The Break-out Club by Thea and feldman 1/2
Apr. 6th, 2005 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feldmanSPOILERS: Peacekeeper Wars
SUMMARY: Thea and I were feeling domestic; set 16 years after PKW.
NOTES: beta and title by the wonderful Crankygrrl
EMAIL: thassalia @ yahoo.com; mochaphine @ gmail.com
DISCLAIMER HAIKU:
Though we love them so
and they are fun to to play with
we do not own them
~*~
Chiana feels a strange deja-vu as she takes in the sight of the boy.
If she hadn't seen his father at a similar age, she'd have taken one look at the whip thin body and said he looked like his mother and no one else. But she can see the hollows where his father's heritage will fill in, see the traces of Crichton in the shape of his bottom lip, his square hands, and his wariness.
"Frell, you've grown." She throws her hood back and blinks, watching recognition soften his stance and bring a smile to his face.
"Hasn't been that long." He blushes as he holsters the pistol, and when he pulls her into a hug, she realizes he's now taller than she is. And that it has been that long.
"Where's the rest? Did I come in the middle of dinner?"
"Mom and Dad are planetside for another solar day or so."
"D'Argo, I'm sorry to interrupt."
"Heya Pilot!"
"Chiana, Moya and I welcome you aboard."
"Good to be back."
D'Argo squints. "Is there a problem Pilot?"
Pilot responds by unblocking the girl's comm channel.
"Deeeee! Want Goober!"
D'Argo sighs and Chiana turns to him, horrified. "What the frell's that?"
"My sister. Come on, I'll introduce you guys."
So this is what they'd been up to since she left.
Chiana cocks her head to look at the little girl, trying to fit Aeryn's daughter--frell, *Crichton's* daughter--into the context of her knowledge of the hybridized family, figuring out how a new person fits into this group of people she loves.
The girl is all smiles and disaster, ragged curls and plump, pale cheeks, dexterous little fingers winding through the bars of her playpen.
Pretty and sticky, she clearly hasn't seen the inside of a bathtub for the past few days.
D'Argo shrugs in that cross species adolescent gesture for, 'Yeah, so what?'
"She's just gonna get dirty again. The deal was to watch her, not keep her clean."
She stifles a snort. He is so very much his father's kid.
The girl's eyes focus on Chiana, lighting up as Chi squats down and sticks her fingers through the caging. When they'd rounded the bend, the cries for Goober had been klaxon bright, shriller than shrill. Now, the narl is calmer, pink and fascinated. She's missing one shoe, her socked foot so tiny that it's hard to imagine she'll grow into anything as long and rangy as her brother. She wraps her hand around Chiana's fingers, and smiles wide and toothy.
"Dude, she bites."
D'Argo sounds like he knows this first hand.
"Hey," she says to the girl. "I'm your Auntie Chi."
"Chi," the name comes complete with enthusiastic spit.
"New teeth," her brother says, offhand. "She's got lots of use for 'em."
The baby is a surprise. Especially after... She doesn't like to think about it, the blood, Aeryn chalk white and so weak she couldn't move... Chiana can't believe they tried again.
D'Argo is perceptive, probably more so than he's quite comfortable with. "Dad calls her a surprise. A gift."
She speaks without thinking. "You were too."
"Yeah," his voice is bone dry. "That's what they tell me."
With a shrug D'Argo hits the door lock. "Come on, Punk. Hungry?"
The girl sidles behind his leg, suddenly shy now that nothing separates her from Chiana.
She leans down but the girl ducks behind her brother's knee. "I'm not gonna hurt you, Punk."
D'Argo affects a cool posture, but his hand on the girl's head is gentle. "Maybe Auntie Chi will get your Goober for you."
Sticky fingers clutch at the boy's dark work pants. "Chi?"
"I dunno. Ask her."
She shakes her head, tiny picket teeth biting her lip. There's a shiny smear on her cheek and random fuzz bits in her tangled curls. Squiggles of color decorate her bare arms.
"What's with the marks?"
"She likes to color."
"On herself?"
"Anywhere she can reach."
"Goober?"
D'Argo leans down, brushing a frizzy dusky curl away from her eye. "Go on, ask her."
Chi watches the little one screw up her courage, and whispers to D'Argo, "What's a goober?"
He glances at the plastic drannit on the floor across the corridor. The fur patches are worn off and one of the eyes is missing. The jaw parts are thin and pliable, and Chiana works them as if it's talking. "Heya Punk."
The squeal is deafening, and the fingers clutching at D'Argo's pants would have torn the fabric if they weren't so creepy small. D'Argo may have grown, but Chiana doesn't remember him ever being so little when he was walking and talking.
Punk moves more of her body out from behind her brother's leg. "Goober sings! Goober sings and goes poop!"
D'Argo sighs, soul-weary and embarrassed.
"I'll bet he does." Chiana squeezes the drannit, feeling the way air leaks out of strategic holes in the toy. Ahh, family life. Wonderful in small medicinal doses. "Tell you what. How about you and Goober get cleaned up and I'll make something to eat?"
After a moment D'Argo shrugs, accepting the terms of her deal. "Come on, Punkin', Auntie Chi's making grolack." He smirks at Chiana while lifting the narl up onto his shoulders, apparently her customary seat.
"Grolack, huh? That narl better be spotless, then."
***
Everything in the kitchen is right where she remembers it. That has to be Aeryn's influence. Twenty cycles out of the Peacekeepers can't take the Peacekeeper completely out of the girl.
More surprising is the fully stocked larder. It throws her, the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables and then Chiana remembers Nerri as a teenager, rangy and ravenous, remembers that this is a family going about their lives, not fugitives on the run.
She pulls out the flour and water, the salt and spices and the hot oil, starts to mix the batter. Cooking has always felt like creation and she likes it - less commitment than a child, more useful too. You make it, you eat, sustenance and pleasure, immediate gratification. She still enjoys gratification, even now.
Catching site of a DRD in the corner, she shouts out to Pilot and can't fight back a grin when he responds instantly, gentle eyes blinking at her.
"We've missed you," he says, solemn and warm. They've all learned over the cycles to not hold back on love, to say it whenever possible, to never have a missed opportunity.
"Missed you guys too, Pilot. I'm... happy to be here."
"We're very pleased to have you back with us."
Pilot has the grace not to ask why she's there. She'll tell 'em all when Aeryn and Crichton return. Speaking of which...
"Where're the parents?"
"Due back tomorrow. They went planetside to celebrate their anniversary."
Chiana sniggered. "They went planetside to frell their brains out without being interrupted by their narls?"
Pilot made a noncommittal noise. "Things have been somewhat...frantic as of late."
"But you guys have been okay, right?"
She heats the burner, places the pan with oil on it and waits.
"Yes. We've been...okay."
"Com'ere!"
"Gooberchi?"
"Damnit, Punk, stop!"
The high pitched shriek cuts through the air like a knife. Chiana winces, and then starts to laugh. Punk is naked and shiny with water, streaking into the kitchen, Goober clutched tightly in her hand. She's wet, trailing puddles behind, trailing her brother behind her. She must have gotten a head start.
The little girl is giggling wildly, white puffs of soap still dripping off her curls. Chi steps around the corner of the stove, grabbing the slippery little girl and whipping her up under her arm. Punk squeals with utter, unabashed glee and flails the drannit around.
