Title: The Hidden Bond
Series/Sequel: First Season Finale Chaser, part two, sequel to Nerve
               Ending
Author: WitchQueen
E-mail: witchqueen@poboxes.com
Author homepage: http://www.slashx-files.com/wq/
Fandom: Farscape
Pairing: D&A, J/A, J/D
Keywords: Post-episode
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for "Nerve" and "The Hidden Memory"
Date: <???>
Status: Beta
Archive: Not yet
Disclaimer: All or most of the characters in this story are the property
            of the makers of Farscape. That would not be me.
Notes: Sorry this has taken so long.  My writing tends to come in
       bursts.  Thank the marvelous people at Connexions, who, when I told them
       about this story idea said, "That sounds good."
Summary: Aeryn, D'Argo, and John, in various subgroupings thereof,
         attempt to have serious conversations, but they're too tired or
         wired for it to do any good.

Stark came to where most of the crew of the good ship Moya were
gathered. He nodded at Aeryn and said, "You should go to him." 

His face was grave, so she went without asking further questions. As he
had since they had returned to Moya, D'Argo followed her. The quick walk
through the corridors was their first time alone since this morning in
Rejuvenation. 

"We should finish this tonight, if possible. The bond isn't really
sealed; it's not really finished." 

She shook her head. "I have to explain to John first." 

"You would tell him this now?" The clear disbelief in his voice was
emphasized by his abrupt halt. 

Aeryn turned back to look at him. "No. I would not tell him, as his love
lays dying, that if he wishes to continue frelling me he also has to
frell a large, male alien. I do not wish to hurt him when he is already
wounded from the chair and from this woman. I do not wish to create a
scene at a death bed. I do not wish a lot of turmoil while we deal with
the aftermath of the birth, I recover from exhaustion from this mission,
and I try to let my body adjust to these new tissues. D'Argo, you must
wait." 

He blinked and then he sagged a bit. She realized, then, that he was all
keyed up from the gun fight, but that he had not been able to truly
expend his energy. Realized, also, that he had not had the luxury of
thinking since her announcement this morning that she was infiltrating a
Gammac base. If he had tried thinking, he would have had to stop her and
her truly foolish plan. "I am sorry. It is not done this way, to
interact with others while the bond is so new. It does not seem real,
like this, when no one knows and we skulk in corridors." He reached out
and touched her face, placed his other hand at her waist. "Quathali, you
cannot have sex with Crichton before you have sex with me. It would
negate the blood oath. When you are ready, find me." Then he withdrew,
brought his hands back to his sides and slipped down the corridor
towards one of the practice areas. 

She kept walking towards her goal, and muttered, "What in Hezmana am I
going to tell John right now?" Then she snorted as she realized that
Hezmana was a word she'd picked up from D'Argo, and emitted a dry,
barking sound that might have been mistaken for laughter. 

When she walked into the room, Crichton was standing as far as possible
away from Gilina, with his back to the bed. "Is she--" 

"She's dead," he said. He didn't turn to face her and he didn't move. 

Aeryn was at a loss. Stark had said that she should come, but he did not
say what she should do. She sat down on the floor, suddenly, and did not
know if that had been her intent before she was already there. 

"I lied to her." 

"What about?" 

"I told her Zhaan's medicines would cure her." 

"Did she believe you?" 

"No. She asked for a kiss. And then Stark ... And then she died. It was
all very noble and elegant and clean." 

"It sounds as if she died well." 

He whirled around, advanced on her, and Aeryn tensed herself for combat.
But his focus was wrong, it took him a moment to realize she was on the
floor. When he really looked down and saw her, the anger seemed to seep
out of him and his body relaxed. "There aren't any good deaths." 

She was so tired, she couldn't stay sitting up by herself. She scooted
backwards until she hit a wall. "I didn't say her death was good. I said
she died well." 

He sat down next to her, put his head on her shoulder. "She didn't have
to die." 

"She could have chosen to stay in the base, but she wouldn't have been
happy with herself." 

"No, I mean she didn't have to die. She could have shot at Scorpius. I
told her to. I yelled at her to. And she didn't and he did. Now she's
dead. She loved me." 

"She was a tech. No one taught her how to attack." 

"No one's ever wanted to die for me, before. I mean, you guys," and he
gestured with one hand, a round about loop which seemed to indicate the
universe at large, "have put yourselves at risk, but it's a teamwork
thing, there's almost a quid pro quo. This was, like, she was dying for
me, in particular. Because she loved me, not because she was fleeing
from Peacekeepers at the same time I was." 

