Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 6

Forfeit

here is a strange hum when she wakes. Moya tends to make different noises depending on the areas of space in which she travels, particularly ones with higher pressure or more stars and systems. Doesn't open her eyes, only listens to what sounds like the constant hum of a motor. Does not chance a movement because Deke is being silent, perhaps having fallen asleep—but when she sweeps her hand softly across the bed, she finds no evidence of her son, and at that her body bolts upwards.

"Easy Baby." Crichton's hand lands on a blanket pulled up around her bare thigh. She's wearing shorts, military shorts from an Earth installation. They're in mountain. She was suffering from heat delirium.

Her son is gone.

"Deke?" Doesn't condone the wildness etched into her voice, the unwavering pitch as she cranes her head around the room, trying to spot her child, the one with tiny fingers that curl around her own, who carries her eyes that are always free to be full of tears, and who may have her aversion to heat. Turns to Crichton, her hand falling on his forearm and allowing the unconcealed concern in her voice to adopt some hope. "Did we—?"

The calm smile slips from his face and he simply shakes his head at her. Wants to ask him if he even bothered to look, if he remembered he had a son without her conscious enough to remind him. But his hand scoops hers up, holding it tender in his own before and placing a kiss over her knuckles.

Takes relief in his proximity as he pillows her hand between his, tucking it beneath his chin, and tries not to dwell on the fact that this relaxation is the result of the complete trust of another being. Her cold skin warms between his hands, her arm peppered by his exhalations. She closes her eyes, the headache lingering from the sudden change of temperature. "What happened?"

"Well." Shifts their hands to before his mouth, his words heating her skin as the tips of her fingers trace over his lips. "I met the biggest human-looking guy I've ever seen. He might have been a human, but he looked more like a Mac truck and I sort of made a deal with him."

Her hand stiffens within his, and when she tries to tug away, he holds on. "What deal, Crichton?"

"We can talk about it later."

Reclaims her hand, using it to push against the brown boxes beneath the blanket wrapped around her. The cold is no longer soothing and despite the irate emotions coursing through her, she finds herself lethargic, her concentration waning. "What did you offer?"

"You're going to get upset and you need to relax—" Tries to guide her back into a laying position, but at this point if she falls back into sleep, she'll be hard to rouse.

"I'm already upset," speaks from between gritted and chattering teeth.

He unzips the plush jacket he's wearing, it very thick and smooth with a fur trimmed collar. "I told them we'd work with them."

Doesn't offer him a remark because this is how it always ends up. He caves when someone he loves is threatened and she has to come to terms with the fact that it's usually her that's threatened, or the son she birthed.

Fingers tickle at her wrist, as her posture becomes precarious on the closing of her eyes.

"Aeryn."

On his beckoning, he draws her inwards to the body heat pouring out of his open jacket zipper.

"I'm cold."

"I know."

"Where are we?"

"You were hard into the heat delirium, so the Big Guy brought us to the closest, coldest room." His hand slaps down onto one of the cardboard boxes beneath her, slipping between the slatted top, and pulling out a bag full of frozen foodstuffs. "This is a freezer."

"Do you truly believe that they will help us return to Deke?"

He guides her hands to loop around his waist, and a shiver runs through her at the welcoming furnace of heat hidden at the small of his back. "Despite everything they've done so far, I don't think that they mean us any harm."

More awake now, but more relaxed, visualizing his words, his plans that sit in constant failure. "They promised to do what they can about the heat—and honestly—" The weight of his head cushions on top of hers, feels the muscles in his jaw stretch and snap as he speaks, his hands over the bare skin on her back, fingers in her hair. "I think they just want their people back safe."

Three solar days ago she sat on the edge of the tottering table in command, Deke lay cradled in her arms as she tries to feed him a pouch of the Peacekeeper infant formula. John hates the smell and texture of the viscous green sludge, his eloquent description of the minerals keeping their son alive. It was Deke's feeding time and he refused to feed, only cried misery with despondent eyes lined with thick lashes, all things she made and protected and nourished within her, actions she never intended to do, actions that once brought her shame instead of pride.

Attempted to distract herself from the nascent frustrations growing within her, a squalling infant, less than an arn of sleep, the worry of where to get the next meal, and which Diagnosians to trust as despite the peace treaty, despite the wormhole generated from her husband's mind, Scarrens and Peacekeepers alike still viewed them as a threat. Both honored the agreement, and Moya traveled safely though enemy territories until able to starburst, but the radio silence on both sides only served to stoke her concern.

