Two Birds, Two Stones
Chapter 11
Over and Over Again
"Man, this planet is hot." He yanks off the hat that they were kind enough to lend him, he doesn't know if it's Mitchell's or not—he hopes it's not, he still doesn't know the guy very well, and he really doesn't want to get lice right now.
"Most of them are." The classicist sighs, digging around more in the dirt, hunched over like a kid trying to hide his chocolate bar at recess.
When he glances up, two suns glare back down, and he uses the back of his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. "No, I mean, it's really hot."
"You kind of get used to it after awhile." Colonel Carter grins at him as she types something up into her computer. She's perched up on a huge stone before the entrance to the ruins, the tips of her toes digging into the sand to keep her balanced.
The big guy says nothing—the last time he said anything was in the elevator when Aeryn was hallucinating—but stands rigid as a statue at the mouth of the cave, like he's just waiting for something bad to happen.
Maybe these guys have had enough bad run-ins that they just bring the big guy along for muscles, and it makes him want to laugh at first, but hell, they should probably start doing that when they take the transport pod to commerce planets.
Shit always goes down on commerce planets.
"So whatcha actually doing?" He gazes over Colonel Carter's shoulder, looking at a black screen with jumbles of alphanumeric code spilling on to it.
"I'm trying to access the program we created that mimics the frequency of the long-range communication stone so that we can use it as a dowsing rod of sorts." She turns the laptop towards him, pointing out an error in the code. "The problem is the frequency is also preventing the program from opening?"
"Why's that?"
"It's like having two positively charged magnets, they're both repelling each other."
"Maybe it has something to do with how we've slipped into Dante's Inferno."
Colonel Carter gives him a small chuckle.
The classicist who always checks out his wife, does not.
"Most of the planets in this galaxy are desert biomes, Crichton."
With pursed lips and widened eyes, he takes large, goofy steps towards the doctor who has planted himself in steaming desert sand at the bottom of a large column at the mouth of the ruins. They're never going to get inside, he knows this already, because if they did, they would flash fry in seconds.
"It's not really the heat that's bothering me."
"Could've fooled me." The doctor responds without even glancing up from ever so lightly brushing the stone.
"What bothers me, is that you wanted to drag Aeryn along too. Aeryn who can't handle the nice balmy summer day temperature you've got cooking up under that mountain."
"We're hoping to get the air conditioning fixed by the end of the week." Colonel Carter offers as she ceases her quick-fire typing.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I've sort of got my fingers crossed that we won't be here by the end to the week." He barleys his fingers for show with a smug, but patient grin. No wonder Aeryn has been in a lousy mood since they got here. He's uncomfortable with the heat, he can't imagine it making him ill, screwing up his memories, making him paranoid.
He just wants to go back.
He wants to jump in that ice bath with her—maybe not in the actual ice bath because he doesn't think the boys could take that much damage, but maybe he could convince her to use the shower. Lukewarm shouldn't be devastating and it would give him another excuse of getting his naked body next to hers—like he needs an excuse lately, the rate they're going at it, with no distractions, with barely any responsibilities, it's like a honeymoon sans the mai tais.
"If your wife would have just submitted to the medical scan—"
"No."
"—then we might have been able to figure out what's wrong with her—"
"Nothing is wrong with her."
"—and helped her fix it."
"First off, her name is Aeryn—"
Doesn't realize how loud he's getting—he must be getting pretty loud—because Colonel Carter snaps her laptop closed, scrounging around looking for her bag until the big guy hands it to her.
"I don't think I'm going to be able to get this program up and running until I find a way to backdoor it." She has that same tight grin on her face. The one where she's got to keep the peace, the one where she has to deal with all the spats—which seems to be true because he hasn't seen otherwise—when really there's something else she'd rather be doing. "I think we should just head back.
He finds out that there's a post-mission protocol.
Basically, he's got to go directly to a secured medical room for another one of those scans, to give another blood sample, and another swab. When he makes a joke about getting a cookie and a pin for donating so much blood, the doctor doesn't crack a grin, just snaps the rubber band away from his arms and tells him to hold the cotton ball there until the bleeding stops.
What's worse is that this medical room is an auxiliary room, so if they're infected with something, they don't drag it through the whole facility through the elevator and halls. He doesn't even get to see if Aeryn is still in the main medical area battling invasive questions about all the samples they took from her, still refusing to go into that full body scan through a silence strike.
What's the worst of all, is that he has to use showers, auxiliary showers, an all male shower room to bathe before he gets to go into any other part of the building, because again they don't want his dumbass dragging some foreign space virus throughout the facility, which he completely understands and supports.
