blackholesandrevelations

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John wouldn't be able to tell you why he ended up here tonight, in his room at Milliways. The one he shared with Aeryn.

Maybe it was because she was back and still not with him...maybe because if he pressed his face into her pillow really really hard, it smelled like her. That in his dreams, he could convince her he was the one she was always in love with, that the baby is his, that he needs her that she wants him.

That is, when he sleeps. As it is, he was staring at the wall dejectedly in the dark as time (time time time time) ticked by slowly.

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She hadn't slept in that room in months; afraid that he'd be inhabiting it. She was a creature of fear now. No false bravery. No soldierly morals. It was that, more than a lot of other things, that bothered her. Aeryn Sun wasn't sure who she was anymore.

His words had been reverberating in her head, pushing out any thoughts of sense. She had no choice in this.

Would it be too late? Was she unwanted even now.

She stopped outside the door, calloused fist resting against it before thumping; once, twice, third time lucky.

It jolted him. He wasn't expecting anyone to know where he was, to come and bother him here. He stayed where he was, unsure, until the knocking seemed to be from inside his brain.

Get up, it seemed to tell him. Don't do this, don't hide now.

He pushed himself out of bed and stumbled, legs half-asleep, toward the door. Leaning heavily against the wall, haggard and grim, John opened the door to reveal Aeryn.

His heart was in his throat. It always was, around her. "Hi."

Her fist was still raised, preparing to hit the door again, when he opened it. He never stopped being a shock to her senses. It made no sense. He was dead. He had died in her arms. Yet here he was, alive, breathing, urging her to see the truth and be with him again.

Her lips were too dry to speak and when she did it came out a croak.

"Hey." Wasn't that what people said in these situations?

He watched her for a moment (time still ticking by as slow as it could) before pushing himself away from the door frame and jerking his head. "Come on in."

He shuffled out of the way, pushing his hands through his hair and then rubbing at his jaw, idly thinking about how he needed to shave, and how he needed a haircut.

She noticed those things, but they were like a long forgotten memory. Things the other John had done, ways he had, how his stubble felt against her when he had forgotten to shave.

"Thank you." Her throat was full and the words came out sounding strange, even to her ears. This room was hers. He was intruding on her space, taking over it and she couldn't say a word to stop him.

Aeryn wasn't sure she wanted to.

The covers were crumpled up in an awful mess. There was an indent in the pillow in the shape of his head. The heart she never bothered to listen to squeezed tight in pain.

"Can we talk?" So similar to a line she'd used a million times; so different. She was asking for permission this time.

John nodded as he stopped mid-hair push and looked at her. He wanted to walk over there and hold her in his arms, tell her he loved her. He wanted to pretend he was a stronger man than one who would beg her to come back...but if she gave any inkling of needing him...he knew he'd crack.

He wanted to know she needed him as much as he needed her. That her heart hurts when she looks at him, like his does.

Instead, John cleared his throat and gestured at the table and chairs. They had had a Valentine's Day dinner there. He'd given her a necklace. He wondered if she still had it.

"Sit down. You want...water or anythin'?"

She recalled thinking the dinner was stupid. Yet another pointless Earth tradition that she didn't understand and didn't want. She did it, for him. She sat there and despite herself she had a wonderful evening with the man she loved. That was one time she managed to keep from frelling everything up.

"I'd rather stand." She hovered by the chair instead, hand resting on the cool wood back of it.

"Yes. Water would be...nice." She was carefully measuring her words, awkward around him like she was at the very beginning. Back when he was just a man and she was just a soldier. She didn't know how to say what she had to say.

He got a bottle of water from the mini fridge in the corner, twisting the top off and handing it to her.

John contemplated standing to match her, but weariness crashed into him like waves in the ocean and he sat instead. For a moment, he looked anywhere but her, but finally, he locked his eyes on hers.

"What's up?"

She took a steadying sip, holding the container to her mouth longer than was strictly necessary. When she lowered her eyes she found him looking at her in that all-too-familiar way. Her heart leapt in her chest and she found that in that instance, controlling herself was not so easy.

And maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

"I think --" She lowered the water bottle to the table, her hands wavering in front of her like she expected an attack at any moment. "--maybe I was wrong."

It took all of him to not leap across the table and crash into her, taking her into his arms and kissing the hell out of her like he wanted. It may have had to do with the fact his heart had stopped beating altogether.

"About?" His voice was hoarse and he itched to take the water bottle from her and soothe his throat. He sat on his hands instead.

"All this...dren." Her breathing rushed out all at once, uneven and entirely against her will.

