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Her first hint is when the smell of chakkan oil makes her throw up.
She likes the smell of chakkan oil. Or - she had. It felt like home, safety and comfort. Whatever happened in her universe, Aeryn felt better with a warm pulse pistol in her hand and the smell of burning chakkan oil in the air.
But apparently, not anymore.
“Damn - you alright?”
Crichton is eyeing Aeryn as she straightens from where she'd hurled into a nearby bush. He's crouched behind a rock, his own pistol still out.
“Yes. Sorry. Must've been… something I ate.”
“Okay, well as long as you're good. Pretty sure we got more of those guys heading our way and I'm not sure I can take them on by myself.”
“I'm fine,” Aeryn says, crawling back to their place behind the rock. She looks at the pistol and cartridge in her hands, and hesitates. Her stomach roils again, and she sticks the cartridge under John's nose.
“Can you check the charge for me?”
He eyes her oddly, but does so, sticking his tongue out and quickly licking the cartridge before nodding.
“It's good. Damn, here they come.”
Aeryn snaps it back into her pistol, and takes a deep breath, taking aim.
–
“Hey, Aeryn?”
Stopping herself from rolling her eyes, she turns to glance at the nebari leaning against the open door of her quarters.
“Is there something you need?”
“Yeah, actually. It's my time.”
“What?”
“You know. That time. What, sebaceans don't bleed?”
“...Oh,” she says when she catches on.
“Yeah. So I wondered if you had anything. You know, I didn't exactly pack when I came here, and it's not like I can ask rygel or Pilot,” she giggles.
“Right. Yes, hold on.”
“Thanks,” Chiana says as Aeryn heads into the adjoining washroom.
“Here,” she hands her a pack of sanitary products. “This is all I have though, so you'll have to replace them at the next commerce station.”
“Sure, when's yours due?”
Aeryn opens her mouth to answer her when she falters. When is she due? It feels like an age since she had her last bleed, not since…
Frell .
–
It's about a weeken later, when the thing she's been firmly ignoring presents its first real problem. She glares at the readings on her handheld scanner, taking a deep breath before speaking into the comms.
“Found the issue. There's a mortexim leak in one of the central chambers.”
“Can you patch it?”
“No, it's leaked into the chamber. I don't have my suit.”
“Patch it quickly then,” D’Argo answers impatiently.
“It's poison,” she snaps.
“Aeryn,” Zhaan’s voice comes through. “Mortexim needs to be inhaled at extremely high doses over an extended period to have any effect on sebaceans. You should be fine to go inside.”
“I can't ,” she says through gritted teeth.
“Yeah Moya’s readings are going through the roof,” Crichton pitches in. “You gotta get that patched now, it'll take us too long to get over to you.”
“I've already told you, I can't go in there without a suit!”
“Aeryn, stop being so difficult and get the repairs done,” D’Argo barks, her comm crackling with his raised voice.
“I can't,” she grinds out.
“What is the problem?”
“I just can't !” She exclaims.
“Why not?”
“Because I'm pregnant!”
The comms are totally silent. After a moment, Aeryn speaks again.
“Did you hear me?”
“We heard you Aeryn,” Zhaan is the first to speak. “You'd best come out of there now, we'll figure something else out. D'Argo, how quickly can you get there?”
“Why have I got to go?” The luxan complains gruffly.
“Send Crichton, it's his fault,” Aeryn can't help but snap a bit, immediately regretting it when another stiff silence follows her accusation. She's glad she's not in the same room with them, that she can't see those wide, baby blue eyes of his that at times felt like they could see into her soul.
Frell , she hadn't meant for him to find out this way.
Well, as she'd heard him say a few times, the rat was out of the bag now.
–
“So.”
Aeryn holds back a groan at Crichton's voice from the door of her cell. Of course, she'd known this was coming.
“When were you gonna tell me?”
She grits her teeth, jaw clenching and unclenching.
“When I decided what to do.”
She hears footsteps, and turns from her place perched on her bed, stripping and cleaning her weapons, to see him stepping cautiously into her room. He looks unsure rather than angry, so she supposes that's a good start. The human could be so frelling emotional, and his unpredictable nature was one of the main reasons she'd kept her pregnancy to herself.
“You mean… keeping it. Or not?”
Eyes holding his, she nods once.
“And you haven't yet -?”
She gives a tense shake of her head, and thinks she sees his shoulders relaxing a bit.
