed at Crichton like he'd just nailed "antidisestablishmentarianism" in a statewide spelling bee. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd noticed." She glided over to the table, giving Rygel a playful tweak on the earbrow as she passed, and came to rest with her hands on Stark's shoulders. "Won't be long now, will it?" She bent over and stage-whispered conspiratorially in what would have been his ear if he'd had one on that side. "Glad to see you're keeping up your strength. Feeding your energies. Very important!" She patted him on the shoulder, slightly too hard.
Stark stopped chewing, that horrible licorice-and-chili powder-flavored sauce of Noranti's dribbling down his chin. His single eye widened in a deer-in-the-headlights expression. Rygel took advantage of the situation to snatch a morsel from his plate, apparently oblivious to whatever the hell it was that was going on.
John wrinkled his forehead, trying to figure out whether Noranti'd just told him anything useful about what was going on. Hmm, nope, he was fairly sure she hadn't.
"Huh?" he said.
Stark started to say something, suddenly realized that his mouth was full, swallowed, and started again. "I was going to tell you," he said quickly.
"Stark. Dude. Tell me what? Are you sick?" He attempted to brush away the pinpricks of paranoia that had started whispering in the back of his mind about things the Scarrans might have done to Stark. Things other than making evil mandroid duplicates, of course.
Noranti tsked. "Can't you tell?" She cupped a hand beneath Stark's chin and lifted it like she was encouraging John to inspect his teeth. "He's positively glowing!"
Stark dislodged her hand with a downward shrug of his chin and reached up to trace the outline of his mask as if he expected it to be leaking light. "I'm not," he muttered. "I'm fine."
"You?" snorted Rygel, as he licked the last bit of sauce from his plate. "You've never been fine! You were probably born fahrbot."
"Sparky, shut up. Noranti..." John motioned her backward with a jerky wave, "back off." She removed her hands from the Banik and retreated a step. "Stark." He leaned across the table and put on a Concerned Friend face. "What's wrong?"
"I was going to tell you." The words came out in a rush, tangling up in themselves. "I was, I wasn't keeping it a secret, but then I found out Aeryn... I thought... And you might not want me here. And-"
"Stark! Do not freak. Just tell. Me. What's. Wrong."
"I won't be a burden on you," said Stark. "I promise. You'll let us stay, won't you? For Zhaan?"
**
The barriers between the realms are thin on this world, worn porous by a hundred cycles of mystics' energy. It's taken him many monens and more money than he really has, but he's found a spot where that thinness is worn to almost nothing. Even so, even for him, what he is attempting is difficult. His expertise lies in the boundary between life and death; penetrating into the realm beyond is not among his talents. Still, there are preparations one can make. There are meditations. There are drugs. And he trusts in Zhaan's ability, if not in his own. Her voice, no matter how distant, has never ceased from calling him, and he knows that if he provides her the portal, she will do all that is in her power to come to him.
She arrives first as a gentle touch, a warm caress against the surface of his mind. He opens his eyes, both of them, and sees her standing there, like an afterimage of her corporeal self left on the retina of the universe. Elation fills him, so strong and sudden that he almost loses the trance, almost loses her.
"My Stark," she says with a smile that breaks his heart. "I knew you would find me."
She touches the fleshy part of his face, and he finds that, having gone through so much just to speak with her again, he cannot now find any words. He swallows hard and tries again. "Zhaan. What... What's wrong? What did you need to tell me?"
He knows what he wants the answer to be, of course. I love you. I wanted to say I'm sorry for leaving you. I want to live again, by your side. But he knows that isn't possible. And Zhaan has made her choice. She is where she wants to be, where she belongs, and he cannot wish her anywhere else.
"I see so many things now," she says. "I've been watching over you, you know."
"I know." Suddenly, he is afraid of what she might have seen, what judgment she is here to pass on his failings, but she soothes his fears with a soft kiss to his forehead.
"I have something to show you," she says, touching her brow to his. "Will you permit me?"
