Farscape Fic: Chicken Soup
Title: Chicken Soup
Fandom: Farscape
Characters: Crichton & Aeryn
Rating: PG
Setting: Some time after "The Flax" in season 1
Word Count: 1,498
Summary: Aeryn discovers that Crichton is ill.
Author's Notes: This was written for the help_haiti lightning round for amilyn . I wasn't sure how this would turn out since I haven't written for this fandom in years. But given how I tripled the word count that I originally offered, I shouldn't have worried. I didn't have a beta, so all mistakes are most definitely mine.
Chicken Soup
"Crichton? Crichton where are you?"
"Here Aeryn," his gravely voice echoed from his quarters.
Aeryn cocked her head slightly, unsure of what she'd heard. Certainly she had heard Crichton's groggy early-morning voice, but this was something different. She poked her head inside his room and found him still in bed. "We missed you at breakfast. Why are you still asleep?"
Crichton groaned and turned his sweat-covered face toward the door. "Not asleep. Sick," he croaked.
She stared at him, fear barely hidden in her eyes. "This...looks like the start of the living death. And that is not acceptable, Crichton."
"No," he shook his head, then winced at the pain it caused. "Not the living death. My species doesn't have a heat problem, remember? It's just a fever."
"A fever?"
"Yeah, my body's way of killing off whatever bug I caught."
She knelt by his bedside and felt his head. "Your temperature is usually lower."
"Ain't that the truth. I’ve had a higher fever before, but this still sucks. Could you help me to the shower? That would help, I think."
Aeryn nodded, helped him out of bed, and began the slow walk to the shower with her arm around his waist. "What are your symptoms?"
"Fever, sore throat, and runny nose. Never thought I'd miss Kleenex so much."
"Miss...what?"
"Well, it's for your nose. What do you wipe your nose with when you're sick?"
"I don't know; I've never needed to. Why weren't you inoculated as a child against viruses?"
He chuckled. "I was, but nothing for this end of the universe. I suppose all those vaccines for the mumps and measles won't do me much good out here."
"I suppose not. We should get you some inoculations though, for the future."
"Amen to that." He turned on a stream of cool water and turned to her before climbing into the shower. "Would you mind grabbing some pants and a shirt for me?"
"Of course," she said and hunted for his clothing. She tried to ignore the tight feeling in her stomach. It wouldn't help anyone to be afraid for Crichton. Besides, he wasn't anything more than a comrade. Or was he? She tried to control her mind and not remember the time they had shared together while trapped by the Flax. The moment when they kissed…. She brushed it aside. It hadn't meant anything. She focused on the task at hand and picked out a black t-shirt and a pair of white pants and returned to Crichton.
"Thank you," he said gratefully.
She turned around and waited for him to change. "How long are humans usually sick?"
"I'd say usually about a couple of solar days. What about you? How long are Sabaceans usually sick?"
"We don't usually get ill. I did once, as a child."
"And what happened?" Crichton asked as he dried his hair with a towel.
"I was sent to the medical bay and spent the afternoon in their care."
"Just the afternoon? Really?"
"Yes."
"And what did you do there? Sleep?"
"I was told that my illness did not require sleep and after giving me an injection, the personnel instructed me to read the database of Peacekeeper heroes."
"I see," he said. "Would you mind helping me back to bed?"
"Not at all."
"Is that when you learned about Durka?"
She paused before answering. "I'd heard about him but that is when I got to learn about him in depth. In fact, when I broke my leg during a training exercise I spent a few solar days reading more about him."
"Ouch, I broke my leg when I fell out of a tree and it hurt like hell. Did you cry?"
"I was taught soldiers do not cry that day."
"Oh...that must have been hard."
"It was necessary," she said coldly.
"For a little girl to be told not to cry after she broke a bone? Sounds harsh to me. Especially given how much it hurts...it's okay to cry because of that."
"It shows weakness," she replied uncertainly.
