Aeryn stood in the docking bay, her pulse cannon trained on John's original module as it rolled to a halt. Her back was as ramrod-straight as she could manage in such an advanced state of pregnancy and it was starting to ache. Chiana lurked nervously behind a packing crate, providing extra cover with her pulse pistol. Aeryn may have asked for these visitors, may have set the whole thing up, but that didn't mean she was about to blindly trust that someone wasn't going to try to double-cross her. She hoped everything would go to plan, that the module would contain no surprises, but just in case she had packed D'Argo off with Noranti to wait in Pilot's den. If things did go to plan, Aeryn was hopeful that the newcomers would be able to help her when the time to give birth came, rather than Chiana or, Cholak forbid, Noranti. Although the old woman could be very reliable and focussed at times, she could also be off in her own strange Universe the rest of the time. And besides, there had always been a degree of tension between Aeryn and Noranti which could be boiled down to drugs and John, John and drugs. If it hadn't been for Noranti being under John's protection, Aeryn would have kicked her off of Moya a long time ago.
The module's canopy opened and a lithe, black-leather clad female climbed out. Aeryn's heart almost skipped a beat. Even though she knew that it was coming, it was still a shock seeing herself, or another version of herself, here on Moya.
"Well, frell me dead," Aeryn muttered to herself, adjusting her hold on her weapon. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Chiana give her a wan, perhaps even slightly nauseous looking smile. The Nebari girl was probably remembering her own twinning, how the other version of her had been killed and how Kaarvok had eaten her brain in front of her. They were, she imagined, not memories which it would be good for the emotionally fragile Chiana to be reminded of. But Aeryn couldn't dwell on that right now: her eyes went back to the module, just in time to see the other version of herself reach inside and help a confused, human woman climb out into the landing bay.
Olivia looked around her with the mixture of wide-eyed innocent excitement and shock that Aeryn distantly remembered that John had shown, once, many cycles before.
"So, where's John...? My god, there's two of you!" Aeryn heard Olivia exclaimed, wide-eyed, bringing home to her with a crash of emotions that this version of Olivia had never met her before today, had never had the chance to be her friend and confidant. Then the baby kicked her so hard she almost doubled over in discomfort. By the time she struggled back upright, Olivia had reached her side, her hand on Aeryn's arm. The other Aeryn now stood a few paces away, watching matters warily.
"Chiana," the newcomer Aeryn acknowledged her one-time shipmate with a nod whilst MoyaAeryn recovered her composure. "You look well," Chiana stared back at her, unsmiling, hardly acknowledging her at all.
"My God, how many weeks are you?" Olivia spoke to MoyaAeryn now. "You must be at least thirty five or..."
"It is not the same for us," TalynAeryn stated, frowning now at Chiana. Olivia stared, slack-jawed, eyes moving from one Aeryn to the other. Of course it wasn't the same, her every facial expression seemed to broadcast. That would be because these were aliens. Identical twin aliens.
"We can explain later," MoyaAeryn added.
"Stuff to do," Chiana continued.
"Wh... where's John?" Olivia repeated, blinking, still undecided which of the three other women to look at: one of the two fierce, leather clad, human looking women or their almost albino companion. "They said he'd come home? W... with you?" Olivia pulled a face and pointed a shaking finger at MoyaAeryn.
"Dren!" Hissed MoyaAeryn. "They didn't tell her he's planetside?" she asked of her twin in Sebacean.
TalynAeryn shook her head. "It would seem not. She probably wouldn't have agreed to come if they had, so..."
"Wh... what... kind of language was that?"
"We ought to get her translator microbes," TalynAeryn continued calmly in Sebacean. MoyaAeryn and Chiana both nodded. They had not thought about that. But then this Aeryn had had a couple of cycles here on Earth to think about how lacking in translator microbes humans were.
TalynAeryn moved closer to her twin. She inclined her head towards the Prowler, which was sitting across the docking bay from John's module.
