A/N: I'm trying to write more of this, but it's very hard. The dialogue flows so easily but then adding in the inner monologues and actions takes forever. Please be patient and I'll try to update when I can.

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 4

Manhandled

"How many times are you going to make me repeat myself when I know you're video recording this." He's lax, a boneless pile thrown into the chair beside her; his fellow humans keeping disparaging acts of violence to a minimum. 'Man-handled' as he called it, 'unwanted physical contact resulting in proper defense' in her lexicon.

This General is much different from the captains in the Peacekeeper army. His eyebrows vacillate with compassion and comprehension. He may be an authority in extracting pertinent information from prisoners, but his quirks and mannerisms remind her of John's father. "We just want to get our ducks in a row."

"Ducks?" The room is plagued with people, far to many and every microt that passes the temperature raises more klances. Despite them cultivating what they term a 'peaceful' interrogation process, there is every suggestion that they're employing a slow raising heat-based torture tactic to get her to be more agreeable.

"It's an idiom, Honey." His attention on her is brief, showering it on the General and the dozens of similar apprearanced soldiers, but amplifies as he returns, his eyes narrowing perhaps detecting the bit of sweat blistering at her hairline. The expectation is that he will say something to divulge her weakness, and in doing so it will result in their extortion for her good health. Instead, he clarifies with an analytical expression. "Ducks are easier to shoot if they're all lined up."

"Obviously."

"She does speak English, right?" The General directs his stout fingers towards her, and as those expressive brows lower she's privy to the glisten of something in his eyes. "Because she was speaking English when you got here."

Rather than answer him, she crosses her arms, ignoring the squelching of moisture in her armpits and pooling underneath her breasts, leaning forward and resting against her knee in boredom.

John leans in slightly, his wayward hand resting further up the expanse of her thigh where the Calvins have rolled under. "You can chime in on this whenever you want to—"

Plucks his hand, radiating an untold heat directly into her body, from her thigh with a forefinger and thumb. Refuses to make eye contact with him and continues her dialogues in Sebacean. "I will not be revealing any information which could lead them to Moya and allow them to harm my son."

The second man at the table, the one who replaced the only female she's witnessed so far, finally moves from where his hands were clasped against his mouth in what looked to be a prayer. His skin is tight around his face, his lips very pale and his eyes appear uneven under the thin-rimmed spectacles pinned to his face. He addresses John, but his finger juts at her in succession. "How do you understand her?"

John attempts to lean himself back in the chair but fails when he finds the material used in its construction too considerable to even jostle. Instead his body refolds, hands burrowing beneath his arms and he sucks in the corner of his mouth. "Translator microbes."

"Which are?"

"Exactly what they sound like."

"Okay." The man scoffs, hot refuse diffusing into the small room, stirring the air and the intensity of temperature empties her lungs. "No need for sass."

But she forgets about John's intuition, his memory of her body and the changes that overtake her in certain conditions. How he's seen her suffer from the delirium twice and both times failed to acknowledge her plea for a quick and satisfying death, instead leaving her to boil in her own body while he searched for a reversal method.

His expression now is one of open concern, flaring nostrils, downturned eyes with pinhole pupils, and as his thumb drips from his lip, she interrupts what she construes as his apprehension, her eyes wrenching shut in the torture of her own body touching. "I don't understand why we haven't broken out of here and searched for a way back—"

Stretches to grasp at her, his hand practically on fire, and she shrugs her shoulder up to halt the impeding contact. The concern then bleeds into hurt with a patient sigh. "Because they're our best way of getting back."

"No, the stones and that device are."

The man with the glasses whom they introduced to them as a doctor, with no military background decidedly on how he carries himself, omits a slight groan, leaning his elbows and hands against the metal table, the same one she has a leg wrapped around trying to siphon away the coolness. "We don't want to hurt you or your friends."

John simply points a finger at him, the gesture a passive challenge. "Tazed."

"We want to send you back." The doctor has not let his attention stray from her. The sensation is all too familiar, being watched, feeling guarded, something she hasn't experienced since the Scarrans. The ability of anyone to view her how she doesn't want to be seen. As small, as incompetent. As just a female. His words trying to elicit compassion from her that does not exist. "We want our people back."

"We just want to protect our people." The General clarifies, his hands flat and spread over the tabletop, his back straight but not arched forward, his words calm with a smattering of an accent sticking on. His effect calming unlike the doctor. "Can you please just tell us if our people will be safe on your ship?"

Moya. Home. Her son stranded in the command center until hopefully Chiana stumbles upon him during one of her never ending routes throughout the ship. She doesn't stop. Her son's red-faced crying, their trials to find him nutrients and meals, the increase in his bodily temperature injecting her with the lingering feeling of transferring her own inadequacies to her offspring, her own faults to bring him down when she just wants to sense the quick raise and fall of his back, of lungs she formed within her, of his gurgles from a slobbering mouth and fat cheeks.