"Did you love her?" 

"No." 

"Would you have died for her?" 

"I was dying for her. Scorpius was killing me because I wouldn't
remember kissing her." 

"Then you're even, aren't you?" 

"I'm still alive, aren't I?" 

There was nothing to be said to that, so Aeryn didn't. She leaned back
against the wall and turned her face up to the ceiling. She looked at it
until her eyes started closing. 

John trailed a finger up and down along her arm. The path he took was
random, winding, and circular. If she had been more awake, it might have
tickled, but as it was, she was concentrating on not drooling on
herself. He kissed her shoulder, lightly, drily, and she struggled to
become alert. It didn't exactly work. 

"I am still alive?" he asked, the words muffled by the shoulder he had
not moved away from. 

"Yes, John." 

"And you're alive?" 

"Yes, John." 

"Sleep with me?" 

"Sleep or sex?" 

"Sleep. Sex when we wake up, maybe. If there's no big crisis and I
haven't turned into a raving lunatic. I still might just lose it, have
some sort of delayed reaction to the chair, and the thing Stark did, and
Gilina." 

She ignored most of that as completely unintelligible. "I can't." 

"Why not?" 

"I promised D'Argo." 

He blinked and sat up straight. He poked her, in the shoulder, not any
of the soft tissue of her belly which might still be healing. "It
sounded like you said, 'I promised D'Argo.' Are you awake, Aeryn?" 

She thought about that. Then she noticed she was drooling. So she
swallowed hard, licked her lips, and said, "No." 

"Did you promise D'Argo not to have sex with me?" 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

There was no response forthcoming. John reached up, touched her face,
and felt the drool. He wiped what was there away, waited a little while,
and tried again. More drool. 

He stood up and walked into the corridor. "Pilot," he said in a loud
whisper. 

"Yes." Pilot's reply was not whispered, but the sound was softer and
more focused on John's location than was normal. 

"Where is D'Argo?" 

"He is in the same corridor as you are and appears to be headed in your
direction." 

"Would you please ask him to join me and Aeryn in this room?" 

"Certainly." 

"Thanks." John walked back in the room. 

He had fully intended to think very hard about Aeryn's mysterious
pronouncements, but after sitting down in the chair next to Gilina and
turning it around to face Aeryn, the next thing he was really aware of
was D'Argo's hand on his shoulder. It caused him to jump sideways and
nearly hit the wall. 

"Crichton?" asked D'Argo, softly but with some agitation. 

"You scared the hell out of me," said Crichton. 

"Why did you ask Pilot to call me here?" 

He pointed at Aeryn. "I'm not strong enough to pick her up. She should
be put to bed. It's one of those things lovers do for one another." 

D'Argo grunted at the last sentence, but he also went over and picked
Aeryn up. "Follow us." 

Crichton didn't move. 

"John, are you awake?" 

Still no reaction. 

"I'll be back for you." And he was. He carefully settled Aeryn into bed,
gently removing the topmost layer of leather, leaving her in Calvin
boxers and a grey muscle shirt, and came back to Crichton. 

He picked him up and walked back to the human's quarters. He put him on
the bed and began undressing him. Crichton woke up while he was fumbling
with the pants. 

"Are we sleeping together, D'Argo?" 

"I had not planned to sleep with you tonight. If you feel unsafe, I can
sleep on your floor, but I do not think your bed is of sufficient size
for two." 

"I meant sex." 

"I don't know. I thought Aeryn was going to talk to you about it later.
Not yet, anyway." 

"Huh?" This last was a pitiable mewl, rather than a true interrogatory
exclamation. John had just enough brainpower left to realize that his
question should have confused D'Argo. He had not nearly enough to deal
with the fact that D'Argo had not only responded as if he understood
what was going on, but gave an answer that might have been intelligible
if John had been fully awake. 

D'Argo resisted the urge to pet and gentle Crichton. That was good,
because just as Crichton whimpered, the last fastening on the pants
opened. Crichton wasn't wearing anything underneath and petting his
penis would only have further confused the issue. "Go to sleep, John. We
will talk when you wake up." Then he pulled the pants off and the covers
up. He patted John on the head, and walked out of the room, to go to his
own bed. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

At breakfast the next day, Aeryn and D'Argo sat across from Stark, Zhaan
and Chiana. Rygel sat at one end of the table, and John at the other. As
usual, conversation conversation consisted almost entirely of pointing
and grunting. 

As they were finishing up, Aeryn gave John a very long look. "What?" he
said defensively. 