He draws in a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, and takes another step into the room. “You wanna talk?”
Aeryn turns back to her weapons. “Not particularly.”
“...Alright, then. I'll uh… I'll leave you to it.”
“Wait,” she finds herself stopping him before he can leave.
Their eyes meet again when she turns her head. There's something like hope burning in his, and it makes her chest feel funny. She holds up a chakkan cartridge.
“Could you test these for charge for me? The, uh… the smell makes me sick lately.”
John blinks at her once, before the corner of his lips quirks up in a not-quite smile, and he lopes over to the bed, sitting down next to her.
“Sure thing.”
–
Reclining back on a bed in Moya’s med bay and feeling wholly out of her element, Aeryn is sorely regretting agreeing to this.
“I told you, I'm already sure,” she tries to protest as Zhaan fiddles with the settings on her scanner. “I should've bleed almost a monen ago, and I've been feeling sick.”
“Yes, but I still think we should check, make sure everything's going as it should. Before you make any decisions,” the softly spoken delvian says.
Crichton, standing beside her, lays a firm hand on her arm when she makes to get up.
“It's just a scan, Aeryn,” he tells her gently. “You don't have to decide anything today.”
Letting him push her back down, she lays back with a huff, looking up at Moya's curved ceiling.
“Ready?” Zhaan asks.
“Don't you need the gel stuff?” John says.
“What gel?”
“To go on her stomach. You know, so the ultrasound… never mind.”
Ignoring him, Aeryn nods her consent at Zhaan, and she hovers the scanner over her midsection, pressing a button to bring up an image, beaming out of the instrument.
Aeryn squeezes her eyes shut, unable to pinpoint why she feels so utterly terrified.
“There,” the delvian speaks after a moment. “That's the fetus. Everything looks good.”
“Wow,” John utters softly from her side. “That's it there, that little thing?”
“Yes, that's it.”
Hesitantly, Aeryn opens her eyes, looking at the image.
They all stare in silence a moment.
“Looks like a jellybean.” John comments
Aeryn raises an eyebrow at him. “A what?”
“A jellybean. They're these little sweets, come in all different flavours. They're shaped like a little bean - just like that.”
Aeryn stares at it a moment. “You are very strange, Crichton,” she decides.
“The readings show that it's forty-two solar days into gestation,” Zhaan says (Aeryn could have told her that; she hadn't been with anyone except John that one time of late), “and seems to be developing at a typical rate for sebacean offspring so far, which is good to know. Things can be a little unpredictable with hybrids.”
Hybrids. Because that's what she's carrying, a hybrid lifeform. She'd recreated and created a life with an alien, and she is now nurturing it inside her, looking at the very image of it growing in her belly.
She supposes there's no doubting her state of irreversible contamination now.
She should probably feel more upset about that than she does, but as she looks at the tiny image on the screen, that little - jellybean - as Crichton had called it, she can't find it within herself to feel any kind of resentment. Only, strangely… a sense of wonder.
And suddenly her decision feels crystal clear.
Aeryn takes a deep breath. “I want to keep it.”
A brilliant smile lights up John's face, and he covers her hand with his own. “I was hoping you'd say that.”
–
Crichton is whistling as he strolls into the mess hall. He's been irritatingly cheerful lately, and it's getting on Aeryn’s nerves more than it probably should. She blames her hormones for the sudden urge to smack him quiet as he strolls over to where she's poking at her food cubes.
“Here.” He sets a little bottle full of brightly coloured tablets down in front of her, sitting down beside her.
Aeryn reaches for the bottle.
“What's this?”
“Vitamins, picked them up from the commerce station.”
“What for?”
“For you,” he says brightly. “Help our little jellybean to grow good and strong.”
Aeryn huffs. “I'm fine.”
“Mhm,” he sounds unconvinced, and motions to her plate of uneaten food cubes. “Food still making you feel sick?”
“Yes,” she sighs. “Zhaan said it will pass by the second trimester.”
“That's still a couple of weekens away,” John nudges the bottle of vitamins towards her.
Aeryn gives another sigh, and pops open the bottle, sticking a tablet in her mouth and swallowing it down with water just to keep him quiet.
“That's my girl,” he says, and his hand glides over her shoulders, giving them a squeeze as he gets back up and heads over to find his own plate of food.
Despite the nausea in her stomach, Aeryn finds herself smiling for the first time that day.
–
“Go again.”
Crichton hauls himself up off the training mat, standing with his hands on his knees.