Of course he will. He is open to her. Always to her.
She enters him in shallow ripples, the lightest of joinings. The touch of her mind is like water after cycles of drought and he wishes nothing more than to plunge into her and drown, but she holds him steady and instead turns him with a gentle guiding thought so that he is looking at himself through her.
Look, she says, a word laden with wonder and laced with something like fear. Look, my love.
And he sees it, then, a tiny ripple in the energy field that calls itself Stark, a pattern inside him that is not him.
And suddenly he understands.
**
"Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're telling me you're pregnant?"
Stark nodded, an embarrassed half-smile on his face.
"Pregnant? As in... you're pregnant?"
Stark stroked the metal of his mask, a motion oddly reminiscent of how Crichton had found himself stroking Aeryn's abdomen lately. "I am," he said. The half-smile became a sappy-looking grin.
"OK, let me get this straight. You're pregnant... With Zhaan's baby?" More nodding. "Man, I've obviously been very confused about, uh, both of you. You're telling me Zhaan wasn't the female of her species? Because she seemed to be doing an awfully good impression of one."
"Of course she was a female!" Stark looked slightly affronted. Behind him, Noranti chuckled. Rygel made a snorting noise and kept right on eating.
Crichton settled himself slowly into a chair. He had the feeling this was going to be a long conversation. "And you're..."
"I'm a male, Crichton. We're not like you."
"This much is obvious."
"My people... We are more than just our physical bodies. This..." He grabbed his own forearm and shook it as if it were something inanimate that had become attached to him by accident. "...is only a small portion of me. The tiniest, most unimportant part. The essence of what we are is energy."
"Yeah, you've said that before. I didn't really understand it then, either."
"We don't reproduce on a physical plane. We haven't for tens of thousands of cycles."
"You mean you don't have sex?" That could explain a lot, Crichton figured. He'd probably go crazy, too, if he hadn't had sex since the Neolithic.
Noranti laughed suddenly, a high-pitched, girlish giggle. "No, no, no! Of course they have sex! Rather good at it, too, some of them. I had a Banik once... Or was it twice? No, I definitely think it was-"
"Whoa! Whoa, TMI there, Granny!" He held up a hand in a "stop right there" gesture. "Way, way too much information!"
"Oh, well, I thought it was an interesting story, but if you insist... The point is, the physical act itself is unimportant." She waved her hands in an energetic shooing motion, nearly clocking Rygel in the head in the process. "Fun, but unimportant. It simply serves as a... a... What would you call it, Stark?" Stark looked like he didn't want to call it anything, an attitude John could pretty much sympathize with. "A trigger!" she said, snapping her fingers. "Yes, that's it, a trigger. Releases the energies, you know. The hormones. Lets the system know the real action is coming." She winked and nudged Stark suggestively.
"So you actually reproduce through, what? Unity?"
"A psychic mating," said Stark, inching his chair away from Noranti. "A joining of spirits. The child starts as a, a ripple in its parent's energy. That's where my child is now." He touched his mask again. "In here. Part of me, but separate. She's been growing there for a very long time."
"So Zhaan was phoning you from the afterlife to... what? Make child support arrangements? Take a psychic ultrasound?"
"Apologize to the universe for being so unwise as to breed with an obvious defective?" suggested Rygel, grabbing the final morsel off of Stark's plate.
"No," said Stark. "She came to finish what she started."
**
The question is asked and answered without any words passing between them. He knows what she has come here to do, and she understands that he wants her to do it. Already they are blurring together, their souls entwining, boundaries dissolving until there is no inside, no outside, no him, no her, no life, no death. Only oneness and the bittersweet ecstasy of a joy he'd nearly forgotten.
She withdraws from him slowly afterward, her mind lingering in a farewell caress, leaving him exhausted and spent. Thank you, she whispers, through the last thread of their connection.
He opens his eyes, almost surprised to find that she's still there. She touches him again, but her hand is growing insubstantial, fading from his senses. "Take good care of our child, Stark. Give her my love, as you have given me yours."