D'Argo skids to a stop. He's almost as wet as the little girl, and a hell of a lot less happy. He clutches a towel and sports an angry red shiner.
Chiana looks at him, trying to stifle her grin.
"I slipped in the water," he offers. "And she's so frelling fast."
Punk stretches her arms out in front of her like she's getting ready to take off, and Chi spins around in a circle. She remembers airplane, a dizzy, giggling little boy, enough laughter to counter the grief, the fear of the future that they'd all clung to for cycles. But Punk is squirmy and slippery in her joy and Chi hefts her over to D'Argo who swaddles her in the toweling, arms tight to her small body.
"You are gigantic pain the ass," he says to her.
"Ath."
"Yup, ass."
"Ath, ath, ath, aaaath." It sort of almost translates. And it's a far worse word in Sebacean.
Chiana gives in to her laughter, feeling like a teenager again. "Your mother's gonna be thrilled."
***
"You gonna eat that?" sounds pretty much the same in Sebacean as it used to in Nebari when she first started out with Nerri.
D'Argo goes a little slower with the second plate, enough so that Chiana can see that he isn't really inhaling the food. She still doubts that he's either chewing or tasting it, and she wonders at his ability to compartmentalize his mouth, to eat and speak clearly at the same time.
His sister on the other hand, picks each single tekti between her finger and thumb and inspects it before putting it into her mouth, or elsewhere.
Without a pause in his chewing, D'Argo reaches over to pinch the girl's nose, squishing the soft tekti on its way up her left nostril. He wipes the mash from her lip as she bangs out her frustration. "Peace, what did Mommy say about nose-peas?"
"Do it myself!"
"Only if you put 'em in your mouth."
Chiana watches them, feeling the sorrow swell and ease down again. So much hope in a name like that, with so many ghosts around them. She's glad they didn't name the child after another dead friend. "So this girl, she's at the telacademy?"
"She was. Now she's in the residential program."
"The one you just got into."
D'Argo's brow furrows, darkening the pale grey of his eyes. "Doesn't matter."
Peace tweaks another tekti between delicate digits and offers it to her brother.
"Sure it matters."
D'Argo shrugs, takes the tekti and tucks it under his plate. Peace repeats the process.
"Mom said no. So it's no. Arguing with her is like banging your head against the side of the prowler, painful and pointless."
"That's a direct translation from your dad."
He grins, the expression quirking his mouth, lighting up his eyes. She's willing to bet that girl at the telacademy has whole volumes in her head devoted to that smile.
"Without the swearing, yeah."
"And he agrees. That you shouldn't go?"
He looks back down at his plate, the outer edges of which are now surrounded by bits of tekti. "In your mouth, Peace. Gimme a break here, kid."
He bites his lower lip. "He's um, not up for arguing with her about this. She..." he tilts his head at the little girl. "A lotta arguments stopped around the time she was born. Before then, we'd been talking about it, planning out when I'd be old enough, how much time it'd take to convince Mom that I could go away for awhile."
Chiana feels incredulous on the kid's behalf. But then, she'd run from her sires when she was younger than D'Argo is now. She wonders, briefly, what would have happened if there'd been anyone in her world besides Nerri who had loved her as much as Crichton and Aeryn love their children. If it would have made any difference in her choices.
"So you got in, and Aeryn said no, and there's a girl there you like, and you're just letting it go. Just like that."
Goddess help her, Aeryn really is going to kill her. The spark of pleasure and fear lights low in her belly. She's not ashamed to admit she's missed that feeling.
Peace is clearly through with her dinner. Instead of offering her brother bits of food, she's now dropping them on the floor, giggling when they bounce. The DRDs whir up behind her and she begins to drop the bits on to them, laughing when their pincers reach up to catch the falling food before it hits them.
"Yeah," D'Argo says, "That's how it is."
Chiana shovels the last forkful into her mouth, chewing and thinking. Peace yawns, head rocking backward with the vehemence of it. D'Argo pushes soggy remnants of grolack around his plate.
Anniversary, Pilot said. Chiana remembers the firefight, and she also recalls enough about Earth to know that the boy's day of birth is a big deal for Humans. She slaps the table, breaking him out of his glum study. "You need fun."
"Fun?"
She laughs and Peace giggles along with her. "You say that like you don't know what it means."
He sets his mouth. "I know what it means."
"You do, huh?" She leans over the table at him. "Ever had any?"
He looks angry as he blushes, inferring a narrower meaning than she'd meant.
Ah, dren, that too? What was it with virginal Crichton boys? Were they all saving it up for something? Or did his folks keep such a tight leash on the boy that he never had the opportunity to play?
There were cute young girls down on the planet below right now, at the game parks and the zipi-bars. There was the sweet genius Ikeni-something in the residential program, where a room probably waited for D'Argo just down the corridor.
And here he is, stuck with a hyper narl on his own anniversary, sixteen cycles to the day when he came squalling into this life in the middle of a firefight. His cheeks cooling, he shovels the last forkful of soggy grolack into his mouth.
She feels indignation on his namesake's behalf, and she makes a decision. No way was there going to be a young buck of a D'Argo alive in this universe who'd never had fun, who'd never wrestled and rolled with a girl or two, preferably at the same time. It was a crime against the Luxan's memory. She'd solve it right now if she wasn't "Auntie Chi".
"There's a big gap in your education that we're going to close, you and I." Chiana announces as she stands. "From now on, I'm gonna be your chaperone."
D'Argo crosses his arms. "Aren't chaperone's supposed to keep their charges from having fun?"
"That's the story." She walks around to his side and sets her hip against the table. "But you and I will know better, won't we?"
He looks up at her from under his brows, wary and hopeful. He's a hybrid creature of the boy she knew and the man he'll be, pent-up and uneasy. The only time she's ever felt a siring instinct is in relation to this boy, and what he needs right now is something she can give him whether his parents want it or not.
His world isn't big enough for him any more, but there's a whole universe out there waiting for him. He needs off of this ship so he can grow bigger, so he can stretch out and become that man she can see folded up inside.
"We'll even get you into the program, D'Argo. I've got a plan."
***
"This is a really bad idea."
He shoves diapers and small clothes, soft and sturdy, into his rucksack. Peace is sprawled on his bed, thumb in her mouth, hair ruffed and rumpled, sleeping like the dead.
"She'll be fine. We'll all be fine. And more important, we're going to have fun."
He shakes his head. He's got a change of underwear tucked into the top of the bag, a shaving kit and some scent that she took from Crichton's quarters. It smells masculine and warm, spiced, reminds her of the way men smell when they've been partaking in sun and honest exertion. A clean scent. "You're sure we can get back before they do?"
What sort of adolescent worries this much about getting into trouble? On the other hand, it hadn't taken much effort to convince him to go with her. He's straining against the bonds put on him by his parents. She figures they have their own rebellious streaks to blame for their son's attitude. "Absolutely. There's nothing to worry about."
He thrusts Goober at her.
"If she wakes up without it, she'll scream like an Interon having a really bad day."
