For the briefest microt, Bialar has managed to forget what has happened to him, but Aeryn's words abruptly remind him. The tentative fantasy shatters and he shudders, pulls away from her and scrambles off the bed, walks to the window.

"What point?" he asks bitterly. He feels cold, more alone than he has ever done.

"What, other than you being impossibly stubborn?" she replies in a sour tone. "The only person that has a problem with how you appear is you, Bialar – Talyn seems far better adjusted."

"And you?" he pushes. "I had noticed how you can barely look at me."

"I'm looking at you now, aren't I? And I kissed you, for frell's sake."

"Only after you closed your eyes."

Aeryn groans. "I'm going to have to smack sense into you, aren't I?" she asks in a resigned tone.

"You don't understand!"

"Actually, I do."

"Really?" he snorts derisively. She doesn't answer immediately and he turns, ready to throw a further barbed comment at her. The sight of her sat on the edge of the bed, her hands gripping the mattress tightly, stops him. "Aeryn?"

"It was a long time ago." She says it to the floor, her hair falling like a curtain over her face. Her knuckles are white and he knows she is controlling herself harshly. "Mere weekens after… after I left the Peacekeepers. The others had heard of a scientist who could provide starmaps of their homeworlds. It was fairly simple – we gave him some DNA and he… he was supposed to give us the map." She heaves a deep sigh. "I wanted to find somewhere I could… be accepted, I suppose, but what happened… He injected me with some of Pilot's DNA and I… I began to change."

There is a pause and she looks up, her face a mask. But her eyes are haunted, pained, and he wants to go to her. Something keeps him by the window.

"Into what?" he asks.

She winces but holds his gaze. "Into a hybrid of our two species," she murmurs. "Not Sebacean, but not quite a Pilot either."

He stares at her. "Well you clearly… recovered."

"John…" Her voice hiccups and he sees her struggle with sudden grief. "He and one of the scientist's assistants created a serum that… stopped the process but… Before that I could… sense Moya as Pilot could." She blinks rapidly. "Whatever process has changed you is balanced, Bialar. It isn't stripping your mind from you. I felt myself fading, becoming less and less and…" Her voice drops to a whisper. "It terrified me."

"I can imagine."

She manages a weak smile. "So you see – I do understand what you are going through."

Bialar considers her story in light of what has happened to him. "Yes, I suppose. What… what was it like? For you?"

"Difficult," she replies. "I could sense Moya like… well very like it was with Talyn. But as the change developed, I began to loose sense of myself. What was done to me… I would have turned into a Pilot, I think, eventually. In that respect, it was very different."

"Hm. So far I seem to be retaining my sense of self."

She looks at him for a moment. "I don't think the change will advance further. You have merged with Talyn as far as it is possible."

He shrugs. "I have no idea." He sighs. "Nor did I have one that you had suffered so."

"Well I hardly advertise it," she retorts and passes a hand over her face. He is fairly sure the motion is wiping tears she doesn't want him to see so he pretends he doesn't see it, stares out at the night again.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"What? Why?"

"Because it was effectively my fault, wasn't it? You were out there because of what I'd done. I'd cut you off from everything that you'd known and you… you were so lost you'd take such a chance just to find a place to be." He closes his eyes. "I never meant to hurt you Aeryn. Even declaring you Irreversibly Contaminated was more aimed at Crichton than you."

"Do you think that I don't know that?" Her tone is slightly incredulous and he looks at her again. "I'm not stupid, Bialar."

"I never said that you were, but–"

"But nothing! Why can't you just drop that? I told you that I forgive you." She sighs. "Fine. Here and now, Bialar – let's have it all out. It'll probably take the rest of the night, but at least it should stop you from rehashing everything at the slightest provocation!"

Bialar stares at her for a stunned microt, and then laughs. Her irritation expression goes rueful and she shakes her head.

"Idiot," she says, though her tone has an almost fond quality to it.

"Alright," he says then. "Now you've made your point."

She snorts. "I'm so glad," she says dryly.

He goes back to the bed and sits next to her. There is not even a flicker of a flinch when he puts a hand on her shoulder, so adjusting is she to him now. He rather envies her that.

"Aeryn, I… I know that I have never been… an easy person to be around. I am not… trying to aggravate you." He squeezes her shoulder lightly, aware of exactly the amount of pressure in his fingers. "And it does help to know that you… are not just offering an empty sympathy."

"Good," she says emphatically. She leans against him and makes a bad attempt to smother a yawn. "I'm so glad I don't have to stay up all night trying to knock sense into your thick head."

"Nice."

"Hm." She yawns again and shoves herself upright. "Well I don't know what you're going to do, but I am going to get some frelling sleep."

He doesn't feel particularly tired, but wouldn't care to share the bed even if he did. "I'm alright," he tells her. "You have the bed, I'll take the chair."

"Damn right you will."

He chuckles as she scrambled under the covers, still wearing the dress. He stands and goes to the chair, flops down and closes his eyes. He is not tired but his eyes ache. He can hear Aeryn as she makes herself comfortable and tries to ignore his awareness of the basic fact she is in bed a mere metra away from him.

Her breathing slows as she falls asleep. After a microt, he gets up from the chair and crosses the room, clicks off the switch. A sudden darkness descends, blinding him. He opens his mind to the consciousness inside and his senses sharpen. Sight and sound and taste, but more than that – he can actually sense physical objects and so avoids walking into the bed as he goes to his chair.

"See it's not so bad after all," Talyn notes.

"I suppose not."

"Would you rather the alternative?"

Bialar thinks about it, but in all truth knows the answer to that question. "No."

"Neither would I. And Aeryn is right – it's going to be difficult for us to start over if you keep dragging the past up."

"I know. I just couldn't see how she could… accept me so easily."

"Because she's Aeryn," Talyn tells him calmly and he cannot argue with that.