She raised one eyebrow, then cleared her throat and lowered it. "What do
you want us to do with Gilina's body?" 

"We put all of the other bodies through refuse reclamation," he said,
his voice rising at the end of the sentence. 

She pursed her lips. "We didn't like any of the others." 

"What do your people do to your dead, John?" asked Zhaan. 

"We bury them in dirt. Sometimes we burn them and keep the ashes. Or
else we put them in a box and set them adrift in the sea." John said all
of this matter of factly, as if presenting a school report. 

"None of which is very practical for a ship fleeing an armada," remarked
Rygel. "Peacekeepers usually eat their dead, or at least what's left of
them and edible." 

"We don't eat techs! They're not, er ...," Aeryn shot a look at John.
"Seeing as she died from combat wounds, I suppose we could. If you
really wanted to." She shrugged with a studied and quite false
nonchalance. "It's not like we even eat most of the soldiers that die.
It's not practical to recover bodies from space combat, really." 

"You don't have to worry about your damn Sebacean honor or purity or
whatever the hell it is that means you don't want to eat Gilina. I don't
want to eat her either. Why am I the one to make this decision, anyway?"

"She died for you," said D'Argo. 

There was a distinct pause in the conversation. 

Then Stark shifted in his chair, subtly drawing everyone's attention to
him. "Is it more important that her body or her life be honored?" 

"Her life, definitely her life." Everyone nodded in agreement with John,
except for Rygel, who was sneaking a breakfast pastry. 

"Then, perhaps I may be of assistance in providing honor to Gilina, and
you can put her body in waste reclamation." 

John narrowed his eyes. "How?" 

"My people remember the dead." There was an emphasis on the word
'remember' that sent a chill up John's spine. "You know what I did for
you and for Gilina. I can do it in reverse, somewhat. Absorb memories."
John suddenly lurched away and Stark leaned forward, waving his arm in
negation of the thought. "No! It is not like the aurora chair. Nothing
is forced; the memories must be given freely or they are damaged. But
once given, they are shared forever in our community. I know,
intimately, people dead 500 cycles before my birth. In a way, I know
them better than anyone did who knew them living, because I have the
memories of them from many, many people who knew them." 

John looked within himself, wondered if he could let someone inside his
mind to shuffle through his memories again. Realized that he already
trusted Stark, and that this would be okay with him. Then he looked at
his crewmates. "I'm asking you to let Stark in your heads. I trust him.
I'll let him gather my memories first. But I'm asking you to do this, to
remember Gilina. If you don't feel anything for her, please do it for
me." 

A slow wave of nods passed around the table, with one exception. "Let a
former slave rummage around in the mind of a Dominar. Ridiculous. Bad
enough to have a Bannoc sitting around picking up whatever thoughts are
at the surface, but to deliberately invite him to sift through whatever
he likes is completely out of the question." 

John smiled, a twisted, not quite despairing version of his normal grin.
"Somehow, Sparky, your answer does not surprise me. I'm glad the rest of
you can agree to this. But it still doesn't seem like enough, somehow." 

Chiana said, "My people remember the dead also. We gather together, and
drink, and celebrate the life lived." 

"A wake," said John. "Yes, I think that would do. If we all gave our
memories to Stark, and then we got together and shared them with one
another, I would feel that we had truly put her spirit to rest." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The next several days were spent in preparation. Chiana had offered to
cook for the wake and drafted Zhaan to help her. D'Argo made mourning
robes for everyone except Rygel, who pointed out that he only mourned
people by procuring their possessions, and John had already forbidden
that. John helped Stark prepare a transport module for long term use.
And Pilot, Moya, and Aeryn did what they could to study the cluttered
asteroid field that would be their next hiding place if Scorpius was
able to follow them. 

They couldn't, of course, work the whole day through. 

Aeryn suddenly heard John's voice coming from her communicator. "Aeryn,
could you come help me and Stark for a minute?" 

She spoke very quietly and continued to look around her. "Is it
important, John?" She thought she could hear D'Argo's approach, if John
would just shut up. 

"Well, Stark and I can't get part of the navigational system to stay
put, and to tell the truth, you've *still* got more upper body strength
than me." He had been speaking in a normal voice, but now he tried a new
tactic. "Oh come on, Aeryn," he said in a whine he had perfected as a
thirteen-year-old brat. "It'll only take fifty microts. Puh-leeeze." 

"Be quiet," she hissed. "He'll hear you." There, behind a barrel, she
caught just a flash of red hair. If she circled around to the left, she
might catch him unawares. 

