Archive of Our Own ^beta

One — Surprise / Curiosity / Interest

John rounds the corner that leads to the galley, his back firmly to the wall. He pauses at the open door and scans the room.

The space is almost empty. Zhaan sits at the end of the table, staring absently out the window. Aeryn is standing at the central console, piling food cubes on a plate with an aggrieved expression. More importantly, there is no movement in the corners, along the walls, or under the tables; he spots no glowy circles, and he hears no squeaks or whirs.

The coast is clear.

With one last glance over his shoulder, John slips inside the room and makes straight for Aeryn.

She looks up at his approach and does a double take, her expression taking on a slightly alarmed cast. “Crichton,” she says, looking him up and down. “What—”

He grabs her arms and leans forward. “Aeryn.”

Her expression goes from alarmed to imminently-violent and he lets go immediately.

“Aeryn,” he says again, and glances around the room. Still nothing. “Have you noticed any… strange behaviors from the DRDs lately?”

Aeryn blinks. “Not from the DRDs, no,” she says slowly, giving him another pointed onceover.

“Ha, ha,” he says, aiming for a dry tone, but pretty sure his delivery is ruined by the way he keeps looking around the room. “Hilarious.”

Aeryn doesn’t follow that up with a snarky retort, instead opting to continue staring at him like he’s grown an extra head. If John is honest with himself, it’s maybe warranted — his clothes are disheveled, his hair is a mess, you could rob a bank with the bags under his eyes, and he keeps flicking looks around the room like he’s a squirrel who’s had too much caffeine. 

His question stands, though. “Nothing?” he asks again, keeping his voice low. “You didn’t notice anything?”

“Crichton,” Aeryn says, and glances towards Zhaan like she’s hoping the other woman will step in, “what is going on with you?”

He shakes his head and brings his hands up in quiet emphasis. “Not with me,” he whispers. “I’m not the one with the problem.”

Aeryn gives him a dubious look and leans away a little. That’s fair — he hasn’t had the chance to shower in a little while either. 

“John?”

John startles, and spins to find Zhaan watching him with a concerned expression.

“Are you alright?” she continues, her tone deliberately soothing.

John tries for a laugh, hoping to be reassuring. Based on Zhaan and Aeryn’s resulting expressions, he lands about fifteen miles off, possibly somewhere in the vicinity of highly concerning, instead. “Fine,” he says, and his voice breaks. “I’m— yeah. Totally. Fine.”

“Clearly,” Aeryn says, dry as desert sand.

John lets out a breath and, with one last look underneath the table, sits opposite Zhaan. He gestures at Aeryn to join them — and again when she doesn’t move — and she sits next to Zhaan, looking particularly unconvinced.

He takes a deep breath, leans forward a little, and says, “I think one of the DRDs is stalking me.”

There’s a short silence.

“One of the DRDs?” Aeryn repeats slowly. “As in, a specific one?”

He nods.

“Crichton, they’re identical.” She looks at him like he’s a particularly repelling foodcube. “What are you talking about?”

He shakes his head, realizes the movement is maybe a little too frantic, and tones it down. “No,” he says, pointing two fingers at her. “That one— That one’s special.”

“How is it special, John?” Zhaan asks, clearly trying to be conciliatory.

“It’s got… tape on it.” John gestures with his fingers, trying to represent the DRD’s stalk with tape sticking off the side. He stops when he takes in the way Aeryn and Zhaan are looking at him. He clears his throat. “I fixed it up when I got here. So it’s got tape now.”

Aeryn looks like she’d rather be on the other side of the window than here. Zhaan is smiling at him, but it’s more trying to placate your crazy old uncle than of course, John, you’re making perfect sense. 

“And you think it’s… stalking you?” Zhaan continues encouragingly.

“No.” John shakes his finger. “I don’t think it’s stalking me. I know it is.”

“Alright,” Aeryn announces, and makes to stand up.

John lunges across the table and grabs her wrist to keep her seated. “No!”

She glares at him and he lets go, but doesn’t straighten back up, instead staying half lying over the table. 