Her mind exhausted and racing, her arm giving a gentle bob to her son to calm him, her voice whispering words in Sebacean, words she wished Xalax had whispered to her, sacred promises which she vowed to keep, she dipped her head, resting it against the one she created, and sighed in his scent, one she could track through the wilderness on any planet, only to have him reach and grasp her hair.

Her emotion became his emotion as she grinned at him, and he gurgled back, eyes bright and clear, and just a slight tug at his lips. John explained it was generally unheard of for a human child of only thirty solar days to have such motor skills, but it is quite common among Peacekeeper children, especially those reared upon a craft.

But she knew this action, from her son to her, was on purpose, was a reaction to her fatigue, her surrender. Knew that this was a priceless reward and when Deke still refused the food, still wailed arns on end, she remembered his fat hand in her hair, just like his father's, and knew to be patient.

"John."

"Yeah?"

"I want our son back."

"Then let's go get him."

The truce John struck up with the military offers them benefits, too many benefits to simply sit back and appreciate without the lingering suspicion that eventually these benefits will have to be reciprocated.

The doctor from before and several guards, she counts five, but keeps her head low, lest her counting be discovered, escort them back to their room. A different room this time, situated in the middle of the complex. It's more spacious offering a bedroom separate from a communal living area, and a bathroom equipped with a soaking tub.

"Why would they give us this?" Her finger grazes over the enameled surface of the rectangle basin sunken and tiled into the floor. In its opulence she presumes there's a more utilitarian usage.

"Because I asked for it." He tugs out the drawers in the bathroom counter, taking stock of what was given to them. Preoccupied with simple toiletries that he took to during their last visit on a different but eerily similar Earth.

She doesn't have the patience for his antics, despite being relocated several levels, the complex still radiates heat from within the walls, and while she's not at a high enough temperature to be in medical danger, it's high enough that she's permanently unwell.

From the bathroom, the white luminescent panels on the walls and floors contrasting with the drab boulder exterior of the bedroom and living quarters, he shouts, "don't you want to know why?"

"I've given up wanting to know why you do half the dren you do." Sits atop the arm of the couch, the leather is cool, but it sweats as she does, permanently, ceaselessly. She collects her hair, ratty and dry from the few arns spent in the refrigeration unit but finds that her tie has been mislaid from her wrist. All she can do is blink her eyes closed and sigh.

A solar day ago her son was with her, she was in a room where the temperature was moderated to her liking, she was tired, and concerned, but less so that she is now. Her body adapts, it was created to adapt, to deal with harsh environments, to be pushed to extremes and then exceedingly further, to carry a hybrid offspring safely for double the gestation period. But for the first time, she fears adapting here, fears their residency becoming permanent. Fears not feeling the hold of a tiny little hand in her hair again.

Her hair is again collected, his fingers combing through to keep some semblance of a military exterior, twisting until her neck is bared and a messy ball of hair sticks out the back of her head. She vacillates between finding the same solace she did in his body warmth, the idea that he knows of her weaknesses and ensures there are routes around them and being inherently vexed that the bun on her head is now too tight, and too messy to be of use.

His lips press behind her ear, warm and wet, and when he speaks, he nuzzles into her neck. In the midst of constantly sweating, it induces a shudder. "I asked for it for you."

"For me?" Cranes her head back, her nose brushing his cheek, smelling his perspiration, seeing the same glint on his skin.

"In case you can't handle the heat, we can fill it with ice and let you marinate a bit." His thumb traces the angle of her chin, his words parsing slower. "Can't always be contaminating the frozen food section."

Allows his hands to worm their way around her ribs, resting underneath her breasts, his exhalations are hot, but warranted. Normally would deny the idea of recreation during such a time, but she feels unmoored, on edge and perhaps the reduction of fluid levels would deliver her the calm the temperature simply will not.

The kiss is not lacking, his dry lips pulling against hers, willing her to open, to fall backward over the arm of the couch, reclining, accepting him on top of her. Normally, they fight for supremacy, their recreating boiling down to half pleasure, half sparring, seeing who will take the reigns and who will submit. On this world, in this universe, her responsibilities are numerous and overflowing. Needing to dominate him now will be one other task she must complete, so she remains reactive beneath him.

