Memories - Part 2
TITLE: Memories
RATING: PG
AUTHOR: marieelise0928
Disclaimer: Farscape's not mine, although I remain in denial about that :P
Author's Note: This is an AU of an AU. It is based on the Farscape comic series "Gone and Back Again", in which baby Deke somehow zaps John into an alternate reality - one where D'Argo and Zhaan are alive, Aeryn never left the Peacekeepers, John is married to Princess Katralla, they have a daughter, and he has a ponytail! The comic series has John so driven to find Aeryn that he goes straight into Peacekeeper territory to find her - and then just when he does, he gets zapped back to his reality. I wanted to play with the idea of him hanging out a little longer. I changed some of the "facts" of the alternate reality to suit my purposes (like ignoring the fact that alt Aeryn had a baby) but the concept is largely the same.
Also -- Thanks to Vinegardog for the great beta!!
CHAPTER 6
By the time Aeryn got to the storming of Katratzi, two monens had passed since Crichton’s arrival on the base, and somehow his reality had become more real than hers. The memories were making her face head-on a truth that had previously been amorphous and unacknowledged by her.
Her life was nothing but duty. She’d been born and bred a Peacekeeper soldier. Her utility in a prowler was the entire measure of her worth. In the end, all she was was a tool to be used in these never-ending political maneuverings and power struggles.
“You can be more…” were the words Crichton had spoken to his Aeryn when he dragged her along out of Peacekeeper custody and back to Moya. Be a fugitive, be a mother, be a Pilot. Reconstitute a frozen Hynerian, get crystallized, go to Earth, die for love.
Aeryn, hunched on her bed, threaded her fingers through her hair and sighed heavily. She felt as though these memories had awakened some dormant voice whispering a frightening truth.
Aeryn Sun did not want to be a Peacekeeper anymore.
**
He was glad to see her. He was always glad to see her. He tried not to think about it too much, but she was a beautiful sight in any reality… and truth be told, the more she came, the more familiar she felt to him. And it seemed to be the same for her, because when she came in this time she sat down opposite him on his cot, one leg tucked against her, one dangling off the side off the little bed.
“Hey…” He said, slightly bemused by the way she suddenly commanded the space.
She looked at him thoughtfully, lip caught between her teeth and brow furrowed, like she was trying to decide what exactly she wanted to say.
“Why did you come here, John?” She finally asked.
“You know that, already. It was something my son did, I didn’t -“
“No -“ she interrupted, shaking her head firmly. “Why did you come here. To a Peacekeeper base. It was frelling beyond idiotic…”
His eyes softened as he looked at her. “You already know that too… I came for you. I landed in this reality, came to with stupid hair, surrounded by friends I thought were dead and people I didn’t know, and the first thing I looked for was you. You weren’t there, no one knew what I was talking about and - I had to find you.” He felt a little residual desperation, just remembering what it had been like every time he had mentioned her name and everyone looked at him blankly, or even hostilely. In the end, they’d supported him, though. Maybe they could tell how much it mattered. He reached out and took one of her hands and wrapped it in his two. She didn’t pull it away, she simply looked back at him. “Every universe, every reality, you… belong… with me.” He let her hand go and leaned back against the wall. “I had to find you.”
CHAPTER 7
In the end, she was terrified of the wormholes. In the end, Einstein reappeared, and he took the knowledge from John, and she understood why he’d wanted it gone. It was too much, too dangerous, too susceptible to abuse.
Not long after she finished, Scorpius summoned her, and told her of his plans for Crichton. For a couple of days, she avoided Crichton. She spent her time wrestling with what she’d seen, and what she’d learned, and in the end, she knew what she’d have to do.
**
“I’ve been thinking…” She began, without so much as a how-do-you-do.
“Lay it on me” he responded, leaning back into the corner and grinning a little.
“In your reality, you first encountered the Ancients during your first cycle on Moya.”