"I see you got a new Prowler?"
MoyaAeryn gave the curtest of nods in the affirmative as the two came to face each other. "After I came back from Talyn. After John died, I'll explain later," MoyaAeryn replied still speaking in Sebacean, giving a subtle nod towards Olivia. Both Aeryns understood that John's death, combined with the continued existence of two other Johns and the unknown fate of perhaps yet a fourth, was not something that they wanted to be discussing right now in front of his younger sister. Things were complicated enough.
"Where IS John?" Olivia demanded once again, sounding a little nervous and looking a little scared.
'~'
Olivia nervously looked around her. She wasn't sure which was proving the hardest to cope with: that the galley-like room in which she was now seated was part of an alien spaceship; or that the fierce, heavily pregnant, human looking woman with her claimed to be her brother's alien wife.
"So, John is down on Earth now? Working on some sort of weapon to protect us?"
"Both Johns are." Aeryn nodded, earnestly asserting her words as truth. The black haired woman didn't have the air of someone who made up fanciful stories, even if her story did sound utterly outlandish.
Olivia blinked. She was having trouble coping. "B... both Johns? Right. Your John, and, this... this other John. This alternative reality John? The one who is with the other one of you?" Olivia nodded towards the open doorway to indicate that she was talking about the currently absent version of Aeryn. To Olivia's surprise, the dark haired woman simply shrugged and pulled a face which, had she been human, Olivia would have taken to mean either that it didn't really matter, or was not the whole story. She felt a cold unease grip her. She wasn't sure that she wanted to know which. Aeryn pushed a bottle across the table to her and grimaced supportingly.
"Here, this might help." The alien woman suggested, a long forefinger tapping on the neck of the bottle.
"Wh... what is it?"
"Fellip nectar. Tastes a bit like beer. It's just what you need right now."
"You're not drinking?" Olivia was instantly suspicious. The alien wanted her to drink something but was showing no signs of joining her. Could it be poison?
"No. Alcohol," Aeryn patted her baby bump and smiled. "John says it is not good for the baby." Olivia wasn't sure whether it was Aeryn's smile or the simple honesty of the explanation that convinced her, although it did strike her as odd that Aeryn didn't seem to have an opinion of her own as to what was good or bad for a baby. She took a sip.
"Hmm. It's good." It did taste a little like beer.
"I'm not really sure whether either set of us is from the same reality as this Earth." Aeryn returned to their previous topic while Olivia drank. "All I know for sure is that we're not both from the same reality. Her and me."
"How can you tell?" Olivia blurted out without really thinking where this could lead. Aeryn gave her a long blank look, causing her to shiver. Olivia started to realise that however it was that Aeryn knew that she and her twin didn't come from the same reality, it didn't seem that the answer was likely to be especially pleasant. Or forthcoming. There was a period of silence. Olivia suspected that it was something which Aeryn would be unlikely to be willing to divulge.
"In my reality..." Aeryn began to explain, surprising Olivia. Her cracked voice betrayed that she was upset by something. Olivia braced herself to hear whatever it might be. "John and I did not go to Earth three cycles ago. But we did come here about a cycle ago."
"Only last cyc... year?" The alien woman nodded and seemed to wipe away a tear from her eye. It was all very perplexing: why should that simple thing upset her so?
Aeryn nodded. "We spent a lot of time together... last year. You and I. You leant me books, clothes. Tried to help me... to fit in." Olivia stared at the somewhat daunting woman before her. Reading between the lines, she seemed to be saying that in this other reality of hers they had been friends. Was that why Aeryn had been so keen for her to visit the spaceship, Moya?
Olivia was startled by Aeryn's cold hand suddenly falling on her own. As her jaw dropped, the alien woman pulled Olivia's hand across to rest on her baby-bump. "John and I... Our child will be born soon. Family is important... He would love to know that you would be here for that." Aeryn smiled nervously and Olivia felt the child moving in Aeryn's belly. She felt a sudden connection with the stranger sitting before her. Even though they had never met before today, if what she said was true, if she was John's wife, this was John's child. Everything begun with family - it was what they'd been raised to believe.
