Rating: G

Category: Romance, Short Story

Time/Spoilers: Some spoilers. Takes place after Fractures but before the last four episodes

Summary: Aeryn is having trouble sleeping.

Disclaimer: I don’t own them, didn’t create them, and certainly don’t profit from them. Wish I did or had. I promise that I’ll put them back where I found them.

Aeryn Sun couldn’t sleep. This was unheard of in her experience. She used to fall into a dreamless sleep almost instantly, awaking refreshed, rested, and ready for any mission her Peacekeeper commanders could devise. Introspection was useless and a waste. Warriors had no time for such pointless exercises. Warriors fight and kill or die. Commandos train constantly to avoid the latter and achieve the former. “My trainers would spit on me if they saw me now,” she thought. “They constantly drilled into us the need for rest and nourishment to remain ready for battle.”

All of this was, of course, B.C. (Before Crichton). The void left by his death still yawned before her. The pain and isolation filled her chest and stomach with a vast emptiness. Nothing seemed to make it better, not even the existence of the other. The other only served to remind her of the happiness she had lost and was sure she would never regain. Shaking her head, she smiled mirthlessly. “Crichton,” she thought. “What we had on Talyn was too good. We were an unbeatable team. I even was sure I could go to Earth and be accepted or at least undiscovered. What a fool I was. Our time on Talyn was a dream, a figment, something that should have never been.”

“I know we saved each other’s lives countless times,” she mused. “But that still doesn’t explain how I let an ‘inferior’ being steal my heart after showing me I had one along with all of those emotions the Peacekeepers consider useless. How did you do it, Crichton? How?”

Seeing that sleep was not imminent, she allowed herself to begin remembering. The visions in her mind centered on little things. “I remember how I felt when I saw you kissing Gilina. I was jealous! Imagine me, a Peacekeeper, feeling that. Your kind tone when you explained about ‘clicking’ and the shock and surprise on your face when I told you I found you ‘interesting’ was priceless. I remember that more than the jealousy.”

She closed her eyes as the memories continued to flood into her consciousness: his ‘promise’ to keep the living death from her when the Drak formed their hive, his gentleness in washing the DRD ‘super glue’ from her hand after she had spent time affixed to Moya’s deck, his delight after she discovered why Rygel’s bodily secretions became explosive, his compliments when she discovered a way to communicate when Moya was trapped in three dimensions, his promise to never leave her, their kiss in the Flax, their night on the false Earth, and more.

She found herself shaking her head and crying. “Frell you, Crichton,” she whispered. She turned and struck the wall as the pictures in her mind threatened to overwhelm her: Crichton smiling, exploring her body when his mind was pushed into her head by the Halosian weapon, chewing his thumb and grinning, coming up with ‘idiotic’ plans that seemed to always work, holding her as she cried for past misdeeds and her mother’s death, stroking her face and telling her she was not going to die when her paraphoral nerve was damaged, disagreeing with her plan to rescue Rygel from the Tavleks, his tone as he realized she had hit him with a pantak jab, and more.

She staggered to the basin and splashed water on her face. Her hands went to her head and she tried to squeeze the thoughts away. Try as she might, the torrent raged on: a smiley face constructed of food cubes, bravado in the face of Vorcarian blood trackers, never saying goodbye, stubborn loyalty, compatibility tests, sacrifice for his friends over and over, anger at his decision on the Royal Planet, fear of never seeing him again, and the agony of his death.

“Stop, stop it,” she moaned. Gripping a towel so tightly that her fingers went numb, she finally gained some semblance of self-control. “This can’t go on,” she told herself. “I have to face him and tell him that what happened on Talyn has changed me. I will go with him to face Scorpius, but I can never allow myself to love him again.” Even as the thought entered her mind, a wave of fear washed over her. A small voice in the back of her mind said, “That is existence, but is it living?”