“Aeryn,” he says, and maybe he does sound a little unhinged, but he’s not slept properly in something like three days now. “Please. Just hear me out.”

“Crichton, they’re repair droids. They don’t… stalk.”

“This one does.” He lets his forehead thump against the table and closes his eyes. “Cross my heart.”

When he reopens his eyes, it’s to find Zhaan and Aeryn exchanging puzzled glances — damn translator microbes that can’t handle idioms. 

“Look,” he says, trying to seem reasonable, which is not an easy feat with three days old rumpled clothes and dry red eyes. “At first, it was fine. I fixed it up, it chirped at me, and it went to live its little… droid life.” He makes a vague wavey gesture. “But then. It starts showing up. All the time. When I’m working on my module. When I’m eating. When I’m walking around. It’s always —” and he plants two fingers onto the surface of the table —”there.”

There’s a pause.

“Over my shoulder,” John insists. “Just… lurking.”

“So it’s not… doing anything?” Zhaan asks slowly.

“That’s the worst part,” John says, and drags his hands over his face, elbows on the table. “It just… stares at me.” He makes circles with his thumbs and indexes and holds them in front of his eyes. “With those damn little… lights.”

“You’re a grown man, Crichton,” Aeryn says dryly. “I think you can take getting stared at.”

“Three days, Aeryn,” he says, turning wide eyes on her. “When I try to sleep? It’s there. When I try to eat. When I try to shower.” He points a finger. “I fell asleep working on my module this morning and when I woke up it was inches from my damn face.” 

Aeryn cocks her head. “Is that what that shrieking sound was, earlier in the maintenance bay?”

Yes. “No,” John says. “Focus. I’m telling you, that thing has gone rogue.” He leans back, raising his hands. “For all we know, it’s about to start killing us off, Terminator-style.”

Aeryn looks painfully unimpressed. “I think I can handle one DRD.”

“It’s got lasers.”

“Which, according to you, it isn’t even using.”

“Not yet it isn’t.” He crosses his arms on the table and leans forward again. “It’s— holy mother of—”

He flails backwards at the feeling of something brushing past his leg and topples out of his chair, landing painfully and embarrassingly backside to deckplate. The position gives him a perfect view of the DRD that’s now immobile underneath the table. Its two lights are fixed on him, one of its stalks wrapped in peeling electrical tape.

“See?” he yells at Aeryn, and scurries back and away. 

The DRD starts whirring its way forward, and John scrambles to his feet and up onto a nearby chair, crouching on it so his feet don’t touch the ground.

“Crichton—” Aeryn starts, sounding exasperated. “It’s just a DRD.”

John opens his mouth to retort something about how HAL was just a computer, but he’s interrupted by Zhaan’s quiet laughter. Both he and Aeryn turn to look at her. She’s smiling, one hand to her face as she watches the DRD.

“Zhaan?” John asks.

She laughs a little again, the sound breathy and light. “DRDs,” she says,” are controlled by their Leviathan. They’re independent to a degree, but Moya has the final say in their actions.”

“Right.” John isn’t sure where she’s going with this.

Zhaan turns a warm gaze on him. “You’ve only been with us for a few days, John, and, like all of us, Moya has never seen someone like you.” She smiles, and gives the DRD an indulgent look. “My guess is… She’s just curious.”

Slowly, John lowers his feet onto the floor. “Curious,” he repeats.

Zhaan hums in confirmation. “I’m sure you have nothing to be afraid of,” she adds, with a note of teasing in her voice. “She’s just observing you. Trying to understand you better.”

Aeryn mutters something indistinct about how there’s probably nothing to understand, but John ignores her, instead leaning over and reaching a hand towards the small bot. 

“Hey, buddy,” he says slowly, instinctively going for the tone he used with his dog as a kid. “Hey there. C’mere, come on.”

After a second of hesitation, the droid wheels forward with a faint whir, stopping an inch or so away from his fingers.

“You’re curious?” John asks, keeping his hand out. “There I am. ‘s just me.”

One of the DRD’s stalks twists up towards his face. 