“That’s right… they made me think I’d gotten home to see if Earth would work as a home for them. They realized it wouldn’t, but they gave me the wormhole knowledge that would be the bane of my existence for the next three cycles. There was only one good thing that came out of that little trip - “
Aeryn raised an eyebrow and interrupted quickly. “Yes, well, be that as it may, try and focus with me here, Crichton…”
He grinned at her and didn’t think he imagined the glint of amusement in her eyes as she continued. “You met the princess Katralla a cycle later, correct?”
“Yeah, close enough… where are you going with this?” He cocked his head, curious to hear what she was thinking.
“Just that… keeping in mind the possibility of endless variations, it still seems as though the other John’s path was similar to yours until your time on the Royal Planet-“
“Other than the absence of you…”
“True - but while your Aeryn might have been instrumental in the different paths taken with Katralla, she was not instrumental in your initial encounter with the Ancients -“
Now he was sure that she smiled, as she held up a hand to hush him before he could interrupt
“-However pleasant her contribution to the encounter might have been. My concern, John, is that the course that you took with your life led you to freedom from the wormhole knowledge, but it’s not at all clear that the same is true of this John -“
“Assuming that he ever had the knowledge at all…”
“True. We can’t be sure of that…” She agreed, trailing off, waiting for him to catch up with her. It only took a microt.
“But - if he did, he might have it still… Because you guys didn’t have the big Scarran PK throwdown. And so he might never have had the final encounter with Einstein..
“Assuming he ever encountered Einstein at all…”
“But if he did, and he still has the wormhole knowledge, and the two of us ever get back to the right timelines…”
“He’ll be in trouble. Yes. You are of no real value to the Peacekeepers because you no longer have any knowledge. They - we - have your memories, so we know what wormholes are capable of… But we have no way to get the knowledge to create or use them. I suspect they are keeping you in the hopes that somehow this timeline’s true John will return to the body you currently inhabit and he will have the knowledge that they need to overcome the Scarran threat. I’m afraid the politics here are not so very different from the world from which you came, as you might have gathered.” She shrugged apologetically, leaning forward to lean her elbow on her knee as she rested her chin in her hand.
He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter much to me… I mean, if he gets back, I’ll be gone. But, God… You know, I get that there are infinite universes, and in some of them things probably do just go completely to shit for me, but…I fought so hard to avoid this in my universe. I can’t believe I might have walked him into it in his. Hell I already hacked off his ponytail and traumatized his wife and kid…”
“It won’t happen.” Aeryn interrupted. She sounded firm, definitive.
He stared at her blankly.
“I’m going to get you off the base. You’re going back to Moya. You cannot be here when and if you and the other John switch places again. If he has the wormhole knowledge, Scorpius will never let him go. “ She looked at him intently. “So I’m going to get you away.”
“I - don’t - I mean, hey great, I was getting tired of this room anyhow - but… how are you going to do that?” John asked, still recovering from his surprise.
“You don’t need to worry about the details.” She answered. “Just… be ready.” She was silent for a long moment. “Do you know why I wasn’t a part of the group flying to intercept the Leviathan when you so…unexpectedly arrived?”
John shook his head, curious.
“My prowler. It wasn’t sound for flight. Tiny thing, really. Took 40 microts to repair once they’d found the problem. But I couldn’t fly with my squadron that day. So they changed their formation to account for my absence… and that’s it. One tiny piece of metal, and here we are.” She stood up to go. “It was a small thing, to change so much.”
CHAPTER 8
The plan was ultimately very easy to set in place. It was amazing to find out how liberally one could operate when one was preparing to blow their life all apart in a real take-no-prisoners fashion.
Scorpius was planning to leave for his Gammak base and was going to be taking Crichton with him. He’d ordered her transfer as well. He wanted her to continue helping him with Crichton, and more importantly, to be on hand if the other Crichton returned. “You two had such a touching love affair in the other reality, after all. Perhaps you’d be able to… bring him out of his shell, a little, if he ends up back here.” That chilling smile, once again.
When she knew what he had planned, she made her decision to get John out, and she figured out how she’d do it.
