Another weeken passed and it saddened John to see Aeryn surrender herself to the life within her. She no longer tried to get out of bed and make it to her duty shift. She ate nothing and slept more than she was awake. Every morning he would bring her food and every evening remove the untouched plate. He did the work around the ship for the both of them, and helped her bathe and change into fresh clothes before bed every night. She continued to sleep with a pulse pistol at the side of the bed, but he doubted she had the strength anymore to use it. He finally sought D'Argo out as his only source of information and found the man on command, silently watching the expanse of stars as though he owned them.
He stood shoulder to elbow with his enormous friend, wondering briefly what D'Argo saw in that great glittering blackness.
"You are still troubled," the Luxan said, without taking his eyes off the view.
"Is this normal? Should we be worried?" Crichton asked.
"It shouldn't be too much longer."
"I don't get it. Human women get morning sickness, but nothing like this. I'm waiting for her head to start spinning…we've already got the pea soup going on." He wrinkled his nose, still wondering how so much could come out of someone who ate so little.
D'Argo looked at John out of the corner of his eye, as though wondering whether a clarification of that 'Crichtonism' was worth the time and trouble. He slowly and deliberately returned his attention to the view and John wondered if he was interrupting a private moment between D'Argo and his thoughts. Although the big man was not known for his rhetoric, he was usually more talkative than this. "It shouldn't be too much longer," the Luxan repeated.
"D'Argo, what's on your mind?" John pulled himself up to sit on the console and looked at his shipmate.
"Nothing that hasn't been on my mind since my son betrayed me and then abandoned ship." He said it matter of factly, like he was giving a weather report. It was an obvious statement, the one thing everyone in D'Argo's presence longed to mention but never did. His shipmates supported him in silence and John wasn't much different.
For a lack of anything better to say, John reached a hand up and rested it on D'Argo's shoulder. "I'm sorry, man."
"They have breeding cycles," D'Argo said, obviously wanting to change the subject.
"Excuse me?" Crichton's eye brows wrinkled as he tried to wrap his mind around the concept. "What are we talking about here, dogs, fish, insects?" It took some of the romance out to think he had participated in a 'breeding cycle'.
"They are given contraceptives or countercontraceptives when they are examined every cycle for physical integrity. Both the males and the females. Breeding cycles are ordered on a per unit basis. It takes quite a bit of planning for two Peacekeepers to decide they want to breed together. Accidents rarely happen. It's the only way they can care for the gravid in those first crucial weeks. If a Peacekeeper gets pregnant outside of her breeding cycle, it can affect her career for the rest of her life. Her ability to follow orders is suspect, and she puts the rest of her unit at risk because they are all pulled off duty to maintain their integrity as a team."
"Why are you telling me this…she's not a Peacekeeper anymore."
D'Argo finally turned to face John. "You have to understand how to make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Are you saying she did this on purpose?" John was incredulous that she would put herself through this emotional drama intentionally. John slid off the console and looked up into D'Argo's unreadable face.
"Doubtful. What I AM saying is that we most likely won't see a Peacekeeper physician again. Not one willing to help us, anyway. When this little one comes, you have to make sure it's the only one."
John tried to wrap his brain around what D'Argo was telling him. He knew he wasn't getting it. No matter how many times or in how many different ways he replayed D'Argo's words back in his head he couldn't seem to grasp the underlying point.
"Jesus," John mumbled under his breath, "I thought I left health class 20 years ago." He paced in the open space between consoles, scratching the back of his head. Ok, so the Peacekeeper pill was out of the question, that left what? He shivered to think what their version of a condom was out here.
"Ok," he finally turned back to D'Argo, who hadn't moved except to fix his gaze back on the infinite universe before them, "So, she's got to have a biological cycle, right?" He remembered being 19 and his father cuffing him in the back of the head. Her name had been Sally Turner and she had been the first, and until this moment, the last big scare of his life.
"But Dad," he had try to say in his defense, "She'd said it was safe."
"Boy," his father had said, shaking his head, "I did not raise you to play russian roulette with your life. Praying is not a form of protection." He was grasping at straws as it was finally starting to add up in his head what D'Argo was getting at. He didn't like where the math was going.
D'Argo heaved a great sigh and moved forward, placing an enormous and gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "John, you are a scientist, you should understand this. Even I understand this. Space bound Sebaceans do not have lunar cycles. It is the very act itself that precipitates conception."
