A Rainstorm of Stars

By Rebecca Helton
Copyright 1999

DISCLAIMER: Farscape and all characters/names mentioned are not mine--except for Elissa and Moya (you'll understand in a minute). No spoilers.

She loves to stay out in the rain.

Ever since we got here she goes outside whenever it rains, if only for a few seconds to just get her face wet. Other times she stands out there for fifteen minutes or more, letting her entire body get soaked. When she does that, I make sure I've got a cup of hot tea or cocoa waiting for her when she comes back inside; she hasn't developed a liking for coffee, but she took instantly to the other drinks.

Elissa often goes out there with her. Like most four-year-olds, she loves the rain--and mud puddles, too. Sometimes Moya, our golden retriever, whom we named after the Leviathan that was our home for almost five years, joins them. Most of the time, I stay inside. I like water as much as anyone else, but I don't usually go out into a rainstorm voluntarily.

The rain's stopped.

It wasn't much of a storm to begin with--almost a drizzle, really--and now it's over. There's a breeze out tonight that's quickly clearing the sky of clouds. I open Elissa's door a crack and look in to see our sleeping daughter, covers drawn up to her shoulders, the nightlight casting a pale yellow glow on her face. Moya's curled up on the rug near the foot of the bed; she raises her head slightly and looks at me as if to say, "I'll take care of her tonight." I smile and close the door.

A few moments later I'm stepping onto our backyard's patio. I come up behind Aeryn and gently wrap my arms around her waist. I don't mind the dampness of her clothes. She readily rests against me, sighing my name contentedly. We stare up at the stars.

The view isn't as vivid as it was from the Terrace on Moya. We have miles of atmosphere separating us from the stars here, while on Moya it was just an invisible forcefield. But the patterns I can see in the night sky here are comforting, familiar, and always return to the same spot each year. That was one thing life on Moya couldn't give me.

Now, I'm happy just to hold my wife in my arms and stare at the sky. We've been married for almost six months now; Dad insisted on it almost immediately after he met Aeryn. We hadn't seen the need to stop and find someone willing to perform a ceremony-- a ceremony that would have little civil or religious meaning to either of us, seeing as all the planets we stopped on weren't home--since we both knew we loved each other, but it wasn't such an impossible wish to honor. Aeryn, I think, went along with it more for my sake than anything else, since this ceremony, with only Dad, DK, and Elissa there, didn't mean a whole lot to her. I wished with all my heart that D'Argo, Zhaan, Pilot, and even Rygel, that aggravating little swine, could've been there...but they couldn't. I'm not into all this spirituality stuff, but I do know that I could feel their presences there at the ceremony. They observed in spirit, if not in person.

A few raindrops drip from the tree branches hanging over us. I feel one hit my head, then slide down my face, and to the tip of my nose, where it hangs suspended for a moment before abruptly breaking its attraction to my skin and falling into Aeryn's hair. I dip my head and kiss her hair in approximately the same spot where it landed.

I don't know how long we've been out here. There is no clock to measure it by. Time is suspended like that raindrop, moving neither forward or backward, just being. The only movement is the soft patter of the captured raindrops escaping from the trees around us.

Actually, no. There is something else moving. "Look up," I say softly to Aeryn, removing one hand from her body to point at the sky near Perseus.

"What?" she whispers in reply.

"A shooting star." I feel her head turn under my chin, and at her

slight intake of breath, I know she sees it. "Make a wish."

"You, too," she immediately replies, her eyes still fixated on the meteor.

I try to think of something to wish for. I could wish for D'Argo, Zhaan, and the others to be here, but they have found their homes, and they are happy there. I could wish to return to the stars, but I am happy here in my home.

And that's really all I ask. To be happy, I need a home. People make a home, and Aeryn, Elissa, Dad...they're my home. I don't need anything else.

So all I wish for is to continue like this, to keep the people I love close to me always.

Once I send my wish, I wrap my arms more tightly around Aeryn. Her hands grip mine securely. The wind starts to pick up a little, increasing the pace of the water drizzling from the trees. I look at the raindrops and notice how they manage to catch the light from the sky. They fall at our feet, glittering like diamonds, mirroring the heavens above. We have been caught in a rainstorm of stars.

The End