She contacted the bounty hunter that had helped John find her. She was familiar with him by reputation, and he was easy to find if you knew what you were looking for, and who to ask. She knew he’d be able to put her in touch with Moya. A bounty hunter like that never really lost track of a former client, knowing where things were was their business.
He’d agreed to take her request to Moya. Seemed that John’s friends had kept up with him, these past monens, in an effort to get news of John. In a matter of arns from her initial contact with the bounty hunter, she was on a secured line with Ka D’Argo, Zotoh Zhaan, and the Nebari girl, Chiana.
It was… surprising… to see them in the flesh, to say the least. They appeared to be transmitting from some undisclosed location off of Moya. Wise of them not to trust her. Unnecessary, but wise.
“Who are you? What do you want? Where is Crichton?” Growled D’Argo.
“I’m Aeryn Sun. Crichton is… here, on the base still. But not for long. That’s why I’m contacting you. Scorpius will be moving him soon. We need to get him off the transport ship.”
“We?” Asked Zhaan. “A bit presumptuous, aren’t you my dear?”
“Yeah…” Added Chiana. “And why in the frell should we trust you, anyhow?”
Aeryn gritted her teeth. She’d expected this, of course, but it was still irritating.
“Look, Crichton and the whole frelling universe will be in very real trouble if your Crichton comes back while his body is still in Peacekeeper control. I don’t know what else I can do to convince you.” As she spoke, Aeryn clenched and unclenched her fists, out of sight of the view screen, attempting to vent her frustration.
It was a moment before any of them spoke. Finally, Zhaan, looking more at the other two than at Aeryn, nodded her head. “John trusted her. I…sensed she was important to him. I think that, for Crichton, we have to take this chance.”
D’Argo scowled, but nodded. “For Crichton.”
“For Crichton!” Chiana agreed.
“Tell us the plan.” Demanded D’Argo.
**
The plan was simple. Frighteningly so, D’Argo had seemed to think. No doubt he’d been getting geared up for one of Crichton’s massive frell ups waiting to happen. She simply waited ‘til they were on the transport ship and headed for the gammack base. Then she’d waited ‘til they reached the designated rendezvous point with the Leviathan’s hybrid son, Lo’la, and she HAD received the signal from the Moyans, indicating they were in position.
At that point, she’d taken a last look around her room, at her few meager possessions. Nothing all that hard to leave behind, in the end. Then she’d walked out of her quarters to the room where Crichton was being held, and cold cocked his guard. Quickly, before anyone could happen by, she opened the door to the room, and dragged the guard in.
**
John stared, caught off guard, when Aeryn backed into his room dragging along a limp form. He leapt to help her. Hastily, she wiped a hand across her brow, pushing spikes of hair back from her forehead.
“We’re leaving.” She said brusquely.
The radiant Aeryn Sun, come again.
“Aeryn, how can you… what will…” He paused, unsure what he was trying to say.
“I’m leaving too.” She answered, forcibly shoving him towards the door. He complied with her indelicate request and followed her out. She yanked the door closed behind them and started down the hall at a fast clip.
“You’re…leaving? The Peacekeepers? You’ll come with us?” He asked, stunned.
“I’ll leave with you. I won’t stay,” She answered. Her raised hand and stern look broached no further comment. Quietly, they advanced down the hall, and then down a tier of the ship, ‘til they reached the ship’s hangar. There was one tech on duty.
“Lieutenant…” he greeted, confused. He was more confused when she pulled out her pulse pistol and shoved it under his chin.
“Open the hangar door…” She demanded. Shaking slightly, he complied. He was a tech, not a hero. Aeryn beckoned John over and unhesitatingly shoved the pulse pistol into his hand. “If he tries anything, shoot him.” She explained, before turning towards the line of prowlers behind her. She approached the nearest one, opened the hatch and climbed in. He heard the prowler’s engines starting up.
“John! Knock him the frell out and let’s go!” John never waited to be told twice by Aeryn Sun.
“Sorry, man…” John offered apologetically. Even as he pistol whipped the cringing man, he heard the tech’s comms activate. “Provost! You’re operating the hanger door without authorization, what the frell is going on down there!”