“Yeah,” John says encouragingly. “That’s right. So maybe you can stop watching me while I sleep, and eat, and shower, and breathe, yeah? How about that?”

The DRD tilts a stalk to the side in an uncanny impression of a golden retriever — if a golden retriever had mechanical stalks topped by lights instead of floppy ears. It chirps, and, a second later, a compartment opens and a small metal arm unfolds. The little articulated fingers at the end reach out towards John’s index and—

“Ow!” John snatches his hand back against the piercing snap of pain at the end of his finger. He inspects it only to find the tip bleeding from a small puncture wound. “What the hell, Speedy?”

Apparently satisfied, the droid folds the arm back into its compartment and wheels away with a chirp.

“Observe?” John repeats, shooting Zhaan a betrayed look. “Observe?”

Zhaan is clearly trying to hold a neutral face. Aeryn is making no effort of the kind, instead blatantly making fun of him with a snort.

“I suppose Moya is more curious than most,” Zhaan says eventually, not quite hitting her usual serene mark. 

John leans back into his chair. “Yeah,” he drawls. “Guess so.”

Two — Fear / Anxiety / Worry

Zhaan lies in bed, in the dark of her quarters, and feels the lingering echoes of Moya’s pain.

Since reaching the ninth level of the Seek, she’s had the opportunity to help and share in the pain of many beings: fellow prisoners, for the most part, of all origins and species. What she’s learned is that everyone experiences pain in a different way. Pain has its own specificity, its own unique sort of agony, which she discovers when another being accepts her help. It’s something she’s learnt to contend with, after cycles of practice.

And yet, somehow, Moya’s pain had still taken her by surprise.

It’s the vastness of it, Zhaan thinks. She’d known, of course, how large Moya is — but the scale of what she’d experienced when connecting with Moya hadn’t just been physical. There had been a physical component, of course, tied into a nervous system that spans milons; but there’d also been a depth of spirit, of awareness, that had turned the pain into something deep, something that had reached into the core of who Zhaan was as she’d tried to contain it within her own psyche.

Even now, arns later, Zhaan still feels aftershocks, ghostly echoes of the searing, twisting agony that had overtaken her earlier. It runs in sparks across her arms, along her legs, over her shoulders. Her very thoughts feel bruised.

She sighs, and brushes a hand against the nearest wall, feeling the gentle asperities on the surface. If the echoes survive within her, she barely dares imagine what they must feel like for Moya. The clorium had helped, certainly; it had most definitely been the only reason they’d managed to take off at all. But even with its anesthetic properties, even with the relief of the tracker being removed… The combination of the surgery and of the planet’s gravity must have been excruciating for Moya, and no doubt still lets itself be felt.

Against her fingers, Zhaan feels a faint vibration. She’d think she imagined it, if it wasn’t for the way the edges of her mind pick up a similar, gentle brush of contact.

She pauses, immobile but keeping contact with the wall. Her eyes close, and she brings her focus to that edge, the gently faded border that mingles with others’ during Unity, the part of her awareness she uses to attune herself to others’ pain and share it — but she doesn’t try to direct it, the way she normally would. Instead she just waits, and listens.

After a moment of stillness, the brush comes again, as gentle as the tide along the coast near the Delvian capital, with a careful edge to it.

Zhaan smiles. It is possible, on occasion, for the connection between the pa’u and the receiver to hold on temporarily. It’s a rare phenomenon, and most often, results from the receiver’s — typically unconscious — reluctance to let go of the bond. The pa’u, as initiator of the connection, can sever any lingering remnants if necessary.

Instead of breaking off the link, Zhaan allows it. She breathes, centering her attention in the way of the Seek, and opening her mind to Moya’s presence.

Again, the depth and width of Moya’s awareness takes her breath away. It’s not unlike plunging into an ocean, the ship’s consciousness surrounding her on all sides, continuing into fathoms unguessed at. Zhaan has no doubt that if Moya wished it, she could pull Zhaan down into the depths and drown her under its weight.

