A/N: Just a heads up that this chapter deals with women's issues that readers might find squeamish

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 8

Babel/Babble

There's another hum. The buzz of an annoying insect following her around on another planet she would rather forget.

To have a child.

To not.

The same question droning through her head as she stared at a man she loved more than anything she ever had, a man she gave up all her convictions for the moment they met, a man who wasn't that man at all, but was. He loves her, that is fairly obvious through his extroverted gestures, his fingers itching to touch her, her skin some sort of remedy to him. Through the way his face cracks into one of horror or sadness in times of her duress. How it may remain a stoic mask which is far more alarming.

The white room, how she despises this white room, clarifying in her view. The same table, the same device, but a screen flickering, buttons blinking in distress. Immediately aware Deke is not here, disturbing as part of her just accepts this now. Exhales staring down at the same unspoiled tiles, her fingers fanned out against the mild surface, eyes flitting as they did yesterday, searching for something to latch on to.

"Roo oaky?"

A warm hand curls under her bicep and on instant knows that these are not John's hands. Different callouses, softer skin overall—humans and their inferior biological composition—such a delicate exterior boasting their lack of intergalactic travel.

"Kanu stan?"

Blinks and allows the life she would have allowed herself to slip away again, only to be cultivated in sleepless morning sessions coddling a child who now means more to her than a man she means the world to. Her body evolves from slack to rigid, shoulders clicking into place, elbowing the doctor's knee from beneath him, and his fragile body once again cracks underneath the force of her blow. His left side slumps in his lost balance, his chin barely missing the edge of the very solid table.

Bellows, more in shock than in pain, short but carnal, and when he fully stoops to the floor she towers over him, ignoring the intense ache radiating from her neck, the haze on the outer rim of her vision as she fights to focus, the slight adjustments she needs to apply to her footing to not tip over from the rush of regaining her stance, but most noticeably, the heat. The smoke filtering from machines, accompanying the increase in breathing from three other people turn the air boggy.

Glares down at the doctor cradling his knee as she would her son. Cautiously rubbing his palm over the tendon she more than likely bruised as she calculated her blow to be just shy of dislocating the cap. "Do not touch me."

Surprisingly, the doctor glares back at her over the rim of his spectacles, located near the tip of his nose. Blue eyes piercing through the haze that is very slow to clear. "Saw rhee eye ohn lee whanted 2—"

Angles her head at him, at his unusual words—perhaps a different dialect of English she hasn't encountered before. Distinguishable in syllables, in the basics of sounds, but unable to translate into a direct meaning. Listens as he rambles, still petting his knee, and his lips motor into noise after unknown noise.

"Your prattling is no longer being accepted by the translator microbes."

"Wut?" His eyes narrow at her, his hand stilling on his leg, and the other breaking free to push his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose.

"I cannot understand your—"

"Ef yur not gun nuh speak in glass than—"

Observes his discontent momentarily before the familiar call crashes over his words.

"Aeryn."

Bifurcated in the want to roll her eyes, because he does worry entirely too much. She's the one who taught him how to fly a space vessel, she's the one who spent the arns teaching him to fire a pulse pistol, she's the one who birthed and cared for their child while simultaneously caring for herself and his comatose body.

She works in physicalities, while he works in abstracts.

"Aeryn!"

But the concern in his voice is so prevalent it may as well be tangible. Turns from the doctor to witness Colonel Carter helping John to his feet.

"I'm all right, John."

"What?" Squints into the settling haze, his skin growing red from worry. Flinches away from the Colonel when she lays a hand on his back, bringing up a heavy hand to direct his accusations directly to her. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know." The Colonel coughs out, her balled fist drowning the action in her throat, free hand fanning at the remaining smoke, but her eyes scanning the table, the various electronics present which could have caused the upset. "There was a malfuct—"

"What did you do to us?" Emotions too raw for him to attempt his charade of stoicism, instead the unbridled anger seeps through as he steadies himself against the table by pounding a fist into it, demanding attention, draining his rage.

One of the screens scrolls through characters and syntax at a rapid rate, turns bright blue and then promptly turns itself off. The humming of their shield, or whatever they declared the device in the corner to be, is growing again, almost pulsating against the inside of her skull.

This is not coincidental.