John didn’t wait to hear the end of the irate message. He ran at a full sprint to the prowler and crawled in the back, the hatch closing right behind him. Aeryn gunned the ship towards the looming exit, and a microt later they were free.
**
Lo’la was waiting exactly where they’d planned for him to be, which Aeryn greatly appreciated. No one was waiting for them in its hangar. As they were exiting the prowler, Aeryn felt quick bursts of fire from the gunship’s impressive arsenal. Then she felt the strange pull of starburst all around her…
What felt like an eternity later, the ship settled. There was a sudden consuming quiet, a sound Aeryn recognized as the end of a dangerous mission. A sound that marked the end of her life as she’d known it.
“Hey…” John whispered, standing close at her shoulder; a place where it felt dangerously like he belonged. “You okay?”
She nodded, reluctant to look at him just yet. She was spared the necessity by the sound of doors whooshing open, and Crichton’s comrades rushing in.
“Crichton!” Bellowed D’Argo.
“Hey, D!” John answered. The pleasure was evident in his voice.
“John… it is good to have you back, in… whatever state.” Said Zhaan, stepping forward to take his hands in hers. He stood there, looking at her and smiling. Aeryn knew how much it meant to him to see the Delvian again - perhaps more than even Zhaan did.
“Hey John! You miss me?!” Chiana asked, breaking in to wrap John in a hug. John returned it easily.
“Baby girl, I always miss you…” He stepped back, looked at his three friends, beaming uncontrollably. Finally he turned and looked at her, still smiling. She stood off to the side, close by the Prowler, uncomfortable with intruding.
“Guys - this is Aeryn Sun. The Peacekeeper I went looking for. I know you don’t have much cause to believe me, but… she’s our friend.”
The three looked at her, expressions somewhere in the range between skeptical and hostile. She simply nodded, and then looked around her.
“Crichton…” she whispered, amazed. “It’s Talyn.”
He grinned at her. “Not here. Here there was no one to name him Talyn. Here, he’s Lo’la.”
She shook her head in wonder.
Zhaan spoke up. “John, come. Let’s enjoy a meal together while we can. Lo'la will be starbursting again shortly, towards our rendezvous point with Moya.”
John looked a little stricken all of a sudden. “Moya… is that where Katralla and Katrana are?”
D’argo nodded in the affirmative. “Yeah. We decided it wasn’t wise to have them here. We didn’t know what to expect and - “
John clapped him on the back. “It was the right call. I’d rather they be safe, man.” He turned back towards Aeryn. “Come on, let’s go eat.”
**
She spent several days on Lo'la. She found she liked John’s friends. She wasn’t surprised. She felt as though she knew them already. Liking them made it a little harder to leave, but she knew it had to be done, and when they passed by a trade planet, she informed them of her intent to depart.
The others met the decision with a courtesy that masked their relief. Crichton, though, looked stricken. She was just finishing loading her prowler with the few spare items that the Moyans had supplied her with when she heard the door open behind her, and turned to see him standing there.
“You don’t have to go Aeryn…” He said, ever so beseechingly. He might as well have whispered ‘don’t leave me here.’
“I think I do… This -“ she said, gesturing around Talyn’s - no, Lo’la’s - walls, “-is not my life. And it’s not your life either…” She reminded him, gently, before turning back to her ship to finish her preparations.
“Where will you go?” He asked.
Slowly she turned back to him. “Not sure… maybe I’ll join an elite assassination squad. I hear that was a great life choice for an Aeryn in another reality.” She smiled a little, shrugging. She really didn’t know.
She stepped away from the prowler and a little closer to him. “Goodbye, Crichton. I don’t think we’ll meet again.” And she really didn’t think they would, so for an instant she simply appreciated taking in the sight of a face she’d come to love.
“You know we don’t say goodbye.” Crichton said, smiling sweetly at her, reaching out to take her hand.
“We do.” Was her only answer. He looked at her, looked into the dark blue eyes he knew better than his own, and saw resignation, and that same bottomless aloneness he’d sensed in her from the beginning.
