She knew she was dying. She was certain of it. She'd been at this too long and she was certain this much fluid couldn't come out of her without causing some sort of irreparable harm. She doubled over at the waist, unable to hold herself up any longer, her arms clasped desperately around Karanda's neck. A clasp from his uniform bit into her cheek and she tried to concentrate on that rather that everything else that was going on with her body. The pain was steady and unrelenting now and she was moaning and grunting, unable to help herself. The nausea had long ago dissipated and she now decided that it had been the lesser of the many evils. She felt things slipping and moving inside of her, forces at work on her body that she had no control over.

There were two med techs with her now, but neither she nor Karanda were in any shape to send them away. She despised this intrusion into her self, her privacy. She hadn't asked for any of this…tears streamed down her face as she cursed. All she had to do was finish this, all she had to do was finish and her life could move forward again. Hands were on her and she wanted to fight them off but she didn't have any strength for anything other than staying conscious. She felt her teeth sink into Karanda's shoulder, but she suddenly felt like she was an observer from somewhere back inside her mind and it was somebody else doing it. She felt the rough fabric against her tongue, the pull of the seam hurting her teeth…

"Ow, Goddammit Aeryn! Let go!" She was suddenly awake and staring at a startled and wild-eyed Crichton. He jumped out of the bed, holding his shoulder where she had bit him in her sleep. "What the frell is going on with you woman?" He pulled his hand away and there was blood.

"I….I'm sorry," she stammered. But the taste of blood was in her mouth and she found herself quickly rolling to the other side of the bed and the basin there. When she recovered, she found Crichton still standing on his side of the bed, in T-shirt and boxers, staring at her like one of his science experiments. She didn't remember his coming to bed with her, but decided it was just like him not to want to leave her alone while she was ill.

He came around the side of the bed and knelt in front of her. "Aeryn, tell me what's going on. You haven't been sick the entire time I've known you, except when someone skewered you, and then you were up and sparring in a matter of arns." He held her head in both of his hands and stared into her blue green eyes. She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted his blessing for what she had to do and knew she wouldn't get it. She wanted to tell him about that day she kept dreaming about. She wanted to tell him about Kez'ryth, like so many times before, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth and no words would come. What had been duty then weighed on her like her death sentence now.

"I'll be fine," she pulled herself to her feet and reached for her pants. "Let me go get you something for that shoulder." She desperately needed an excuse to get out of the chamber. She needed some time, even a few microts, to collect herself. Prepare herself.

"I can do it, Aeryn." John reached for his own pants at the foot of the bed.

"John, I don't want to disturb Zhaan and you don't know what to get from her apothecary. And I wouldn't trust Stark to tell you." She saw he wasn't sold on the idea. "Besides, I need to clear my head. I'll meet you in the central chamber in half an arn."

He paused as he laced up his boots. "Aeryn, I…" he started, but she cut him off abruptly.

Snapping her pulse pistol into place, she all but growled at him, "Crichton, just let me be! Why do you HAVE to argue with every frelling word?" His mouth snapped shut.

"THANK YOU!" and she marched out the door and down the hall.

She found what she needed for Crichton in the lab section of the cargo bay. It wasn't complicated, she'd had enough wounds to know what went into the poultice. It was simply a mild anesthetic and antiseptic. What she needed for herself was a little more complicated, and she wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for. She carefully pulled out each colorful vial and examined it, mentally cataloging the ones she knew from the ones she didn't. She didn't need any antiseptics. Blood clotting agents, anti-poisons, anti-venoms, sedatives…her eyes fell on a pale yellow fluid. She touched a drop to her tongue and frowned at the sharp biting taste. Her stomach heaved and she clamped her jaw shut. Yes, this was one, she was certain. Ironically, it was a derivative of the placa seed. She picked up another pinkish bottle and sniffed it. Sweet, similar to the scent Zhaan had given her so long ago for her hair. Probably a digestive aid. She set that one aside and mentally catalogued it as something she might need later.

"What are you looking for?" Her heart jumped to her throat as she heard Zhaan's quiet voice behind her. Outwardly, she showed nothing as she slowly turned around.

"I, uh, needed…Crichton hurt his shoulder." She held up the poultice. Zhaan smile never faltered as she reached forward and picked up the yellow vial.

"Then you shouldn't be needing this, dear."

"You've been talking to D'Argo."

