John looked like she had just shot him. He cocked his head to one side, "I'm sorry, did I hear you right?"

Aeryn slowly nodded. "But it's not what you think."

John stood up and paced in front of the door. "Sure, sure…family name…Crais, Jones, Smith…"

"John, my world was a different place then. You know that, and you've accepted it before." As a matter of fact, she thought, he had taken the news that she had murdered Moya's previous Pilot with infinite more grace than he was taking this.

"I've told you before birth is a matter of duty, when you're called upon, to fill the ranks. For some soldiers, a good birth can set her career. Or ruin it. My birth devastated my mother's career. I was NOT going to make the same mistake." Aeryn had regained some of her composure though she still sat in a small heap on the floor.

"Aeryn, you are the last woman I would expect to make it to the top on her back," John realized he was being spiteful, but Aeryn didn't understand the reference and stared blankly at him.

"My lover was dead, John, and I was looking at the prospect of having a child that would be brought up in the lowest ranks of Peacekeeper society. His father was a traitor, and a tech. I didn't want that stigma on my record, and I didn't want that to be his legacy. And," she lowered her voice, the statement of fact hurting her, "I didn't want to be responsible for both of their deaths."

John was staring blankly at her again, all the pieces of the puzzle still not making a coherent picture in his mind.

Aeryn took a deep breath and continued, "But, I had already curried favor with Crais when I turned Velorak in. He felt that someone as motivated as I would be a good match to him and with another breeding cycle coming around, I did not turn him down when he made the offer."

"So let me get this straight," John sat down with her again, "You slept with Velorak, but after he gets arrested you sleep with Crais to hide the fact you're pregnant with his kid?" Aeryn nodded.

"So it's not Crais' kid?" Aeryn shook her head.

John let out a whoop that startled Aeryn into another spasm of dry heaves. John was holding her when it passed, and she wanted to die before turning her back on the feeling of his arms around her. She closed her eyes and allowed herself the indulgence one last time before pushing him away and standing up. She settled herself at the table, feeling weak and worn down. She understood Crichton's jubilation, but she did not share in it.

"Ok," he sat down with her, "So where does that leave us."

"The same place we were before we started this conversation, Crichton."

"I don't get it." He took her hand in his and toyed with her fingers. She closed her eyes and let him, enjoying for the moment the softer memories it stirred in her. The joy was short lived as consequences rushed back at her painfully.

"I have sacrificed one child for a career that I don't even have anymore. He is being raised without a family to grow up and be what we both abhor now. Not only that, he is my son and I am a traitor. He is Crais' son and Crais is a renegade. How well do you think he will be treated? How well do you think he is BEING treated?" She snatched her hand back and stared hard at him.

John nodded. "So, what do you want?"

"I want to go back for him. I want to find him and teach him what I have learned. I want him to grow up know...knowing he can be more."

John and D'Argo were unloading crates in the cargo bay, neither saying anything. D'Argo watched John heave a container into the cargo bay wall with more strength than he thought the human was capable of. He righted the container and leaned on it, staring at his friend.

"John, I understand this pains you, but ultimately it is her decision."

"How long," John hoisted another container over his head and threw it in D'Argo's general direction. The Luxan stepped aside then set it right side up, too.

"A Sebacean breeding cycle is about 6 monens, give or take for hybrids. Jothee took 8," D'Argo faintly smiled at the memory. "Lo'Lann thought she was going to be pregnant forever." He stooped and picked up another container as it clattered near him.

"How long," panted John, "until she can't do anything about it?"

"John," the larger man lingered on the name, casting a sidelong glance at him.

"Dammit D'Argo!" John picked up another crate, "just answer the question!"

The Luxan sighed. "Once the illness subsides, the child has implanted itself securely enough that it would take, how do you say, an Act of God to dislodge it. Sebaceans are a hardy species, they breed easily and quickly. Hence all the laws about interbreeding." He snorted over the last word.