“You’d better go, they’ll -“ Aeryn began to say, before he leaned forward and kissed her, softly. For just a short microt, she didn’t respond. Then he felt her sigh against his lips and melt closer into him. The kiss was gentle and sad. He threaded his fingers through her hair, and even when she broke the kiss off, she stayed there, her forehead leaned against his, eyes closed, quiet, peaceful. He knew then that he’d done the right thing in going to find her. He knew that she’d be okay, she’d be everything he knew she was capable of being.
Finally, she stepped back, and rubbed a hand quickly across her eyes.
“John Crichton…” She whispered, seeming to struggle for words. “I hope you find your way home.”
“Fly safe, Aeryn.” He whispered back. Then determinedly, she turned, and climbed into her prowler. He stood in the hangar and watched after her until she was all the way out of sight.
CHAPTER 9
He was on the alternate Moya for another monen or so. It was a strange time of laughing with D’Argo, and talking with Zhaan, and trying to be some sort of a dad to Katrana, and always dodging the Peacekeepers - and even more so, dodging Katralla’s wounded stares. And always, always thinking of Aeryn. Both of them. He was more lost in those days than he had been in a cell on the Peacekeeper base, but he did his best.
And then one day, without warning, while walking through the halls and talking with D’Argo over the comms, that long absent vibrating sensation overtook him a second time. “D’Argo, man, I think…”
That was all he could get out before speaking became impossible. There were no words that could have described the sensation. It was like each of his molecules letting go. He screamed. The last thing he was aware of was D’Argo’s alarmed voice calling his name…
… no. Not D’Argo, he thought to himself, confused. That was Aeryn. Aeryn’s alarmed voice calling him name. This was Aeryn’s embrace he was cradled in. That was Aeryn’s gentle hand stroking his cheek then brushing sweat soaked hair back from his forehead.
And as he gingerly opened his eyes it was Aeryn’s slate blue gaze that he was looking into. Beautiful worried eyes in an unscarred face.
He reached up and touched her face. “Aeryn…” He whispered. “Baby, it’s good to see you.” He dropped his hand and slowly, he pushed himself up to a sitting position.
“John…” She breathed, relief evident. “What happened? You started screaming, and then just.. collapsed.”
Looking around them, he realized exactly where they were. Still in the Hynerian doctor’s office. Deke was still sitting on the exam table. Rygel hovered just a few metres off, watching on anxiously.
“How long was I out?” He asked, looking back at Aeryn.
“Thirty microts, no more. Are you okay?”
John rubbed his face hard, before pushing himself back to his feet. “I don’t know. I think so… Let’s just get back to Moya. I’ll tell you about it there.”
**
The incident was isolated, and in time John and Aeryn’s concern about what had happened to him gave way to concern about what Deke was apparently capable of. But the alternate reality haunted John. He didn’t even know if it had been real, and yet he wondered about the other Moya and the other John, and sometimes when he slept, he dreamt of an Aeryn with an angry scar, and deep, sad eyes.
EPILOGUE
They were spending a couple of days on a planet called Urauss, to restock Moya and Lo'la, and to just get a break from the endlessness of space. It was good for Katrana to experience a day with the sky above and the earth below. Or the urauss. Whatever you called this stuff, he thought, rolling some gravel under his boot.
Katrana was with Katralla now, who was determined that her daughter experience some of the culture of the planet. John was dubious about how much culture there could be on a backwater planet like this, but Katralla had a gift for uncovering it wherever they went. Must be the royal blood.
The others were shopping for supplies, and probably getting up to trouble. That gave John about two arns probably before he had to bail them out of jail, in which time he was hoping to find a part he needed for his module.
As he walked into the parts dealer’s shop, he ruffled his hair a little. He’d gotten used to the close cropped cut, although he still wasn’t sure how he felt about someone giving him a makeover during his lost months.
Inside, John approached the dealer, and explained to him what he was looking for. He had the broken one with him to give the guy - gal - creature more of an idea what he was looking for. It scuttled towards the warehouse to see what it could find.