"They didn't do anything, John." Ignores the humidity, hot on the back of her neck like the musty breath of upper officers who becomes too informal after a few rounds of ferlip nectar. Instead, picking her way passed the doctor still sprawled on the ground and to the shielding device with rapidly blinking lights.

"Wut'd you sey?"

"This machine is—" groans, flicking her head to the side, at the sharp snap in her head, the device's droning now palpable. "Turn off this machine."

"Aeryn, I dunt understan—"

"This machine is what's disrupting everything. Can't you hear the distressing sound?" All three of the humans stare at her, not exactly open-mawed, but breathing heavily from their mouths. "Can't you feel the vibrations?"

"Baby, your speekin Sebacean."

There's a greater disjoint in the words than she noticed before. Sounds, broken sounds like pieces to a puzzle she has to put together. Like a computer or mathematic equation she has to solve for using a part of her mind that has never been cultivated. "You cannot understand me."

It is not a question, because she knows the answer.

"Why ar you speekin Sebacean?"

Translator microbes utilized to produce a picture, an idea, an emotion at alien words and sounds. Sonant and surd and the language he speaks is punctuated by too many glottal stops, but that is not the issue, the lack of pictures and ideas and emotions are. The base of her skull throbs at the area of her brainstem where the microbes gather rotting.

Connects eyes with him, aware of how difficult it will now be. She visited his home, met his family, ate holiday dinners, and saw pictures of deceased domesticated livestock.

He walked her away from murdering her mother.

She began learning his language.

He did not.

The translator microbes are dead. Does not tell him, or those responsible this, as it's obvious in their lack of shared tongue, their miscommunications no longer the result of his emotions and her actions, of his bumbling and her impenetrability.

The hum evolves into a shriek, slashing through her ear drums, and leadening her head at the base, now a cemetery for hundreds of microbes. Gestures to the machine with a stiff nod, then back to her husband, the father of her only offspring, and although she loves him, sometimes she thinks back to the manner of her rearing, the strict rules by which she was raised and wonders if those rules weren't implemented for a valid reason.

Obvious. This has to be obvious.

"I think our trenzlater mikerobes might be—"

This machine is going to explode very shortly and with it, the beacon anchoring them to this galaxy, the only thing that can possibly reunite her with her son.

Doesn't explain this as she bludgeons the machine with the legs of a very sturdy chair.

Knows he requested this basin for her. Three empty plastic bags splay across the gleaming white tiles, rivers of water growing over the floor, puddling in the bottom of the cupped plastic. From her basic translations of his overcomplicated native tongue, ice in sacks the size of pillows is readily available at her call.

She only knows because he bothered to share it with her.

Trying to share things with her in a half-spoken language that leaves her half mute isn't exactly relaxing. Attempting to work together while only one of them half understands the other isn't plausible.

Only heard of translator microbes exploding as an outdated form of Peacekeeper torture from a time before her birth, before the regiment of mixed psychological and physical torture was implemented. When prisoners wouldn't answer questions and were deemed a waste of commodities, a recording would play slowly increasing the amount of damage done until the prisoner's brainstem was completely destroyed rendering them a vegetable or dead.

This technique was discontinued as it was deemed too barbaric.

A knock interrupts her thoughts, which are all she has for the moment.

Adjusts her thighs under the water, the fractions of intact ice clink against the side of the porcelain basin. John's head pops around the door, fingers piled over his eyes. "You descent?"

Scrolls through her lexicon, trying to retrieve the information of descent, of where he means for her to go, does he want her to submerge herself under the water? When she doesn't answer after what he judges is an appropriate amount of time, he peeks between his fanned fingers.

"For got you cant really answer." The joviality drops from his face as he walks into the room, not entirely serious, but concerned, as he perches on the edge of the tub. "You feelin better?"

Nods, a human gesture for agreeing. A 'mmhmmm' does the same. There are very basic ways they can still communicate.

"Good." Hand drifts to her hair, done up in an acceptable bun, ribboning loose strands around his fingers. His words require the majority of her concentration. The manual translation, the sifting through hundreds of rhymes and multiple meanings, not to mention insinuations, idioms, and homonyms. "You gotta take it easy."

Take it easy. To do something easier? To snatch something without hurdles?