Chiana gingerly takes the doll. She'd rather leave Peace here, tucked into her little playroom, guarded by DRDs, but both Pilot and D'Argo had nixed that idea. "She'll be good," D'Argo had added, picking up the little girl to take her away from the dinner table. Peace had wrapped her legs around his waist, nestled head on his shoulder and promptly fell asleep. "She likes to be around noise and people."
A man with a child would be a draw, but he was still a boy and she didn't want the girls scared away. "Well, she and I will get to know each other then."
D'Argo had looked dubious, but he'd also started packing.
He shoves a blanket, water, juice, dried cereal, crackers and a packet of mashed tekti into the bag, which now bulges like a wylar's belly. "If we're gonna go, we should go now."
Chiana grins at him and picks up the little girl. Peace scrunches her face, little hands digging at her eyes, but once her head settles in the crook of Chiana's neck, she drifts back off to sleep before they've made their way to the bay.
***
"Young adult, holiday." She tells the concierge at the structure where she's docked her ship.
"Species preference?"
"Sebacean friendly."
"Special requests?"
She looks to D'Argo, his sister riding on his hip and yammering in his ear. "Why's th' lady sparkly, D?"
"That's her skin, Punk. She's Delvian."
"Cannai be Delbian, too?"
"No, Punk, you and I are kinda Sebacean."
"Cannai be sparkly?"
"If you're good, maybe."
"Goober doesn't wanna be sparkly."
"That's a surprise."
"Goober's a boy n' boy's aren't sparkly."
"No?"
Peace turns solemn, fingers caressing Goober's remnant of hair. "You can be sparkly if you want, Dee. I say so."
"That's big of you, Punk."
Girl wakes up with her engines running. Chiana turns back to the concierge, "The only request is fun."
Now Peace is tucked into a cafe booth between Chiana and a garden wall, standing with her Goober clutched to her chest and her eyes wide. For now, she's content to stare rapturously at the crowded tables all around them, soak in the night atmosphere of the commerce city.
Across the table, D'Argo sips nervously from his straw and fiddles with the city map she got from the concierge, keyed for the interests of a young Sebacean looking for fun.
Chiana watches him play with his drink and knows that she'll have to be as gentle and sneaky with him as she will with his parents. Unlike Peace, he isn't soothed by noise and people. He looks ready to bolt. "What I figure is, we'll start off slow and build from there."
"What are we gonna do with Punk?"
Chiana reaches over and taps him on the forehead. "We're not here tonight to party; we're here to scheme. So pay attention."
He shifts up from his slouch a bit, unable to squelch all of his incipient grin.
"I'm your chaperone, right? And we're going to have a nice walk around town and maybe some dinner--"
"Dinner sounds good."
Chiana thought that it might. "After that we'll do something fun for Peace and then we'll go back up to Moya. We're here tonight to scout the place out, find the good spots for when we come back down without the narl."
***
It turns out that Peace should come with a leash, so after the second harrowing chase through the street crowd Chiana hires a chair and driver for a few arns and D'Argo scours the map for likely hot spots. He saves the best for last, embarrassed and frustrated when he mentions it, and Chiana could almost smack him for being so...so…
So frelling convinced that the situation is hopeless.
"So you're saying the telacademy is based here?"
"No, they aren't really based anywhere." He sketches gestures as he talks, his fully grown hands long in the fingers and square in the palms. "The Free Sebacean Telacademy is an education cooperative spread out through most of the breakaway colonies, allowing scattered populations and mobile people like us to combine and share their knowledge and res--"
"Yeah, yeah." Chiana urges him toward the point.
"The Academy also partners with merchants and institutions all over the place to provide equipment, materials, residential programs," D'Argo scratches the back of his neck, adding in a thwarted murmur, "social opportunities."
Chiana falls back against the bench with a hard sigh. "I've been busting my mivonks here talking about fun and you didn't think to mention this?"
He doesn't meet her eyes when he shrugs. For a moment Chiana just looks at him, holding tight to the back end of Peace as she leans out the side of the rickshaw.
He clings to the absence of hope, steeling himself against the disappointment he knows is there. Why bother? Well, if you don't bother, how can you ever get what you want? She wants to shake him but she doesn't bother.
"Dinner," she says, bridging the awkward moment with a pat on his knee, "Dinner, toy store, home. Sound like a plan?"
"Yeah, I guess."
The flimsy the map is printed on is biodegradable, and she sees that the sigils of the telacademy's local lounge are faded, the material soft from being under D'Argo's warm thumb for arns. She taps the middle of the map. "Pick a place and tell the driver. I'm hungry now, too."
***
The restaurant is in an open air courtyard strung with lights, tiny twinkling stars that prove irresistible to little fingers. Peace is surprisingly nimble, up on the table bouncing for the lights faster than Chiana pull her back. Fortunately the lights are too high for her to grab, and her brother hefts her up, slinging her under his arm. She giggles and kicks, reaching up.
"She likes the lights," he shrugs, apologizing to the waiter who's gazing at the dusty footprints on the table with something close to horror.
"Doesn't she ever stop?" Chi asks, empathizing with the waiter. For a number of reasons, they'd determined to stop with D'Argo, what kind of cave 'shrooms made 'em decide to have another kid?
"Nah, not so much. She's like on of those wind up toys, goes and goes and goes until she crashes out. There's no in-between with her."
His affection shines through as Peace settles into her chair, head tilted up to the lights. "Mom thinks she could be a pilot, that she's got the balance and the concentration."
The resentment there is slight, but acrid.
"So why this place?" She knows better than to let males wallow in their misery. The blush staining his cheeks gives her the answer. She's not surprised.
"Dormitories?"
"Um," he stammers, "across the street. Faculty stays in the hotel connected to this restaurant."
"You could call her while you're here."
It isn't the blame, but the way his mouth curves tells her that she hit upon the right thing. He shakes his head. "If we come back, maybe. But not tonight."
"Why not?"
He sets his mouth hard, pokes at the ice in his glass. "Because what's the point? If I get to see her tonight, and that's it? Why bother?"
She remembers the fatalism of adolescence, the utter hopelessness of the world around her. But in her world, the hopelessness had been real, not perceptions of unfairness. Still, that doesn't lessen his pain.
Chiana waves to the waiter. "Two raslaks--hot--and juice for the narl."
"Palma juice," D'Argo adds. "Without the seeds."
The raslak warms her from head to toe and D'Argo occupies Peace with a stylus and some flimsies. She mostly draws on the clear surface, adds her scribbled signature to the tablecloth.
The rickshaw driver gives them a weary wave when the spill back out of the restaurant and D'Argo stands still for a microt, gazing over the top of the conveyance towards the middle of the smoothshine building opposite, eyes lingering on the top level. He gets in beside Chiana and hooks his hand firmly to the waistband of Peace's jumper as the cart takes off at a steady clip.
***
"Unified theory?" she asks, "Isn't that a little... primitive?"
The toy store is filled with delicately shaped structures, castles and prisms and wagons, dolls of every species and smooth, colorful blocks with a multitude of alphabets. A fairy tale world for the half-motra set. Peace has put her hands on nearly everything, giddy with the colors and textures. She presses a series of buttons that cause a small globe to light up and spin, shooting out light and painting pictures on the wall to an eerie, mournful dirge.