"Who would hear me and why would it matter?" 

"Look, John, now is not a good time. D'Argo and I are--" KER-THUNK. She
was knocked faceforward by her Quathai onto the floor of the cargo bay.
Luckily, D'Argo had knocked her into a pile of half-finished mourning
robes. Luxan mourning robes were a sumptuous affair which used a
positively decadent amount of material. Between the weight on her back
and the fabric pressed into her nose and mouth, Aeryn was having
difficulty catching her breath. 

Unfortunately, John was not so impaired. "Aeryn? Aeryn? Are you all
right? What happened? Is something wrong with D'Argo? What's going on?" 

D'Argo spoke into his own communicator. "Aeryn is otherwise occupied,
John. I will come and assist you within the arn." 

"Is she all right? What happened?" the human insisted. 

"Everything is fine. She just had a little," and here, D'Argo made a
sound that reminded Aeryn of nothing so much as a snicker, "a little
fall. She will be fine as soon as I roll over." He did this as he spoke.

"Okay," said John, in the tone of one who has just realized that if they
don't stop the conversation soon, they will definitely receive too much
information. "See you whenever." 

Aeryn gulped down several lungfuls of air. "I really couldn't breathe,
you know. The cloth got in my face." 

D'Argo's immediate response was to pat her down, looking for injury. 

"I'm all right," she said. She raised her arms to allow him better
access to her torso. She had learned that it was easier to just let him
check her over when their games got too rough for his liking than to
argue that she was fine. When he sat back from her, satisfied that she
was not injured, she hugged him. "Thank you, D'Argo. You've given me so
much. I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to experience childish
things." 

He shrugged, looked away, but he put his hand on her head and smoothed
her hair. "You need this. I can do nothing else but give it to you." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

As soon as Gilina's wake was over, D'Argo rushed to John's side. "Let me
help you off with the robes." 

John nodded, complacently. It had taken him half an arn to get the damn
thing on, and that had been with Rygel's 'assistance'. "Afraid I'll rip
it getting it off?" He grinned that lazy, mocking grin that so often
adorned his face since the Comfy Chair. 

D'Argo's expression did not change to match his. "This is the best
mourning robe I have ever done. It is a work of art, and I want to
preserve it. When Lo'Lann died--" 

"You didn't have the chance to make one," and his entire demeanor
changed. The human reacquired the solemnity he had at the beginning of
wake, before he started in on the fellip wine. 

"No," agreed D'Argo, "no chance at all." Then he looked over John's
shoulder and smiled. 

As she approached them, Aeryn put a hand on John's shoulder. "Hello. And
what are you two planning on?" 

"I'm taking John back to my quarters and getting him out of this robe." 

"Well, D'Argo." Aeryn smirked, not unpleasantly. "That's an original
approach to our dil--" 

"I do not wish him to damage the robe removing it. That is all." 

"Oh." Aeryn blinked and somehow gave the impression of straightening up,
although her posture had been practically perfect a moment before. "Oh,"
she repeated again, stupidly, in the voice of someone who has been saved
from making a great fool of themselves through no action of their own. 

Once they arrived at D'Argo's quarters, it did not take long to remove
the robe from John. He wasn't wearing anything underneath it. 

John stretched and turned, performed a sort of sketchy inspection of
himself. "I think I am much improved." 

His pronouncement did not go unacknowledged by D'Argo. "Heh?" The Luxan
began to remove his own robes. 

"Physically, I mean. I'll never be as big and butch as you are, but I'm
almost as muscled out as Aeryn." He smiled, delighted, and ran adoring
hands along his own legs. 

When he straightened, D'Argo was also naked. The Luxan was facing away,
hanging up their robes. John slapped the warrior in the middle of the
back. "Come on, D'Argo, feel my arms. Tell me what you think." 

D'Argo turned around and John's jaw dropped. He pointed at five tubules
hanging in a cluster from D'Argo's crotch. "What the frell are those?" 

D'Argo looked down. "Mivonks." He looked back up and pointed at John's
own crotch. "I've always thought Sebacean males looked castrated. I see
you also have only a single mivonk." 

John continued to gasp like a fish as D'Argo closed the distance between
them. He grabbed the human's right bicep and squeezed. "An improvement,
but not as strong as Aeryn." Slowly, he ran his hands up the arms, over
the shoulders, and down the chest. 