But she doesn’t. She stays still, surrounding Zhaan, pressing into her, but always careful, always gentle. Seeking…

Comfort, Zhaan realizes. There is no trace of the excruciating pain from earlier, but the fear remains, through the remembered crushing sensation of gravity, so unnatural for a ship that was never meant to breach atmosphere, through the memory of the moment where Moya had believed she’d never fly again. 

Zhaan breathes, deep and slow, and shifts so she can press her back to the surface of the wall. With the added surface, she can feel the faint, ever-present thrum of Moya’s running systems. It feels different than usual, more erratic and faster, with more of a wheeze to it. The mechanics escape her, but Moya is a living being, and like all living beings, she has a rhythm. In her fear, Moya seems to have lost her grasp on it.

Gently, with nothing more than the direction of Moya’s attention onto her own breathing, Zhaan brings it back into alignment. Slow, deep, and steady. 

In a gentle whisper, Zhaan starts a chant of the Seek — a litany of calm, comfort, and presence. The quietude it brings her keeps her even and, slowly, through the last threads of their link, seeps into Moya’s awareness to chase away remembered horror.

By the time Zhaan slips into sleep, Moya’s ambient hum has regained all its steadiness.

Three — Disgust / Revulsion / Repugnance

Rygel is having an excellent day.

Basking in his contentment, he makes his way through Moya’s tiers towards the galley. Cheer carries him, to the point where he feels inclined to hum. And why shouldn’t he? After a series of endless dreadful destinations and incidents, this ridiculous excuse for a ship has finally, finally brought them somewhere worthwhile.

He’d barely believed what he’d been seeing, when he’d seen the planet outside the viewport. As far as he’d known, Melorka’s ecosystem had been unique among the galaxy. But the deep brown of the atmosphere and the swirls of green clouds had been unmistakable: this little rock lost in the depths of the Uncharted Territories had the same properties as the skincare jewel of the Hynerian Empire. 

No one had wished to come with him to ground, citing supposedly toxic atmosphere, but that had been no matter. All the better, really, for it had allowed him to luxuriate in the bubbling, sulfurous mud pools to his heart’s contentment. 

And luxuriate he had, enjoying the restorative properties of the air and the terrain after far too long spent with drying skin and brittle hairs. He’d only conceded to return to Moya once D’Argo’s threats regarding leaving him behind had started being backed by Zhaan.

All the same, he finds himself in excellent spirits. Even over an arn after leaving the planet’s surface, the mud he’s thickly layered over his skin is still doing its work, bringing much needed hydration and suppleness. The general experience is a delight for the senses.

He turns the corner into the galley and finds himself face to face with Crichton, who startles back, windmilling to keep his balance. His face twists into a show of disgust, and he brings a hand to his nose.

“Rygel,” he says, and for once, even the complete lack of deference in the man’s tone doesn’t bother him — he’s having too nice a day. “You still haven’t washed that crap off?”

Rygel closes his eyes. “Why would I? The mud keeps its properties for arns. Days, if cared for properly”

“Days?” Crichton repeats. When Rygel opens his eyes, it’s to find him backing away slowly. “No way are you keeping that thing on you for days.”

“It rejuvenates,” Rygel clarifies affably.

“It stinks is what it does!” Crichton cuts off with a gag, wiping his tearing eyes with the back of his hand.

Lesser beings have, indeed, been known not to possess the sensitivity necessary to appreciate the delicacy of Melorkan muds.

Rygel sniffs in disdain. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I don’t need to understand, I need you to get rid of it.” Crichton gestures vaguely. “Pilot said even Moya hates the smell.”

Rygel scoffs. “What would they know of luxury? Now, excuse me—”

He zooms forward towards the inside, forcing Crichton to jump out of the way. Thankfully, the galley is otherwise empty, and he’s free to pile as many foodcubes on his lap as he wishes. His loot acquired, he takes off once again through the tiers, aiming for his quarters with the intention of having a delightful lunch, free from prattling. 

His plan however is interrupted when he finds his way blocked by an unmoving door in the middle of the tier.

Hm.