"No, it's not the kind of stuff dad studied." He grins, cheeky, one upping his old man. "It's theory in a whole new league, stuff that relates to FTL and to cosmic theory, black holes, wormholes, tesseracts, that kind of thing."
She cocks her head. "You're kidding right."
"No it's so cool, the way space bends, the way our perceptions of the continuum have changed. The Pathfinder people have finally opened up about some of their findings."
She's speechless. How much have they told him? A glimmer of insight hits her and she rubs her eyes, tired suddenly. How much haven't they told him is the question.
"Or," he says, sly and sweet. " I could join up with the Breakaway Colonies, be a pilot."
"Playin' both of your folks against the middle?"
"No." His eyes cloud briefly and he shuffles the load of toys in the crook of his arm, bright jars of sparkly goop clashing with the grim expression that passes over his face. "Mom, she doesn't think I have the skills to be a combat pilot."
That must have hurt, Aeryn's brutal honesty barely tempered with her love. It must have felt like a betrayal. "What do you think?"
"I dunno, she's the expert, been training pilots for the past few cycles. Mostly I think she's just being a worrywart, and..."
"And being Aeryn?"
He nudges her again, shuffling and a little rambunctious. "Yeah," his eyes drop down, scanning quickly and the humor flees.
"Chi, where's Peace?"
***
They scour the floor they're on but can't find her, and D'Argo's taken on a dark-eyed pallor of guilt that makes Chiana even more nervous. "So she's not right here, this place has ten floors, she could have wandered up or down, we just keep looking is all."
"Up, she would have gone up." As soon as he speaks he's off toward the ramp to the next floor/age level.
The colors aren't so bright on this floor, and there are less patrons to slow them down. D'Argo and Chiana alternate their shouts of "Peace".
A distant wail of "Deeeeee!" sends both relief and fresh fear washing through Chiana, and she darts through the aisles just a step behind D'Argo at a dead run.
D'Argo shouts his sister's name as he sprints, and the responding "Dee!" is broken in the middle by sobbing breaths.
Chiana slams into him as he stops in a blink, grabbing his arm to keep from rebounding back onto her eema.
"I'm so glad you found her, sir."
She ducks from behind D'Argo and when she spots the store security guard her gaze has to travel a disturbing height to encounter the being's face. Zenetan clan tattoos like the shadows of hatch marks on rough hewn cheeks. Still. She whispers hard in D'Argo's ear, "Ma'am."
He flicks his eyes to her and then back to the guard. "Officer, where did you find her?"
Peace squirms ineffectually in the guard's iron grip, her face as blotched as her captor's, tear-streaked and rosy-pink. "Chi! Chi-momma! Deee!" She drops her Goober as she stretches down toward her brother, but there are two other guards now and Chiana hooks her fingers in D'Argo's waistband like she did with Peace, keeping him from doing anything stupid.
"We were worried sick about her," Chiana steps forward, sidling into the main guard's personal space and craning her neck upwards in supplication. The guard's belt buckle is at the normal height for a door-knocker, but bigger. "Thanks to you, she's safe and sound; how can we repay your kind assistance?"
Chiana was willing to offer anything at this point to get both of her charges back to the ship and off-planet again; despite a rough few monens she's flush with cash. As for anything else she could offer, well, it wouldn't be the first time even if it was the first time in ages.
The security guard stands there, oblivious to the kicking squirming narl in her arms (at least, Chi's operating under the assumption of female; Zenetan males are her size and weedy), studying Chiana as if weighing her offer. "You don't look like this child's sire."
D'Argo pulls her back a step. "She's not; she's a family friend."
"So are you this child's sire?" One of the other guards is Sebacean, and he snickers.
"I'm her brother."
"Ident papers?"
D'Argo's ears turn an interesting shade of maroon, highlighting the velvet hairs that line the outer curve of shell. "Not with me."
"I see." The guard glances to her assistants with a sigh. Chiana gets the feeling they could have worked something out if there hadn't been witnesses. "Then we shall have to verify your claim by genetic assay before we can release the child to your custody."
With that, the guard turns and leaves the showroom floor. The two assistants each take Chi and D'Argo in hand and march them behind the boss.
Peace's shoe is untied, and when she can't turn around to see D'Argo she starts kicking the guard again, sending the shoe flying back into Chi's hasty catch.
"I'm in deep fucking dren, Auntie Chi."
She whispers back, "There something 'bout Punk I don't know?"
"No, she's my sister. And being my sister I know she's gonna spill the whole story to the folks when we get back."
"Don't worry about that part, okay? We'll spring her free, pay for our haul of goodies and be home on Moya in less than an arn. It's all in how you play it afterward, trust me."
The toy emporium was a tony operation through and through, and Chiana isn't surprised to see that their set-up for lost child verification is posh as well, a small cozy room tucked between the restrooms and the management office. Even the straps on the little narl chair for Peace are padded with the same plush fabric as the rest of the furniture.
"Deee?"
Chiana is glad to see that the girl isn't crying anymore; as long as she can see D'Argo, she seems cool with whatever happens. He's set into a chair just out of reach of Peace, and his guard lays out the boy's forearm along the thick padded arm of the chair.
The large guard doesn't strap Peace in, she sits on the desk with the girl tucked tight into her arms instead. Probably safer than trying to wrestle a wily narl.
Chi's pushed into a seat and her guard pulls a piece of tech out of the desk, punching buttons on the face of it as he strolls back to D'Argo. So far, so good, it has the feeling of routine.
"Gooberchi?"
Chiana slowly stands, offering the ragged drannit toy to the girl without rousing any of the guards. "Here you go, Peace."
D'Argo rolls up the sleeve of his shirt, and Chiana realizes that the sigils on the front are for the Free Sebacean Telacademy.
"Make'em sparkly?" Her eyelashes are still wet with tears but she's accepted the presence of the guard with an uneasy smile.
"Yeah, we got the make'em sparkly stuff, too."
D'Argo lets out a small hiss as the guard takes a sample from his arm.
"Chi, make'a lady sparkly?"
Chiana offers an embarrassed smile to the guard. At least the kid didn't call her a guy like her brother did. "I don't think it's part of her uniform."
The Sebacean guard is surprisingly gentle when he grasps Peace's arm and straightens it out, setting the narrow end of the component on her little bicep. He even shields her face from the sight, and maybe for some narls that would have worked, but Peace has pilot reflexes in that tiny seed of a body.
And Peace is a biter.
So now half the Crichton-Sun clan is in quarantine.
Part 2/2 is here
SUMMARY: Thea and I were feeling domestic; set 16 years after PKW.
NOTES: beta and title by the wonderful Crankygrrl
EMAIL: thassalia @ yahoo.com; mochaphine @ gmail.com
DISCLAIMER HAIKU:
Though we love them so
and they are fun to to play with
we do not own them
~*~
Chiana feels a strange deja-vu as she takes in the sight of the boy.
If she hadn't seen his father at a similar age, she'd have taken one look at the whip thin body and said he looked like his mother and no one else. But she can see the hollows where his father's heritage will fill in, see the traces of Crichton in the shape of his bottom lip, his square hands, and his wariness.
"Frell, you've grown." She throws her hood back and blinks, watching recognition soften his stance and bring a smile to his face.
"Hasn't been that long." He blushes as he holsters the pistol, and when he pulls her into a hug, she realizes he's now taller than she is. And that it has been that long.