"Five dicks!" John sounded stunned; he indulged in a full body shiver
which made his penis jerk about amusingly. "Can I--" 

"Touch them, if you like." D'Argo smiled and spread his legs. John used
two hands, entwined his fingers in the organs. They were soft and
squishy all the way through, more like the cartilage in the human ear
than an unerect penis. He moved back out to the tip of the topmost one.
There was no slit, but John could feel a hint of moisture at the tip. He
knelt down to examine them more closely. The mivonks began to inflate,
but they didn't get any harder. They reminded John of those balloons
magicians used to make animals. 

D'Argo groaned, then let out a shaky breath. "John." He made a sound
like a cat's purr. "John, you should stop now." 

The human stood up abruptly, eyes wide. "Um." He gave an uneasy chuckle.
"I've done a little friendly jerk-off in my time. Didn't mean to start
somethin' --" 

"No." D'Argo squeezed the shoulder he had never let go. "Thank you, but
I can not today." 

John nodded. His face was an odd combination of relief and
disappointment. "Kay. If I could just borrow a shirt, I'll be on my
way." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

A few nights later, the waiting was over. They were now hiding from the
Peacekeepers. They still had no map of the asteroid field, and Pilot had
cut the energy to as many ship's systems as possible in order to avoid
detection. 

John sped up as he ran down the hallway. 

He had started to sneak down here in the middle of the sleep cycle to
creep into Aeryn's bed. The cold had awoken him; the loud silence of
Moya's ships systems running at their lowest levels had kept him that
way. He'd been hoping that Aeryn's body heat would loosen up his stiff
muscles, but now he was hoping to get there in time to stop ... 

He didn't know what he was stopping, but Aeryn was shouting, "No!" and
D'Argo was shouting something Luxan the translator microbes wouldn't
touch. 

He got to the door, ran in, and started flying. He had tripped and
landed hard on his hands and knees. The impact made him yelp. The large
object he had tripped over also yelped. "Aeryn, are you alright?" 

"John, is that you?" Aeryn's voice was coming from where he thought the
bed was. Pilot had only dimmed the lighting in the public areas, but it
was completely dark in individual quarters. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you OK? Where's D'Argo?" 

A hand touched him in the darkness, clenching his waist. "I am behind
you, Crichton. Why are you here?" 

"Why are you here?" John bucked, loosening D'Argo's hold on him. He
turned and reached with his hands where he thought the Luxan's neck was.
It felt more like an arm. "What were you doing to Aeryn?" 

"He wasn't doing anything to me, John." 

"I heard shouting. I thought...," and then John realized that what he
had thought was ridiculous, that there was no reason to think that Aeryn
couldn't hold her own with D'Argo in a physical confrontation. More than
that, D'Argo would not try to hurt Aeryn. They were all in this
together. "I was being stupid. The cold is getting to my head. My
muscles are all knotted up and I can't think straight. What were you
arguing about?" 

"Nothing important," said Aeryn. 

"Do not say that!" shouted D'Argo. "I can understand why you do not yet
tell him. I can understand why you will not yet acknowledge this. But I
cannot -- we can not -- withstand your denial of us." 

"What we? What us? What's up with the two of you? You've both been
really weird and cryptic about the idea of me and either of you and sex
since we got back from the Gammak base, and it's really starting to piss
me off. Explain now." This would have been a really impressive tirade,
except that his teeth started chattering in the middle of it. 

"Get in the bed, John. You, too, D'Argo. It's too cold to have this
discussion with you on the floor." The two men crawled towards the bed,
and the three of them shifted until John was on Aeryn's left and D'Argo
on her right. 

There was silence for several moments. John ruthlessly suppressed his
urge to fidget, to poke and prod, to make Aeryn expose whatever it was
that lay between him and her and her and D'Argo and him and D'Argo.
Whatever it was that was, perhaps, destroying the friendship they had so
tentatively reached. He was about to break, about to say something, when
he heard Aeryn say, 

"D'Argo and I have sworn an oath to one another. We are sword brothers
now." 

John nodded, to encourage her to continue, not to signal his
understanding. He hadn't the least idea what that meant. Then he
realized that it was still pitch black and Aeryn wouldn't be able to see
him. "What are sword brothers?" 

"She is mine, and I am hers, human. What is hers is mine, and what is
mine is ours. She speaks with my voice and I am her voice. She is my
Quathali." 

"You know, D'Argo, I really hate it when you pull the mystic Luxan
warrior crap. Aeryn, in plain --," he paused. "Without the theatrics." 

