Two Birds, Two Stones
Chapter 27
The Goods
Assumed that when he arrived back at not Earth—especially a few years in the future—that he would get the benefit of technological advances.
Sure, out in the black 40 they'd managed to do away with most of the diseases roaming through literal dead space—maybe from introducing local toxins into baby food, he'll never know—but they don't have HBO.
And apparently neither does the United States Air Force.
His thumb depresses the channel button and the eerily flat tv flashes through about twenty different news channels.
They don't even have Nick at Nite.
After running through the roster seven or eight times, he lifts his thumb and stares at the screen that's overcome by graphics, ticker tape, pictures, an angry conversation, stock market tips, and a list of shootings and national disasters that day.
Aeryn always complains whenever he turns on the tv because it isn't like the one they have on Moya— it's not fed by VHS tapes of old football games, three stooges marathons, and one hell of a documentary.
She gets preoccupied with how violent the culture is, and if he ever needed her to be distracted for a bit, he would know to just pop the channel onto CNN, but he doesn't have a goofy sidekick or best friend to go pull hijinks with.
What he does have is an extremely attractive wife that the news sidetracks when he's trying to get his mack on.
But this tv doesn't even have Star Trek reruns.
Or MacGyver.
Or Buffy.
It doesn't have dren.
Except for the violence and misery occurring on this planet that he can do nothing to stop. That if he watches long enough, it brings a tear to his eye because he's seen planets out there where everyone gets along—he's seen entire species band together to take out others and take over whole galaxies—meanwhile the republicans and the democrats can't agree on one stupid bill.
Thinks he nods off—he must—because there's no way he spent two hours just staring at the news and daydreaming of being somewhere else entirely where it doesn't feel like this is his fault. Somewhere where he doesn't have to worry about equal pay for equal work and equal rights for everyone.
When he checks the time, it's way later than it should be, and he grumbles, because Aeryn probably did that Peacekeeper prowl by him so he didn't wake up because she didn't want to talk to him about the big poisonous elephant in the room—the kind Dumbo experienced in a not so kid-friendly dance—and snuck back into bed.
Smashing the red button, the weirdly flat tv flickers off—he could probably sneak it back onto Moya under his jacket or something—if Aeryn could do it with the gut eroding Peacekeeper food, then he should be able to do it with a 32-inch flat screen.
He grabs the collar of his shirt to yank it over his head because he's been stewing on the couch in borrowed clothes that he hates wearing, and despite how many times his lovely wife decides to stomp out and refuse to provide information that could help them get back home or refuse a medical scan because it's an invasion of her privacy, or refuse about her complicity in poisoning their son, they're going to need to have that Dumbo of a conversation.
But as he whips his shirt at the occasional chair in the corner whose occasion is to act as a catcher's mitt to his dirty clothes, he glances at the bed and finds it still unmade, covered in wrinkles with the duvet and the sheets pushed down to the end how he left it.
He stares at it for a micron, like he might have blinked and missed her, but when he does blink and open his eyes, the room is still a mess and she's not in it.
"Aeryn?"
Pivoting on the spot with such perfect posture that he could definitely score a three-pointer, he stomps into the bathroom, which is dark and also completely empty.
"Aeryn?"
He knows it's useless because she's obviously not here, but it's the only thing that's offering him a way to blow off steam as he stomps back into the bedroom and peels his newest addition to the stinky clothes pile on the chair off and pulls it back over his head before heading out of their suite.
It's real late at night—or really early in the morning depending on if he's feeling like a glass full type of guy or not—and there's barely any airmen scouting the hallways. Even if there were more, he has permission to go most places that don't require clearance like the gym, or the cafeteria—the two places he ducks his head into first.
Since it's between meals, the cafeteria is mostly empty with only a few lingering employees wiping off tables and sweeping up the floors. When he opens the door, each one of them lifts their head to stare at him, not really in questioning or confusion, but more in a horror movie style.
Waving sheepishly, he offers, "sorry guys, wrong door," and carefully backs away, keeping a fast step until he's on the next floor, because he doesn't know what that was, but he knows to high hell he doesn't want to find out.