"Zhaan..." He is shaking now, suddenly, with loss and fear and emotions he can't quite name. "Zhaan, wait, I-"
But she's gone, and he knows with all the certainty his Stykera soul possesses that he will not see her again on This Side.
Already, he can feel the changes happening within him.
**
"Zhaan came back from the dead just to knock you up? Uh, don't take this the wrong way Stark but that sounds really..." What it sounded, John reflected, was really unlike Zhaan. Unless being in heaven, or wherever it was that good Delvians went, had left her too blissed-out to consider the fact that her crazy, grieving S.O. was barely competent to take care of himself, let alone a baby.
Stark glared at him angrily. "No, no, no! You still don't understand, Crichton! That wasn't it at all!"
"Well, then explain it to me. I'm listening." He tried to make his voice friendly and sympathetic, and it seemed to have a calming effect on the Banik.
"She came back to me," Stark said, "so that our child would live."
John looked at him expectantly, waiting for the rest of the explanation.
"He's a male," Noranti put in helpfully.
"Call that being a male?" snorted Rygel. "Not by my definition. Having babies is a female's job."
"Much as I hate to agree with Sparky, I always kinda figured that's how it worked, myself."
"That's the way it usually works for us, too. When a male and female Banik mate, it's the female who hosts the offspring. Unless for some reason she can't, and then the male will."
"And, oh, wait, Zhaan wasn't a Banik..." This was almost starting to make some kind of sense now.
Stark's head bobbed in agreement. "That's right. She didn't have the energy. Not enough energy."
"So Stark was the one who conceived!" finished Noranti. She was standing at Stark's shoulder again, squeezing it hard.
"Frelled up way to reproduce a species if you ask me," said Rygel. "No wonder they're a conquered people."
"Oh, Rygel." Noranti gave him a disappointed look.
"Well, I'm sorry, but it's true! What's the point of having females if they're not going to do their job, hmm?"
"Males don't have breasts," said Stark.
They all looked at him in surprise. Rygel started to snicker.
Stark blushed. "I mean, we can't... can't nurse." He made a cupping motion in front of his chest, which only caused Rygel to snicker louder. "No breasts."
"Uh, well, I think we can probably find ya some formula..." said John.
"No!"
"Oh, brilliant," said Rygel. "Go through all this to give birth to the yotzing child and then let it starve to death. No wonder Zhaan chose you as her brood stock. Your offspring will be frelling geniuses."
"I mean, no, I'm trying to explain."
"All right," said John. "So you need a female to feed the baby after it's born." Which he imagined would be kind of hard for a ghost to do... But he'd better let Stark continue without further interruption, or they were going to be here all day.
Noranti, however, seemed to think that this was her cue to answer on his behalf. "Yes. Well, no. That is, Stark doesn't. I'm sure we'll have no problem whipping him up a substitute." She smiled, and for a moment John considered which would be worse: subjecting some poor baby to a concoction "whipped up" by Noranti, or asking Aeryn to wet-nurse. Neither sounded particularly healthy. He made a mental note to stop at the commerce planet equivalent of a Babies'R'Us and stock up on Banik Similac. "But, of course," she continued, "his reproductive energy doesn't know that, does it?"
Stark nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes. That's right. My ancestors didn't have substitutes. Most Baniks still don't. That's why there has to be a female. You see..." He lapsed off into silence for a long moment, as though trying to put the words in order in his mind. "Conceiving a child is, is easy. It happens without the parents even being aware of it."
John wondered whether there was such a thing as a psychic condom, and if so, whether Zhaan's aforementioned lack of "energy" was the reason they hadn't bothered using one. And, man, this was way more than he'd ever wanted to think about Zhaan and Stark's sex life. "And?" he said.
"And it grows. For a long time, longer than most other species, it grows, and it's no... no kind of burden. On the parent."
"But eventually, of course," said Noranti, "it has to become corporeal. It wouldn't be much of a life otherwise, would it?"