"Relax," he clarifies as he traces the pensive lines on her face.

She groans, shakes her head, turns away from his touch. Concerned for her while she is present when his concerns should fall on the little one abandoned galaxies away. The one who hasn't gotten translator microbes yet. The one who screams against her chest as she tells him stories she was told as a child through Peacekeeper rearers but changes the ending to hopeful instead of civilizations laying in the wake of war.

"Will be fine." His lips stamp like a hot seal over the exposed skin on her neck.

Wilts her fingers around his neck, his lips preoccupied with another form of nonverbal communication, but her determination is concrete, her goal—reuniting with her son or perishing while trying—is solid, burdening the back of her head, the base of her skull where yet another device has failed her.

The encouragement saps from her fingers as they still, then grow tense against his neck, drawing him away from tracing water droplets from her skin with his tongue. His face falling into one of concern shrouded over the irritation of being halting in his conquests yet again.

"How will we be fine when we cannot understand each other?"

The snug pinch at the corners of his lips slackens in his inability to render her words. Plays cute, trying to charm her with the grin on his face as he shakes his head at her, yet never admits to the fault of not understanding while knowing she is perfectly capable of understanding.

His world, his family, his language, and she assimilated for him. Spoke words soft and malformed from her mouth while reassuring herself it would benefit everyone if she looked human and spoke the language. They would be safer, she would be more easily integrated, and the terror and suspicion that accompanied them to Earth would dissipate leaving her and John safe to raise their family.

That was the original plan, but since he arrived, her plans, no matter their level of practicality, are useless and either interrupted or discarded, barely ever resembling how she envisioned.

The original plan involved a different Crichton, where self-sacrifice was never a concern.

"John." Shakes her head, pushing her gripping hands against the enamel of the tub, sliding the rough pads of her feet over the slick bottom as she stands. The return of heat is immediate, his hand cupped under her arm, helping her stand in a similar fashion to the doctor earlier, but kicking his kneecap out would only be slightly satisfying right now.

He skips across the floor, retrieving a large towel embroidered with his nation's insignia. The fact that she depends on these people—ones who boast so much while having achieved so little—to reunite her with her son is terrifying.

"At least this time you cannot attempt to explain away my apprehensions." Stagnates as he blankets her with the towel, comforting and caring, distracting when she focuses. "You're not even aware of them."

Still doesn't speak, but rubs his hands over the towel creating friction, and with it, heat.

"Were you ever aware of them?"

Her expression sours as she wrenches her eyes closed, turning away. Must understand that much because his hands still. "I sacrificed all I had for you. For our son. And until now have never thought to regret it."

When he leans in to kiss her, she halts him with what she considers a gentle hand against his chest. "I learned your language so I wouldn't be marginalized, and yet everything you do continues to make me feel so."

Amazed that he hasn't spoken yet, that she's captivated him for this length of time without an English interruption or more appearances of roaming hands. Removes the towel because her body is dry, is heating up, and her future is now restricted to meager floors away from this tub.

"I learned your language because I love you, and I knew it would be comforting to have a partner you could converse with."

Pulls on new clothing from an unending stream of donations from their military. Fatigues, pajamas, jumpsuits, all things she cannot wear because the extra insulation would result in her vegetative state. Sticks to workout gear designed to vent body heat, to clothing baring expanses of skin deemed unprofessional by the doctor in the mumbled side conversation she overheard earlier. Cannot speak with them to argue otherwise and instead is left to ruminate in a thin camisole and shorts.

"Both of these things you never offered me."

Must sense the shift in her tone because he sighs, "Aeryn, just use Engl—"

"No John, I'm finished talking."

Switches off the light in the washroom leaving him bathing in the dim glow from over the sink, something he calls a night light. When he thinks she is out of range, possibly forgetting her superior hearing, or perhaps, wanting her to hear his discontentment, he grumbles, "Man, I wish I knew Sebacean."

The pain was excruciating. Ripped through her torso, up the sides and penetrated between each of her ribs. Mounted at the bottom of her spine in the furrows of her hips, striking down and gripping through her thighs.

And then the pain was gone, and there was crying, but it wasn't her tears any longer, instead belonging to a tiny being she birthed calling out for her. Calling out for sustenance, for comfort, for protection.