That's how he ends up outside of what he thinks is a gym—a place that should have treadmills, punching bags, and weights to lift—but he opens the door only to find walls that really don't vibe with a secret underground military alien operation because it almost looks like something from the Karate Kid.
It's at this point that he starts to think he might be having a fever dream of some kind.
But, that big guy—the one who doesn't say much, who just sort of stands there and judges because he's so big that he can—turns slowly towards him, wielding a staff in his hand.
It's not the only one because there's some sort of rack on the wall with just a stupid number of staffs.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you and—all your staffs."
For a moment they just stare at each other from across the eight feet void between them and he thinks that maybe he should shut the door and walk away—cut his losses and realize that he doesn't know his wife as well and he thought—but then he's the loser in that lifelong challenge because whenever she needed to pawn Deke off on him, she could find him on Moya in less than fifteen microts.
But he figures if this is a fever dream, maybe having the snot kicked out of him by this guy is the jolt he needs to wake up, and if it's not, maybe he knows where his wife is.
"I was just wondering if you've seen Aeryn."
"You—" the Big Guy stabs the handle of the staff into the ground, and he looks like a statue carved from marble—he literally has muscles he's never seen on a person before "—have lost your spouse?"
"I didn't lose her." Immediately defends himself, getting ornery, crossing his arms over his chest like a kid who needs a nap because he does. "I just don't know where she is."
"Indeed."
They stare at each other for a few more seconds. Neither saying a single word but neither daring to look away. Both just waiting for the other one to leave so they can continue on with their tasks.
"So—" his hands strum against the door as he investigates the room and all the weird weaponry in it—things he's never seen before, and as much as he wants to try out hitting something with a staff, he's glad that the only thing he has to fight with are Winona and his own two fists. "You haven't seen her then?"
"If she is missing, I suggest you find Dr. Daniel Jackson to—"
"No—I was just figuring she might be in here working off some steam."
"She is upset?"
"She's always sort of upset—" his fingers stop against the door when he realizes the big guy isn't laughing. "She's just a little more upset right now than usual."
"I can understand the turmoil of being separated from one's child, especially when they are so young."
"You know, I think she's sort of come to terms with that now—this is just—a different—thing."
The big guy narrows his eyes and in that deep thunderclap of a voice, monotones, "indeed."
"All right, well as great as this has been—" he juts a finger to the open door. "I should probably find her before she has more time to stew."
In response, he doesn't even get an 'indeed' as the big guy turns back to the dummy he was practicing pummeling and takes off its head with one swoop of the staff.
Like with the cafeteria, he slowly backs out the door—using that three-point pivot and almost smashing into Colonel Carter.
"Sorry," she immediately apologizes, blinking her big silent actress eyes. "I just—I didn't expect to see you up at this time."
"I didn't expect to be up at this time." He crosses his arms over his chest again because he's in a day-old black t-shirt, and she's primed and ready to go at ass o'clock in the morning, looking like she doesn't even need another wink of sleep.
She gestures to the hall, and he takes a gentle pace beside her as they walk and talk. "Something wrong?"
"I lost Aeryn."
Immediately her footsteps stop, and she turns towards him horrified. "You lost her?"
"I didn't really lose her—we sort of had—" a shouting match after a rough and tumble "—an adult disagreement, and she left to cool off." As Colonel Carter opens her mouth to question, he adds, "not temperature wise, but emotionally."
"Okay, good." They restart their walk, and he hasn't asked her how long she's been working here, but she must have racked up the hours because she doesn't even look when they slip into a different hallway. "You don't know where she went?"
"Well, I checked the usual haunts but—"
"Oh." Her hand covers her mouth before gesturing to his face. "Your nose?"
"My no—" bringing his hand up to his face, his fingers touch the sticky wetness at the top of his lip where apparently a small nosebleed has decided to pool. Examining his fingers, rolling them together at the drying blood—it's thick, and will probably stop pretty soon.
"Great."
"You should probably go to the medical bay and get that looked at."
"The doc gave me the all clear—said I just had a displaced fracture." Sure, there's bound to be a little bleeding, and a little tenderness for a while, but he was counting on that to score him at least one round of sympathy points.