All the pieces clicked into place and John's head was reeling. "Whoa! Whoa! Wait just one minute!" He backed away from the Luxan, turning in a circle and chewing on his thumb the way he did when something particularly disturbed him.
"What you're telling me is that once this kid comes, we can't have sex again? What the hell is THAT all about?"
D'Argo's voice was controlled, steady. "I told you Sebaceans were a pernicious species. You and she could fill this whole ship in a matter of cycles, if you had a mind to. That is why it is up to you to make sure that doesn't happen."
"But you, you and your mate. You only had Jothee, how did you manage that?" John was desperate, and knew it.
"Lo'Lann's House was not space bred and born. Her brother was conscripted as a child while she grew up planet side. We lived planet side."
"Lunar cycles…goddammit! So, I guess all those comments about Peacekeeper PMS were out of line?" John was pacing again.
"John, you have to tell her."
The human stopped dead and cocked his ear in D'Argo's general direction. "I'm sorry, I thought you said…"
"John, it's very likely she doesn't even know. My assessment of her was accurate when we first met. She is military, told where to fight and where to die. And in some cases when to breed. It probably has never occurred to her why she was able to recreate without conceiving yet here, now…"
"Then how did she have that techs kid?"
D'Argo shrugged. "She was pulled off her regular duty for that. She could have missed an inoculation between duty assignments. It's not unheard of, just rare. And here, now, all the drugs are out of her system."
"And you know all this because…"
"My brother in law," D'Argo looked more pained than usual saying the words, "was a Peacekeeper. My mate was a sebacean. I spent eight frelling years living with them…I just know, John."
John returned to his quarters to find his bed empty for the first time in many, many days. Puzzled and concerned and with entirely too much new information weighing on his mind he continued the few short feet down the corridor to Aeryn's chamber. He heard the water running even before he saw the black top of her head over the privacy screen in the wash area. He leaned against the doorway, watching her hair, this piece of exposed skin, that glimpse of face as she turned and washed in the cool water. He noticed her clothes folded neatly on her bed, a fresh pair of trousers and a green body suit lay out next to them. On the table sat her breakfast plate, half-eaten. Her pistol hung off the privacy screen in its holster, never more than arms' reach away.
He caught her eyes just above the screen and smiled at her. "Feeling better?"
"Some," she answered, turning and searching for the cleaning compound.
He admired the curve of her neck where it met her shoulders, the arch of one fine brow as she turned away from him, the slope of her jaw in profile. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked towards her, initially intent only on watching her. But as he leaned against the screen he felt the incredible need to touch her. He moved to scrub that place just between her shoulder blades, that place that would cause her to arch her back and lean into him. But she turned just as he reached and he found himself brushing her breast instead. He pulled his hand back as though he had touched electrified cable and she graced him with one of her half smiles.
"I won't break, John," she said, bending to scrub between each individual toe. "You should know that by now."
He noticed the ridge of her spine had become bony. When she stood upright he could see her ribs and the gentle slope of her belly had become angular. He looked at her stomach and frowned. She looked so small, so frail. He didn't like it.
She leaned back and let the water hit her in the face, resting most of her weight on the screen.
"You alright?" he asked, moving around to stand full in front of her. She nodded but didn't answer. He took another step forward, uncertain as to what he should do. He realized that for all the times he had helped her bathe in the past several days, he had been too concerned to ever stop and just look at her. Their encounters were quick and down to business, with John holding her up long enough to get wet and clean between bouts of sickness, and colored by his own eagerness to get out of the cold water.
He realized that in spite of her thinness, he still found her intensely beautiful. He felt himself longing for her, aching for her. Without realizing he was doing it, he took the last step forward and lay one hand on her belly, the other coming up to smooth the hair out of her eyes as he leaned in and kissed her. He closed his eyes against the cold water splashing him, ignored the water saturating his T-shirt, and lost himself in everything but the feel of her lips, the slick of her skin, the feel of her body pressing against his as he moved closer.