"Where's the rest? Did I come in the middle of dinner?"
"Mom and Dad are planetside for another solar day or so."
"D'Argo, I'm sorry to interrupt."
"Heya Pilot!"
"Chiana, Moya and I welcome you aboard."
"Good to be back."
D'Argo squints. "Is there a problem Pilot?"
Pilot responds by unblocking the girl's comm channel.
"Deeeee! Want Goober!"
D'Argo sighs and Chiana turns to him, horrified. "What the frell's that?"
"My sister. Come on, I'll introduce you guys."
So this is what they'd been up to since she left.
Chiana cocks her head to look at the little girl, trying to fit Aeryn's daughter--frell, *Crichton's* daughter--into the context of her knowledge of the hybridized family, figuring out how a new person fits into this group of people she loves.
The girl is all smiles and disaster, ragged curls and plump, pale cheeks, dexterous little fingers winding through the bars of her playpen.
Pretty and sticky, she clearly hasn't seen the inside of a bathtub for the past few days.
D'Argo shrugs in that cross species adolescent gesture for, 'Yeah, so what?'
"She's just gonna get dirty again. The deal was to watch her, not keep her clean."
She stifles a snort. He is so very much his father's kid.
The girl's eyes focus on Chiana, lighting up as Chi squats down and sticks her fingers through the caging. When they'd rounded the bend, the cries for Goober had been klaxon bright, shriller than shrill. Now, the narl is calmer, pink and fascinated. She's missing one shoe, her socked foot so tiny that it's hard to imagine she'll grow into anything as long and rangy as her brother. She wraps her hand around Chiana's fingers, and smiles wide and toothy.
"Dude, she bites."
D'Argo sounds like he knows this first hand.
"Hey," she says to the girl. "I'm your Auntie Chi."
"Chi," the name comes complete with enthusiastic spit.
"New teeth," her brother says, offhand. "She's got lots of use for 'em."
The baby is a surprise. Especially after... She doesn't like to think about it, the blood, Aeryn chalk white and so weak she couldn't move... Chiana can't believe they tried again.
D'Argo is perceptive, probably more so than he's quite comfortable with. "Dad calls her a surprise. A gift."
She speaks without thinking. "You were too."
"Yeah," his voice is bone dry. "That's what they tell me."
With a shrug D'Argo hits the door lock. "Come on, Punk. Hungry?"
The girl sidles behind his leg, suddenly shy now that nothing separates her from Chiana.
She leans down but the girl ducks behind her brother's knee. "I'm not gonna hurt you, Punk."
D'Argo affects a cool posture, but his hand on the girl's head is gentle. "Maybe Auntie Chi will get your Goober for you."
Sticky fingers clutch at the boy's dark work pants. "Chi?"
"I dunno. Ask her."
She shakes her head, tiny picket teeth biting her lip. There's a shiny smear on her cheek and random fuzz bits in her tangled curls. Squiggles of color decorate her bare arms.
"What's with the marks?"
"She likes to color."
"On herself?"
"Anywhere she can reach."
"Goober?"
D'Argo leans down, brushing a frizzy dusky curl away from her eye. "Go on, ask her."
Chi watches the little one screw up her courage, and whispers to D'Argo, "What's a goober?"
He glances at the plastic drannit on the floor across the corridor. The fur patches are worn off and one of the eyes is missing. The jaw parts are thin and pliable, and Chiana works them as if it's talking. "Heya Punk."
The squeal is deafening, and the fingers clutching at D'Argo's pants would have torn the fabric if they weren't so creepy small. D'Argo may have grown, but Chiana doesn't remember him ever being so little when he was walking and talking.
Punk moves more of her body out from behind her brother's leg. "Goober sings! Goober sings and goes poop!"
D'Argo sighs, soul-weary and embarrassed.
"I'll bet he does." Chiana squeezes the drannit, feeling the way air leaks out of strategic holes in the toy. Ahh, family life. Wonderful in small medicinal doses. "Tell you what. How about you and Goober get cleaned up and I'll make something to eat?"
After a moment D'Argo shrugs, accepting the terms of her deal. "Come on, Punkin', Auntie Chi's making grolack." He smirks at Chiana while lifting the narl up onto his shoulders, apparently her customary seat.
"Grolack, huh? That narl better be spotless, then."
***
Everything in the kitchen is right where she remembers it. That has to be Aeryn's influence. Twenty cycles out of the Peacekeepers can't take the Peacekeeper completely out of the girl.
More surprising is the fully stocked larder. It throws her, the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables and then Chiana remembers Nerri as a teenager, rangy and ravenous, remembers that this is a family going about their lives, not fugitives on the run.
She pulls out the flour and water, the salt and spices and the hot oil, starts to mix the batter. Cooking has always felt like creation and she likes it - less commitment than a child, more useful too. You make it, you eat, sustenance and pleasure, immediate gratification. She still enjoys gratification, even now.
Catching site of a DRD in the corner, she shouts out to Pilot and can't fight back a grin when he responds instantly, gentle eyes blinking at her.
"We've missed you," he says, solemn and warm. They've all learned over the cycles to not hold back on love, to say it whenever possible, to never have a missed opportunity.
"Missed you guys too, Pilot. I'm... happy to be here."
"We're very pleased to have you back with us."
Pilot has the grace not to ask why she's there. She'll tell 'em all when Aeryn and Crichton return. Speaking of which...
"Where're the parents?"
"Due back tomorrow. They went planetside to celebrate their anniversary."
Chiana sniggered. "They went planetside to frell their brains out without being interrupted by their narls?"
Pilot made a noncommittal noise. "Things have been somewhat...frantic as of late."
"But you guys have been okay, right?"
She heats the burner, places the pan with oil on it and waits.
"Yes. We've been...okay."
"Com'ere!"
"Gooberchi?"
"Damnit, Punk, stop!"
The high pitched shriek cuts through the air like a knife. Chiana winces, and then starts to laugh. Punk is naked and shiny with water, streaking into the kitchen, Goober clutched tightly in her hand. She's wet, trailing puddles behind, trailing her brother behind her. She must have gotten a head start.
The little girl is giggling wildly, white puffs of soap still dripping off her curls. Chi steps around the corner of the stove, grabbing the slippery little girl and whipping her up under her arm. Punk squeals with utter, unabashed glee and flails the drannit around.
D'Argo skids to a stop. He's almost as wet as the little girl, and a hell of a lot less happy. He clutches a towel and sports an angry red shiner.
Chiana looks at him, trying to stifle her grin.
"I slipped in the water," he offers. "And she's so frelling fast."
Punk stretches her arms out in front of her like she's getting ready to take off, and Chi spins around in a circle. She remembers airplane, a dizzy, giggling little boy, enough laughter to counter the grief, the fear of the future that they'd all clung to for cycles. But Punk is squirmy and slippery in her joy and Chi hefts her over to D'Argo who swaddles her in the toweling, arms tight to her small body.
"You are gigantic pain the ass," he says to her.
"Ath."
"Yup, ass."
"Ath, ath, ath, aaaath." It sort of almost translates. And it's a far worse word in Sebacean.
Chiana gives in to her laughter, feeling like a teenager again. "Your mother's gonna be thrilled."