Guesses it already did.
Aeryn nuzzling his face, littering it with small, soft kisses—cooing words at him, and holding him close. Honestly, with no permanent cosmetic damage done to his face, it's almost worth the crescendoing pressure under his nose for the points with his wife whose an emotional teetertotter right now—if he tells her that, she gets angry.
Colonel Carter steps up on the tips of her toes to investigate the nosebleed, and he's never felt more self conscious about his nose in his life. With that tight smile that must hurt her cheeks to wear so often, she pressures, "it still might be something serious. Want me to walk you to the infirmary?"
"Nah." Not really happy about having to go back there again with all the medical staff that seems to be permanently pissed off at him. "I know the way."
"All right, I'll come down in a half an hour to check in you."
Gee, thanks Mom.
"Just do me a favor?" Colonel Carter pauses before starting her march away, eagerly listening, actually, generally—or colonelly—wanting to help. "If you see Aeryn, send her down to the med bay?"
"I'll let her know."
With a firm nod, they separate in opposite directions—her going God knows where this early in the morning, and him heading to the elevator to take it down, his forefinger and thumb pinched as tightly as he can handle it over the tip of his nose.
When the elevator dings he steps out to more airmen in the hallway as the day is starting for them, maybe shifts are changing. He has no idea what time it is, but he must be on hour four of the Aeryn hunt if he counts the two hours he spent asleep on the couch.
Despite the airmen—some running around all headless chicken—he manages to slip his way through the crowd towards the medical bay or infirmary, or whatever they want to call it today.
The doors open automatically for him—they must know him pretty well by now—but he doesn't find any nurses or doctor's inside. He doesn't find anyone at all, which is just poor customer service, but then he remembers this is basically a hospital and they might have had an emergency.
So, he stands patiently for a few minutes, then spends about five looking at the nurse's station for a bell to ring, then he just starts yelling, his voice almost shaking the walls from the emptiness. After no one comes for him—after all this still might be a fever dream brought on by an infection in his displaced nose—he starts wandering around like a lost kid, looking in all the rooms for someone who can give him a pack of gauze.
But he gets distracted when he hears a voice, low at first, but it grows as he traces it down a short hallway and into a large room for triage.
There, sitting up on a cot, is Aeryn, her legs decked out in sweatpants and space boots dangling off the side kicking, and that doctor—that classicist dick—brings a piece of gauze to her lip. She winces, turning her head a bit, her hair buoyant from falling curls at her back, and slips her fingers around his forearm, squeezing in pain.
He's only trained in two weapons, and Winona's not here right now.
The guy ushers them through the barely ajar door, his eyes wide and paranoid as his pupils tick across the two-foot space between the end of the alleyway and the beginning of the door, like someone could have followed them to what is essentially a dumpster.
"You guys weren't followed—were you?" He asks, keeping his head out the one foot opening still scanning, his earrings swaying with his head movement and clacking against the metal door.
"No."
"You sure?"
He glances to Vala who is doing her best to keep a stoic face, to remain in character and not show how nervous she is. "We're sure."
"Because if you were followed, this can all go so dren so quick—"
"You asked us to come alone." Vala takes a step forward, and he tucks his hand into one of his pockets, so he doesn't reach out and grab her—so used to directing her behind him in order to keep her in line, in order to keep her safe. "We honored the agreement we made with you."
"Yes—out of necessity I bet." It's said in a huff, like the man is longing for something, but he turns in the room, which is just a little bigger than a closet, moving over to the loveseat by the boarded-up windows. Tossing the blanket covering it off, he pulls out two large duffle bags, dragging them back across the room. "You just came for this?"
With stern eyebrows and an unwavering glare, Vala asks in the coldest voice he's ever heard, "should we have come for something else?"
Despite the guy's hardcore look—his face tattoos and multiple cosmetic indentations over his forehead and cheeks, his sad eyes still win out, and with a rejected sigh, he appears like he actually might start to cry. "Would it kill you to be a little more personable?"
Vala glances at him, wide-eyed, unsure of what she's meant to do in this situation, because this guy is not the shady character Noranti made him out to be when she told them how to make the exchange.