"But, until the illness ebbs, it is quite fragile. That is why they get so sick…if they can't eat they can't ingest anything to harm the little one. If they can do nothing but sleep, the baby has all the energy it needs to survive to the point of implantation."

"So how much longer do you think she has?" John had paused in his exertions and was staring intently at his shipmate.

"John, you already have one child in the universe that you know will be well cared for and will one day grow to rule an empire. Why is this one so important to you?"

John stared at him in shocked silence. He jumped off the palette and stood toe to toe with the massive Luxan. "You did NOT just ask me that."

"John, I'm only saying…"

"You're only saying what? D'Argo, Jesus Christ, you of all people should understand this. I thought family was everything to you people."

D'Argo's voice was quiet. "Family IS everything. But, although we don't always agree with the decision, even Luxans understand when a family's resources are best utilized elsewhere." He gripped Crichton by the shoulders and ducked his head to look the smaller man in the eye. "Fatherhood is the most rewarding thing a man can do, John. It would be an honor and a privilege to be able to share that joy with you and Aeryn. But, as your friend, I can only offer you my counsel. As her friend, I cannot do anything that would violate her warrior spirit. She must give this gift to you, you cannot force it on her. Do you understand me John?" D'Argo shook John's shoulders lightly, trying to drive home the point. But what was for D'Argo a light shake, left John's teeth rattling in his head. He nodded and gripped D'Argo's forearm, as much to steady himself as out of his human need for contact.

D'Argo sighed and moved back to his work stacking crates. "You and Aeryn know you can breed, if it is meant to be the spirit of the child will come back to you."

John hung his head. He knew he couldn't win this. Aeryn was as strong willed as they come and he could not keep her locked up indefinitely. He wrestled with himself a moment then blurted out, "she already has a kid."

"I am not surprised." D'Argo answered without pausing in his work.

"What?"

"A Peacekeeper of her age and breeding…it would have been her duty to have at least one."

"D'Argo," John finally voiced his gnawing fear, "what if it's just mine she doesn't want?"

"Because you are human or because you are John Crichton?" John moved forward to help his friend with a particularly bulky container. The enormous man didn't need help, but John felt like he needed to be doing something, anything, before he crawled out of his skin.

"Both."

"Because you are Crichton I think she wants this child more than she is capable of expressing." The big man shrugged, "But because you are human…two cycles ago I would have said it mattered. Now, aside from some obvious short comings, I don't think she notices anymore."

John ignored the good-natured jab at his pride and asked, "so what do I do?"

D'Argo stood and looked over Crichton's head to the wraith like figure standing there. "Don't ask me, ask her."

John and Aeryn walked back to her quarters in silence. John noticed her uniform hung on her thin frame where only a few days ago she had filled it out nicely. Her eyes looked even more hollow and he suspected that instead of resting as D'Argo said she should be, she was still pushing herself to maintain her responsibilities around the ship.

Aeryn palmed the door control and turned to face him, opening her mouth to speak. John gently put a finger over her lips and backed her into the chamber, pausing only long enough to palm the door closed. He cupped her face in his hands and tenderly brought his lips down to hers. He pulled away when he tasted salt and saw tears running down her face from tightly closed eyes.

"I missed you," he said.

She nodded emphatically at him, her voice choking on words and tears.

"What do you want to do?" He asked her, leading her to the edge of the bed and sitting down.

"If. If we do this, you have GOT to understand the sacrifice I'm making." John had not expected this line of conversation and didn't know what to say.

"We'll go back for him, someday, I promise."

"No, John, that's just it. If I…if we," she corrected herself, "are going to raise a child we cannot risk ourselves going back into Peacekeeper territory. We can't. One or both of us dead is not acceptable. Do you understand me?" He saw the pain in her eyes and nodded, afraid that if he spoke the wrong thing would come out.

"And, if I have to turn my back on the one good thing I did as a Peacekeeper for this," she grabbed his hand and put it over her belly, "then you have to promise me you'll stay."