***
"You gonna eat that?" sounds pretty much the same in Sebacean as it used to in Nebari when she first started out with Nerri.
D'Argo goes a little slower with the second plate, enough so that Chiana can see that he isn't really inhaling the food. She still doubts that he's either chewing or tasting it, and she wonders at his ability to compartmentalize his mouth, to eat and speak clearly at the same time.
His sister on the other hand, picks each single tekti between her finger and thumb and inspects it before putting it into her mouth, or elsewhere.
Without a pause in his chewing, D'Argo reaches over to pinch the girl's nose, squishing the soft tekti on its way up her left nostril. He wipes the mash from her lip as she bangs out her frustration. "Peace, what did Mommy say about nose-peas?"
"Do it myself!"
"Only if you put 'em in your mouth."
Chiana watches them, feeling the sorrow swell and ease down again. So much hope in a name like that, with so many ghosts around them. She's glad they didn't name the child after another dead friend. "So this girl, she's at the telacademy?"
"She was. Now she's in the residential program."
"The one you just got into."
D'Argo's brow furrows, darkening the pale grey of his eyes. "Doesn't matter."
Peace tweaks another tekti between delicate digits and offers it to her brother.
"Sure it matters."
D'Argo shrugs, takes the tekti and tucks it under his plate. Peace repeats the process.
"Mom said no. So it's no. Arguing with her is like banging your head against the side of the prowler, painful and pointless."
"That's a direct translation from your dad."
He grins, the expression quirking his mouth, lighting up his eyes. She's willing to bet that girl at the telacademy has whole volumes in her head devoted to that smile.
"Without the swearing, yeah."
"And he agrees. That you shouldn't go?"
He looks back down at his plate, the outer edges of which are now surrounded by bits of tekti. "In your mouth, Peace. Gimme a break here, kid."
He bites his lower lip. "He's um, not up for arguing with her about this. She..." he tilts his head at the little girl. "A lotta arguments stopped around the time she was born. Before then, we'd been talking about it, planning out when I'd be old enough, how much time it'd take to convince Mom that I could go away for awhile."
Chiana feels incredulous on the kid's behalf. But then, she'd run from her sires when she was younger than D'Argo is now. She wonders, briefly, what would have happened if there'd been anyone in her world besides Nerri who had loved her as much as Crichton and Aeryn love their children. If it would have made any difference in her choices.
"So you got in, and Aeryn said no, and there's a girl there you like, and you're just letting it go. Just like that."
Goddess help her, Aeryn really is going to kill her. The spark of pleasure and fear lights low in her belly. She's not ashamed to admit she's missed that feeling.
Peace is clearly through with her dinner. Instead of offering her brother bits of food, she's now dropping them on the floor, giggling when they bounce. The DRDs whir up behind her and she begins to drop the bits on to them, laughing when their pincers reach up to catch the falling food before it hits them.
"Yeah," D'Argo says, "That's how it is."
Chiana shovels the last forkful into her mouth, chewing and thinking. Peace yawns, head rocking backward with the vehemence of it. D'Argo pushes soggy remnants of grolack around his plate.
Anniversary, Pilot said. Chiana remembers the firefight, and she also recalls enough about Earth to know that the boy's day of birth is a big deal for Humans. She slaps the table, breaking him out of his glum study. "You need fun."
"Fun?"
She laughs and Peace giggles along with her. "You say that like you don't know what it means."
He sets his mouth. "I know what it means."
"You do, huh?" She leans over the table at him. "Ever had any?"
He looks angry as he blushes, inferring a narrower meaning than she'd meant.
Ah, dren, that too? What was it with virginal Crichton boys? Were they all saving it up for something? Or did his folks keep such a tight leash on the boy that he never had the opportunity to play?
There were cute young girls down on the planet below right now, at the game parks and the zipi-bars. There was the sweet genius Ikeni-something in the residential program, where a room probably waited for D'Argo just down the corridor.
And here he is, stuck with a hyper narl on his own anniversary, sixteen cycles to the day when he came squalling into this life in the middle of a firefight. His cheeks cooling, he shovels the last forkful of soggy grolack into his mouth.
She feels indignation on his namesake's behalf, and she makes a decision. No way was there going to be a young buck of a D'Argo alive in this universe who'd never had fun, who'd never wrestled and rolled with a girl or two, preferably at the same time. It was a crime against the Luxan's memory. She'd solve it right now if she wasn't "Auntie Chi".
"There's a big gap in your education that we're going to close, you and I." Chiana announces as she stands. "From now on, I'm gonna be your chaperone."
D'Argo crosses his arms. "Aren't chaperone's supposed to keep their charges from having fun?"
"That's the story." She walks around to his side and sets her hip against the table. "But you and I will know better, won't we?"
He looks up at her from under his brows, wary and hopeful. He's a hybrid creature of the boy she knew and the man he'll be, pent-up and uneasy. The only time she's ever felt a siring instinct is in relation to this boy, and what he needs right now is something she can give him whether his parents want it or not.
His world isn't big enough for him any more, but there's a whole universe out there waiting for him. He needs off of this ship so he can grow bigger, so he can stretch out and become that man she can see folded up inside.
"We'll even get you into the program, D'Argo. I've got a plan."
***
"This is a really bad idea."
He shoves diapers and small clothes, soft and sturdy, into his rucksack. Peace is sprawled on his bed, thumb in her mouth, hair ruffed and rumpled, sleeping like the dead.
"She'll be fine. We'll all be fine. And more important, we're going to have fun."
He shakes his head. He's got a change of underwear tucked into the top of the bag, a shaving kit and some scent that she took from Crichton's quarters. It smells masculine and warm, spiced, reminds her of the way men smell when they've been partaking in sun and honest exertion. A clean scent. "You're sure we can get back before they do?"
What sort of adolescent worries this much about getting into trouble? On the other hand, it hadn't taken much effort to convince him to go with her. He's straining against the bonds put on him by his parents. She figures they have their own rebellious streaks to blame for their son's attitude. "Absolutely. There's nothing to worry about."
He thrusts Goober at her.
"If she wakes up without it, she'll scream like an Interon having a really bad day."
Chiana gingerly takes the doll. She'd rather leave Peace here, tucked into her little playroom, guarded by DRDs, but both Pilot and D'Argo had nixed that idea. "She'll be good," D'Argo had added, picking up the little girl to take her away from the dinner table. Peace had wrapped her legs around his waist, nestled head on his shoulder and promptly fell asleep. "She likes to be around noise and people."
A man with a child would be a draw, but he was still a boy and she didn't want the girls scared away. "Well, she and I will get to know each other then."
D'Argo had looked dubious, but he'd also started packing.
He shoves a blanket, water, juice, dried cereal, crackers and a packet of mashed tekti into the bag, which now bulges like a wylar's belly. "If we're gonna go, we should go now."
Chiana grins at him and picks up the little girl. Peace scrunches her face, little hands digging at her eyes, but once her head settles in the crook of Chiana's neck, she drifts back off to sleep before they've made their way to the bay.
***
"Young adult, holiday." She tells the concierge at the structure where she's docked her ship.
"Species preference?"
"Sebacean friendly."
"Special requests?"
She looks to D'Argo, his sister riding on his hip and yammering in his ear. "Why's th' lady sparkly, D?"