“Gimme a minute,” he complains, waving a hand at her. Rolling her eyes, Aeryn turns to shed her long sleeved top, standing in a black crop top with a light sheen of sweat over her form as she plants her hands on her hips and stares disapprovingly at the human.
“Come on, Crichton. We've barely been going an arn.”
“An arn!Exactly. An arn of you kicking my ass.”
“Quit complaining. If you want to learn to fight you're going to have to get fitter and stronger.”
“Alright, fine ,” he huffs, standing up straight and taking a stance as he looks back over at her. His fists drop when his gaze lands on her.
“Oh my god.”
“What?” Aeryn notices John staring at her midsection.
“You're showing.”
“Showing what?”
He crosses over to her, stopping right in front and lifting a hand, making Aeryn inhale sharply and hold her breath when he lays it gently on her stomach.
“...Oh.” She glances down. Now that he mentions it, she supposes there is a slight curve to her usually flat stomach. She places a hand next to his. “Huh,” she comments.
“You're really showing,” he breathes, and his voice is full of wonder now, face softening with crinkles round his eyes, and Aeryn feels a bit bemused as he sinks to his knees in front of her. “Hi there,” he says to her stomach.
Aeryn’s hand curls into his shoulder.
“Crichton, what are you doing?”
“Talking to the jellybean.”
She huffs at the name he insists on calling their developing fetus, more for the show of it than because it really annoys her. Privately, Aeryn kind of likes it. She'd even begun thinking of it that way herself. The jellybean . Maybe it just felt less scary than the baby.
“It can't hear you, John. It's too small. Besides, we're supposed to be training.”
“Yeah, your mom's kind of a hard ass,” he says to her belly. “But you know what? She's gonna keep you safe ‘cause she's the toughest woman I've ever met. And she's teaching daddy to get tough too, so we can both protect you.”
Aeryn rolls her eyes at his words, but unexpectedly, her heart flutters a little. John leans in and presses a soft kiss to the skin of her stomach, and it tickles, making her lips quirk up in a smile. Deciding that's quite enough nonsense for one day, she plants a boot in his chest and kicks him to the ground.
“Oof! Dammit, I wasn't ready!”
“And that's a lesson,” she snaps as he clambers to his feet. “Always be ready.”
Aeryn takes two steps back, and brings her fists up, feet planting in a fighting stance.
“Again.”
–
With enemies firing at them from all sides, Aeryn crouches behind a wall, desperately fighting against the ridiculous, absurd lump in her throat as she stares at her empty pistol cartridge.
She always has extra. And she always checks the charge on them before she leaves Moya. Always. How had she forgotten this morning? She'd been packing her stuff, getting ready to go planetside, then Crichton…
Crichton. He'd strolled into the maintenance bay and started arguing with her about going down. ‘ Don't know what we might find,’ - ‘these guys don't seem friendly ,’ and the fact that he thought her an invalid now she was pregnant had pissed her off so much she'd stormed onto the transport pod… without her checks complete.
“Holy shit!”
Aeryn looks round as the human dives into the space next to her behind the wall, shots bouncing off the ground where he'd just been.
“Damm, these guys just don't quit!” He complains, panting hard, and Aeryn struggles to get ahold of herself, face flooding with red at him finding her like this.
“How are you do- Aeryn?”
Dren .
Her bottom lip wobbles, and she scrubs at her eyes.
“Oh god, Aeryn what's wrong? Is it the baby?”
His voice is urgent now, hands gliding over her, checking. She shoves him off roughly, and takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“I've run out of cartridges.”
“Oh,” John says, and as she looks up at him through tear-filled vision, he has the nerve to be smiling - smiling in the middle of this war zone, while enemies shoot at them left and right and Aeryn had clearly lost the frelling plot and they were probably going to die because she forgot the frelling spare pistol cartridges.
“Is that all?” He says.
“What do you mean is that all!?” She cries, more tears spilling down her cheeks, and she's beyond caring that he's seeing her in such a state now. “I've run out of ammo and I don't have any spare and they won't stop frelling shooting at us, and, and I can't -”
“Aeryn, it's okay.” He grins at her, and she's about to snap at him again, when he digs in his pockets. “I got spare.”
She blinks down at the cartridges held out towards her, and all of the irrational emotion fades away.
She stops crying.
“...Oh.”
“Here.” He takes her pistol, loading a new cartridge into it the way she'd shown him, snapping it shut and handing it back. Her fingers curl around the warm, familiar feeling weapon, and everything feels alright again.