Crichton felt as though an electrical charge had gone through him. It was better than one of Zhaan's ear kisses. He had felt his sister's pregnant belly when he was in graduate school and he had been reminded of Aliens. He felt nothing perceptible beneath his hand now, but the knowing that what, that who, was in there was his and Aeryn's thrilled him beyond words.

"Of course I'll stay. Where would I go without you?"

"No worm holes, no Earth."

He leaned over and kissed her long and hard. "I couldn't afford the therapy bill anyway."

It was the middle of his sleep cycle, but he had been tossing and turning like a kid on Christmas Eve. His stomach rumbled and he realized he had missed the last meal of the day. His pants and boots lay on the side of the bed fireman style. Slipping into them he went over in his mind what had transpired in the past day and it all still felt like a dream to him. He stuck his head in Aeryn's quarters on his way to the central chamber. She was asleep, her hand resting gently on her pulse pistol. Well, he thought, that's one habit that's going to have to go.

In the mess hall, he found Chiana foraging in the back of one of the cold storage units.

"Hey Chi," he said, grabbing a plate.

She jumped as she turned, taking on her characteristic crouch in her surprise. Her cheeks were puffed out with food but she smiled when she saw it was Crichton.

"Hey, if it isn't the proud Papa himself," she handed him something green and brittle that he hadn't seen before. He sniffed it. It smelled like cucumbers.

"Placa root," she said, grabbing another handful for herself.

"Agh! No thank you," he handed it back to her. She laughed.

"Yeah, I heard about your little run in with the seeds. Trust me, this stuff is perfectly harmless." She put it back on his plate and picked some fruit off the counter. Sniffing it for ripeness, she shrugged and put one on his plate and one on her own. They sat down together and ate in silence.

When her plate was nearly clear, she cleared her throat and said, "so, you really think a baby is a good idea?"

John stared blankly at her a moment, not sure whether to deny it, ignore it or acknowledge it. He shook his head and took another bite of the peppery vegetable. "Were you born this nosey or did you have to work at it?"

"Aw, c'mon," her voice took on a crooning note. He recognized it as the same tone of voice she had used on the Peacekeepers at the Gammack base. It was the same tone of voice she used to wheedle and seduce. It was not the tone of voice he wanted to hear right now. "We're all family here."

"Mmhmm. So who told you." He tossed the left over root back onto his plate, it's familiar peppery taste causing his stomach to roll dangerously. He took a bite of the fruit, catching the juice as it rolled off his chin. It was tart and meaty and he was thankful that the mess it made gave him something other than his young shipmate to concentrate on.

He felt his shoulders relax as her tone of voice changed. "So it is true, then?" She was again a friend, a sister, a companion. She got up and rooted through the dry storage. Wrinkling her nose at the dehydrated food cubes, she opened another bin.

"No one told me, John," Her voice echoed from behind the storage unit.. "But it's not like it's a big secret. Everyone knows. Everyone has an opinion."

"Well," John said, throwing the gnawed pit on his plate, "it's nice to know at least some people have the self control to keep it to themselves."

Chiana ignored him. "I mean, Zhaan and Stark have that weird intuition thing going on, and D'Argo," she kind of tripped over the name and John felt his agitation abate a little in the face of her pain, "well, D'Argo might as well be a Diagnosan with that nose of his. And Rygel…well…Ryg just has good ears. And me," she came back around the side of the counter with two pastries, dropping one unceremoniously on John's plate, "I'm just not stupid." She bit into her desert and John couldn't resist wiping a glob bright green filling from the corner of her mouth.

He sighed again, resigned to her line of questioning. "Well, whether or not it's a good idea, it is what is right now." He took a bite of the pastry. It was tangy, with a clinging, sweet after taste. It reminded him of baklava with sweet tarts and applesauce. "By the way, what are you doing up at this hour?"

She blushed a deeper shade of gray. "D'Argo was in here earlier. I skipped dinner."

"O…mmmm…you're one to be talking about good ideas." Finishing his own desert, he speared the last piece off her plate, ignoring her frown.

