The Rest is Silence

Notes: This was written for cretkid as her request in our very own Pilot/Moya Introspection, Agony, and Ecstasy ficathon. The title is courtesy of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 5, scene 2. Beta props and thanks to Eva. Drive-by review shout-outs to Agent Rouka, Kaz, Carole, and Susan. As always, all mistakes remain mine.

Rating: PG

Setting: Just after TWWW

Spoilers: Through that episode

Warnings: Can't think of a single one.

Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. It all belongs to Henson, et.al. No copyright infringement intended. No money being made.

---

You glide through the inky void, alone, cocooned in starless black as a biting cold creeps through you, keen and cutting, carving a valley of numbed indifference through your very core.

Efficacy demands triage and time to endure; and you have neither resources nor energy to spare.

So you assess exigencies, examine collateral, marshal reserves, and direct what meager stores you can summon through the haze that still clouds your senses toward recuperation and reorientation.

You focus your attention internally, redirect the DRDs and listen as they reconnoiter and reassure.

All secondary systems have long since been shut down. Only vital ones on necessary tiers pull at your consciousness.

You feel the disconnect like a phantom ache that ghosts through living walls as a lingering sense of loss whispers deep within your sense memory.

You’re wrapped in a shroud that smothers almost like a living death.

Silence roams the corridors as Pilot sleeps, the healing already begun. The roiling torrents of rage, guilt, grief, fear, and shame that have been flowing like a toxin throughout you have finally begun to recede.

Now there is no shared consciousness, no voice communing. Free and flying, the closest to wild that you will ever be, you take solace in the soothing murmurs and gentle humming along your neural fibers as you slip through space.

You bank gently, a slow, wide, sweeping, arc that allows you to find comfort in the simple stillness that washes through you, over you, and lose yourself in a sea of tranquility that you have kept hidden deep in memory.

You’ve never been alone before. A daughter, part of a pod, bonded, captive, mother to Talyn. For now you’re content to simply be.

It’s early in the sleep cycle and the crew, strangely silent and subdued, has withdrawn to the corners of their lives.

You don’t care where or why, only that they’ve gone and are quiet. You can find them if you need to or want to, but you don’t.

You’re looking for the only one you wish to see.

You stretch your senses past muted junctions, down darkened, branching corridors searching for her. And as you do, you remember Velorek, hear his voice, comforting and soothing, so much like the human’s. You understand why Aeryn cared for him.

You’ve always felt her as more than just an echo of Pilot. She knows what it is to be trapped by the Peacekeepers. To have choice suddenly where before there had been none.

The control collar on both of you had chafed. It’s something you share.

It is not easy to be in service.

She has never been alone before. A daughter, part of a crèche, a unit, bonded and captive, surrogate to Talyn, child of her heart and soul.

The irony is not lost on you. It’s Aeryn that you trust.

Dead air echoes loudly against dim, dull walls as tendrils of consciousness range and reach, sweeping and seeking through empty, hushed hallways.

The effort leaves you vaguely disoriented, but you focus, know intrinsically where you will find her.

You briefly wonder what will be there when you reach your destination.

She is exactly where you knew she would be.

Hidden, exposed, cut off, weary beyond her ability to cover, you feel her exhaustion as you slide into her cell. Isolated, she lies curled in the corner, her own non-vital systems shut down, protected, as she tries to wrap the wounds that still weep with shredded remains of dignity and self.

You’ve come to offer what you can, the only way you can.

You hum gently; raise the ambient temperature surrounding her space. The floor warms imperceptibly beneath her, walls glow in amber half light. You know she understands, can feel her settle more comfortably into you.

You both understand the need to serve and protect. And that’s what you will do.

For her. For yourself.

The rest is silence.