She sniffs hard, wishing she hadn't cried so much. “Thank you,” she mutters, and pushes herself up from behind the wall, game face back on. “Let's finish this.”
–
Aeryn is roused from her slumber by knuckles rapping against her cell door. Rubbing her face, she rolls over where she'd sprawled on her bed, looking blearily at John in the doorway.
“Brought you some food. You missed dinner.”
“Oh.” She sits up as he waves open her door and walks in. “Must've fallen asleep. I'm so tired lately.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” he says, not without sympathy. “Anything I can do?”
She shakes her head, reaching her arms up to stretch. She winces a bit at the tug of her sore muscles. Aeryn had skipped training for nearly a weeken, she'd just been so tired she hadn't the energy. Unfortunately it meant after a tough workout session today, she was feeling it.
“What's wrong?”
Sighing at how closely he's watching her, she drops her arms. “Just sore muscles. I haven't been working out enough.”
Setting her plate of food down, John sits next to her on her bed, turning her away from him and setting his hands to her shoulders. Aeryn goes to protest, when his fingertips and thumbs press in, kneading where her shoulders meet her neck firmly, and a low moan escapes her instead.
The tension easing out of her as he rubs, her head tips back, eyes sliding shut.
“Oh, that's good,” she sighs.
“Yeah? Why dontcha lie down, I'lll give you a proper massage.”
Aeryn opens her eyes to look at him over her shoulder. “You will? Why?”
Crichton looks baffled. “Why, because you're carrying my child, Aeryn,” he tells her softly. “It's the least I can do.”
Not really knowing how to respond to that, she huffs and turns away from him, stripping her top off over her head and laying down on her stomach.
It was getting a little awkward to do. A few more weekens and Aeryn suspects her belly will be too large to lie this way.
Crichton disappears for a moment before returning, and when his warm hands settle on her skin they're soft and slippery; he must have found one of her bath oils to use.
Hands glide up for the small of her back to her shoulders, pressing firmly, and Aeryn can't stop the low groan falling from her.
“Good?” He asks with a slight laugh to his words, and she's too blissed out to care about his teasing.
“Mmmm,” she responds contentedly.
He kneads at all the sore muscles in her back and shoulders, and by the time he's finished she's feeling thoroughly relaxed under his touch.
His touch lightened now, Crichton’s fingertips glide up and down her ribs. It tickles, and she gives a shiver, thinking it an accident the first time, but when he repeats the motion and lets his fingers brush the sides of her breasts, Aeryn realises it had been deliberate.
“Stop that,” she breathes.
“Why?”
“Because. That's what got us into this mess.”
“Backrubs?” He says teasingly. His fingers inch a bit closer inwards.
“Sex.”
His hands pause. “Are we having sex?”
“You're thinking about it.”
He chuckles then, low and soft, and she feels the bed creak as he leans down over her, warm body brushing her bare back, lips pressing lightly to her shoulder.
“Can't blame a guy for thinking about it with a gorgeous half naked woman beneath him.”
Aeryn sighs, biting down on her bottom lip as she fights with her body a moment. She wants to frell him. Badly. But adding sex to an already complicated situation would be foolish and she knows it. He'd been clingy lately; irrationally overprotective; always wanting to know her whereabouts and it made Aeryn's skin prickle with uneasiness.
She's still coming to grips with being a mother and that's enough on its own without trying to work out her complicated feelings surrounding the baby's sire. Adding another layer of intimacy to their relationship would only encourage him further.
She pushes herself up, grabbing her discarded top to press to her front as she does so, pushing Crichton gently but firmly away from her back.
“Thanks,” she says, not looking at him as she pulls her top back over her head. “For the back rub.”
John sighs, but doesn't push it, getting to his feet from her bed.
“Anytime,” he says, before leaving her room.
–
Aeryn winces at the feel of another kick, rubbing a hand over the spot.
“What does it feel like?”
She turns to glance at Chiana as she approaches where Aeryn sits in command, looking out of the window.
“What?”
“You know. That .” She nods at Aeryn's belly. “Moving around inside you.”
“It feels like there's something moving around inside me,” she says dryly.
“Yeah but what's that like ? I dunno, I imagine it's like… having a parasite growing inside if you. All squirming around. It scary?”
Aeryn shifts, frowning. “No, it's not scary. It is what it is.”