"Hey, I'm getting enough dren already. Keep it to yourself. At least I can admit when I made a mistake."

John put his fork down very carefully, before he could throw it at her. "What does that mean?"

"How long have you two been at it? Huh? Two, three cycles? Back and forth, back and forth. And now you got her just where you want her. I don't blame you for not wanting to let her go, but this isn't the way to do it."

"You think I'm trying to trap her?"

"I think you're taking advantage of a situation and she's trying to make the best of it. John," Chiana lowered her head and brought her face close to his, "Aeryn has just discovered she can feel something besides hate and aggression. Do you really think she's ready to be a mother?"

John stood up and picked up his plate of food, his appetite gone. Chiana put one gloved hand over his before he was out of reach.

"All I'm saying, John, is that she loves you, and there's more than one way to betray that love."

"What am I, in the frelling Twilight Zone?" John muttered to himself as he walked back to his chamber. "First I got D'Argo being my voice of reason and then I'm taking tips on relationships from Chiana. What's next? Stock tips from Rygel?"

He stalked back to his chamber, pausing again to check on Aeryn. She hadn't moved and he wasn't really tired. He kept walking, moving towards the burnt out section of Moya. He usually avoided this place. It saddened him. But Zhaan had refused to move her quarters and he knew now that's where he was going. The Catholics didn't have anything on guilt that that woman didn't have, he thought.

Chiana's words gnawed at him as he walked. Was he betraying Aeryn? What did that mean, exactly? They had come to the decision together. Or had she capitulated in the face of no other options? Why was he so quick to dismiss her child? He had a daughter he would never see. She had a son. They could have a child together and try to move on. Try. That was the word he kept getting hung up on as he rounded the corner and stood outside the decimated remains of Zhaan's quarters.

She lay in her bed, her back to him, using Stark's lap as a pillow. She did not wear her cowl to bed and he could see the sores and red highlights of her illness in the dim light. Stark, her nearly constant companion, sat with his back resting against the bulkhead, his head tilted towards her. He opened his one eye as Crichton approached and put his finger to his lips. Crichton nodded and waited for the other man to extricate himself from underneath Zhaan's placid figure.

"She's getting worse, isn't she?" John asked as they moved deeper into the scarred and healing section of the ship.

"Yes," was the answer. Stark didn't need to elaborate.

"But, I hear you have reason to be joyful. And yet," the man paused, inspecting John's face, "You are troubled."

"Well, you don't have to be Kreskin to figure that one out." He sighed and sat down on a blackened chair.

"Stark, do you have kids?"

His one eye opened wide as though startled by the question. "O no, no. My peace comes from the passing of souls from this existence, not from leading them forth into it. Why?"

"I had this idea in my head," John ran his fingers through his short hair, causing it to stick out at odd angles, "of being the big rocket jockey, and I would have this nice house with a wife and kids and they would just be there for me to come home to. I don't think I ever thought too much about how they would get there, they'd just be there, know what I mean?"

Stark nodded, not really understanding but trying to be supportive.

"I'd play golf on Sundays and I'd teach my son to fish and play football and we'd have these big barbecues with the neighbors and DK and whatever girl dujour he had with him at the time."

Stark nodded, urging him to continue and taking a seat of his own hunkered on the floor.

"And now I'm out here and I've got this, this" he searched for the right word, "I've got this amazing woman who is more than I ever knew I wanted and there is no way I can ever tell her or show her or do for her what she deserves. And then I find out she's pregnant." He paused again, his mind feeling like a squirrel in a cage.

"I mean, you'd think I'd think of these things, yknow? We frell like rabbits for a week, what did I expect to happen? I mean, it's the first thing dad teaches you…and here I am and all of the old rules don't apply out here and would you believe it…there is some intergalactic practical jokester out there who decides that THIS, THIS is the one rule that applies. I mean, I don't even think Peacekeepers get married, but they do get pregnant." John put his thumb to his mouth in thought.