"That's her skin, Punk. She's Delvian."
"Cannai be Delbian, too?"
"No, Punk, you and I are kinda Sebacean."
"Cannai be sparkly?"
"If you're good, maybe."
"Goober doesn't wanna be sparkly."
"That's a surprise."
"Goober's a boy n' boy's aren't sparkly."
"No?"
Peace turns solemn, fingers caressing Goober's remnant of hair. "You can be sparkly if you want, Dee. I say so."
"That's big of you, Punk."
Girl wakes up with her engines running. Chiana turns back to the concierge, "The only request is fun."
Now Peace is tucked into a cafe booth between Chiana and a garden wall, standing with her Goober clutched to her chest and her eyes wide. For now, she's content to stare rapturously at the crowded tables all around them, soak in the night atmosphere of the commerce city.
Across the table, D'Argo sips nervously from his straw and fiddles with the city map she got from the concierge, keyed for the interests of a young Sebacean looking for fun.
Chiana watches him play with his drink and knows that she'll have to be as gentle and sneaky with him as she will with his parents. Unlike Peace, he isn't soothed by noise and people. He looks ready to bolt. "What I figure is, we'll start off slow and build from there."
"What are we gonna do with Punk?"
Chiana reaches over and taps him on the forehead. "We're not here tonight to party; we're here to scheme. So pay attention."
He shifts up from his slouch a bit, unable to squelch all of his incipient grin.
"I'm your chaperone, right? And we're going to have a nice walk around town and maybe some dinner--"
"Dinner sounds good."
Chiana thought that it might. "After that we'll do something fun for Peace and then we'll go back up to Moya. We're here tonight to scout the place out, find the good spots for when we come back down without the narl."
***
It turns out that Peace should come with a leash, so after the second harrowing chase through the street crowd Chiana hires a chair and driver for a few arns and D'Argo scours the map for likely hot spots. He saves the best for last, embarrassed and frustrated when he mentions it, and Chiana could almost smack him for being so...so…
So frelling convinced that the situation is hopeless.
"So you're saying the telacademy is based here?"
"No, they aren't really based anywhere." He sketches gestures as he talks, his fully grown hands long in the fingers and square in the palms. "The Free Sebacean Telacademy is an education cooperative spread out through most of the breakaway colonies, allowing scattered populations and mobile people like us to combine and share their knowledge and res--"
"Yeah, yeah." Chiana urges him toward the point.
"The Academy also partners with merchants and institutions all over the place to provide equipment, materials, residential programs," D'Argo scratches the back of his neck, adding in a thwarted murmur, "social opportunities."
Chiana falls back against the bench with a hard sigh. "I've been busting my mivonks here talking about fun and you didn't think to mention this?"
He doesn't meet her eyes when he shrugs. For a moment Chiana just looks at him, holding tight to the back end of Peace as she leans out the side of the rickshaw.
He clings to the absence of hope, steeling himself against the disappointment he knows is there. Why bother? Well, if you don't bother, how can you ever get what you want? She wants to shake him but she doesn't bother.
"Dinner," she says, bridging the awkward moment with a pat on his knee, "Dinner, toy store, home. Sound like a plan?"
"Yeah, I guess."
The flimsy the map is printed on is biodegradable, and she sees that the sigils of the telacademy's local lounge are faded, the material soft from being under D'Argo's warm thumb for arns. She taps the middle of the map. "Pick a place and tell the driver. I'm hungry now, too."
***
The restaurant is in an open air courtyard strung with lights, tiny twinkling stars that prove irresistible to little fingers. Peace is surprisingly nimble, up on the table bouncing for the lights faster than Chiana pull her back. Fortunately the lights are too high for her to grab, and her brother hefts her up, slinging her under his arm. She giggles and kicks, reaching up.
"She likes the lights," he shrugs, apologizing to the waiter who's gazing at the dusty footprints on the table with something close to horror.
"Doesn't she ever stop?" Chi asks, empathizing with the waiter. For a number of reasons, they'd determined to stop with D'Argo, what kind of cave 'shrooms made 'em decide to have another kid?
"Nah, not so much. She's like on of those wind up toys, goes and goes and goes until she crashes out. There's no in-between with her."
His affection shines through as Peace settles into her chair, head tilted up to the lights. "Mom thinks she could be a pilot, that she's got the balance and the concentration."
The resentment there is slight, but acrid.
"So why this place?" She knows better than to let males wallow in their misery. The blush staining his cheeks gives her the answer. She's not surprised.
"Dormitories?"
"Um," he stammers, "across the street. Faculty stays in the hotel connected to this restaurant."
"You could call her while you're here."
It isn't the blame, but the way his mouth curves tells her that she hit upon the right thing. He shakes his head. "If we come back, maybe. But not tonight."
"Why not?"
He sets his mouth hard, pokes at the ice in his glass. "Because what's the point? If I get to see her tonight, and that's it? Why bother?"
She remembers the fatalism of adolescence, the utter hopelessness of the world around her. But in her world, the hopelessness had been real, not perceptions of unfairness. Still, that doesn't lessen his pain.
Chiana waves to the waiter. "Two raslaks--hot--and juice for the narl."
"Palma juice," D'Argo adds. "Without the seeds."
The raslak warms her from head to toe and D'Argo occupies Peace with a stylus and some flimsies. She mostly draws on the clear surface, adds her scribbled signature to the tablecloth.
The rickshaw driver gives them a weary wave when the spill back out of the restaurant and D'Argo stands still for a microt, gazing over the top of the conveyance towards the middle of the smoothshine building opposite, eyes lingering on the top level. He gets in beside Chiana and hooks his hand firmly to the waistband of Peace's jumper as the cart takes off at a steady clip.
***
"Unified theory?" she asks, "Isn't that a little... primitive?"
The toy store is filled with delicately shaped structures, castles and prisms and wagons, dolls of every species and smooth, colorful blocks with a multitude of alphabets. A fairy tale world for the half-motra set. Peace has put her hands on nearly everything, giddy with the colors and textures. She presses a series of buttons that cause a small globe to light up and spin, shooting out light and painting pictures on the wall to an eerie, mournful dirge.
"No, it's not the kind of stuff dad studied." He grins, cheeky, one upping his old man. "It's theory in a whole new league, stuff that relates to FTL and to cosmic theory, black holes, wormholes, tesseracts, that kind of thing."
She cocks her head. "You're kidding right."
"No it's so cool, the way space bends, the way our perceptions of the continuum have changed. The Pathfinder people have finally opened up about some of their findings."
She's speechless. How much have they told him? A glimmer of insight hits her and she rubs her eyes, tired suddenly. How much haven't they told him is the question.
"Or," he says, sly and sweet. " I could join up with the Breakaway Colonies, be a pilot."
"Playin' both of your folks against the middle?"
"No." His eyes cloud briefly and he shuffles the load of toys in the crook of his arm, bright jars of sparkly goop clashing with the grim expression that passes over his face. "Mom, she doesn't think I have the skills to be a combat pilot."
That must have hurt, Aeryn's brutal honesty barely tempered with her love. It must have felt like a betrayal. "What do you think?"
"I dunno, she's the expert, been training pilots for the past few cycles. Mostly I think she's just being a worrywart, and..."