Chiana looks at her stomach for another moment, eyes slightly wide and an uncomfortable expression on her face, before she turns and leaves Aeryn alone.
–
“Aeryn? You ready to go?”
Sitting on the floor, Aeryn sniffs. “No,” she answers miserably.
There's a pause. “I got it,” she hears John say to the others. “Aeryn, I'm coming in alright?”
She doesn't answer, but doesn't protest as he slips into the small chamber next to the hanger where their space suits are stored, closing the door behind himself.
“Hey. What's wrong?”
She sniffs again, hating that he's seeing her like this. “My suit doesn't fit.”
His gaze sweeps over her, dropping to where she'd tried to get the zip up over her swollen belly and failed.
“Oh,” he comments, and comes to squat in front of her. “Well that's okay, we'll ask Pilot if Moya can make you a new one. Extra stretchy in the middle section.” The corner of his lips twitches up like he's making a joke.
It had been the wrong thing to say. She frowns, shoving him aside as she clambers to her feet.
“Forget it. I'm frelling useless like this. And I'm only going to get bigger and even more useless!”
“Aeryn! Aeryn, wait!” Crichton tries to stop her as she storms out, but she shoves past him, barging past her other shipmates gathered by the door and stalking off to find somewhere private to feel sorry for herself.
She doesn’t see anyone again that day cycle, but when she gets back to her quarters later to sleep, there's a brand new glossy black suit laid out on her bed. She walks over to it, touching it with her fingertips as a small smile finds its way onto her lips.
It's a perfect fit when she tries it on, with slightly more give around the middle to allow her stomach to grow more still, and, she notes with a warmth to her cheeks as she realises this meant that John had noticed that other change in her body, more room in the chest area too.
She takes it off and hangs it carefully, and she's smiling as she changes for bed. Maybe bigger doesn't have to mean useless, at least not just yet.
–
Aeryn sits quietly beside John in front of Moya's huge windows in command, watching him as he watches the stars, waiting.
A hand rubs absently over her stomach, and she nibbles on her bottom lip. “What happens?” She can't help but ask.
Giving himself a jolt, like he'd been far away (Aeryn knows where) and just come back to where they are, John turns to her. “Huh?”
“When you find a way home. What happens?”
He stares at her for a long moment, and then his gaze drops to her belly. “What happens is… either we all go home. Or we don't.”
She shakes her head. “I can't live on earth. You saw how that would go.”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know. That's if they know who you are - I was thinking… if we just pretend you're human, settle somewhere quiet, then maybe-”
“John,” she cuts him off with a frown. Her fingers curl into her belly. “I'm not…” she shakes her head. “I can't. I was born in space. I belong in space.”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Look… I don't know if I'm even ever gonna find a way home. But we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
“What bridge?”
“I just mean we'll work it out. But I'm not gonna abandon you, Aeryn. You and our jellybean. I'd never do that.”
She tilts her head. “Then… you'd stay? Here, with me? Even if you had the chance of going home?”
It takes a moment, but John nods slowly. “If you can't both come with me to Earth. Yeah. I'll stay.”
The pang of relief she feels is mixed with the pang of guilt. “But what about your family? You'll never see them again…”
And John sighs, and reaches out to lay a hand gently next to hers on her round stomach. “You twoare my family now.”
–
It always seemed to be near death situations.
They weren't even supposed to be here. It was meant to be a simple reconnaissance mission to check out the next sector before taking Moya, fly in, fly out. Aeryn had been getting jittery cooped up on board so she'd volunteered to go. Crichton, fussing and fluttering around her endlessly these days, insisted on accompanying her. It annoyed her at the time but now, stranded on an asteroid with a fuel leak and less than an arn left of breathable air inside her prowler, Aeryn is selfishly glad she is not alone.
Aeryn knows from experience that there is absolutely no room inside these frelling prowlers for fraternisation. In fact she's fairly certain they'd been specifically designed this way, just large enough to squeeze a pilot and co-pilot inside in case of emergencies, with no way for them to get distracted from their missions.
She'd tried once or twice before, young and adventurous and full of hormones on her first team assignment, to no avail. And that had been without an enormous pregnant belly in the way.
She claws at the back of Crichton’s head where she's twisted round in her seat, desperately trying to drag him closer as his mouth devours her own.
She wants him so much . Aeryn doesn't remember ever wanting anything as badly, and maybe it is just the adrenalin or the sinking, dreadful feeling of impending doom knowing that they don't have much time left, but in this moment she doesn't care. If she's going to die - she and he and their jellybean - she's going to have him one more time.