"Not much of a life, anyway, if you ask me," said Rygel. "But I suppose we can't all be born Hynerians."
"And that takes tremendous energy," said Stark, talking over him. "Physical energy, spiritual energy. Energy that must come from the parent."
"Ah," said John. "So that's why you've been eating like they're about to pass a universal ban on food."
"The Scarrans didn't feed me very well," said Stark. "I've been making up for it ever since. I'm hungry all the time now."
John did some quick E-equals-m-c-squared calculations and decided Stark would have to eat about sixty-five million tons of TNT in order to produce a newborn-human-sized baby out of sheer energy. But, hey, over the last four years he'd seen enough mystical dren laughing in the face of physics, so what was one more example?
"Would you like some more food?" said Noranti. "I believe there's some grolak in the freezer unit, and the kelpa berries should be just about ripe..."
"Later," said Stark with a crooked smile. "Thank you."
"I'd like some," said Rygel. Everyone ignored him.
"So what does this have to do with, uh, breasts?" asked John.
"Oh, well, it's basic evolutionary biology, isn't it?" said Noranti.
"Is it?
"With you humans, your females usually don't become pregnant again while they're still lactating, isn't that right?"
He wondered what the hell kind of cable programs Noranti had been watching during her time on Earth. "Uh, yeah."
"Same principle!" she said. "Two babies too close together are difficult to care for. The odds of either of them surviving go down. And making babies takes tremendous resources. Oh, yes. So it's better to have them when they stand a better chance. Your bodies are wise enough to know that."
"Well, not my body," said John. "But, OK, I take your point." He looked at Stark. "So this is relevant to your people... how?"
Stark was looking bemused. "I never thought of it that way," he said. "But the healer is right." He smiled up at Noranti, and she flashed him back the particularly brilliant smile she had heretofore reserved only for John. John couldn't quite decide whether he felt more creeped out on Stark's behalf, or relieved on his own.
Stark hastily looked away from Noranti and continued. "A male on his own isn't as well-equipped to raise a child as a female is. Or as a male who has a female is. We can conceive children..."
Insight suddenly flashed into John's mind. "...But without a female being involved, you won't actually carry them all the way to term. Or whatever it is you'd call it in your case. Right?"
"That's right," Stark said. "When the pregnancy reaches a certain stage, a second mating is required, to allow it to go on to the next phase. Without it, the child is simply... reabsorbed. It dies, without ever having lived."
"And Zhaan wouldn't have wanted that," said John.
"No. She didn't, and neither did I. That's why she came back. To join with me. To give our child life." He stroked his mask again. "This is... This is all I have left of her, Crichton."
"Yeah, I can understand that." All too well, in fact. Sometimes he thought that maybe Aeryn... No, he wasn't going to go down that road. Instead, he said, "So, you're kind of like Sebaceans, aren't you? Or Peacekeepers, anyway. Does every species but mine to the suspended-pregnancy thing?'
"It's not the same thing," said Stark, at the exact same moment that Noranti said, "Mine doesn't!"
John held his hands up. "OK, whatever. I don't really need the biology lecture, anyway. If that even qualifies as biology..."
"It's not proper biology," said Rygel. "They're not even a proper species. Everyone knows it. Well, everyone except the idiots on this ship, that is. Why the rest of you insist on treating this fahrbot as an equal is beyond me."
OK, that was it. Sparky was really starting to piss him off. And judging by the expression on Stark's face, he wasn't the only one. "Rygel, what is your malfunction? I mean, you're not Mr. Personality at the best of times, but what's with the sudden KKK dren? Did Stark piss in your Wheaties this morning or what?"
"I just think it's frelling inconsiderate of him, is all," said Rygel. "One screaming, mewling infant on the ship is enough. Perish the thought of two."
"I know," said Stark. Suddenly, he looked as though he might be about to cry. "I know, I know. I didn't know! I don't... I should leave." He pushed his chair back slightly, as if he were about to get up and head for the docking bay and leave right that moment.