What he doesn't understand is why he has to shower with twenty other guys and not his wife.
Why the classicist and not his wife?
What's the shittiest thing he's ever had to deal with, is after all the swabbing and soaping up with a guys he's already spent the better part of the day with, is the fact that they immediately have to have a mission debriefing after that, and all he can think about is how he wants to do a different kind of debriefing with Aeryn.
"So the planet didn't have a stone?" General Rygel sits at the front of the table with his hand crossed on top of it. He and Colonel Carter have been having the same back and forth for the last twenty minutes, while the rest of them just sit here—the doc adds in various useless tidbits every now and again.
"We don't know, Sir, we didn't get a chance to explore beyond the mouth of the cave."
"Why is that?"
"The computer program that emulates the frequency of the stone, wouldn't work with another stone in the area."
"So there is potentially a stone?"
"Well, it would give a reason to why the program isn't operative there, when it's still working fine here."
"Wait, Sam, don't you have that frequency running down in the lab?"
"Yes, but it was the frequency we used to create the program."
"Each stone has a different frequency?"
"No, the frequency is pretty much the same for—"
"Oh my God." He moans and slams his head into his hands on the table.
How can after the mission take up as much time as the mission?
"Maybe we should have a meeting on this tomorrow?" It's amazing, but he can hear the tight smile in the colonel's voice. He's definitely spent way too much time with them today. "When everyone has had a chance to think about it?"
"Agreed." The table shakes as General Rygel shoves his chair away. When he ducks his head back up, Colonel Carter stands at attention as the general rounds the table. "Bright and early tomorrow to continue this discussion."
The general stops at the side of his chair, just before the door, the door that this man has to walk through before he can bolt out and go find Aeryn and tell her how much he hates it here. "Maybe your wife will be able to join us on the next mission?"
Is about to reply that her name is Aeryn, and that if all of the planets are like standing on the unadulterated surface of a sun, that she won't be able to handle two minutes after exiting that wormhole they've got tamed that just screams murder whenever they use it.
But Colonel Carter replies for him. "Actually, Sir, Dr. Lam says she can't clear her medically for an indefinite period of time."
"What?" Asks with an upturned hand, exhausted and defeated. He just wanted to see Aeryn and maybe have a little hanky-panky in the shower. It shouldn't be this hard. It was never this hard on Moya.
"Oh, I'm sorry." The same smile. "I talked to Dr. Lam while she was doing my post-mission evaluation. I think it just has to do with the heat."
Great. Now he's excluded from the girl talk about his wife.
"Look—I don't—It's not even important how you know." He washes a hand over his face, his eyes sting and it feels just like having Deke here to scream in his ear, except it's a colonel who only has one smile, a guy who never talks but intimidates the hell out of him, a fuzzy general, and the classicist whose talking is the equivalent of Deke screaming in his ear. "I just want this to be done."
He's dismissed, and it's like being a kid in school when the bell rings. He has to try not to run in the hallway, to keep an orderly conduct, to follow protocols, but it doesn't stop him from mashing the button on the elevator twelve times, and then getting impatient and running down three flights of stairs taking them two at a time.
Assumes she's either in their suite, or the medical bay, and since Colonel Carter said she hadn't been cleared medically yet, he's got a good idea of where to start the goose chase. He bursts through the double doors, immediately hit with the strong smell of antiseptic and wet metal, and slides to a stop at the nurse's station.
Except there are no nurses there, but the doctor—the one who doesn't find any of his jokes funny, the one who left him to bleed out after she took a second blood sample—is sitting under the white light of a desk lamp and writing in her charts.
"Excuse—"
"She's been discharged back to your room." She doesn't even turn her head up from scratching a pen writing in what definitely can't be English. "Effectively grounded from missions until the foreseeable future."
"It's because of the heat sensitivity, right?"
"I'm not sanctioned to share that information with you."
"Are you kidding me?" He chuckles derisively and when she finally lifts her head from writing her chicken scratch notes, her eyes are narrowed in irritation. "I'm her husband."
"In your galaxy, under that jurisdiction, sure. Under the United States Government of this galaxy, on this planet, you're not."
He leans over the ledge of the counter, the light spilling over the top of the desk lap warming his chin like two suns did for almost eight hours. In slow and concise words, he restates. "I'm. Her. Husband."
The doctor shrugs, and puts her pen back to the paper, uninterested and finished with the subject. "Then I suggest you go ask her."