“Break it,” she gasps against his mouth.
“What?”
“The wheel. Just break it.”
Aeryn jams her own boot into the gear control lever, shoving it hard enough to make it give with a satisfying snap. It gives her room to spread her knees, dragging John closer - but there's still not enough space for them to maneuver any clothing out of the way between her belly and the wheel.
Crichton seems to consider for a moment. “You're the boss.”
Aeryn is honestly impressed at how he manages to rip it from the console with one wrench.
It lands somewhere behind him, and they're grabbing for each other again, hands frantically going down to buttons and zips.
A sudden knock on the prowler's hood makes them both jump, and Aeryn’s hand is shaky as she lifts it to clear a view in the steamed up window.
Chiana peers in at them, suited up with their two helmets in her hands.
She and John glance at each other, faces red and her heart beating like mad, and quickly take a breath before hitting the release on the hood.
Once they've clambered out and hastily jammed the helmets on, they find themselves staring awkwardly at Chiana and D'Argo, standing in front of Moya's transport pod, landed next to the prowler.
“Tracked the prowler’s trajectory. We were worried when you didn't return,” D'Argo offers by way of explanation.
“We can come back later if you like,” Chiana says happily.
“No!” Crichton and Aeryn answer in tandem. She looks at him.
“Thanks. Appreciate it,” the human says. He waves a hand at it. “We'll uh - we'll have to tow it back. Fuel leak.”
“Among other issues,” Chiana quips, peaking inside at the broken interior. Aeryn jabs the button to shut the hatch.
“Hardware malfunction,” she says.
The nebari snorts, eyes sliding between her and Crichton, and then, very pointedly, Aeryn's belly.
“Seems like it's functioning perfectly fine to me.”
–
“No impending death this time,” she comments.
“Yeah.” John runs his hands up over her bare thighs. “Still wanna do this?”
“Do you?” She fires back, and he shrugs.
“Might as well. Not like I can get you pregant again.” Aeryn is pushing herself upright on top of him, offended, when she realises he's making a joke.
She huffs, blowing a strand of hair from her face.
His hands reach her hips and move up to the swell of her stomach, gaze fixed on it as he glides them almost reverently over her. Aeryn squirms, uncomfortable by his fixation on her rapidly changing body.
“You look… radiant,” he utters. Aeryn’s jaw slackens a little in surprise. It isn't a word she'd have used to describe herself, especially in this bloated state, but the reverence in his words tell her he's being sincere.
She doesn't know how to respond, so she leans back down and kisses him instead.
–
“Good morning.”
The rumble of his voice is warm and pleasant by her ear, and Aeryn stretches, enjoying the warmth at her back.
John runs his hand over her stomach beneath the golden bedsheets.
“How's our little jellybean this morning?”
“Ugh,” she complains, dropping a hand to rest over his. “ Your jellybean was kicking me in the ribs all night.”
“Oh I see,” he chuckles softly. “It's mine when it's annoying you?”
“It's always yours,” she counters.
She feels him press a kiss to the back of her neck. “Yours too.”
“Ours,” she sighs, resigned.
–
“We should talk names.”
Aeryn turns to give him a look. “Now?You want to discuss baby names now?”
“Good a time as any.”
“We're in the middle of a battle, Crichton.”
“Aren't we always?”
She fires off a shot before ducking back round behind the corner with him.
“Would you quit that?” He pants, grabbing her when she goes to pop up and shoot again. “You gotta stay down.”
She huffs, listening for footsteps. “Fine. Names.”
“I was thinking Alice for a girl.”
“Ah-liss. Is that a human name?”
“Yeah, Alice in Wonderland. Thought it was fitting, being born out here. And you're both A.”
She frowns, shaking her head. “A?”
“The letter A, how your name's spelt in English. Least I've been spelling it that way. It's similar to an earth name actually - Erin. But yours sounds different at the start so I -”
Shots fire, bolts of light bouncing off around them, and Aeryn sticks her head round the corner to shoot back.
“Not Alice,” she pants when she flattens herself next to him again.
“Fine, not Alice. Then what?”
Aeryn shrugs as she reloads her weapon. “I always liked the boy's name Peeslo.”
John shudders.
“No way. Pee pee for short isn't happening. Andrew?”
“Sounds ridiculous.”
Aeryn shoots again. There's too many of them and they need another solution.