"Hey, Stark. Stark, man, come on. Don't listen to Rygel." Stark didn't look any less agitated, but at least he hadn't bolted from the room, so John figured that was an encouraging sign.
"Oh, of course," muttered Rygel. "We never listen to Rygel." But the look on his little green face was actually bordering on the apologetic.
"I mean, what, you think we're gonna put you off the ship? Like we'd do that." Well, OK, not that he hadn't entertained fantasies about throwing all of his shipmates out the airlock at one point or another. But, Scorpy and Sikozu aside, it's not like he'd ever seriously think about dumping them. Even the insane or pregnant ones.
"You should." Stark's voice had suddenly gone very quiet. "You should. You know. After what I did. To you, to the other you, to both of you. I wouldn't want me here."
It took John a moment to realize what he was referring to, so much had happened since then. "Oh. You're talking about that video game thing. Right?"
Stark nodded, his gaze focused on the tabletop.
"So, uh... Chiana told you about that?" Not that it surprised him. Having a little talk with Stark about that particular incident had been somewhere on his own to-do list, as well.
Stark nodded again, still refusing to meet John's eyes.
"Well," Crichton said slowly. "I do have to admit to wondering just what the hell you were thinking..."
**
His child is going to be born into slavery.
It's all he can think of, over and over and over. That, and his own failure and guilt, the things he should and should not have done. Shouldn't have squandered all his money on his search, shouldn't have done business with men he knew he could not trust, shouldn't have let his creditors find him. Should have run, should have fought, should have done anything but let himself be seized and sent back to a life he'd thought he'd left behind forever.
And now his child will be born a slave. Zhaan's child will be born a slave.
There is a rumor among the others that they are to be sold to the Scarrans. He can imagine it far too well; he has seen it happen before. His child will be taken from him the moment she becomes corporeal. She will be sent to the mines as soon as she is old enough to hold a digging tool, and she will labor there until she dies. And he will never, ever see her again. When the work and the beatings and the sweltering Scarran heat finally do claim her life, he will not even be there to comfort her on her journey. For him, there will be only dying Scarrans, one after another after another, passing through him and leaving brutality and cruelty behind until he is barely recognizable as the being Zhaan loved.
He would end his corporeal existence now and take his daughter with him, unborn, into the afterlife, if it were not for Zhaan's memory whispering to him that he must have hope.
**
There was a long moment of silence. Crichton broke it, finally, swearing softly under his breath. "So," he said. "That's why you sold my... the other guy's... memories? To buy your freedom?"
Stark nodded, not meeting his eyes. "Yuti, the game designer, saw me," he said. "On the way to the auction house. He recognized me. From the wanted beacons. I thought he was going to sell me to Scorpius. But he wanted me because I knew you." Now he looked directly into John's eyes. "You're very famous, Crichton. He thought he could make a lot of money from a game based on your life."
"Yeah, it's real movie-of-the-week material," he said. "Listen, Stark-"
But Stark cut him off. "I shouldn't have done it. I know I shouldn't have done it. I took a vow, an oath. And they hurt, coming out, the memories. They shouldn't have come out, and they hurt, and I knew that it was wrong, but I-"
"Stark! Stark!" Crichton reached out across the table and stilled Stark's hand where it was drumming and clutching at the tabletop. "It's all right. I forgive you."
Stark looked at him hopefully. "You do?"
"Yeah," he said slowly. "You... You were willing to make a deal to sell stuff in your head that wasn't yours to sell, in order to save somebody you loved from the Scarrans. I... think I can relate to that."
There was no sign of comprehension on Stark's face. Which was just as well. Stark was probably the last person with whom John wanted to discuss the deals he'd made with Scorpius. The last person he wanted to think about in connection with Scorpius at all, in fact, because the face of that other Stark, the unreal red-headed one kept drifting into his consciousness, looking at him with a hurt and betrayal-filled eye.
"Anyway," he said, forcing a smile. "No great harm done. Chiana and I both survived, which is the important thing, right?"