He felt her body relax as though it had heaved a great sigh and she brought her arms around to hold him. Fingers crept up the back of his neck and he felt goose bumps go down his arms. His hand left her belly and snaked around her waist and pulled her to him, out of the stream of water and she was returning his kiss gingerly, tentatively. He pulled his mouth away and kissed her eyes, the bridge of her nose, her neck. He followed the slope of a shoulder down to the inside of her elbow to the palm of her hand. He traced each finger with his lips and she sighed and lay her head back again. He placed the hand back around his shoulders and found the hollow of her throat. He nipped tenderly where flesh met bone and followed the rivulets of water that pooled there to cascade down over each full breast. He continued his way down to where the water ran in a sheet over her smooth flat belly and gently lapped at her navel, pausing to kiss the two tiny scars left from where the vork had bitten her half a cycle or more ago.
He knelt before her now, worshipping at the altar of his goddess. The world did not exist but for her being in it. His tongue traced the contours of her hip, his teeth nibbled at the flesh of her thigh, and for the moment she was all that sustained him. He paused in his homage to look up at her face, his hands holding her around her narrow waist as though she might try to run away. She was looking at him, her head cocked to the side and her blue green eyes smiling with amusement and affection. She reached down and smoothed the wet hair off his forehead, her hand lingering on his cheek. He turned his face into it and smelled her mingled with the fresh scent of the water and the clear, plantlike scent of the soap.
"Aeryn," he started to say, but she lay a finger against his lips. She reached down and peeled his wet shirt off. He heard the solid "thwap" as it landed on the floor on the other side of the shower screen. He felt himself shiver and wondered momentarily if it was her hands on him or the cold water. It was a fleeting thought as he noticed the beads of moisture collected in the thick black curls at her center. He turned his attention to that marvelous part of her that had seemed so alien to him before and now was as familiar as…home. Right there, right in front of him and not tucked away like some secret. He never failed to be awed by her body.
While their lovemaking had varied from frantic and animalistic in various dark corners around the ship to tender and slow in their quarters at the beginning or end of a day, he realized he had always thought there would be enough time to explore the vagaries of Human/Sebacean sex at their next encounter. Their love play had always been very straightforward and without the attention to detail he had always prided himself in. Deep inside his chest something ached with the realization that time was running out.
He kissed the part of her stomach just above where the curls began. "Hello, little one," he thought, keenly aware of the tiny life there. Then he turned his attention further south, his tongue tentatively reaching out to her core. He felt her stiffen, her hands bracing against his shoulders.
"John, what are you doing?" She asked heavily, her voice thick with desire and sharp with shock.
He sat back on his haunches and looked at her face, not daring to take his hands off of her. "Don't tell me you've never…"
"I've never…what?"
"This. Don't tell me Sebacean men don't do this?"
"Why would they," she paused, her brows dipping in a slight frown, "John, I have to kiss that mouth."
He moved back towards her, "I promise I'll brush."
"Hardly seems fair to a dentic," he heard her mutter, but she didn't push him away again.
He tasted her. Musky. But not like a human musk, not at all. There was a barely perceptible sweetness to it, like the smell of her sweat. He wrapped his arms around her, his hands resting on the small of her back and pulled her towards him. He felt her breath hitch and was instantly aroused, cold water or no. He lapped at her tenderly, finding that tiny bump that was almost a vestigial nerve. He felt her legs quiver and she let out a long, low moan. He pressed in harder, hungry for her in so many ways. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he ran his tongue around the small, pale lips. He noticed her juices were sweeter the more aroused she became and he felt that center itself begin to quiver.
He paused, looking up at her. Her head hung down, her hair partially obscuring her face. But her eyes were open, boring into him. Her mouth hung open with heavy breaths. Her hand grabbed the back of his head.
"John…" she started to say.
"Shhshhsh," it was his turn to reach up and put a finger gently against her mouth as his other hand pulled her towards his mouth again.
"John, I…" and as his tongue pierced her her legs buckled and she slid down the back of the shower wall to join him on the floor.
She kissed him hungrily, gripping his head on either side as though he would dare get away from her. She was wet and slick against his bare chest, her skin smooth and cool. She pulled back and smiled.
"I don't think I can hold myself up," she finished, licking her lips at the unfamiliar taste.
He gathered her to him, pulling her to her feet as he stood. He pressed her back into the shower wall and kissed her, his tongue darting in as she opened to him.
"Here," he mumbled against her lips as he grabbed her thigh and pulled her leg up to wrap around his waist. She took the cue, braced herself, and wrapped both legs around him.
"Buckle," she said urgently, trying to squirm higher.
She was light now. Much lighter than she used to be, he thought as he held her to him with one hand and reached underneath with the other. The fastener released and the holster clattered and splashed to the floor.