“Grenade.”
“ Grenade ? Aeryn, I know you're a soldier and all but we can't name our kid after an explosive weapon.”
“No, pass me one!” She exclaims, elbowing him. “Quickly!”
“Oh right. Here you go.”
She pops the pin, and rolls it out towards the group of enemies approaching them, ducking quickly back round the corner.
“Get down!”
John grabs her, curling himself protectively around her body as they huddle against the wall and an almighty bang goes off.
She glances round.
“That did it. Let's move.”
They stand, brushing themselves off and hurry out of the rubble.
“You know,” John says from behind her. “Maybe Grenade wouldn't be so bad. Little Grenny.”
“Shut up, Crichton.”
–
Standing in the baby section at a commerce station, Aeryn stares up at the aisles and aisles of items, feeling totally overwhelmed.
“What the hell…”
She glances round to see Crichton staring at a product he's holding up, eyes comically wide.
“Are we in the wrong section? We walk into a pet shop by mistake?”
“Hm?”
He shows it to her. “Is this a muzzle?”
Aeryn leans forward to peer at the label. “It's for jankatans. Their young are notoriously vicious when their first fangs are coming through.”
“Yikes,” John comments, tossing it back on the shelf. “We're not in Kansas anymore.”
“I think I see the sebacean section down this way,” Aeryn comments, striding off with Crichton on her heels. It's more waddling than striding anywhere these days though, and her feet are already starting to hurt.
He makes an aha sound, and immediately starts grabbing things off the racks, tossing them in their cart.
“Are you sure we need this many of these… strange little toys?”
“It's a pacifier, Aeryn,” John replies. “And yeah, we need spare so we can sterilise them regularly. Bound to get dropped a hundred times.”
“...Right.”
“Hey, do you reckon these are diapers? What does it say?” He tosses a soft package at her, and she catches it to read the label.
“Disposable infant undergarments. Zero to three monens.” she reads out loud.
“Bingo. Gonna need a shit tonne of these.”
Aeryn's eyes widen as John starts piling them in their cart. She's very glad that at least one of them seems to know what they're doing.
–
The loud, angry sounding footsteps precede the admonishment she knows is coming.
“Aeryn! What the hell are you doing!?”
“Training,” she answers, delivering another blow to the bag in front of her. Sweat is pouring from her and her muscles are screaming, but she can't quit in the middle of a set.
“I can see that,” the human says haughtily, reaching her and moving between her and the bag.
She looks at him with a frown “Are you asking to get punched?”
“No, Aeryn, I'm asking you to stop beating the crap outta that thing when you're nine months pregnant!”
“Why?”
“Because! You're not supposed to be exerting yourself like this, it's bad for the jellybean!”
Stepping around him she lands another hit on the bag. “The jellybean ,” she smacks the bag again. “Is fine .” Another smack.
Crichton grabs it, moving in front again and frowning at her. “Are you?”
“I will be when you get out of the frelling way.”
“Aeryn.” He speaks sternly and waits until she looks at him. She's panting, much more than she typically would be after such a workout, and wipes the back of a gloved hand over her forehead.
“What?”
“It's okay if you're freaking out.”
“I'm not ‘freaking out’.”
“Jellybean's gonna be here any day now and it's normal to be scared.”
“I'm not scared ,” she snaps.
“No? I am. Being a parent is terrifying. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to finally meet our little one, but I'm nervous as hell too.”
Aeryn’s shoulders slump at his admittance.
“I'm a little… anxious,” she finally admits, then raises her hands again. “But it helps me to work off some steam, so get out of the way.”
“Aeryn, no . You're too far along, you should be resting!”
“Frell rest- ah!”
“Aeryn?” John's arms are around her immediately, supporting her as she doubles over, pain ripping its way through her abdomen. “What is it!?” He panics.
She clutches at her stomach, gritting her teeth. “Pain.”
“Shit,” he curses, “I told you -”
“Lecture later,” she cuts him off, gasping as she grabs a fistful of his shirt. “Med bay now.”
“Right. Let's go.”
–
Huffing, she rolls over in bed again.
“You okay?” Comes a quiet voice from next to her.
“Sorry,” she mutters back. “Didn't mean to wake you.”
“It's alright. It the jellybean?”
“Mm,” she comments. “Won't keep still.”