"Thank you. Thank you." The relief in Stark's voice was palpable. "Thank you." Stark's hands clutched at his.
"Forget it," he said. "There's nothing to forgive. Really. Look..." He felt a lump coming into his throat. Damn. "Look. If anything... I think I owe you an apology."
Stark seemed rather taken aback by this. "Why?"
"Because... Because I think you--or that twisted, Nintendo-world version of you--kinda had a point. If it weren't for me..." He swallowed hard, but the damned lump wouldn't leave. "You'd be having your baby with the woman you love, and I'd be..." Where would he be? He had no idea. He'd be without Aeryn. Lost. He'd probably have dug himself a hole and crawled into it by now, and, frell, he had the nerve to consider himself more emotionally stable than this guy.
"No, Crichton." Stark's voice was low and intent. "Don't say that. What Zhaan did was her choice. She wanted you to be happy, and I know-" He touched his mask. "--I know--that she'd be happy about Aeryn's baby the way she is about mine. She made it possible for Aeryn's child to live, for my child to live. We should take joy in that. It would be a poor way to honor her sacrifice by rejecting that joy to wallow in guilt."
Crichton stared at him for a moment, unable to speak. Damn, but Stark sometimes had the ability to catch him completely by surprise. "You know," he said, at length, "I think you might actually make a pretty good dad."
Stark's smile was brighter than if he had taken off his mask.
"Ahem." Startled, they both looked over at Rygel, whose presence John had nearly forgotten. "Much as I hate to interrupt this touching reconciliation, I do still have one question?"
"What?" said Stark.
"Well, you said this Yuti fellow bought you, right?"
"Yes."
"And you agreed to sell him these memories of Crichton's to keep from being sold to the Scarrans?'
"Right, yes, that's right."
"So," Rygel finished, looking at him suspiciously, "What the yotz were you doing on Katratzi, then?"
"He lied," said Stark simply. "After I gave him what he wanted, he sold me anyway."
John hissed through his teeth. "That's harsh, man."
"It shouldn't have surprised me. The Scarrans pay well for Stykera." He was quiet again for a moment. Noranti silently went to the counter, heated a mug of the stuff that passed in the Uncharted Territories for tea, and set it down in front of him. He gave her a grateful look and sipped.
"Well," said John, "at least you're out of there now, right? You're here, you're with friends, you're safe... Well, OK, as safe as any of us gets..."
Stark looked at him uncertainly. "But Rygel was right," he said. "You'll have your own child to take care of, Crichton. I don't have the right to burden you..."
"Geez, will you give it a rest with that, already? Look, it'll be cool. Really. They can have play dates. We can trade off on diaper duty. Besides, having one baby around is going to seriously change things around here. I don't think adding in another one is going to make all that much difference."
The expression on Stark's face was almost pathetically grateful. "Really? You're sure?"
"Listen, Stark... We're happy to have you here, OK? We can talk to the others about it, but I guarantee you, none of them are going to say anything different." Crichton shot a warning look at Rygel, who sensibly said nothing. "Not just because we owe it to Zhaan, either. And not just because of the baby. Because you're a member of this twisted dysfunctional little family, whether you knew what you were signing up for or not. Zhaan was family, you are family, and your child is family. And we do not abandon family. So quit your 'oh, I don't want to be a burden' whining. It reminds me of my grandmother, and it used to piss the hell out of me when she did it, too."
The impact of a hundred-and-some-odd pounds of Banik frantically hugging him nearly knocked him out of his chair.
"Ack," he gasped, as the air came whooshing out of his lungs. "Less hugging! Geez, I didn't like it when my grandmother did that, either."
Stark returned to his seat, smiling as if his face were about to split.
"So," said Rygel after a moment. "Exactly when were you planning on having this... blessed event?" He gave an ironic twist to the last two words, but his tone, Crichton noted with a small amount of relief, was entirely resigned.
"It's not something you plan, Rygel," Stark responded. "It happens when it happens."