"Is this guy okay?" John gestures the doctor.

"Excuse me?"

"You look like you're about to snap and take out a bus full of kindergarteners."

"I'm a little on edge." The cadence of his voice increases to display the proper level of his indignation. Apparently on this version of Earth, people are quick to offend. "You'll have to excuse me, but you can understand that this is a little bit shocking for us."

Her eyes lock on to this doctor, her body remains stable and unwavering and sweating from all crevasses. Arches an eyebrow at him, and in perfect English, with the drab tone indicating sarcasm, she voices, "for you?"

The men stop their chattering. Even the armed guards creating a ring around the room like a children's game, stop rustling with their weapons.

"Look—" John tucks his head into his palm, fingers tapping at his temple. He becomes uneasy in captivity. He becomes anxious when she will not allow him to touch her. But he never abandons his intuition, has her knowledge of discomfort with this doctor who presumes to know her when she is not the woman he lost. "Can you take him to an exercise pen or something? Run it out of him?"

"I'm sorry." The doctor stutters, not out of nervousness as she's seen men do before, but rather out of irritation. His torso hunches forward, his hands sliding over the table into her territory. Precognitive of her attack should he drift to close, he withdraws just as quickly and instead fumbles to his feet. "Is this some kind of joke for you? Because we lost two of our teammates today—"

John still splays across his chair, his mouth clicking as he sucks in air unimpressed with the diatribe. "And we lost a son."

"Did you ever think that if maybe—maybe if you cooperated—" He continues in his pacing, his boots clomping across the floor, and the General appear unmoved as if this is a regular occurrence.

During the second round of his speech she blinks and becomes lightheaded at the amount of words his mouth hurls into the air, each one hot and weighted. Never thought it possible that a man could speak more than Crichton. Steadies herself with fingers clamping down on the cold table surface, panting as if she's back running drills again.

Before her husband has a chance to voice his concerns, the doctor's hand falls to her own, blanketing her in unwanted contact, unrequired concern, and unhealthy heat. With cloudy vision and a weak equilibrium, she still managers to spring from the chair sending it clattering back into the wall and connect a single balled fist with the handsy doctor's nose. "Do not touch me."

All the soldiers click into position, drawing their arms and aiming at her.

John, intent on keeping their negotiations, rather their interrogations, as peaceful as possible. Wants to tell him if he wanted to spare her the torture he never should have sent her to search for Leviathan parts out all those cycles ago. "Okay, that was self defense. He was in her private space."

"You're in her private space." The doctor lurches back, his hand pinching the tip of his nose and cupping to catch the blood ribboning out of it.

"We're married you tool."

"All right, well I think that's it for negotiations today." The General is again, unperturbed as if this is also a regular occurrence. The door groans open, hot metal expanding and impacting brick and concrete. The squadron of soldiers slowly flow out of the room, draping the hallway in armed protection. "I think we all might do a little better on a good night's rest."

The doctor catches himself in the doorway, hand fully consuming his nose and his eyes watering and narrowed. "You know you're not really gaining our trust"

Her English rebuttal is forgotten in her head as she starts to shake on her feet, and when she scrambles to dictate the stages of heat delirium to herself, she finds she can't. John crosses his arms, partly to gather attention, partly protective possessive, and steps slightly to guard her. "The feeling is mutual"

"So—" She focuses on the ceiling, not really seeing any moving parts or receptors, or any sort of gooey bits one would generally expect when inside a digestive system. "We're in a stomach right now?"

The gray girl slinks ahead of them, the baby resting its head on her shoulder, its tiny blue eyes trying to focus on Cameron or herself, but the bounce of their steps, even over slated metal, causes his attention to flicker, frantic for a destination to stop. A feeling she knows all too well. "Moya doesn't have a stomach."

"Then how does she eat?"

"How the frell should I know?" Chiana doesn't really spat the answer, but her voice becomes punctuated, her words curt.

"Vala." Cameron's large hand curls around her bicep and yanks her closer to him as they walk, she glances at his hand on her and then to his face, cocking an eyebrow at him, which immediately gets her released. He clears his throat and then falls into a bit of a Daniel-esque stutter. "Maybe cool it on the questions."

Her skin prickles in the absence of his hand. Not his touch, although she's never one to complain about a strong pair of masculine hands on her body, but rather the heat. This ship, if it is living, which she's not entirely sure it is, is awfully cold. "You're inside a living thing and you don't want to ensure that you're not going to be digested?"