His hand slides over her stomach to her bra, similar in style to the one worn by Peacekeeper soldiers, a simple pliable black material, and his lips course over her neck, elongated for him as she bows her body back. Tugs at her bun, releasing her hair into his fingers once again, and if she wasn't preoccupied with his hips rutting against hers, she would tell him what a frelling waste of time it was to put it up.

But instead he sucks on her shoulder, his hand strumming her breasts over the fabric, and her hands dig underneath the band of his pants, sliding along the ridge of his—

The door to their room hisses open.

As John scrambles off her, the swiftness of his movements stunted by his obvious arousal, she identifies the contour of the doctor standing within the archway.

"Is it that doctor guy? Tell me it's not that—"

"Sorry to interrupt." The doctor is a vibrant shade of red, his face angled towards the corner of the ceiling, refusing to make eye contact or other acknowledgement—Peacekeepers would describe this tactic as submissive and weak as direct eye contact can insight aggression. "But we need you two to take a look at the long-range communication device."

She doesn't answer him because she's still not trusting of this truce. John's jaw clicks into place, tense and tight, with his narrowed eyes, direct and aggressive. "You are just the worst."

The doctor purses his lips and give a single nod of acknowledgement, his eyes flitting to her and lingering. "I'll be waiting outside."

She wakes up almost completely frozen, her legs still tucked under the end of a heavy fur throw, but her bare shoulder practically sporting a layer of frost. Her teeth chatter as she pushes herself into a sitting position, placing herself in the right scene. On that ship, that living ship with a name that escapes her, with Mitchell still nestled at the side of her risen bed. Grins at his deep sleeping form, and the heavy snore pouring from his mouth, would have wagered that he be gone when she woke up, scurrying back to his room, and the bigger bed, leaving her on parenting duty.

The child still sleeps, a son she never birthed but has taken to her and she cannot embrace it because he is not hers. He may have her eyes, reminiscent of her most broken days holed up in a sandy-bottomed prison before the Tok'ra took pity on her, but he is not her son. Gently, she lowers him over the side of the bed, making a nest for him from the throw no longer warming her legs. Her pants, the ones she arrived in, are covered in a bit of spit up, and a little of something else from a diaper change gone awry. One that Mitchell slept through or else he has wonderful acting skills.

It's only been about four hours since he plodded in here last night holding the baby at arms length and she's unsure if his avoidance of the child is for her own same reasoning, trying not to see himself in a human being who means nothing, who should mean nothing, but stirs up envy and bad memories like ocean detritus.

A shower would be best.

A shower always helps, and Chiana was kind enough to show here where the facilities were. She grabs a makeshift outfit from the pile of clothes pilfered from the other room and pads her way down the bronze-hued halls until slipping into the closest communal shower. There are towels, hanging off a wall to use afterwards, and her hand slides over what should be the dial, trying to rummage through the operational instructions she was told after intergalactic jetlag and four hours of baby duty.

The water, well it's not exactly water and she really doesn't want to know what it is, is hot, hotter than her normal showers after off-world missions with mud caked into personal crevices, or after a tumble with a strapping soldier who followed her winks. She cleans, trying not to compare the shower to all the others she has experienced in her lifetime. Qetesh had a proclivity for hot springs, oblong baths with warbling bubbles that made her skin flush red without arousal. The showers on Ver Isca were a basin filled with heated water and were a treat to her only once a week.

With the suds rinsed from her hair, she rings it out, watching the liquid drip and run down the slanted floor to the drain. She runs a towel over her hair to catch any lingering wetness. Another towel wrapped around her as she approaches the bench in which she's laid out her clothes, well not her clothes, other hers clothes. A white top, leather pants, and suspenders. The undergarments are more rudimentary black and white and made of stretchy nylon or a similar material. Nothing flashy or lacey or sensual, garments used for basic needs. Misses her frills, her bows, her lace. Pink with brown stripes and all the trimmings that men love to fuss over, like unwrapping a gift. Has to keep it interesting because after three years stuck in the same mountain, sex with an alien isn't exactly the draw it once was.