She's not up to her shoulders in an ice bath like he thought she would be. Instead he finds her laying on top of the bed sheets in a black cotton tank top and a pair of his official military undies. She's asleep with her one hand thrown over her stomach and almost turned over onto her side.
He tugs his shirt over his head, letting it drop to the floor as he fumbles with the buttons on the official military pants they've been kind enough to lend him. All his clothing smells like nothing, not like starch, or laundry detergent, or dryer sheets.
Not like baby puke.
Maybe he should've pushed for them to go into that temple today, he sort of lost sight on the mission—on finding those damn stones and returning to Moya, to his son. Misses the little warm bundle screaming in his arms as he tries to get the nipple end of the Capri Sun pouch into his mouth—how those Capri Suns cost them an arm and a leg because Peacekeepers aren't so keen about splitting from their official merchandise. How they don't even know if there's something wrong with the kid who just keeps crying. Is he colicky or does he have heat delirium? How they can't take him to a Diagnosian because they're few and far between since the war, and them actually showing their faces on any planet right now would be a bad idea.
"Your skin is a different color." Aeryn was asleep, but she's the lightest sleeper he's ever seen. She could hear a mouse fart three rooms down and bolt up in a sweat.
Always sweating now.
Her groggy voice carries over the small bedroom as he steps to the mini fridge in the corner, yanking out a small baggie of ice and jostling it in his hands. "The planet we went to might have actually been hell."
The mattress bounces with his weight as he sits on her side of the bed, her legs twisting from behind him into his lap, her skin shiny with sweat, but pure white, sans sunspots like the ones he's sure have popped up over his shoulders. "The heat was unbearable, the fact that they thought you could go there pissed me off."
"You're just oversensitive," she moans, half asleep, arching her back forward so her ass rests near his hip.
When her toes start to flicker and furl, to trace along his legs and pick at the material of his undies, he holds the baggie full of ice to the sole of her foot, listening to her squeak in surprise, but settle down against the temperature.
"That doctor, the medical one who likes to yell at us." Starts massaging the bottom of her feet, feeling her body unfurl more, her muscles slacken, a satiated moan escaping her lips. "She said you were grounded until further notice."
"Grounded?" She leans her shoulders back against the pillow and he traces the blush blooming across her chest with his eyes, while his fingers ring around her ankles.
"Yeah like—" he pauses his fingers until she gives him an impatient punt "—I forgot you're still not a hundred percent on the English thing. It means you're mountain bound."
"John." This sigh is with irritation and he knows he's gotta be direct now.
"You can't go through the gate."
"Yes." She's waking up now, trying to reel her legs back in, but he keeps her feet where they are and shuffles down the bed towards her. "That frelling woman refuses to allow me autonomy."
"She said it's because of medical reasons." She tries again to reclaim her legs, her muscles growing tense again, her jaw set as she turns away from him. She's been told by some other world authority that she's not fit for duty, he might as well give her a gun to fire to feel better.
Knows she won't tell him because she doesn't want to talk about it, so he asks for the answer. "Is it because of medical reasons? She wouldn't let me know because apparently our marriage isn't sanctioned here, which is a bad thing for you and that—"
She turns one her side, using her arm as a pillow and he almost gets a knee in the gut for it. "I despise that woman."
"I'm not a fan either." Taps his hand against her bare, smooth calf—still so in contrast with his own—thinks about the heat on the planet and the heat she must feel now and how those idiots actually intended to bring her there, and he can feel his own muscles stiffen. "Aeryn, you gotta fill me in here."
She sits up, and he lets her have her legs back, watching as they curl underneath her, as her tank tip sticks to her body under her breasts from sweat. "It's just the heat, John."
He leans over, pushing the hair plastered to her face in sweat back, but letting his fingers linger against her cheek. "They've seen what it does to me, that woman believes I'll be a risk if she allows me out."
Nodding, he slowly falls against her, the exhaustion from today still burning over his skin and into his muscles and even thought she's heating up like a protesting monk, she accepts him into her arms, one hand tracing the butt of his chin, and the other playing with his ear. He can hear her heartbeat from where he's leaning back against her and it does more to relax him than any lakah ever could.
When she sighs, it rides through his body, and he closes his eyes just as she places a kiss on the top of his head.
"I hate it here."
He tucks the baggie of ice against her thigh and she twitches before settling again.
"Me too."
The planet is exactly how the old woman described it to him when Vala was making a last-minute trip to 'freshen up'. He jiggled the baby in his arms the same way he saw her do early and sighed, relieved when the little guy didn't immediately start screaming.
He definitely has a favorite parent.
And it is definitely not him.