When it becomes clear the door will not budge, despite his clear presence, he turns back with a haughty sniff. “Rust bucket,” he mutters under his breath. “Stupid, useless yoltz—” He cuts himself off with a deep breath, taking in the comforting prickle of sulfur in his nostrils.

It’s fine. He’s having a good day, and no one will take that from him. There are other passages that lead to his quarters.

His cheery humming perhaps a little more forceful, he goes down a tier, and across, following another passage.

Blocked.

And so is the next one he tries.

And the next.

Aaaand the next.

Rygel frowns at the firmly shut door standing in his way, then grins. “You think you can trap me? Master strategist that I am?” He cackles, and, with careful manipulation of his hover chair controls, zooms through an open passage in the wall and into a maintenance conduit.

Try to shut a door in his face now.

He flies through the narrow conduit with ease, navigating turns and snacking on a food cube as he goes. He knows the way — he’ll be there within moments.

The conduit grows narrower, its walls smoother, and he slows with a frown. This… doesn’t look as he remembers it should look. 

He shakes his head. It’s probably nothing. Biomechanoids remake themselves as they go. It’s in their nature. 

Through the mud stuffed in them, his ears suddenly pick up a faint whine, coming from behind him. With an irritated click of the tongue, he turns to look for the source—

A wind powerful enough to rip a lesser man’s whiskers off hits him, sending him flying backwards, his engines not enough to compensate. With a squeak, he clings to his seat, doing his best to stay stable and sending foodcubes scattering to the wind around him.

It’s no use resisting: the current drags him further down the passage, sending flecks of mud flying off his skin. Worse, as he is led further, he can hear something, a rush and grumble that is getting louder and louder, and is excruciatingly familiar.

A glance over his shoulder confirms his worst fears: a few motras away, a thick curtain of rushing water falls from a vent in the ceiling in an unyielding, inescapable threat.

Rygel gasps. “No! How dare you! I am Dominar Rygel XVI, and I will not stand for this disrespect on the part of—”

Rygel considers himself particularly skilled at the art of weaving insults together. It requires a delicate balance, between the vulgar and the incisive, which he has an exceptional talent for striking.

Unfortunately, all the delicately lethal insults he attempts to direct to Moya are lost under a gurgle as he is guided underneath the water. By the time the flow ceases, he is soaked, out of breath, and completely devoid of mud.

So much for a good day.

Four — Sadness / Longing / Comfort

Aeryn sits on the terrace, watching the stars drift by through the protective forcefield.

They left Nam Tar’s lab behind a few arns ago, and the ship is quiet, everyone absorbed in their own thoughts following the disaster that was today. 

Aeryn forces a deep, calming breath, and flexes her fingers, testing their flexibility and agility. Following the injection of the serum, all of Nam Tar’s changes were reversed. The gray patches on her skin have disappeared, her digits have re-separated, and she once again feels like herself.

To a degree, at least.

The unfamiliar spiral that dragged her thoughts into disarray has quieted back down into the usual linearity; her memories are her own; her body responds to her commands, instead of becoming the cage that traps her in place.

But, all the same, something has changed.

At first, she thought it was just a lingering memory. Experiencing Moya the way Pilot did, as terrifying as it had felt, had been… indescribable. She’d known, peripherally, as a fact more than as something that she thought about, that pilots felt their Leviathans, that their bond extended far beyond a relationship of cooperation, and into the realm of shared existence.

But to feel it… She remembers the coursing of DRDs through Moya’s corridors like she could feel them skittering under her skin — remembers the hiss of hydraulic assists like her own joints, creaking with effort — remembers Moya’s presence, like a warmth at the back of her head. 

She knows the changes have been reversed; her thoughts are no longer deafened by Moya’s systems, her senses no longer heightened to the point of unintellegibility.

But nevertheless… She’d swear she can still hear Moya. 

She always could, of course. A Leviathan isn’t quiet. A biomechanoid like this, especially in flight, creates all sorts of sounds: engines and sensors and cooling systems and DRDs and more all have their own noises, which tangle together to create the ambient sound of a Leviathan flying through the emptiness of space.