"Well, can you give us a rough estimate?" asked John.
Stark shrugged. "Soon. Days, perhaps."
"Well, all right then." John slapped his palms on the table and stood.
"Where are you going?" asked Noranti.
"To talk to the others. And we need to see about setting up a nursery... a little sooner than expected." He looked at Stark. "Coming?"
And that was pretty much that.
**
It comes upon him suddenly, as he's helping Crichton with some maintenance on his module. It starts as a small, strange feeling. Something shifting inside him, something alive, moving among the dead.
"Crichton," he starts to say, "I think..." But it turns into a scream as the something inside him pushes, as if testing where the boundaries of his energy lie.
Crichton must have called the others, they must have come while he wasn't looking, because somehow they're all here, now. Noranti stands at his shoulder, touching him, but he bats her impatiently away. That is Zhaan's place, and if Zhaan cannot be here, he will do this alone.
Pain again, in the part of him that is not his body. This is nothing he's ever felt before: a force trying to push its way out of him. Not to come in, not to pass through, to... separate.
It's so beautiful that part of him doesn't want it to go, but he has absolutely no choice in the matter. It pushes--she pushes--harder and harder. He can feel his boundaries expanding in directions the others clearly cannot perceive, or they wouldn't keep asking him what's happening.
He stammers something, tries to assure them that this is normal. At least, he thinks it's normal. He doesn't remember his own birth well, and the dead inside him have all run and hid, even if he still had the presence of mind to ask them about their own experiences.
And then... And then, his boundaries suddenly burst, and there is energy everywhere, on both planes of existence, moving, swirling, condensing, too fast for his senses to follow. Some ancient instinct prompts him to put his arms out, and when the dizzying display has faded, he finds himself holding his daughter.
His daughter.
His daughter.
He has to blink tears from his eye to see her properly, and immediately it fills with tears again, because she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
She looks Banik, her physical patterns taken from him, but there is a haunting suggestion of Zhaan in her face, the faintest hint of Delvian highlights visible on her downy head. A living reminder of Unity and love.
He whispers her name. "Zaneeya." She needs to be told her name, he knows that much, but he isn't sure what else to do. He knows all the death rituals, the gestures, the chants. He doesn't know the birth ones. So he simply holds her, and whispers her name, and tells her she is loved.
They smile at each other. Somewhere, he can feel Zhaan smiling, too.
**
EPILOG
"Frell me," Aeryn's voice came from across the maintenance bay, where she'd arrived slightly after the others. "Stark had a baby."
John smiled at the genuine wonderment in her voice and held out an arm to her. She came over and allowed herself to be cuddled close. "What?" he said, "You didn't believe me?"
"No, of course, I did, it's just..."
"Yeah, I know. It's really something, ain't it?" They both looked over to where the new dad--Mom? Dad? Frell, dealing with aliens made even the simplest things complicated--stood holding his baby.
Chiana was hovering over them, giggling with delight. "You did it! You did it, Stark! You made a baby!"
"I did... I did..." He sounded as if he were having trouble believing it himself.
"Can I..." She held out a gloved hand.
Stark nodded hesitantly and held the baby towards her. She reached out, gently, and traced the contours of the child's face.
"She's beautiful." She giggled again. "Hey, it's gonna be fun having a narl around here!"
"Fun!" grunted D'Argo, standing at her side. "Oh, yeah. Fun. Piss and dren to clean up all the time. Middle of the night feedings. Those wonderful times when you just can't get them to stop crying..." He squeezed Stark's shoulder and smiled. "You have no idea what you're in for, my friend. But I can tell you this: she will also bring you the greatest joy you will never know. Treasure her."
"I will... I will. Thank you, D'Argo."
Rygel propelled his thronesled in closer, peered down at the baby and sniffed. "Not too bad, I suppose, for an inferior species."
"Rygel!" Noranti rebuked him. "Show a little respect!"