And despite this kid not actually being his—although sometimes he sees his stupid, cheeky grin pop up on the kid's face—it still bugs him.
"Are you listening to me, Colonel?" The old woman was inches away from him and smelled like his momma's spice rack.
"Not really," muttered and peeked around the corner for any sight of Vala, or Chiana for that matter. Seems the 'women going to the bathroom together' thing jumps galaxies too.
"It is of utmost importance—" the old lady squirmed her way around him, trying to get his attention. Finally, she huffed standing on spot. "You must listen."
"Look—I still don't know if we trust you or not."
"In that case, I suggest you decide quickly."
"Well, it's not like we've had a ton of free time to discuss it."
But then the old woman put her hands on him, not threatening, not like she was with Vala when he first encountered her in the kitchen. She held his biceps to still him, weak, frail arms just like his grandma. Her third eye opened, and he instinctively darted his eyes away because he wasn't sure if it was for brainwashing or not, but when he glanced back it was glowing red and her wrinkled face was nothing but serious.
"You must not let her get out of your sight."
"Okay." Nodded, tried to pry her off, but she stayed put.
"Colonel, you must not let her stray."
He told her he has a pretty good record leading all the sheep from his flock home safely, and if she was going to say something else, she never did because Vala rounded the corner, dressed up in a long leather coat that is vibrant red on the inside. Her hair was down, and straight, and he didn't recognize her—not the hair or the clothes, but her expression was so serious, so unlike her.
When she bent to take Deke's hand and babble out some more sweetness to him, he noticed how pale she was, how pronounced the bags under her eyes were, which was weird because last night was the best night's sleep he's had since getting here—maybe even a little before.
Never got the chance to ask her about it, because Chiana slunk around the corner, and handed them both a weapon she called a 'pulse pistol', showing them with her pinkie and ring fingers bent back, where to holster it.
The weapons shouldn't be a problem, they shouldn't really have to use them, because as far as he's concerned this is a level 1 mission. Get in, secure the goods, get out. Work using developed disguises and try to blend into the crowd. Both the old woman and Chiana had taught them a few mannerisms in the last few days, enough to lie his way out of a wet paper bag, at least.
But the planet was overwhelming. Immediately after landing, securing the pod, and filtering into the Grand Central station of a backwashed and dangerous planet, Chiana, cocked her head to the side observing something in the din as they walked casually out into the marketplace.
Then his first sheep started to stray.
"Chiana." He shot his arm out to grab her, while still trying to stay relatively close to Vala, who was uncharacteristically quiet.
"Look, just go get those frelling stones—"
"Easy, if we knew where to go—"
"Back corner stall, the vendor has eye tentacles." Somehow she slipped from his grasp and when he wrenched forward to reel her back in she dodged his hand. "I'll meet you back at the ship in half an arn."
"Chiana?"
"Don't talk to anyone you don't have to."
"Chiana!" He shouted as she slipped away, and her unusual gray skin actually disappeared in the crowd. "Great."
When he turned back to tell Vala the new itinerary, she wasn't where he left her. "Oh, come on."
Now he bumps his way over to the spot and spins a quick 360, taking in the various appearances and noises going on around him. The atmosphere is tight—almost suffocating—like a carnival at night, overwhelming of sounds, smells, and sights. He's about to go into team leader panic mode where he just grinds his teeth until he fixes the problem or runs out of teeth, but someone finally tosses him a win, because he catches a glimpse of that bright red on the inside of her coat rustling with her movements down an alley across the quad.
"Vala."
He bolts after her, ramming into several aliens, most of them way bigger than he is, and steps in a gross green goo that's collected in a stagnant puddle, but these aren't his shoes, so what does he really care because he's only a few feet behind her now, the sway of her straight hair entrancing, but her footsteps unsure.
"Vala." Reaches for her, slipping his hand into hers and she starts, first flickering her fingers away, but then twitching them shut around his. "What the hell are you doing?"
He wants to reprimand her, not because they're still a team and on a mission and she needs to listen to the itinerary and not screw around like the has the penchant to do, but because she scared the shit out of him. What if he didn't see her at the last second? What if she was scooped up by people who hate this Crichton guy? Wants to yell but he doesn't because she's still really pale, but the seriousness is gone from her face replaced with something he thinks is pain. Drooping browns and glassy eyes. Without thinking, his hand touches the side of her face, cups her cheek finding her skin cold and a bit clammy.
"Are you okay?"
Doesn't know when he adopted the new hobby of needing to know how she is at all times, but she smiles at him wistfully, putting her hand against his, then guiding it from her face. "I'm fine."