"The questions are getting us into more trouble," he grumbles from the side of his mouth, his voice steadier, back to the classic army sternness, however she does love when she can get a rise out of him in more than one way.

"We're inside something's stomach, how could we possibly be in more trouble."

"Look—" Chiana pivots on her toes, a swift movement and so perfectly balanced that the child doesn't stir until a few seconds later. "Pilot and Moya aren't angry with you, more concerned about where Crichton and Aeryn went."

"If the ship is alive, then why does it require a pilot."

"Princess, please." He cuts in front of her, copying her half of their chase around the base, wanting her attention for a change and not for a swift reprimanding, but rather a plea. "I'm begging you. Stop. Talking."

"I'm never one to refuse a man on his knees" The expression he gives her is borderline murderous, but she gives him a plush wink and brushes by him as they approach another large door.

"Hey, are you a real princess?" The baby snuffles or hiccups against the gray girl's shoulder, and she switches him to the other with a bit of an upturned nose. "Because there was one time that Aeryn was—"

Cameron cuts in before she has a chance to lay the groundwork for a spectacular lie giving her royal rights, "it's a nickname."

"What's that?"

"A name given by friends to show endearment."

"Oh." She clasps her hands together, and leans her head back to his shoulder, batting her eyelashes at him again with coquettish ease. "I'm endearing to you?"

"In so much as you're on my team and therefore I have a responsibility to care about your wellbeing—" The massive door opens smoothly revealing a very murky chamber with the shell creature from the hologram situated in the middle at a desk of sorts. Many of those things Mitchell called 'whore's who crabs' scatter around the ground and along the wall, their little torch eyes dot the darkness.

"I think this surpasses a subtle affinity to me." With a cheeky grin she picks up her usual position walking backwards while deep in conversation with him. Trying to jam her words out as fast as she can before he eventually shuts down whatever topic she's brings up. "I think you care about me more than you'd care to admit."

"Vala—" His tone isn't completely harsh yet meaning she has a good two or three exchanges in order to work out what she wants to say and decide how much goading she wants to do.

"I'd even wager to say that you—"

Unfortunately, as she takes the next step back, her foot settles on the sudden empty space beside the walkway. Her body starts to tumble backward before she recognizes what exactly is happening, and just as the panic of tumbling storeys down to her death on some random living alien ship sinks in, his arms snatch her up, one on her bicep again and the other on her ribs, settling her beside him with ease.

Then they share an entirely awkward moment where they just gaze at each other as if mid-dance. Just a tingle, just a wisp of a grin.

The ships groans, or perhaps one of the spinning coin doors doesn't connect in perfection to an oblong archway somewhere, either way the noise jolts the finally slumbering infant awake, and in an instant his fists and his face are clutched tight and his wail echoes throughout the cavernous chamber. She and Cameron disengage as Chiana adjusts the child away from her ear.

"Pilot how did they end up here?" The gray girl prowls easily through the precariously thin walkway with not so much as a blink of second guessing her footfalls. The wailing infant also seems undeterred by the infinite drop into nothingness. "Why aren't they Aeryn and Crichton?"

"For starters their heat signatures differ vastly." The monster—rather the alien before her is more enormous than she assumed. When she takes a hesitant step forward in the interest of counting his arms, Mitchell yanks her back into place. The creature—this pilot, pays no attention to the yelp of an outburst she offers, which falls on infant wailing deafened ears. "As she is Sebacean, Aeryn's body temperature is several degrees lower than Crichton's, a human. Crichton also has a lower blood pressure than this man."

"Hey, I am in peak physical health."

To her delight the crab monster rolls his eyes at Mitchell, then continues to explain, "it is due to your nascent exposure to the uncharted territories."

Chiana angles her head, her body climbing forward towards the pilot's desk, sort of perched on the side. "Where did they come from though?"

"Oh, oh." Her hand blasts into the air and in seconds Mitchell is trying to suppress it, she manages to wrench her arm free, and then take a step forward to spite him. "You're in possession of a long-range communication device."

Chiana and the pilot exchange a doubtful, perhaps disapproving look. She flips around on the desk now somewhat crouching to the side still cradling the baby in one arm. "A what?"

"The device on the wobbly table in the room where we met."

"The hookah?"

"The device can actually transport—"

As Mitchell digresses into a somewhat patronizing explanation of what the horrific devices actually are, the baby twitches against the gray girl chest, punting a leg in the air followed by breaking into another wail.

"I'm sorry, but does that child ever stop crying?" She grinds her teeth together, poised fingers pressing on her temple. The sound reminds her of her home world, rampant with multiple marriages and crops of children. The marketplace a dissonant conglomeration of screaming broods and rampant illnesses spread by screaming broods.

Then she remembers what it was like after Qetesh.