"No, you just use up good ol' Staanz's kindness. Only call her up when you need to secure a month's worth of Peacekeeper chow at once, and then don't call for another month."
It's so hard to tell if the guy is being legitimate or not as his words are going directly against his appearance—weirder things have happened when dealing with aliens though.
Maybe he's just really emotional.
Deciding that he needs to act and not just stare at Vala—who is now more amused than anything, even a flash of a grin working it's way onto her lips—he takes a step forward, tossing down a bag of currency Noranti counted out for him.
"We're paying you, aren't we, Staanz?"
"Well—yeah."
"Then why does it matter if we contact you more than once a month?"
"I just feel left out is all." The dejection in his voice is enhanced by his sad eyes, and he's really beginning to think that Crichton and the crew should be spending more time with the guy. "You won't tell me what happened. You won't bring D'argo, Zhaan, or Rygel to see me—"
He doesn't speak, not recognizing the names, unease seeping through him because it feels like this might be a trap.
"You won't even bring down the little biscuit that I risk my coat and tail to get the food for."
"Maybe it's because you refer to my son as 'a biscuit'." Wanted to steer the conversation in another direction, but there's a certain unimpressed nature in his voice that he doesn't really recognize as his own.
"Aw, you know I mean nothing by it." Staanz waves a hand at them, shuffling the two large duffle bags across the ground. "Auntie Staanz just wants to meet him is all."
"Yeah, well—" turning back to Vala, he widens his eyes, asking for help, for any way to just get this over with. Never thought that he'd want the safety of a living ship so badly, but he feels like they're sitting ducks out here, even with all the alleyway twists and turns.
Vala steps forward now, keeping the harsh expression on her face—and it's makes the whole situation even more alien. "You know that in order to keep him safe, our son must remain hidden for the time being."
"Yeah—but you could always—"
"We cannot invite you up to Moya for the same reason."
"Oh, I get it—I'm good enough to do your frelling scutwork: tracking down shipments of Peacekeeper formula and greasing the right hands so a batch goes missing, but I'm not keen enough to evade—"
"Staanz—" Vala places a gentle hand on his—wait didn't he call himself 'auntie'?—arm, and the gesture is more Vala than not. "You know this is for the safety of our son."
But Staanz shrugs away, only a little effected by her touch "Yeah, yeah."
"You're the only one capable of feeding our son." Vala takes a step, the tails of her coat swaying with the movement, even in such a cramped quarters. "You're the only one we trust."
Perking up, Staanz turns back around, examining them for a second, like maybe she can read the truth of people, and he hopes to God that his garbled and confused mind gets them a pass. "You're serious?"
"Absolutely."
"Well, what are you waiting for, you gotta little bugger to feed."
Stooping and all smiles, Staanz picks up one of the bags, handing the straps to Vala who almost immediately topples over with the added weight. While she's strong, she's not a trained soldier, and she tries to hide the fact that she's barely managing.
"Oh, I wanted to warn you—"
He pauses, holding the straps of the second bag in his hands as Staanz still has hold of the other duffle. "There's been a weird guy around here the last week or so asking about you."
Figures that maybe the marauder trailing them made here knowing eventually the kid would need a refill on food. "One with a burnt-up face."
"That's the one." Staanz helps him tug the strap up to his shoulder so he can wear the bag as a pack, evening out the weight. "His eyes were red, and he had on a black—"
"Staanz, we must be going," Vala grunts out, taking a precarious step as he grabs one of the side handles to her bag yanking it up so she's not bearing the entire weight.
"I know." Their new ally—their counterpart's baby food provider—laments as she stoops to grab the bag, dumping the currency out in her hand to count. "This is more than we agreed on."
He starts to explain, "because of your loyalty and our need for privacy—"
Vala shoves an elbow back into his ribs and he does his best to suppress a grunt while still holding up her bag.
"We know that since the war, it's been harder for you to secure currency."
Staanz stares at them, wide sad eyes inlayed on a half black inked face without speaking for a long time—so long, that he thinks Vala's just blown their cover—that now, Staanz knows they're fakes, and is going to reach behind her for big guns, like seven or eight guys are going to file out of the back room and he waits, his hand hovering over the handle of his pistol until—
"You guys!"