"And being Aeryn?"
He nudges her again, shuffling and a little rambunctious. "Yeah," his eyes drop down, scanning quickly and the humor flees.
"Chi, where's Peace?"
***
They scour the floor they're on but can't find her, and D'Argo's taken on a dark-eyed pallor of guilt that makes Chiana even more nervous. "So she's not right here, this place has ten floors, she could have wandered up or down, we just keep looking is all."
"Up, she would have gone up." As soon as he speaks he's off toward the ramp to the next floor/age level.
The colors aren't so bright on this floor, and there are less patrons to slow them down. D'Argo and Chiana alternate their shouts of "Peace".
A distant wail of "Deeeeee!" sends both relief and fresh fear washing through Chiana, and she darts through the aisles just a step behind D'Argo at a dead run.
D'Argo shouts his sister's name as he sprints, and the responding "Dee!" is broken in the middle by sobbing breaths.
Chiana slams into him as he stops in a blink, grabbing his arm to keep from rebounding back onto her eema.
"I'm so glad you found her, sir."
She ducks from behind D'Argo and when she spots the store security guard her gaze has to travel a disturbing height to encounter the being's face. Zenetan clan tattoos like the shadows of hatch marks on rough hewn cheeks. Still. She whispers hard in D'Argo's ear, "Ma'am."
He flicks his eyes to her and then back to the guard. "Officer, where did you find her?"
Peace squirms ineffectually in the guard's iron grip, her face as blotched as her captor's, tear-streaked and rosy-pink. "Chi! Chi-momma! Deee!" She drops her Goober as she stretches down toward her brother, but there are two other guards now and Chiana hooks her fingers in D'Argo's waistband like she did with Peace, keeping him from doing anything stupid.
"We were worried sick about her," Chiana steps forward, sidling into the main guard's personal space and craning her neck upwards in supplication. The guard's belt buckle is at the normal height for a door-knocker, but bigger. "Thanks to you, she's safe and sound; how can we repay your kind assistance?"
Chiana was willing to offer anything at this point to get both of her charges back to the ship and off-planet again; despite a rough few monens she's flush with cash. As for anything else she could offer, well, it wouldn't be the first time even if it was the first time in ages.
The security guard stands there, oblivious to the kicking squirming narl in her arms (at least, Chi's operating under the assumption of female; Zenetan males are her size and weedy), studying Chiana as if weighing her offer. "You don't look like this child's sire."
D'Argo pulls her back a step. "She's not; she's a family friend."
"So are you this child's sire?" One of the other guards is Sebacean, and he snickers.
"I'm her brother."
"Ident papers?"
D'Argo's ears turn an interesting shade of maroon, highlighting the velvet hairs that line the outer curve of shell. "Not with me."
"I see." The guard glances to her assistants with a sigh. Chiana gets the feeling they could have worked something out if there hadn't been witnesses. "Then we shall have to verify your claim by genetic assay before we can release the child to your custody."
With that, the guard turns and leaves the showroom floor. The two assistants each take Chi and D'Argo in hand and march them behind the boss.
Peace's shoe is untied, and when she can't turn around to see D'Argo she starts kicking the guard again, sending the shoe flying back into Chi's hasty catch.
"I'm in deep fucking dren, Auntie Chi."
She whispers back, "There something 'bout Punk I don't know?"
"No, she's my sister. And being my sister I know she's gonna spill the whole story to the folks when we get back."
"Don't worry about that part, okay? We'll spring her free, pay for our haul of goodies and be home on Moya in less than an arn. It's all in how you play it afterward, trust me."
The toy emporium was a tony operation through and through, and Chiana isn't surprised to see that their set-up for lost child verification is posh as well, a small cozy room tucked between the restrooms and the management office. Even the straps on the little narl chair for Peace are padded with the same plush fabric as the rest of the furniture.
"Deee?"
Chiana is glad to see that the girl isn't crying anymore; as long as she can see D'Argo, she seems cool with whatever happens. He's set into a chair just out of reach of Peace, and his guard lays out the boy's forearm along the thick padded arm of the chair.
The large guard doesn't strap Peace in, she sits on the desk with the girl tucked tight into her arms instead. Probably safer than trying to wrestle a wily narl.
Chi's pushed into a seat and her guard pulls a piece of tech out of the desk, punching buttons on the face of it as he strolls back to D'Argo. So far, so good, it has the feeling of routine.
"Gooberchi?"
Chiana slowly stands, offering the ragged drannit toy to the girl without rousing any of the guards. "Here you go, Peace."
D'Argo rolls up the sleeve of his shirt, and Chiana realizes that the sigils on the front are for the Free Sebacean Telacademy.
"Make'em sparkly?" Her eyelashes are still wet with tears but she's accepted the presence of the guard with an uneasy smile.
"Yeah, we got the make'em sparkly stuff, too."
D'Argo lets out a small hiss as the guard takes a sample from his arm.
"Chi, make'a lady sparkly?"
Chiana offers an embarrassed smile to the guard. At least the kid didn't call her a guy like her brother did. "I don't think it's part of her uniform."
The Sebacean guard is surprisingly gentle when he grasps Peace's arm and straightens it out, setting the narrow end of the component on her little bicep. He even shields her face from the sight, and maybe for some narls that would have worked, but Peace has pilot reflexes in that tiny seed of a body.
And Peace is a biter.
So now half the Crichton-Sun clan is in quarantine.
Part 2/2 is here
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 06:13 pm (UTC)dude! dudes! I should say!
Frell! this is GOOD. The kids have their own personalities without going into detailed description; you get the sense that Peace is a 'miracle' during a bad time for John and Aeryn - enough so that D caught on -- that he's perceptive beyond reason for a teenager
don't know if I want to laugh or cry by the end of this! WOW!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-07 03:27 pm (UTC)you get the sense that Peace is a 'miracle' during a bad time for John and Aeryn - enough so that D caught on
Now you know the parameters of Project 2, heh.
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Date: 2005-04-06 07:18 pm (UTC)bitingGooberchitoydrannit! HEE!
am slightly miffed with parental units. we shall see. :-P
no subject
Date: 2005-04-07 03:28 pm (UTC)There's a reason the title refers to a John Hugh's flick, after all. I was stuck on "Sixteen Candles" (which I knew didn't really work), but Cranky came up with the fabulous "The Break-out Club" *pets title again*
no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 11:39 pm (UTC)this is eloquent and remarkable. you've imbued the characters with a sense of time and deep connection. you both write these characters so true and clear. really, it's like reading an episode, it's that good.
bwahaha! and quarrantine. that's perfect. hee!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-07 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-07 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-07 01:02 am (UTC)Punk moves more of her body out from behind her brother's leg. "Goober sings! Goober sings and goes poop!"
D'Argo sighs, soul-weary and embarrassed.
Peace turns solemn, fingers caressing Goober's remnant of hair. "You can be sparkly if you want, Dee. I say so."
"That's big of you, Punk."
So many excellent lines. This is terrific. The kids are so clearly drawn, and the interaction feels completely real. Aunty Chi's reason for the visit isn't known, but I get a vibe that something's happened to make her seek refuge with her Moya family.
Bravas to you both!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-07 03:31 pm (UTC)