But it’s almost like she can hear something more to those sounds; not quite an additional noise, but maybe something on the edge of turning into sound, hovering just beneath the hum of a Leviathan in flight, just over the vibrations of engines through deckplates. An intent, that lends itself to the background noise of the ship, and that is entirely Moya’s.

Aeryn traces the designs etched onto the deckplating beneath her. The sensation is nothing she could put into words, but it echoes in her head and through her chest, pulling and pushing in a way that feels… familiar. It takes her a moment to put a word to it.

Sad. The hum of the ship beneath her has a distinctly mournful quality. She’s certain of it.

Aeryn swallows and raises her hand, shifting on the metal. Comfort has… never been her strong suit. Peacekeeper teachings encourage the suppression of emotions not conducive to productivity, and any demonstration of comfort would have been seen as impardonable weakness. Still now, weekens after she was exiled, her first reaction is one of aversion.

But Moya’s quiet song of grief continues, and Aeryn… Aeryn wants to help.

“Moya?” Aeryn whispers, pressing her palm back down against the cool metal. 

Nothing happens. Feeling ridiculous and exposed and silly, Aeryn shakes her head and lifts her hand, wrapping her arms around herself.

But—

Something shifts in the Leviathan’s song. Barely perceptible, but different; a chord of intent, that Aeryn feels like eyes on the back of her neck.

She hesitates and, after a moment, speaks again: “Are you alright?”

Moya doesn’t communicate in words — Aeryn remembers that much. She doesn’t understand the concept of words per se, her language one that relies on ideas and connections in a way that can’t be phrased, that swirled around Aeryn’s mind like something both terrifyingly alien and comfortingly intuitive. But Aeryn knows that the connection she built with the Leviathan had gone both ways. Pilot, after all, has a language, and Moya understands him just fine.

Aeryn doesn’t remember how to translate her words into something Moya will understand; but she thinks, maybe, Moya will know how to read the concepts beneath them.

For a moment, there’s only the slow glide of stars above her and then, the song shifts again — a higher chord, a longer note, like the hiss of fresh air through vents. Reassurance.

Aeryn smiles and lies down, her back against the metal. “Are you sure?”

The chord comes again, and then changes, going up in a way that feels questioning.

Aeryn’s throat is a little tight. “I’m fine,” she says, staring up at the icy void of space.

There is no chord in response, but after a microt, the deckplating beneath her starts to warm, just enough to be comfortable.

Aeryn breathes the ghost of a laugh, a little rueful. Suppose that hadn’t been convincing enough. “I am,” she says again, and sighs. “Today was just…” She trails off, unsure if there are even any words that can describe it.

Thankfully, Moya doesn’t need words. The next chord vibrates against Aeryn’s spine, low and deep and something that could be mistaken for a course adjustment if she wasn’t paying attention.

But she is paying attention, and so she feels it as the tired agreement it is.

“Yes, you did have something of a day, too, didn’t you?” Aeryn whispers, thinking back to the other side of today’s debacle — arguments and despair and what Zhaan, D’Argo, and Rygel had done. For all Pilot would have tried to shield his pain from Moya, there is no way the Leviathan wasn’t distressed by the experience. 

A thrum of anger rises at the base of her throat. “I’m sorry you and Pilot had to go through that,” she says. “You should never—”

Her sentence is interrupted by a small shudder beneath her. Indulgence and resignation drift through the sound, diffusing some of Aeryn’s anger — but not all. 

“No,” Aeryn says, shaking her head reflexively. “It wasn’t right.”

Briefly, the thought crosses her mind of how bizarre Aeryn from even a few weekens ago would have found the idea of something not being right, beyond the metric of whether it was part of her orders or not. But her reflection is cut off when Moya’s mechanical humming turns again, this time veering into something deep and wrenching, like dry gears grinding against one another, like generators running on empty.

It’s longing — a longing so strong it constricts her lungs and stops her breathing and brings tears to her eyes. 

It’s familiar, something she experienced only a few arns ago; something that had driven her to sit in Nam Tar’s lab and allow him to stab a needle into her eye, against her best judgment.