Staanz embraces both of them, while openly crying.
"How did you know that Staanz wasn't going to make us with the currency you added in?"
Vala's waddling before him through the canopy of leaking metal, down an alley, and he can barely see her in front of him. He's still got the side handle of the bag clutched in a fist as he helps her with the added weight, enjoying how her playful gait clashes with her pin straight hair and her attire of an ex-soldier.
She doesn't bother looking over her shoulder to him—she wouldn't be able to see him anyway—but he imagines that she's speaking about Staanz with one of those confident small grins, that gives him a matching one on his lips.
"Noranti told me a bit about her while getting the money for me."
"Yeah, and about this whole 'her' thing—"
She scoffs, and he knows that she's rolling her eyes, because she's picking up her pace too, as if she's trying to get away from him. "Please tell me you're more enlightened than that, Cameron."
"Of course, I am, I'm just saying if—"
"A few days ago, we spoke to a lovely gentleman who had a face made of tentacles."
"So?"
"So—" this time she does glance back, and he can see the want in her face—like she needs him to understand the truth behind what she's speaking and how important it is. "Non-humans comprise a very large part of every galaxy."
"Okay?"
Still doesn't quite understand as he steps out into the open with her. The white sky from earlier—the kind he's seen in Auburn when there's not enough precipitation in the clouds to warrant a storm, so they ride high and block out the sun—has evolved into a darker gray either indicating rain is coming soon, or night is.
"It would be very prudent of you to stop comparing alien bodies to your Earthly ideals."
Okay, Ouch.
"Hey!" He drops the handle, watching as she almost sinks to the still damp ground with the added wait, and plods over the concrete street to stand before her. "I think I'm pretty open-minded—"
"Then Staanz's gender, and her outward appearance shouldn't bother you."
"It doesn't bother me," his voice softens when he can finally fully see her expression, and it doesn't take a genius to know that this whole 'alien' talk is just a flimsy pretext. "I'm just not used to it."
"How is that any—"
"It's different because I'm not offended by what anyone wants to be called or how they look." He gestures to the huge array of different aliens walking through the less crowded street now. To his left, more of those blue guys who waddle like geese pass them. "It just surprises me sometimes."
He doesn't have a reason to dislike anyone—until they give him one usually—but maybe that's how he treated her when they first started working together—to be fair, she didn't make it easy, by constantly undermining him and—it doesn't matter anymore.
Maybe he's a better person now.
He probably is, because Vala's hand slides to his cheek as she grins at him—not happy but understanding his explanation.
Definitely against protocol—and maybe out of character, he doesn't know how Officer Sun acts around her husband—she leans in, kissing him. It's not overly sexy—they are just square stopped in the middle of the market—but more of relief.
Just relief.
Whatever it's meant to do, it works because now instead of upsetting her, all he can think of is how she still smells like herself despite the layers of rainwater and leather. How the kiss is plying and gentle, and one of the best kisses he's ever had in his life.
Wants to tell her that he's ready to handle whatever surprises she throws at him, wants to whisper it into her ear and feel the grin bloom as her wet, cold cheeks press against his.
But of course, he doesn't get the chance.
"John Crichton," someone greets him with an accent that sounds a little like Officer Sun's and even against the darkened sky, he feels the shadow approach them. "Officer Sun."
When he glances up, he's met by the burned-faced guy who could be the horror villain in any move made in the last ten years. He's in a leather get-up similar to their own—of course he is, this is space after all.
Cautiously, he turns so his back is to Vala, nonchalantly trying to stretch his body as wide as possible, because last time they both took an acid round, and they were lucky to make it out with just that pain.
"Nice to meet you, face-to-face. Again."
Ignores the low swing of an insult there, considering this guy is missing an eye from burn scars. It makes him look vicious, but maybe he was just loading the acid rounds into his gun and had one go off on him.
"What do you want?"
It's probably not the best thing to ask, because he immediately gets shot and goes down knowing only two things: that it wasn't an acid round this time, and that Vala—somehow—went down first.