"So why does Aeryn's pregnancy disturb you?" Stark finally asked after several microts of silence.

"It didn't. Aeryn disturbed me. I had to find out from D'Argo. And by then I was just so angry I didn't hear what Aeryn had to say. I just wanted this kid." John was rambling, but he couldn't stop himself now that he had started talking about it. And Stark was the perfect listener, silent, attentive, non-judgmental.

"I've already got a daughter out there I am never going to meet. Hell, she won't even be born until I'm pushing up daisies somewhere. But she's going to be an empress, and I'm supposed to be happy about that. I mean, what am I expecting, that Aeryn is suddenly going to exchange her pulse pistol for a bottle warmer? I'm beginning to think Chiana's right."

"Chiana's right?" Stark asked carefully.

"I'm not being true to Aeryn. Chiana said there's more than one way to betray a lover. I think I'm betraying Aeryn by asking this of her. She's not ready. I'd like to think I am, but this has got to be a team effort. Right?" Stark nodded more in encouragement than agreement. Having been born a slave, he was used to seeing families getting along just fine with one parent or the other, but rarely both.

"I want her to be as happy as I am about this. I want babies…. Lots and lots of babies, but when Aeryn is ready to be a mother, and not just willing to bear a child. She's already done that, and she deserves more."

Stark's one eye widened in surprise. "Aeryn has a child?"

Crichton snapped out of his reverie. "Finally, someone who's surprised by the news!"

"No, I'm not surprised that she has a child…it would have been her duty. But she recovered so well."

"Hey!" Crichton stared Stark down the only way another man could.

Stark blinked at him, then asked "So what do you do?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping you could help me out with that. How do I convince her she's made a mistake, I've made a mistake."

"John, you know Aeryn better than any of us. You know once she's made up her mind you're not going to change it."

"I can't let her do this."

"You'll never talk her out of it. Perhaps you could find colonists…"

"Stark," John turned wild eyes on his friend and former cellmate, "did you not hear any of what I just said? We've both already got kids we are never going to see again. Do we need another? I can't do that to her and I sure as hell am not doing it to myself. Not intentionally. Besides," and Crichton lowered his voice, "D'Argo sent Jothee off to foster parents and look at what happened to him. No, it's not an option."

"Then it appears you only have one option." John knew Stark was never one to sit still long, so when Stark started pacing in the small confines of what had once been a room in Moya's gutted interior he was not surprised. He also knew the man's lucidity was quickly coming to an end.

"Zhaan has potions…medicines…" John offered.

Stark shook his head wildly. "No, no! She believes all life is sacred and I would never violate her trust like that." He lowered his voice to a mad whisper, "and she is very fragile right now. Her spirit is not suffering, but she would grieve. I will not have her grieve."

"You Stark, what do you think?"

"I think whatever happens is as is should be. The universe has its plan and the decisions we make cannot in any way violate that plan. You do what you do and what will be will be. Life and death come together. Her spirit will find you again." He turned to walk back the way they had come. John opened his mouth to say something more, but decided against it. He knew Zhaan would be waking soon and Stark would want to be at her beck and call.

Exhaustion was creeping up on him as he made his way back to his quarters. Aeryn hadn't moved all night and although she usually woke soon, John figured she wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. He kicked the DRD that tried to roll into her chamber, a high whistle from it acting like an alarm clock.

"Commander Crichton!" Pilot's voice came to him over his comm. "That was just unnecessary!"

"I'm sorry Pilot, but do me a favor. Keep the DRDs and the rest of the crew off this tier today and keep the lights at sleep level."

Pilot's voice changed from one of outrage to gentle calm. "I understand Comdr. Crichton. Consider it done."

He slipped back into Aeryn's quarters, her own exhaustion evident when he was able to gently slide her pistol away from her and slip into bed unnoticed. He pulled her to him, nestling her head in the crook of his shoulder, a position she always seemed too restless to assume when awake. He fell asleep knowing his fantasy was almost over.