There's a noise outside the doorway, and she assumes it's Mitchell panicking while being left alone with a child he was all for adopting before he knew it was his, well not his, but alternate his. She rolls her eyes because men, nothing scares them more than sexually progressive women or babies. Qetesh ruled entire Jaffa armies while wearing next to nothing, pushed herself on men until they quaked in her presence, championed men in the battlefield and in bed, and all because her strength, her confidence, loomed over their own.

Is unsure why babies and the birthing process frightens men so much, she was on path to work as a midwife before being hijacked by Qetesh, and there's nothing more natural. Perhaps it's the time discrepancy or the bodily fluids or one of so many other reasons. Would frequently tell Tomin of her changing body, her weakening bladder, milk laden breasts, the marks cut across her stomach from lack of give in her skin, and he would silence her and tell her it was inappropriate talk.

Tugs on the panties to below her hips, her fingers sliding over the craggy white scars still carved into her skin from a baby that was never her own. Pulls on the bra adjusting herself accordingly and finding it a bit of a tight fit. Knows her counterpart has had a baby and can only guess this garment was from before that time.

Pulls on the loose-fitting white top, and yanks on the leather pants which she doesn't care for, but there's not much in the way of alternate clothing. Digging through that pile, the majority was black and leather. No frills, no bows, no pop of color. Fits the suspenders over her shoulders and finds them relatively useless, the pants fit fine, particularly in the hips, and her hypothesis of this being an older outfit is proving itself truer and truer.

Slides her feet back onto her combat boots and imagines her counterpart, Officer Sun, doing the same back on base. Perusing her limited wardrobe of three shirts and one pair of pants, and no boots now because she took them. Feels bad leaving her with next to nothing, but perhaps the SGC will treat her a smidge better, offering her other uniforms. Perhaps she'll get the use of the civilian clothing that she hardly ever gets to wear. Hopes she wears the blue frilly shirt, the one that kind of rides up under the arms and works it in for her.

With still moist hair, she opens the shower room door expecting to find an irate Mitchell, which is partly the reason she took her time, but instead finds a new person. A shorter, older woman, about the height of Chiana, with a third eye in the center of her forehead and the biggest ears she's ever seen.

"Oh Aeryn, I wanted to inquire if the food I—made—for—" Her words peter out as the woman stares at her, examining her, perhaps with the third eye. "You're not Aeryn."

"Yes—Yes I am." Bursts by the old lady still sniffing around her like one of those slobbering Tau'ri animals Cameron keeps on his farm, the ones with spastic tails and floppy ears. He named his Misty and said she was a good girl. "I just—the child spat up on me, and when I went to offer him a new diaper, decided to relieve himself on the legs of the pants I pulled back on because that room is so dreadfully cold and—"

When she turns to judge whether her lies are believable, the old woman blows a handful of dust in her face and everything goes black.

Awakens with heavy cuffs eating up her hands and wrists. They must be magnetized as her arms are pinned above her head, and when she struggles to yank them down, she cannot. As her blurred vision clarifies, she witnesses the old woman puttering around what must be a kitchen, adding bits and bobs to a pot cooking on the stove.

When the old woman turns, catching sight of her conscious, she throws a hand to her chest and releases a weak laugh. "Good, you're awake. I was afraid I'd used too much of the fyang powder. Aeryn requires a high dose and I was unsure to how similar you are."

She swallows, blinking her eyes, her head lowering a bit, the effects of the drugs obviously still present in her system. "I believe we only look similar—"

"—Yes. Yes, outwardly you appear exactly alike, perfect precision in copies, however interiorly you differ vastly, which is how I was able to suss you out." She putters still, extending on the tips of her toes to grab a red piece of twine from a high cabinet and tossing it into the mixture.

"I don't know if Chiana informed you—" The woman doesn't pay attention, throwing three of something into a canister and shaking it like a primitive instrument. It results in high pitched squealing, and the noise gives her a rotten feeling in her tummy. "I mean no harm."

"Yes Dear, I'm quite aware of your benign nature." Sidling up next to the pot, the woman dumps the content of the shaker into the boiling water, and the screeches become more potent before dying out.

"Excellent, then perhaps you'd be kind enough to release me?" Shoves her body back into the metal bulkhead, causing a thunking sound from her weight.

"I will do so in just a few microts."

She pouts her lips, now hanging the full weight of her body from her arms, her head difficult to keep up. "I realize you're quite busy creating whatever fantastic concoction you've got brewing, but is there anyway we can expedite my releasing?"