She pinned him with her eyes, willing him to understand so that she didn't have to describe all the foolish, thoughtless things that had led her to the opposite conclusion.

She had been so certain she was right. Up until the point that she closed her eyes and felt just as dead as him. She had spent arns, weekens, monens doing that and all of a sudden it just hadn't seemed worth it.

Sometimes a mistake had to be made. Sometimes you had to take a chance.

"You're here. Alive. I've been...so..." Shame hit her and she stopped, leaving the sentence in the air with no explanation.

He almost finished the sentence for her with the word stupid. Another word popped in his mind (human) and it made him smile just a tad.

"Aeryn." He shook his head, watching her. "You don't have to explain. Just know that...I'm goin' anywhere. Nothing you say now can make me leave if I haven't already."

The word that popped into her head was something altogether different. Alone. She'd mostly just been alone.

"I'm not afraid of you leaving by choice." She'd given him more than enough reasons to do that and he never had.

Dead was something neither of them could control. It scared the living dren out of her.

She couldn't look at him anymore, couldn't look away; another decision she couldn't make.

The chair scraped against the floor as he pushed away from the table. Rounding it, he placed his hands on her arms, desperate to tug her closer.

"Let's find the key to immortality together and neither of us will ever have that problem again," He muttered with a half smile. "You don't think I'm terrified I'll never see you again? That maybe one day you'll go out and not come back? But I don't wanna live my life without you in it, even knowing that one day I might lose you forever."

"I don't want to be immortal, John." The words were there and she listened to his, but there were hands on her arms. She could feel his fingers pressing through the leather of her jacket and any words she might have formed stop clean in her brain.

Those hands felt like John's hands. Those hands she'd been trying to replicate in countless other's bedrooms. His hands.

She was a soldier. It was her duty to stay strong and prevent the tears in her eyes from getting out. She looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"What do you want?" He whispered, his voice breaking. His fingers felt detached in some strange fashion, as if he were coming apart at the seams.

There were things she would never admit, alone, in the dark of the night; when all her demons come screaming at her. The people she killed. The people she didn't save. Her father. Her mother. Him.

It took some bloody big mivonks to be honest for once. Aeryn had never been accused of cowardice. Her hands moved upwards to grip his.

"I want to change everything."

Make the right choice for once.

"Well. They do say one person can change the world." His voice had dropped to barely a murmur and he'd gotten even closer to her when she touched his hands.

He wanted her to just come home. And home...home was wherever John was, he hoped.

She had no grand designs on the Universe. There was never a part of her who played the scheming Peacekeeper, not since Velorek. She followed orders, did the work right.

"I'd settle for just changing my life."

That's when she kissed him, mashing her mouth against his as if her life depended on it, willing him to forgive her with actions rather than useless words.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, his mind blank with wonder. What if this was a dream? Some cruel dream that...that Scorpy was going to ruin somehow!

But Scorpy never ruined the moment and Aeryn felt as real as she ever had as his hand cupped the back of her head, the other around her waist, kissing her with every ounce of his being.

"John." She tried to pull back alternately trying to get some breathing space and leaning in to kiss him again.

"Oh, frell it." She wrapped her arms around him, pouring every feeling she'd experienced into this one kiss. She never wanted it to end.

Is this how it goes, Sun? When you finally let go?

He was so alive, so warm, so...perfect that it practically seared her skin with the force of it. Aeryn moved against him, wondering just how she managed to go so long without this.

He pulled her against him, needing her to be closer, always closer. He kissed her again and again, pulling back only for air when he desperately needed it.

Panting, he leaned his head against hers. "Aeryn."

"I love you." The words she had been trying to say for so long seemed ridiculously easy now.

He was here in her arms and that was all that mattered.

It felt as if all the stress he had ever felt in the world was gone now. That nothing could hurt him. He grinned, kissing her again quickly before whispering that he loved her too against her lips.

"John." Her John. The same one. Different and identical. It was something she had to force her mind into believing. Without that, she was unfaithful, she was wrong.

He was the same person, she just had to accept it.

"I'm staying here tonight." Not a request this time, her fingers insistent on the back of his neck.

"Of course you are." He whispered, keeping her close, never letting her go. "I wouldn't let you leave anyway."

"John." There is a slow, soft breath. "Shut up."

It wasn't that he was saying too much, or the words he was using. This time, she wanted something more than words. She was tired of trying to think of the correct phrase, of ruining everything with one mistaken word. Now was the time for action.

"Bed. Now." She pulled him hard against her, stumbling backwards, fingers deft and knowing. He was familiar territory, but she was still going to spend all night learning him over again.

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