"He is my Quathai, my older brother. In Luxan culture, we have become
inseparable without being treated as one person." She gave a sharp
little laugh. "All the loyalties I once gave to men like Crais and what
I thought he represented, I now give to D'Argo." 

"Okay," said John, his voice rising at the end of the word. He felt
confused. Not so much by the sword brother thing (which was still
confusing, and probably would be confusing to him for the rest of the
life, but he could handle that, he could deal with it). What he was
confused by, what he was, frankly, a little frightened by, was whatever
it was they thought he couldn't handle, what the reason was that Aeryn
hadn't wanted to tell him about this. "But we're still friends, right,
Aeryn? You can still have friends, right?" 

"I can still have anything I can earn fairly. But, he told you, what's
mine is his." Her voice trailed off, and he could feel the mattress
shift, as she moved to put more of her weight on D'Argo's body. 

"Aeryn, there is one thing I can't stand, and it's when you guys don't
tell me things. Important, fundamental things, things that everybody in
this part of the universe knows. Things that I don't know because I
didn't grow up in this part of the universe. So, Aeryn, babe, when I
stop talking, you are going to explain to me exactly whatever it is that
you think I am not going to like, you are going to tell me precisely
what it is that you think is going to make me pissy or sad or upset or
whatever, because I am already pissy and getting pissier." And he
reached out to grab her wrist. He knew it was a dangerous move, knew she
could hurt him, or if he missed and grabbed on to a part of the Luxan,
he might do some damage. But if this was goodbye, he wanted to feel her
one last time as she left him, since he couldn't see her face. 

He could hear Aeryn inhale, an enormous gasp for air and then,
"areallylongstreamofSebaceanthathecouldn'tunderstandawordof." 

"Quathali, I could not understand you, and I know what you have to tell
him. I can do it, if you cannot." And he heard some more rustling, and
another burst of Sebacean, this time muffled, and the microbes were
willing to take a stab at this bit, and came up with something like
[entreaty/gratitude]. 

"What could be so awful?" said John, his voice trembling. "She's scaring
me, D'Argo; is it that bad?" 

"I don't know." 

"You don't know." And John rubbed his ears, and his eyes, and thought,
wildly, that this was a conversation that should take place in full
light on a full stomach and a full night's sleep. Not now, when he was
exhausted, and had a really strong craving for a hot dog with mustard,
and he could see nothing. 

"You two have been lovers," D'Argo began. 

"Not exactly," John muttered. 

"I don't understand," said D'Argo. 

"I never said we were lovers," said Aeryn, her voice still muffled. 

"But you said --" 

"I said we had sex. You knew we were friends." 

"But we aren't lovers," said John. "We're friends who frell each other."

"That makes a difference. I think," said D'Argo. He sounded as if he
were talking to himself more than either of his bedmates. "No, maybe it
doesn't. I'm not certain." 

"Makes a difference in what?" 

"Whether or not you have to have sex with me." 

"Why would I have sex with you? I'm not sure I like you. Right now, I'm
not sure I even like Aeryn." 

"If you don't have sex with Aeryn, you definitely don't have to have sex
with me." 

"Wait a minute!" said John, very loudly as compared to the rest of the
conversation. "This conversation is getting ridiculous, and I am getting
pissed off. Again. Are there any other secrets you two have going?" He
counted slowly to fifteen, and then again, just to make sure. He was
glad he did because Aeryn spoke up. 

"D'Argo and I have to have sex. Just the one time, to seal the bond.
That's what we were arguing about when you came in. I was waiting to
tell you; I thought you should know before we did it." 

"D'Argo, was this whole sword brothers thing just a plot for you to get
laid?" 

"I do not understand." 

"Never mind, it was a stupid, mean, and ignorant question. I take it
back. Let's go to sleep, people. Right now." John laid down, and
deliberately turned his back to Aeryn. He had just started to get
comfortable when he felt something tapping him. "Shit, Aeryn, what is it
now?" 

"I need to sleep on the outside. It's too hot between the two of you." 

"Fucking hell, woman!" He crawled over her, deliberately careless with
the placement of elbows and knees as he moved to the center. "You.
Luxan. If I wake up with your hand on my ass, I'll use your own fucking
sword to run you through." John pulled the pillow over his head, drew
the covers up over that, and promptly fell asleep. 

Despite the rancorous circumstances, this was the first comfortable
sleep John and Aeryn had gotten in the two days since they'd entered the
asteroid field. The three of them slept too late to discuss anything
before they joined the others. And then they got a distress call ...

La Fin

At this point, the episode "Bone to Be Wild" starts.