Her legs were thin and tight around him, her heels pressing into the small of his back as he carried her over to the bed. Laying her gently, reverently on the copper coverlet he again slid to his knees before her. He put a staying hand on each thigh as she started to squirm backwards. "No, stay right there."
He started at her knee where it bent to keep her feet planted against his hips. He traced the line of her inner thigh with his tongue, licking off the beads of water and nipping playfully at the tender skin. She wiggled towards him, shifting her weight to wrap a leg over his shoulder. He lingered over the area where her leg joined her body, feeling the tension in her hips as she strained against the urge to raise herself to meet him. He smiled to himself, secretly satisfied that not only was she finding this immensely enjoyable, but she also had no basis for comparison. Nothing like a clean slate to work with. He shifted his attention to the other leg and smiled outright at those low, throaty mewing sounds he had come to recognize and long for.
Feeling playful, he made one long sweeping motion with his tongue, barely touching her sweet, wet lips, then sat back on his heels. "Should I stop?"
She pushed herself up on her elbows and glared at him. He watched her mouth open and close in an attempt to formulate some coherent reply and he chuckled.
"Just checking," he said, moving back to his work with a hunger that elicited a cry from Aeryn the moment he made contact with her. Her leg jolted against his shoulder, her calf hooking around his neck and pulling him harder into the folds and lips of her sex. He wrapped his arms under her thighs and held her hips, pulling her to him as she pushed against his hip with her other foot. She fell back on the bed, her arms reaching up and behind her for something to grab onto. She settled for wringing the coverlet in her hands as she arched her back under this intense new sensation.
John parted the pale, fleshy lips, drinking her. His tongue moved in and out of her slowly, gently. He was amazed at her reaction and wanted more. He ran his tongue around the opening, pausing to graze the very tip against that tiny bundle of nerves. Her hips bucked in his hands and she let out a long, strangled "Uhhhhh…" He pulled the skin taught, amazed at the whiteness of it, the slick sheen of their juices mingled, the sweet taste immediately and the tanginess left on his tongue after. He brushed her again with his tongue and was greeted with the same violent thrust of her hips. He nipped and nibbled at her as she strained against him, then plunged in for the climax, lapping and sucking like a man starved.
"Aaahhhhhh!" another strangled cry as her whole body became rigid, one hand loosening its grip on the blanket to search blindly, wildly for something else to hold as the wave hit her. He felt those amazing, intimate muscles clamp rhythmically against his mouth as he held her to him, her fluids sweet as candy now.
"Auhhh! John!" She called his name before she collapsed on the bed, exhausted.
John stood up, shaking the cramps out of his legs and his own erection pushed to the back of his mind. Although he was used to her crying out at the end, for her it had always been the restrained cries of a woman brought up in a military barracks. Even sex was to be performed with stealth. Here she had cried out his name, unrestrained, and he realized it would probably be a long time before he heard it again.
He leaned over her. She lay half on the bed, her head at an awkward angle where she had stopped her struggling, her eyes half closed. He kissed her gently. She didn't open her eyes.
"You're going to have to give me a microt, John." She said. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Hush," he kissed her again, "That was for you."
He stood upright again, stretching all the kinks out of his neck and suddenly keenly aware of his own arousal. She was so damn beautiful, lying there askew on the bed. It wouldn't take much just to pull her forward a bit…he turned his attention back to the shower. He walked back to retrieve his pistol and it's holster, pausing to let the icy water splash down on him. It didn't help. He shook the water off his face and out of his hair, fumbling with the shut off knob. He hung the holster next Aeryn's on the privacy screen and retrieved his shirt from it's puddle on the floor. Wringing it out, he hung it on the screen to dry.
He turned back around to see Aeryn righting herself on the bed, swinging her legs around to tuck them under the covers and pulling the blanket up to her neck. She moved slowly, sluggishly, as though all her energy had just been expended in one fell swoop. John figured it probably had been.
He realized his boots squished when he walked. He looked at the puddles between the shower and the bed and frowned. Aeryn liked to keep her quarters aboard Moya much as she had kept her quarters aboard a command carrier, Spartan and neat.
"I'm going to go back to my quarters for a microt," he said, leaning over to kiss her again. "Then I'll be back to clean this up." She nodded without saying anything, already drifting off to sleep.