They continued on in silence until they reached his bed. He lay down gratefully and pulled up the covers.
"You know what I miss most right now?"
"Kleenip?"
He chuckled, "No, not that. Whenever I was sick my mother used to make me chicken noodle soup. Not soup from a Campbells’ can, but real, honest-to-goodness soup. With carrots, celery, chicken, noodles...she always made the best soup."
"All we had was nutritional fluids."
His eyes drifted shut. "Sounds awful."
"It was," she assured him and ventured a smile. "I'll let you rest while I ask Zhaan to fix you up something."
"Thank you, Aeryn, I appreciate it."
She paused for a moment in his doorway. “Crichton, what exactly is chicken noodle soup?”
He cracked open an eye and looked at her. “Well, chicken is a bird, carrots are a root vegetable, celery is…well, it’s a green vegetable. And noodles are just…noodles. Does that help?”
She nodded and quickly left the room leaving a bewildered Crichton staring after her.
~*~
Crichton awoke to the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside his quarters. They were quick at first, but then they stopped all together as if someone was debating whether or not to proceed. Then he heard the person take a step and stop again.
"Aeryn? Is that you?"
Sheepishly, she appeared in the doorway with a bottle in one hand and a covered bowl in the other. She set both on the floor and knelt by his bedside. "How are you feeling?" she asked, placing a hand on his forehead. "Your head is cooler."
"Yeah, I don't feel nearly so warm. I think sleeping helped...well, at least it helped the fever. Did Zhaan whip up some magic?"
"She made you some medicine, if that's what you mean." Aeryn handed him the bottle. "Drink half of that now and the rest in about four arns."
He took a swig from the bottle and made a face. "Well, it's good to know that some things stay the same. Medicine tastes just as awful here as it does on Earth."
Aeryn took the bottle from him and set it back on the floor. She hesitated for a moment, then uncovered the bowl and handed the cloth to Crichton. "You may want to sit up for this."
"What is it?" he asked, curious.
"You require nourishment," she replied matter-of-factly. "And I thought this might be to your liking."
He took the bowl and sniffed it. "Smells good, but what is it?"
She studied the floor instead of looking at his face. "It's chicken soup. Or rather, as close as one can get to chicken soup out here. It has some dried meat we had, a root vegetable, a green one, and noodles. Zhaan helped me with the spices. She believes the ingredients will help you recover."
He took a sip of the broth and grinned at her. "That's exactly what chicken soup is supposed to do." He reached over and squeezed her hand. "Thank you."
"I would have done it for any of my shipmates. I will need you if the Peacekeepers find us again. It is tactically prudent for you not to be ill."
"Just the same, you didn't have to make me anything. But you did and I appreciate it. And even if you do think the only reason you did it was to be 'tactically prudent', I have to tell you something. No one besides my mother has ever done this for me. And even though finding a can of Campbells would be difficult in the Uncharted Territories, you could have just handed me a plate of foodcubes. So thank you, Aeryn."
She met his gaze and allowed a flicker of a smile to grace her lips. It was more than a concern for a shipmate which had prompted her to make his soup. But she would never admit that to him. She watched him savor a bite of 'chicken' and allowed herself to feel the warm glow of happiness.
"C'mere," he said, patting the bed beside him. "Tell me more about being a kid on a Peacekeeper ship. Like...did anything hilarious ever happen during training?"
Aeryn sat on the bed and allowed herself to relax. "There was this one time, during survival training, when Sylia fell into a nest of beetles and began screaming bloody murder. Everyone thought she was going to die."
Crichton chuckled, "Sounds like the time I pushed my sister, Olivia, into an ant pile. Then what happened?"
"We got her out and spent the next quarter arn picking beetles out of her hair and telling her how lucky she was that the instructor hadn't seen. I think she ended up being a tech...."
They spent the next arn in easy conversation, swapping stories until Crichton drifted off to sleep. Aeryn carefully covered him with the blanket before slipping out of his room with a light heart and a spring in her step.