"Actually," Zhaan said, as she rearranged her bottles and potions back into the order they had been in. "No."

Aeryn looked at her, puzzled. She stepped away from the mystic, afraid any sort of proximity would give away any plausible deniability she had left. But stealth and subterfuge had never been her forte, and what she felt towards Zhaan belied any ability to lie to her.

"Then who? Does Crichton know?"

"You should tell him. It is blessed news." She continued to smile sweetly, serenely as she put her workspace back in order.

"I suppose that's relative." Aeryn wanted to bolt. Inside her stomach rolled and the surge of adrenaline at getting caught rummaging where she didn't belong had not helped her emotional stability in the least.

Zhaan turned to face her, cupping Aeryn's head with her hands as she did when she shared Unity. But she only stared into Aeryn's tired eyes and kissed her on the forehead. "My child, life is a gift. For all that you have learned these past few cycles, let this be the most important lesson."

Then she turned and walked away, leaving Aeryn stripped of her defenses and crying silently as she realized Zhaan had taken the bitter, yellow liquid with her.

John was in the cargo bay adjusting the atmospheric shielding on his module when he commed D'Argo to come help him. He had himself wedged into a tight space and the shoulder Aeryn had taken a chunk out of was not appreciating all the friction. Normally, he would have commed her instead of the massive warrior, but he decided with her laid up beggars couldn't be choosers.

He saw tentacles dangling in front of him as D'Argo leaned over to inspect Crichton's work.

"What can I help you with, my friend?"

Crichton cursed as he banged his thumb and slammed his shoulder simultaneously. "For starters, grab my feet and pull."

D'Argo looked startled a moment, then shrugged. He grabbed a solid hold of his friend's feet and heaved, extricating the smaller man and dropping him unceremoniously on the cargo bay floor.

"Uh, thanks. I think," John stood up and rubbed his shoulder. The poultice had really worked wonders since the morning, but Aeryn had bitten him hard enough to draw blood and it would take some time heal. He made a mental note to drop by Zhaan's for some more of that anesthetic.

"D'Argo," John finally said after they had worked together in silence for nearly an arn, "are women alike no matter where you go in the universe?"

D'Argo frowned at him. "You are asking the wrong man that question right now."

"Ok, ignoring the fact that SOME women are the same no matter where you go in the universe, what are the chances of meeting with another Aeryn twice in the same lifetime?"

The big Luxan snorted. "I wouldn't wish that on any man."

John stopped what he was doing and stood up, leaning on the module and staring thoughtfully into space. D'Argo stood and faced him, tossing his tools into the cockpit. They faced each other over the small spacecraft until D'Argo couldn't stand the beaten look on his friend's face any longer. He had looked better the day they had rescued him from the Peacekeepers a cycle ago than he looked right now. But, he figured he probably looked pretty much like dren too, these days.

"John," D'Argo tried to choose his words very carefully, "Male to male, perhaps I can shed some light on the situation…"

Aeryn heard the loud voices coming closer and instinctively reached for her pulse pistol where it lay on the bed next to her. As they neared she recognized them as John and D'Argo's and wondered what the frell had gotten them riled up at each other again. Then she wondered why they were on her tier arguing. And then understanding struck her and she knew what was coming next. She forced herself out of bed and into a standing position. If she could just get out of her chamber and down the corridor without Crichton seeing her…it was a vain hope.

"Aeryn…" she heard him calling her name down the hallway and she cringed inside. She was not one to back down from any sort of altercation, not with him, not with anybody, but she was NOT up to this right now. She leaned over the basin and spit, looking around herself for an escape and finding none. The two males were just on the far side of her chamber door now, and she could hear them clearly.

"Dammit D'Argo, I appreciate that fact, but I didn't get much of a say last time so you better believe I'm putting my two cents worth in here. Now get the FRELL out of my way!"

"I'm just saying, John, that I don't agree with it but it may be a necessary decision."

"What the frell do you know…" and then John stopped himself. Aeryn winced, knowing that was question that should not have been asked.

D'Argo's voice grew very solemn, "John, I am a father and a husband, and we have both seen the effects of a child forced to grow up without his parents."

"Yes, but would you have rather seen him dead?" He was answered with silence.

"I didn't think so."

Aeryn heard the larger and heavier footfalls recede and palmed the lock open by the time Crichton actually reached it. He found her sitting on her bed with her head in her hands. She had given up cursing the Luxan, this was a secret she was a fool to try and keep, anyway. When she looked up at him with anguished eyes, all of his anger evaporated leaving only a dull throbbing in his temples in it's wake.