But they took her, swaddled the daughter she never saw or held or fed or comforted.

Certainly, never protected.

And the crying and the pain is insistent, a fury of overstimulation through sounds and nerves and—

Awakens with a dizzying headache. Flutters her eyelids open to find a wall, not the stark gray or black or brown of Tau'ri construction materials, but a bronzed metal of a living being. Inhales, her lungs itching for air, as the dream—the nightmare—the memory—undulates over her skin, prickling the hairs to stand on end. The temperature in the room has to be nearing freezing, but when she exhales there are no wisps of air.

As the dulled mute rings out, the baby wails return, and her eyes jolt open. Attempts to sit up but there is a restraint around her ribs.

Warm, heavy, hairy—an arm?

An arm slapped over her torso and angling downwards draped over her hips. His chin digs into the back of her head and somehow, despite having two very small and inadequate pillows, he is now sharing hers.

He's warm and with every other breath he snores.

Might find the domesticity endearing, might wish for a camera to take pictures of her dear Colonel caught in a less than professional setting, but the wailing hasn't ceased. Calmly, directs his hand back to his own hip, and shimmies to roll off the bed, noting the presence of heaviness in her stomach most likely due to the gruel that the horrid old woman force fed her earlier.

In a makeshift bassinet, not more that a smooth box fitted with blankets for comfort, lays the baby. Not her daughter, her adult and now deceased daughter, but the bitty boy with the constant red face. Hands broken free of his swaddled restraints, much like herself, and pumping in the air.

"Oh, dear boy." Keeps her voice soft, lest the Colonel wake up and berate her for whatever reasons he chooses, although, within the last day aboard this ship, his attitude towards her has softened. He did pry that old woman away from her, has offered her more open compliments, and if she didn't know any better, she could swear that she's caught him staring at her in a less than professional manner. Her bare legs, the leather pants, which still pull tight against her abdomen, giving her glances she's seen from some of the other men on the base.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she smiles gentle at the still screaming child, the one she's always afraid to touch because he is not hers, and the more she holds him, the harder it is to discern regardless of the years passed because her body doesn't know the difference.

"You cannot continue to cry constantly." Caresses a finger over his cheek and listens to his little hiccup before sliding her hands beneath him and settling him against her shoulder. He's warm and heavy, signs that he's fighting sleep. Carefully, tucks his hands back into the stained blanket that is somehow still soft. "You're going to run out of tears."

He gurgles, eyes bouncing trying to focus on her face, she directs him back so he has a better view of her. He rewards her with a tug of his lips, a lopsided gummy grin. She laughs, because otherwise the tears in her eyes will fall. "There you are, Darling."

But she settles him against her shoulder again, feeling the steady rise and fall of his tiny chest and the half nuzzle his head as she rocks him, humming half-tunes of children's songs she barely remembers.

Perhaps she was never meant to be a mother, her motives are rather selfish, conning and scheming, then working with the Tau'ri to try to right her ways. Her concern mostly for herself, unless one of her team is involved, but she still steals pretty things, still breaks into restricted areas for play, is still reckless with her life.

Perhaps she was never meant to be a mother, but for the interim of their stay aboard Mayo, she can tend to this boy, reluctantly so if Cameron is present so he doesn't completely pawn the responsibility off onto her.

"Yes." Bounces with the quiet boy, whose red face has diluted to white, as his eyes close and his lips smack. "I think that would be acceptable. Don't y—"

The pain is back.

Sudden and overtaking, shredding through her organs like carnivorous teeth. Flinches forward, the movement stirring the baby, whom she quickly deposits back into his bassinet before smacking a hand to her stomach, the flare of pain swirling and liquid and then a concrete rock that hitches her breath.

And it's so familiar.

Familiar and it shouldn't be because—because the Ori—because her daughter stopped—

Hobbles by the very likely comatose Colonel who now actively snores through his nostrils, breaking free of the room because for as much time as she spent on Earth, this isn't a subject men tend to be privy to, or enjoy discussing without a nose crinkled in disgust.

"Chiana," beckons the gray alien girl she's barely known for two whole days, but somehow her bluntness, her honesty, has labeled her as trustworthy. Perhaps because they're so similar, so unashamed by their sexualities, their natural prowess in the area that makes other blush during meager conversations.