"Hmph," said Rygel. But his supercilious smile had faded into a serious expression. "I suppose... you have done well." He drew himself up to his full height, such as it was. "You have my royal congratulations."
"Moya and I would also like to offer our congratulations," came Pilot's voice over the comms. "Moya in particular is... happy, to have a child around once more."
"Thank you," said Stark. "Thank you. Thank you all." He had scarcely taken his gaze from the tiny form in his arms.
Noranti patted him gently. "I should go and make up some formula," she said. "She'll probably be hungry soon." She turned to leave, then pirouetted around and clasped her hands together gleefully. "Oh! This is so exciting!" She was practically skipping as she left.
Stark, for his part, looked less excited and more absolutely stunned. In fact, he looked as if at any moment he might be about to burst into tears. Or faint. John tugged gently on Aeryn's arm, and they moved over to his side.
"You all right?" John asked him. "Do you need anything? You wanna sit down?"
"No," he said, looking up for the first time. "No. I'm fine." He smiled. "I have everything I need."
"Yeah," John smiled back. "Yeah, I guess you do."
Aeryn was staring down at the newborn with an odd, intent expression, as if processing for the first time the notion that babies were genuinely real, not simply some abstract concept. "Chiana is right," she said, her voice filled with un-Peacekeeper-like emotion. "She is beautiful. She looks very much like Zhaan."
A look of understanding passed between Stark and Aeryn, one so full of sad intensity that John felt compelled to interrupt. "So, ah... What was that you were whispering to her, before?"
"Hmm? Oh. It was her name. Zaneeya."
"Zaneeya," said Chiana, sounding it out. "That's a pretty name. Does it mean anything?"
"Yes," he said, his enthusiasm for this change of subject apparently restoring to him the capacity to speak more than three words at a time. "It's the name of a creature. On Delvia. Zhaan told me about it. It's very beautiful. It starts off its life-cycle rooted to the ground, but when it reaches maturity, wings unfurl from its body, and it leaves the soil and flies. Then, when it grows old, it takes root again. And when it dies, its offspring grows in the same place, given life by seeds and nutrients from its parent."
"That's... interesting," said D'Argo.
"Yeah," said John. "Though I'm not sure if that's really appropriate, or just kind of... weird."
"Appropriate," said Aeryn firmly. "Very appropriate." Stark nodded at her gratefully.
"And," said John, "It does... sound a little like 'Zhaan,' doesn't it?"
Stark nodded. Clearly he'd noticed the similarity already. "Yes."
"Listen," said D'Argo, "are you sure there isn't anything you want? I know it's a little different for you, but Lo'laan was very demanding after Jothee was born... "
"No," he said. "Thank you. In fact..." Stark looked around at all of them, slowly. "In fact, I think I'd--we'd--like a few microts alone now, actually."
"Sure," said Chiana. "No problem." She gave Stark a quick, one-armed hug, then kissed the baby softly on the forehead. "Comm us if you need us, OK?"
Stark nodded. D'Argo took Chiana's arm, and they walked off, Rygel floating behind.
"Ditto," said John. "And, Stark?"
"Yes?"
He grinned broadly. "Congrats, man. We're all really happy for you."
"We can be happy for each other," Stark said.
"Yeah. Yeah, we can."
John and Aeryn walked off, hand-in-hand. As they reached the exit, John stopped and cast a glance back at where Stark stood in the center of the room, still cradling his child. "It's gonna be different around here," he said softly. "It's going to be difficult, you know."
Aeryn nodded, saying nothing.
"On Earth, some people like to say..." He considered his next words carefully. Somehow his ordinary impulse to express himself via a song lyric or a TV quote seemed terribly inappropriate. "...That children represent the living embodiment of our hope for the future," he finished. "Do you think that's true, Aeryn?"
Aeryn squeezed his hand and looked down at her own still-flat belly. "You know," she said, biting her lip. "I think I do. I really think I do."
"Then," he said, smiling softly, "I'm suddenly feeling very, very hopeful."
The soft crooning of a Banik lullaby followed them as they left.