While he waited, the door behind him swung open. John turned to look and see who was coming in. It was a Sebacean woman, with long black hair, and dark blue eyes. She was stunning.
But apparently, so was he… because she stood there, halfway-in halfway-out of the store, a ghost of a smile playing at her lips.
Slightly confused, John cocked his head and returned the smile, brow furrowed questioningly. His lack of comprehension seemed to settle something for her. She took a deep breath, stepped the rest of the way in, and closed the door behind her.
“Hello…” she said, as she walked up to the counter.
“Hey.” He answered back. He couldn’t stop looking at her.
The parts dealer came back, with some roughly comparable replacements for John. It took John a long minute to notice the creature on the other side of the counter, trying to pass the parts to him.
“Oh… yeah. These’ll be fine.” John fished around in his pocket for the credits, and gathered up his purchases.
He walked to the exit, but he hesitated before pushing the door open. Slowly, he turned around. The Sebacean woman was watching him, secrets behind her dark eyes.
“Bye.” He said, at a loss for words.
“Bye..” She answered softly. She smiled, but John thought it seemed sad.
Finally, nothing left to say, he turned, pushed the door open and walked into the street.
Right after he left, Aeryn Sun walked away from the counter, and over to the doorway. She watched him go until he was all the way out of sight.
RATING: PG
AUTHOR: marieelise0928
Disclaimer: Farscape's not mine, although I remain in denial about that :P
Author's Note: This is an AU of an AU. It is based on the Farscape comic series "Gone and Back Again", in which baby Deke somehow zaps John into an alternate reality - one where D'Argo and Zhaan are alive, Aeryn never left the Peacekeepers, John is married to Princess Katralla, they have a daughter, and he has a ponytail! The comic series has John so driven to find Aeryn that he goes straight into Peacekeeper territory to find her - and then just when he does, he gets zapped back to his reality. I wanted to play with the idea of him hanging out a little longer. I changed some of the "facts" of the alternate reality to suit my purposes (like ignoring the fact that alt Aeryn had a baby) but the concept is largely the same.
Also -- Thanks to Vinegardog for the great beta!!
CHAPTER 6
By the time Aeryn got to the storming of Katratzi, two monens had passed since Crichton’s arrival on the base, and somehow his reality had become more real than hers. The memories were making her face head-on a truth that had previously been amorphous and unacknowledged by her.
Her life was nothing but duty. She’d been born and bred a Peacekeeper soldier. Her utility in a prowler was the entire measure of her worth. In the end, all she was was a tool to be used in these never-ending political maneuverings and power struggles.
“You can be more…” were the words Crichton had spoken to his Aeryn when he dragged her along out of Peacekeeper custody and back to Moya. Be a fugitive, be a mother, be a Pilot. Reconstitute a frozen Hynerian, get crystallized, go to Earth, die for love.
Aeryn, hunched on her bed, threaded her fingers through her hair and sighed heavily. She felt as though these memories had awakened some dormant voice whispering a frightening truth.
Aeryn Sun did not want to be a Peacekeeper anymore.
**
He was glad to see her. He was always glad to see her. He tried not to think about it too much, but she was a beautiful sight in any reality… and truth be told, the more she came, the more familiar she felt to him. And it seemed to be the same for her, because when she came in this time she sat down opposite him on his cot, one leg tucked against her, one dangling off the side off the little bed.
“Hey…” He said, slightly bemused by the way she suddenly commanded the space.
She looked at him thoughtfully, lip caught between her teeth and brow furrowed, like she was trying to decide what exactly she wanted to say.
“Why did you come here, John?” She finally asked.