She swallows past the knot in her throat and closes her eyes. “I know they wanted to go home,” she whispers. “But it doesn’t excuse it. It doesn’t excuse anything.”

The sound lightens, into something ambivalent and neutral, and then up into an interrogative again.

“Yes,” Aeryn admits. “I’d like to go home, too.” Her voice goes and it takes her several microns to continue. “I just don’t have one to go back to.”

It hurts more than it should. She’s known this from the moment Crais pronounced contaminated, the sentence irrevocable and complete. It hadn’t been just exile — it was a separation, a pronouncement that declared her unfit to exist, much less within a community. Even the hope of another settlement within the Uncharted Territories isn’t something she’d truly believed in; they existed, but she knew they’d never be home.

As for Crichton’s offer… It’s not something she can consider as real, no matter how earnest he might look when he makes it. 

A cool breeze of air drifts from the nearest atmosphere vent over her face, refreshing and soft as it sends a few wisps of her hair flying. Beneath Aeryn, the vibration steadies, deepens, until it sounds nothing more like the thrum of engines from a Peacekeeper command carrier.

Aeryn’s eyes prickle at the familiarity. This not-quite-sound, on the edge of a vibration, is the hum that surrounded her all throughout her childhood, from birth to graduation. Despite all the history it carries, it’s comforting like few things could be.

Moya’s meaning is clear — Aeryn does have a home: here, if she wants it.

“Thank you,” she says, and means it. Earlier, the perspective had seemed empty, lonely in a way she’d never considered.

But now, with a Leviathan trying to comfort her, and the stars overhead…

Staying doesn’t seem so terrible.

Five — Anger / Annoyance / Pettiness

“Just apologize already!” Crichton’s voice, already grating on a good day, does nothing to help D’Argo feel less annoyed.

He rolls his eyes with a grunt and turns away, back towards the viewport that spans the length of the bridge.

“John is right, D’Argo,” Zhaan insists, bent over the long-range sensor console. “We are running out of time. The Marauder is almost upon us. ”

“This is ridiculous,” D’Argo hisses through gritted teeth. His grip on the handle of his blade is steady, the weight of the weapon comfortingly grounding. “I am not going to apologize.”

Crichton speaks again, louder to be heard above Moya’s screeching alarms. “Then I suggest you get to whatever last rites the Luxons have because we are not going to make it if we don’t Starburst the hell out of here, right now—” His sentence is cut off when Moya is rocked by another tremor, forcing the three of them to cling to nearby consoles for balance.

More alarms trill. Another hull breach in the lower tiers, most likely.

With a grunt of frustration, D’Argo turns to the clamshell. “Pilot!” he barks. “What is taking Moya so long?”

Pilot’s voice, when it filters through the ambient cacophony, is insufferably prim. “I’ve told you. Moya is not communicating with me, and she refuses to Starburst.”

“Can’t you make her?”

“No.” And on that, Pilot cuts the transmission.

D’Argo lets out a roar of frustration and slams his fist into the nearest console with a satisfying crack. 

“No, man, come on!” Crichton sounds exasperated. “That’s what got us into this mess in the first place!” He reaches for D’Argo’s arm and pulls it firmly away from the console.

D’Argo snatches his arm free with a growl. “Don’t touch me.”

Crichton looks unfazed. “Or what, you’re going to kill me? You are already doing that. By not apologizing.”

“Moya is a ship,” D’Argo snaps. “She doesn’t need apologies to fly.”

“She does when you get mad and destroy her entire internal sensor console with your fancy sword,” Crichton yells back, gesturing at whatever remains of the console to their right. “All because you have a bone to pick with some random Peacekeeper captain—”

“He’s no captain—”

“— who happens to have a Marauder that can and is about to blast us out of the sky and decided to send us a transmission about it!”

“He is taunting my honor, Crichton.” D’Argo leans over Crichton, snarling at him. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“You’re right!” Crichton throws his hands up, and almost falls over when the ship rocks again. “I don’t understand! What I do understand is that the next time one of these missiles hits Moya, it’s bye bye for everyone.”