"It's a baby," Mitchell huffs, though his tone is more stoic than before. "That's what they do."

"Actually, Deke doesn't stop crying, not really."

"Well can you get rid of him for a moment." The marketplace and her betrothed tugging her along between the swarms of people, the crying and singing. Then crying and screaming. Just screaming and red.

"What."

Cameron waits for clarification but when she doesn't offer any he translates for her. "I think maybe it's time to return the little guy to his parents."

"Sure," Chiana agrees with a squeak of a giggle, then holds the child out to them.

"No. Oh no." The massive step she takes in retreat slams her back into Mitchell's chest.

"You gotta be kidding me." She notes interestingly enough that his expression isn't pure horror as hers is, but rather one of mystification.

"As I've already stated countless times; we are not this baby's parents."

"Although You may not be his biological parents, your physical bodies are very much the same." The pilot's gentle voice cuts through the strain of baby's throaty cries hiccupping in and out. "The familiar faces and voices as the child begins to tune his senses might put him at ease."

"So here." When the gray girl shoves the infant forward, she turns her body away slightly, locking her arms behind her back. Chiana's face skews, her eyebrows furrowing. "Haven't you held a baby before?"

"Briefly before she was pried away from me." Her lie is better than the truth. She also will never require or seek out his pity on the matter. With a roll of her eyes, she holds out her arms, ready to receive the rather weighty child. "Oh, give it here."

Chiana pauses, retaining the child at the last second and correcting, "him."

"Whatever." Snatches the child and settles him gently so his fat chin rests against the skin on her shoulder exposed by Mitchell's pawing earlier. When she chances a glance at him, expecting him to say something biting or pithy, instead he has a wide grin on his face, almost mooning a bit. To hide the blush creeping into her cheeks she ducks her head, settling it on the gurgling infant and with a lilt she adds, "if this infant vomits on me I will wipe it on you."

"Fair enough." The line isn't delivered with a laugh, or a chuckle, or any sort of sarcastic action meant to belittle her, instead she can only hear his smile. When Chiana clears her throat, a knowing expression of side-eyes and a pulled grin, he restarts the topic, "did your long-range communication device have stones?"

"Yeah, two of them."

"We'll need to examine it then." She bounces the baby a bit, itty bitty feet squared off against her hip and the first dollop of drool on her skin.

Chiana nods in agreement, the pilot seems to as well with a soft dip of his massive head accompanied by a slow blink. "I'll take you back to command."

Though uninjured and less jarred than Mitchell on their transfer into the ship, her body is starting to tire and with the added weight of the child she feels an ache already pooling in her lower back. "Is there no faster method of transportation on Mayo?"

"Moya," Mitchell corrects from over her shoulder. His finger ghosting over her skin, tickling at the tiny palms of the baby who begins to sour again, the muscles in his face tightening.

As his guttural wails return, the pilot narrows his eyes at them, just a tad on the judgemental side. "Moya is still not sure you're entirely to be trusted. You should be more appreciative that you're not being vacuumed into space."

"Oh, we are." Mitchell releases the infant's hand and nods along with her, wide and innocent. "We are."

Tired of the crying and the now puddle of drool sliding down the misshapen collar of one of her only four shirts, she rearranges the baby with one hand supporting his bottom and the other arm wrapping around his chest, somewhat primitively buckling him to her for support, but offering him a wider array of people to view. It also works to aim his mouth cannon somewhere besides her very limited wardrobe.

To her, and perhaps everyone's relief, the crying stops, instead replaced with content gurgles motoring out of a very gummy mouth.

Mitchell now wears a half-grin, one she definitely hasn't seen before and all these new positive facial expressions of his are more unnerving than the idea that she still might be masticated by a ship. "How did you do that?"

"Well I'm using my hand to support his tiny—"

"No, how'd you get him to stop crying?"

"I don't know." Shrugs at him and sways with the child, who is warm against her chest and jittering his little legs. "Everything is very dark, and everyone is very serious, I thought perhaps if I entertained him—" When she tucks her head down to view the baby, he looks up at her and give her a wide, toothless grin.

"I think he likes you."

While she appreciates the enthusiasm behind the comments and the underlying intention, properly holding a baby is not the same as pleading with her daughter not to kill and torture millions. "That's a learned response, Darling." But she can't help but grin back down at him. "He likes his mother."

The baby gurgles back at her, and with a happy twitch kicks his feet.

"No." He elongates the word, and stoops to be even height with the infant, again taking his tiny hand and again the infant's face sours. "I think he likes you."

"Well then, I suppose he'd be the first." Glances to Chiana who is obviously reading the exchange between Mitchell and herself, smugness tightening her shining lips.

"No he wouldn't, Princess."