"I'd like that too." Olivia heard herself say, feeling slightly detached from reality even as she said it. Darn, that fellip nectar was strong stuff.
'~'
"How have you been, Chiana? TalynAeryn asked as they made their way through Moya's golden, ribbed corridors towards Pilot's den.
"Fine," Chiana shrugged out a surly, monosyllabic answer. She didn't feel much like being friendly to this Aeryn. What her own Aeryn had got up to a couple of cycles ago was bad enough - leaving John on Moya to run off with his twin on Talyn. But at least she had, albeit briefly, returned before running off again to be an assassin and then dragging fekkik-face back with her to Moya. Apparently, though, this Aeryn had never come back from Talyn - she'd cut and run off to Earth with John's twin and left John - Chiana's John - to rot in the Uncharted Territories. Chiana fumed at the thought of her betrayal.
"What happened to your eyes?" Aeryn asked, breaking in on her reverie.
Chiana pondered what to say for a moment. If what the others had said was true, this Aeryn hadn't seen her since the planet Kanvia, nearly three cycles ago, when she had left with Crais, Rygel, Stark, and, of course, the other John on Talyn. Then she had gone to Earth with that John, leaving her John, Chiana's John, alone in the Uncharted Territories. Chiana had lived through the distress that her own John had been caused by her own Aeryn's actions in leaving him. It had torn him apart. She could barely conceive how much worse it must have been for the John that this Aeryn had abandoned in her own reality: She'd never gone back to him - in all probability that John had had to suffer Crais or Rygel telling him that Aeryn had run away with his twin, abandoning him for ever and without her in the Uncharted Territories. In the last few days, since they had arrived on Earth, Chiana had had ample opportunity to dwell on how she felt about all of that: As a consequence, she was in a black rage with her one-time friend.
"What do you care?" Chiana snarled.
"Chiana!" Aeryn responded, her voice sounding shocked by her one-time friend's hostility.
"Sorry, I forgot - you wouldn't know: The thing with my eyes all started when you were off on Talyn. Frelling yourself stupid with your copy of Crichton. Or maybe it happened after you decided to abandon John and run off to Earth with your Crichton and abandon us? I don't frelling know anymore: You wanna take a guess?"
Aeryn stopped dead, grabbing Chiana's arm to stop her and pull her round to face her.
Chiana squealed like an angry polecat. "Get your hand off me!" Chiana screeched, snatching her arm away from Aeryn's grip and taking a step back towards the corridor wall.
Anger and frustration flashed across Aeryn's features, causing Chiana to shrink away from her, fearful that she might have provoked the one-time Peacekeeper to do her some harm. Aeryn took a deep breath and then sighed as she exhaled.
"Chiana, believe me, I am sorry. I wish things had been different, I truly do. But what is done is done. I cannot go back now and change what happened. No matter how much..."
"Can't you?" Chiana's body language spoke of challenge and bravado, but she was careful to step another pace back from Aeryn, putting her out of lashing-out range. Unfortunately that step left her pressed up against the corridor's wall, hemmed in by two of the massive, curved, golden ribs. She really had backed herself up against the wall.
"You know I can't." Aeryn was calm. Chiana imagined she'd had plenty of time to resign herself to how badly she had frelled things up. "And things didn't exactly work out well for John and me, either, on Earth. You know we've spent the last score of monens prisoners here on Earth, don't you?" Chiana shrugged one shoulder, conceding a little, but not forgiving her yet. "There is so much that I regret, so much I have lost. I… I missed you these last few cycles." Aeryn held out a hand towards Chiana. "Have I lost your friendship, too?"
The young Nebari's heart was in her throat. She sniffed back a tear and hardened her countenance. "There's a lot of things happened, Aeryn. A lot of things to forgive."