“D’Argo,” Zhaan calls, and gives him an insistent look when he turns towards her. “Please.”

Rage curls through his veins but with another roar and a reaffirmed grip on his blade, he reins it in. One deep breath, and then he forces the words through gritted teeth: “I’m. Sorry.”

For a moment, there’s only the sound of the alarms as they all hold their breaths.

The next, D’Argo feels the telltale hum and crackle of Starburst engaging. A flash, and the battlefield around them vanishes as they disappear into Starburst.

“Starburst successful,” Pilot’s voice announces over the communication interface.

“Good job, big man,” Crichton says in an exhausted breath, and claps him on the shoulder before walking out.

Zhaan gives him a small smile, and follows him out.

D’Argo closes his eyes and sighs.

+1 — Happiness / Joy / Love

Moya doesn’t tell Pilot everything.

He’s always known this, and it doesn’t bother him. From the outside, he knows the bond between a Pilot and a Leviathan is often misunderstood. The most common misconception is that which implies that a bonded pair share only one mind, in the most complete sort of cooperation there can be.

Pilot and Leviathan share their minds, it is true — but they retain their own all the same. They are two beings working in harmony, not a single melded entity.

He knows, from the stories he’s heard and other Leviathans and Pilots he’s encountered, that this connection is unique to each pair. Some edge closer to the complete sharing and openness of the common perception. Others are more closed off, complementary rather than synchrone.

He and Moya have struck a balance between those two extremes. Their awareness of each other is keen, keener perhaps than most. But all the same, they have their own minds, their own wills, and their own selves, and can keep things to themselves.

Pilot doesn’t keep much from Moya. He sees nothing that he’d not wish for her to know, aside, maybe, from pain, when he experiences it in a way that he can spare her. 

Moya is more secretive. It’s often that he finds his awareness blocked off from portions of her neural activity, or sensory input. It doesn’t worry him — why shouldn’t she get her privacy? — notably because he trusts her to convey anything of import. 

All the same, sometimes… Well, he can’t help a bit of curiosity. Never has been, really — it’s why he left to be bonded to a Leviathan in the first place.

This is one of those times. They’re navigating the quiet stellar waters of the Uncharted Territories, and the crew is quiet, occupied to their own devices. He doesn’t focus his awareness on them, mindful of their privacy, but he’s aware of their presence all the same: John and Aeryn in the maintenance bay, looking over John’s module; D’Argo in his quarters, meticulously cleaning his blade; Rygel, sneaking a foodcube in the galley; Zhaan, meditating on the terrace.

And Moya… Moya is occupied with something. 

He runs a casual scan over the main systems, making sure not to alert her. Nothing seems to be malfunctioning — no alarms are thrown, all systems are running as normal, and the DRDs are occupied with their tasks. Whatever it is that holds Moya’s attention, it is not mechanical in nature, nor is it something she requires his assistance with. 

That is all he needs to know, and yet his curiosity is piqued nonetheless. Not out of worry, nor out of nosiness, even. It’s just—

There’s a sensation, he realizes, sparkling along Moya’s neural center. It ripples and hums, through systems and parts, through tiers and decks. It echoes, at the very edge of his awareness, just beyond his reach, shielded by Moya’s decision to keep it to herself.

Pilot hesitates — but only for a microt.

He always has been too curious for his own good; and, really, what’s a glance going to do?

With a careful, gentle shift of focus, he brings his attention to Moya’s internal sensor network. It’s not directly tapping into her mind, but it allows closer proximity, shows him what her focus is on.

He’s not sure what he expected, but this isn’t it.

Aeryn and John’s laughter, echoing in the maintenance bay as John tosses a rag at Aeryn’s head.

The gleam of light reflecting off D’Argo’s blade with each sweep of cloth against metal.

Rygel’s delighted hums as he chews on three food cubes at once.

Zhaan’s chant, echoing gently through the plating of the terrace floor.

And around it all, the steady, easy hum of Moya’s presence. Content. Happy.

With a smile, Pilot withdraws from Moya’s sensors and turns back to his own occupations. Some things, after all, aren’t meant to be shared.