After the scare a couple of weekens ago where she'd experienced what Zhaan had told her was ‘false labour pains’, John had barely left her side. They'd been sharing a bed most nights already anyway, always seeming to end up in either hers or his and often too tired after said bedtime activities to bother moving. But he'd officially moved into her quarters now, claiming he needed to be close by for when the time came.
Although she'd huffed and complained, it was mostly for show - she was actually quite glad to have him near. With the day drawing ever closer she was feeling increasingly anxious about their impending parenthood.
“Hey there little one,” he says now, speaking to her belly as he rubs a hand over it. “How about quietening down so your mommy can get some sleep, hm?”
Aeryn hisses at another kick.
“Oh, I felt that.”
“Yeah - here,” she moves his hand right over the spot.
“I don’t - ah. There you are.”
She feels another kick and smiles.
“I think she likes the sound of your voice.”
“She? You know, Rygel's convinced we're having a boy.”
“We're not,” Aeryn says softly as he rubs her stomach.
“What makes you so sure?”
She shrugs, her eyelids beginning to get heavy now the fluttering in her stomach has finally settled down. “Just a feeling.”
–
“Breathe, Aeryn. That's it, in, out.”
“I'm frelling breathing!” She snaps. “I've been breathing since I was born I know how to do - arghhh !”
Yelling her way through another contraction, Aeryn squeezes John's hand so hard he hisses - but he doesn't pull away.
She wants this over. She's a trained soldier and she can handle pain, but this endless, horrible cramping was abhorrent, and she'd take a gunshot wound over it any day.
“Frell, this hurts!” She gasps when the wave of pain lets her speak again. Sweat is running down her face and she's so hot she wants to claw her skin off.
“Aeryn,” Zhaan says calmly, “Would you like me to take some of your pain?”
She shakes her head, frustrated. “I'd like you to get this frelling thing out of me as fast as possible!”
“I'm afraid it will come when it comes. You're not fully dilated yet; you still have a while to go.”
“ Brilliant ,” she pants, and turns livid eyes on John. “You are never coming near me again!”
–
The floaty feeling her body is giving her going from being in excruciating pain to suddenly not anymore is blissful.
That, and the squirming bundle in her arms is quite nice too, she supposes. In a relieved kind of way.
“She's perfect,” John whispers, one of his fingers gripped by a tiny hand.
“Mm, she is,” agrees Aeryn.
“You did it,” he smiles at her then. “You did so good.”
She nods, unable to fathom why she'd felt so mad at him before. It all felt suddenly worth it now. “I'm sorry for all those names I called you.”
“You didn't call me any names.”
“Oh, I did. It was in sebacean.”
The baby in her arms begins to fuss, her tiny pink face scrunching up and an unhappy whinge leaving her lips.
“Hey,” Aeryn says, bouncing her a bit. “What's the matter?”
“I think she's hungry,” John comments when she tries to suck on his finger. He gently pulls it away and motions to Aeryn. “Can I?”
Unsure what he means to do, Aeryn nods anyway, and sits there a little baffled as he tugs the shoulder of her top down, warm hand slipping inside and drawing out a breast.
“John -”
“Here we go,” he murmurs, other hand cupping the baby by the head and gently guiding her to Aeryn’s chest. “That's it, open wide.”
Aeryn stares down in bemusement as John carefully guides her nipple into the baby's mouth, then gasps in surprise when she feels her latch on, and begin to suck.
“...Oh,” she utters, staring as she suckles and swallows rhythmically. A tiny hand comes up to plant beside her little face. “That's what these are for.”
John chuckles softly, still supporting their daughter’s head, thumb rubbing soothingly. “What, you didn't know?”
Aeryn shrugs. “I was never involved with breeding in the Peacekeepers. Even then, babies were never left with their mothers. You signed up to go on the breeding roster, you birthed a child, handed it over and got back to duty.” Her hand comes up to rest over John's, both of them watching their daughter as she drinks peacefully. “I doubt this was practised.”
“Well, that's a shame,” he murmurs, and Aeryn smiles.
“Yes, it is.”
They watch her for a while, both quietly in awe, before John speaks again.
“We've really gotta think of a name for you now, little jellybean.”
Aeryn agrees with a nod, stroking her small face with a finger. “She's not just a jellybean anymore.”
“No, she's not. She's a whole person that we made.”
Aeryn glances up at John to see him staring down with pure adoration on his face.
“I think we did good,” she finds herself saying, and when he switches his gaze from their daughter to her, that same adoration shines brightly.
“Yeah. We did.”
--