"Talk to me, Aeryn," he said, sitting on the side of the bed with her.

"If you already know, what is there to say?" Her voice was quiet, subdued. He'd never seen her like this. Risen from the dead she had more life in her than this shell of a woman.

"Tell me something. Anything. Please explain to me that this is more than just some Peacekeeper party line." In his mind he was panicking, memories of Princess Kitralla and the daughter he would never know fresh and raw like a wound.

"John, I'm sorry. I just can't. I can't." He heard her voice wavering and he was completely off balance. Her strength had always guided him. In this they were both lost.

"You can't what? You can't talk to me? You can't tell me why my input in this decision isn't as important as yours? Or can you just not bring yourself to carry a half-breed?" As soon as the statement came out of his mouth she flinched and he knew he had crossed the line.

Aeryn reacted to her anger the only way she knew how. She jumped up and pulled her pulse pistol on him, her hand shaking and wavering as though she were still sick from peraferal nerve damage.

"I…can't…"she spit each word out," go...through...that…again! I WON"T!"

Crichton still sat on the bed in shocked and ashamed silence.

"Aeryn, I…" he stood up and moved towards her, one hand outstretched, "I'm sorry. Please give me the pistol." She took two steps backward for his one forward, her hand still wavering madly.

"John, I want this more than you could EVER understand," he'd heard this tone of voice only once before, several weekens ago, in a cold storage chamber on Moya. She'd told him she loved him then. She had collapsed in his arms sobbing. Now she was telling him she was carrying his child with only slightly less enthusiasm. And at gun point no less.

"Then give me the pistol and let's discuss this like two rational people." Inside John scoffed at the absurdity of the words. When had they ever been rational about anything?

Aeryn wavered one last time, then collapsed in a fit of gagging and sobbing. John rushed over and kicked the weapon to the far side of the room, then bent over her and laid his head against hers. He made shshshing sounds trying to calm her. She smelled sweet, kind of fruity. Sebacean sweat. It wasn't an unpleasant odor to him, but he realized his usually fastidious Officer Sun hadn't bathed in a day or two.

"Aeryn, please. This is important." He cupped her chin and forced her head up to look at him. "I'm not your enemy. Make me understand. Help me understand."

Aeryn took a deep breath. It wasn't a story she had ever told before, and she didn't know where to start. She looked into John's pale blue eyes searching for strength but only found her own confusion mirrored back at her. She resisted her thoughts of Kez'ryth and focussed on the matter at hand.

"John, we can't do this here. We can't do this now. We're still fugitives. We don't have enough to eat one microt and we're being shot at the next, what kind of life is that for a child?"

John looked at her incredulously, "Aeryn, we have more money than God. Hell, if you I'll buy us a nice little asteroid out there, put up a white picket fence and settle down. I don't care. I just want you. I just want our child."

"I can't, John, not yet. I have…" she lingered over the sentence, trying to find the right words, "unfinished business." And she knew as she said it she had to go back. She had to go back to the life she left behind and bring home what was hers. And that meant sacrificing one for the other.

"You've done this before…" John let the sentence hang. When she slowly nodded he sat back on his haunches, dazed.

"Kez'ryth," she said, savoring the name. A name she hadn't pronounced since she had first briefly looked on his face and chosen it for him. "His name is Kez'ryth."

She had felt an enormous pulling, stretching, tearing as though the whole of the universe were passing through her. As much as she tried not to, she cried out at the end. Then there was a sudden sensation of relief and she looked down to see hands fumbling over a head and a body slithered out shortly after. She would have collapsed if Karanda had not had a good hold of her.

"It's a male," someone said. Hands maneuvered her onto the bunk but as exhausted as she was she could not close her eyes. She saw small hands flailing in the light and then a loud, lusty cry. She felt as though she had been holding her breath the whole time and let out a long, hard sigh. She collapsed against the bunk, her son healthy and her career secure.

One of the med techs moved to help her into a fresh gown. "A good meal, a good sleep cycle, and you'll be back at your post in no time."

The other tech held up the wailing infant from across the room. She could see a pelt of black hair, his features scrunched up in futile fury. "So, does our little soldier have a name?"

Aeryn lay her head back against the pillow. "Kez'ryth," she had said. "Kez'ryth Crais."