The girl, who seems much younger than she is, not in a naïve or innocent aspect but through conduct, turns when called and a grin tugs on her lips. "If you're here to give me dren for dropping that narl off, you can turn around right now sister because—"

"No. Not about—"Doubles over, the palms of her hands baring into her thighs to ease the pain, the tight muscles, each one streaming from one origin point.

"H-hey." Finds comfort in the gray girl's cold hand against the white shirt she borrowed, the one now covered in sour smelling spit up. "Are you okay?"

"No."

"You want me to go get—"

"No. No," huffs trying to push the words from her throat without a painful throttle. "I need your help."

"Me—what?—" Cat eyes narrow from round surprise and Chiana takes a jump back "—you're not having a narl are you? Because I can't deliver every single—"

"No, nothing like that—while oddly similar I suppose."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm experiencing my moon tides and I need—"

"Moon tides?"

"Do your people not call it that either?" Bites on her lower lip, tries to keep the positive, humourous attitude she's cultivated for situations exactly as these, keep her mind off immanent pain. "The Tau'ri have a distinctively masculine term for it that escapes my mind at the present."

"Look—" Chiana pounces, backwards this time, hands held up in a surrendering gesture. "I don't know anything about—"

"The evacuation point—" Tries to reconstruct herself to stand upright, to have a proper conversation, but feels the beads of sweat dance down her back "—in the reproductive cycle where—"

"Let me stop you right there." The whites of Chiana's eyes almost overpower her perfectly hued face. "I don't know what the frell a 'reproductive cycle' is, but I don't have one."

Silly to think that their bodies ache the same way for the same reason. Chiana is an alien after all, just as she is on Earth. After returning from the Ori galaxy Samantha took her shopping, took her aside and explained about Tau'ri moon tides and birth control—'safe sex' she had called it, which garnered her response of but then it's no fun.

"What about Officer Sun?"

"What do you mean?"

"She's asking if Aeryn too experiences a monthly bleed—" That horrid old woman, chewing on some sort of root, creeps out from the shadows wearing the same complacent grin on her face, still deceiving even after their bout in the kitchen "—which she doesn't as she was reared on a command carrier with enhanced genetics, her body always willingly accepts fertilized embryos that remain in stasis until released."

Immediately, she straightens, ignoring how her muscles seize in her back, ignoring the slickness pooling between her legs. She doesn't want to communicate with this woman, who unstitched whatever the Ori sewed shut, but she seems to be the only one with pertinent information. "You knew what you were doing to me."

"Yes."

"What could you possibly gain from—"

"You were made empty before—" the old woman steps closer, her sandaled feet peeking out from beneath the frayed ends of her dress "—now you can be full, if you choose."

"I'm sure you knew this was going to happen."

"Oh yes." The old woman nods with a triumphant smile, perhaps because she's finally understood.

"Then please tell me you have some way to quell—"

The old woman spits the root out onto the floor and raises her finger. "Ah, yes." She tugs up the hem of her dress so she doesn't trip and beckons her to follow down an adjacent hallway. "Crichton brought some useful products back from his trip to Earth."

"Crichton?" She turns to Chiana who follows along beside her, shoulders raised, and head skewed in interest. "I thought Crichton was Mitchell's counterpart?"

They stumble to a stop at inside what looks to be the cargo area of the ship. Large containers line against the walls and spill out into the room creating aisles to travel reminiscent of the coiling hallways deep in the mountain.

Chiana hops up on one, padding across it and sitting on the edge, while the old woman lifts her head to the air and sniffs, before waddling towards a specific container.

"Crichton is a man, but he also gets shot more frequently than anyone else on Moya." The old woman shoves off a large lid that clatters to the ground. Chiana stretches forward, two hands and a foot gripping the container's edge, quiet as she lifts her chin and scans the inside. The old woman digs around until retrieving an open box of tampons, and of all the things she never thought she'd be happy to see, it has to be at the top. "He uses them to stem the wounds."

A/N: I hope no readers felt frustrated at the broken English in Aeryn's part. I wanted to show how her comprehension of the language grew from first hearing Daniel to when she realized her microbes were busted and actively concentrated.