Chiana stepped away from the wall, turned her back and carried on walking towards Pilot's den. "Besides, I've got my own Aeryn. Just like you've got your own Crichton." The Nebari turned her head as she finished, to see Aeryn staring after her, seemingly shocked and saddened in equal measure by Chiana's anger and rejection of her.
'~'
Chiana left Aeryn once they got to Pilot's den, muttering something incomprehensible about having something important to do. With some trepidation, lest Pilot should reject her as well, Aeryn made her way across the walkway towards the centre of the enormous chamber.
"Officer Sun." Pilot greeted her without looking up or pausing in his activities. "I had heard that you were aboard." He paused a beat while he dealt with one of Moya's controls. Modifying the air recirculation rate, Aeryn remembered, surprising even herself. "Moya and I are pleased to see that you are well."
"And me you, Pilot." She paused before Pilot's console, trying to catch his eye. He seemed unwilling to cooperate. "It... it has been a long time." She ventured.
"Indeed it has." Aeryn waited for more, for some acknowledgement, but was rewarded only with a long silence, punctuated by the sounds of Pilot's claws working more of Moya's controls. "How... how is Moya."
"Well enough," he responded in a detached manner, continuing to pay her very little heed as he continued his work.
"Pilot, we know each other too well for this: something's bothering you." He said nothing in reply, but the expression which flickered momentarily across his features betrayed that something was indeed bothering him and that she had been somewhat foolish to ask.
"Is it that I left Crichton... the other Crichton to go to Earth?"
Pilot uncharacteristically stopped working for a few microts, seeming to consider his response. He turned to look at her. It was a success, of sorts, even though his gaze made her feel uncomfortable, like a cadet caught performing some misdemeanour. He opened his mouth, paused for a microt and then began to speak.
"Although I cannot say that I approve of your actions, I cannot condemn you. Our own Aeryn would have done the same."
"Perhaps. That is what everyone keeps saying." She ventured a tentative half-smile and shrug.
"As I understand it, your Commander Crichton, the one that you abandoned, was amongst friends. On Moya. Just as ours was." He added quietly.
Aeryn widened her smile and reached out towards him, but drew her hand suddenly back at the harsh tone of Pilot's next words.
"Talyn, however, was not left amongst friends." His stare turned angry. "You abandoned Moya's child with Crais, Officer Sun. Do you have any idea what became of him?"
"No... I..." She had never really given it any thought. She had assumed that they had rendezvoused with Moya soon after her departure. But then what? Now Pilot's anger made sense. Well, at least they had, hopefully, got to the heart of Pilot's hostility towards her. Hopefully.
"No, of course you do not. Neither do we. Of course, in our reality, he died, despite your best efforts. He died destroying Scorpius's wormhole research." Aeryn bit her bottom lip. It was a terrible thing to hear. The guilt, the feeling that it was all her fault, for choosing to leave for Earth with John, tore at her.
"Without you..." Pilot continued. "In your reality... Well, Moya and I wonder if he even managed that much."
"I am so sorry, Pilot," Aeryn struggled to find any words, far less the right words. Talyn had looked on her as... not a mother. What would John call it? An aunt, perhaps? With her upbringing, as just another cadet in a crèche devoid of emotional or family attachments, she lacked the framework to truly understand what she had been to Moya's son. "None of us... certainly not me... could predict how things would turn out. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. Now? Nothing seems so clear."
"Indeed, Aeryn. There are so many possibilities." Pilot's voice seemed to have suddenly softened, as had his demeanour. Maybe she had found the right words? She was almost shocked to have managed to calm him so, with nothing but a few words. "Who can tell what happened? I... I believe Commander Crichton would have something incomprehensible yet somehow strangely comforting to say on the subject."
"Yes, I believe he would, Pilot." Aeryn reached out again, intending to stroke his cheek. He did not resist or pull away. "I've missed you..." she heard her voice say through the tears.