The old woman pours the boiling liquid from the pot filling a small bowl to the brim. Little tendrils of smoke rise from the mixture, bubbles popping, but slowing. "You can be released just as soon as the mixture cools."

"Lovely." While finding this old woman agreeable, the small portion of her that is lucid, warns that perhaps she's too agreeable. "May I ask why?"

"Oh," the woman glances up from where she sweeps a bit of dust off the counter with her hand and pockets it. "Because you need to ingest it."

"Okay." Glances to the bowl that is no longer throwing steam into the air, and she swallows harshly. Is never one to turn down a meal, a good meal, a bad meal, has lived off roots and grubs before she trotted to Earth, all done up in leather gear to hide her boney figure. "Again, may I ask, why?"

The old woman only laughs, collecting reeds strewn around the room and placing them back into a vase. "Because you're all done up."

"I'm aware of that." Eyes roll upwards, witnessing the metal consuming and restricting her hands. Can't hold the pose for long and her head lolls back down. "I'd just assumed you'd done it."

"No. No. No." The old woman tuts with a wag of her finger, just like any village elder, just like any older relative, just like General Landry. She approaches with a smile, but her third eye opens, revealing a bright green glow. "You are empty, and there was no consent given."

"I'm not sure I—"

The woman drifts closer, the eye shine no longer calming, but growing intense, almost radiating heat. "Aeryn's was natural, biological from heritage, from birthright."

"All right. Perhaps you should go get—"

"Yours is unnatural. Not for betterment. You were kindling, just a sacrifice." The old woman shakes her head, empathising with her over a statement she doesn't understand, a trait she's unsure she actually has. Her eye closes, retreating into furrows on lilac skin, before she turns away, shuffling towards the bowl.

"I'm sorry, I still don't understand." Feels her heart speed up as the old woman clasps the bowl between her two hands, the liquid inside cooling to a thick paste, bright red with frozen ripples. She really doesn't want to ingest the concoction. She has minor food allergies, and her stomach is already roiling from the lack of fresh fruit available. Bartering won't work because she has nothing the woman wants, but perhaps exploiting her good nature, her nonsensical words, will work. "But I don't want to eat that, and if you make me, it will be unnatural and not bettering."

"No, no, no." Tuts again, a mischievous half-grin tugging on her worn lips. "It will better you, it will undo what was done—"

"Well perhaps I don't want—"

The old woman balances the bowl in a single, steady hand, placing a cold palm against her cheek. Her grin turns warm, her eyes as gentle as her touch. "Your body has always been forfeited, Child."

The words strike her harder than any fist ever has, and she manages to hold her head steady enough to stare at this woman, while unpacking such a heavy sentence, one she tries not to admit to herself.

"This mixture will help you reclaim it."

Before she has time to ask another question or even consider drinking a solution she saw made up of screaming nodes and common kitchen rubbish, the woman clamps a hand over her nose, blocking her nostrils, and when she opens her mouth in protest, the bowl tips back against her lips.

The thick, sticky, fowl liquid trips back over her tongue, coating her throat, making it hard of her to breathe, like the time she ordered extra extra cheese on her pizza, against Daniel's behest, and a wad of melted cheese got stuck in her throat until Muscles smacked her back so hard, she saw stars.

Can't breathe, can't cough, and the bowl clatters to the ground as the old woman forces her mouth closed with both cold, thin-skinned hands. Her breaths are staccato against he woman's fingers as she weaves a lullaby of soft, supportive words while keeping her mouth clamped with unbridled strength.

"There, there. Keep it all down." The still warm smile, the still tender hands, and it's oddly familiar. Comforting while being in intense fear caused by said comforter. The holding down, the hair stroking, the Goa'uld burrowing into the back of her neck. Tears prick the corners of her eyes as she shakes her head, flailing her feet, trying to knock the woman away, her throat thick and full, her mouth dry and tasting of refuse. "You must ingest it all of it."

She swallows the lump of what she's trying to trick her brain into thinking is cheese, just as the old woman is flung aside, back against the cabinets, shaking the utensils and cupboard doors. Her head dizzying, white lights, bright colors spackling across her view as she coughs, trying to bring up the mixture that sits hard in her stomach, like swallowing a boulder, but as she hacks, strangles out whooping coughs, her throat remains empty and her stomach full.