"Where were you going?" Ducks around her, examining the rest of the alley which is definitely not as lit as where they are now, there's a distant sound of dripping water over the din and grumbles of the marketplace.
"I—" she turns her head, glancing into the darkness too, but almost like she's searching for something. "I thought I saw someone I knew."
"Who could you possibly know here?" Doesn't temper himself on time and a bit of his anger seethes out, and almost as quickly as Chiana disappeared into the crowd, her expression falls again, her gaze downtrodden.
"You're right. I'm—"
"It's okay." Can't hear the apology, because something isn't right with her, something is off and it's dangerous and the bad feeling he has in his gut about this place kicks up to ten. Instead, he takes her hand gently, holding on and guiding her out of the alley and back into the overstimulation of the marketplace. "You just gave me a scare."
"You got scared?"
"Yeah, I couldn't find you," speaks preoccupied as they weave through aliens and people who look like normal humans that he forgets the name of. A group of four stand to the side, have on vests very similar to the one he saw in the pile of Crichton's clothing still rotting on the ground after four days. He makes brief eye contact with one of them, a guy with a messed-up face, and thinks it's an immediate mistake because he can feel the guy's eyes on him even after they round the corner.
"You were concerned?" Doesn't have to look at her to know she's grinning, that wicked smirk that tugs at the corner of her lip when she's amused. He's so glad that everyone else is having such a great time on this planet.
"Yeah, if I lost you, think of all the paperwork I'd have to do when I got back." There's a brief hitch in their gait, where it turns more into him dragging her for a step or two. Knows that he hurt her feelings and doesn't know why he did it. Sees Jackson do it daily, hourly, just tear her down instead of risking being embarrassed at a genuine response.
He's about to apologize when she snarks, "how could that possibly be a waste of your time, it's not like you have much of a social life."
"I get out more than you do, Princess." Again, said with preoccupation and the malice he can't stop channeling because it's routine, it's natural to want to hurt her instead of admitting how it felt to think she was gone, admitting how good she looks in a long ass coat, how her hair is enamoring and he wants to run his fingers through it.
"Oh, you may, but I doubt you entertain as much."
That, that makes him stop and she stumbles into place beside him. "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean, my Dear Colonel."
"This." He gestures between them. "Is not a conversation we should be having here."
Wants to add 'or ever' but instead just continues to walk towards the stall they're looking for—the one in the corner has to be their stall, it's the only one with a guy who has tentacles for eyes—purposefully not taking her hand in his own.
"Well, I'll just have to regale you about my various SGC trysts as a bedtime story—"
Ignores her response as she bounces into step beside him at the stall front, and more importantly, he shoves down the way it makes him feel nasty, like he can feel the jealousy creeping up the back of his throat.
The tentacle guy somehow knows they're there, because he turns around, his face almost entirely tentacles, but with a seemingly normal body, normal hands with five fingers and clean-cut nails that he digs into the wood on the ledge of his stall.
"What do you want?" It's a gurgle, like trying to talk with a mouth full of water, but those microbes must be translating the hell out of it because he can definitely understand him.
Before he can respond, Vala opens her mouth, her fingers also set against the ledge, and that wide beam shining on her face. "We're looking to procure somewhat of a rare oddity and were told that you were the man to seek out."
He rolls his eyes, but before jumps in to save the overflattering sentence from costing them a stone and a way home, the tentacle guy leans in on an elbow, the cadence of his voice dropping the gruffness. "Is that so?"
"Yes, I've asked around quite a bit, and everyone has referred me back to you. It's really quite impressive."
"I suppose I could help out a pretty woman, such as yourself."
And he should've known Vala could charm a guy with no face or eyes.
Turning away from the interaction, half amused, half still stomping the envy back down into his gut, he notices the four people from early, the one guy with the gnarly face, all red and pink splotches, all wrinkled—all burned up—have formed a blockade at the mouth of the entrance to this side of the market place.
Only when the burnt faced guy catches him staring this time, he points directly back.
"Oh shit." He spins back, catching Vala's coquettish and vapid giggle as she places her hand near tentacle guy's. "Vala, we gotta—"
"John Crichton." Burn Face shouts at him as he starts to take bounding steps into the marketplace. The other three follow staggered, and at a quick arm signal, they all whip out their weapons, aiming directly at them. The crowd notices and starts to rile up, scattering around like ants.
The only one who doesn't notice is her.
As the first shot goes off, he hooks an arm around her waist, lugging her to the side, behind a large stack of shipping cartons as all the gun blasts trail behind them.