“You know that, already. It was something my son did, I didn’t -“
“No -“ she interrupted, shaking her head firmly. “Why did you come here. To a Peacekeeper base. It was frelling beyond idiotic…”
His eyes softened as he looked at her. “You already know that too… I came for you. I landed in this reality, came to with stupid hair, surrounded by friends I thought were dead and people I didn’t know, and the first thing I looked for was you. You weren’t there, no one knew what I was talking about and - I had to find you.” He felt a little residual desperation, just remembering what it had been like every time he had mentioned her name and everyone looked at him blankly, or even hostilely. In the end, they’d supported him, though. Maybe they could tell how much it mattered. He reached out and took one of her hands and wrapped it in his two. She didn’t pull it away, she simply looked back at him. “Every universe, every reality, you… belong… with me.” He let her hand go and leaned back against the wall. “I had to find you.”
CHAPTER 7
In the end, she was terrified of the wormholes. In the end, Einstein reappeared, and he took the knowledge from John, and she understood why he’d wanted it gone. It was too much, too dangerous, too susceptible to abuse.
Not long after she finished, Scorpius summoned her, and told her of his plans for Crichton. For a couple of days, she avoided Crichton. She spent her time wrestling with what she’d seen, and what she’d learned, and in the end, she knew what she’d have to do.
**
“I’ve been thinking…” She began, without so much as a how-do-you-do.
“Lay it on me” he responded, leaning back into the corner and grinning a little.
“In your reality, you first encountered the Ancients during your first cycle on Moya.”
“That’s right… they made me think I’d gotten home to see if Earth would work as a home for them. They realized it wouldn’t, but they gave me the wormhole knowledge that would be the bane of my existence for the next three cycles. There was only one good thing that came out of that little trip - “
Aeryn raised an eyebrow and interrupted quickly. “Yes, well, be that as it may, try and focus with me here, Crichton…”
He grinned at her and didn’t think he imagined the glint of amusement in her eyes as she continued. “You met the princess Katralla a cycle later, correct?”
“Yeah, close enough… where are you going with this?” He cocked his head, curious to hear what she was thinking.
“Just that… keeping in mind the possibility of endless variations, it still seems as though the other John’s path was similar to yours until your time on the Royal Planet-“
“Other than the absence of you…”
“True - but while your Aeryn might have been instrumental in the different paths taken with Katralla, she was not instrumental in your initial encounter with the Ancients -“
Now he was sure that she smiled, as she held up a hand to hush him before he could interrupt
“-However pleasant her contribution to the encounter might have been. My concern, John, is that the course that you took with your life led you to freedom from the wormhole knowledge, but it’s not at all clear that the same is true of this John -“
“Assuming that he ever had the knowledge at all…”
“True. We can’t be sure of that…” She agreed, trailing off, waiting for him to catch up with her. It only took a microt.
“But - if he did, he might have it still… Because you guys didn’t have the big Scarran PK throwdown. And so he might never have had the final encounter with Einstein..
“Assuming he ever encountered Einstein at all…”
“But if he did, and he still has the wormhole knowledge, and the two of us ever get back to the right timelines…”
“He’ll be in trouble. Yes. You are of no real value to the Peacekeepers because you no longer have any knowledge. They - we - have your memories, so we know what wormholes are capable of… But we have no way to get the knowledge to create or use them. I suspect they are keeping you in the hopes that somehow this timeline’s true John will return to the body you currently inhabit and he will have the knowledge that they need to overcome the Scarran threat. I’m afraid the politics here are not so very different from the world from which you came, as you might have gathered.” She shrugged apologetically, leaning forward to lean her elbow on her knee as she rested her chin in her hand.
He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter much to me… I mean, if he gets back, I’ll be gone. But, God… You know, I get that there are infinite universes, and in some of them things probably do just go completely to shit for me, but…I fought so hard to avoid this in my universe. I can’t believe I might have walked him into it in his. Hell I already hacked off his ponytail and traumatized his wife and kid…”
“It won’t happen.” Aeryn interrupted. She sounded firm, definitive.
He stared at her blankly.
“I’m going to get you off the base. You’re going back to Moya. You cannot be here when and if you and the other John switch places again. If he has the wormhole knowledge, Scorpius will never let him go. “ She looked at him intently. “So I’m going to get you away.”
“I - don’t - I mean, hey great, I was getting tired of this room anyhow - but… how are you going to do that?” John asked, still recovering from his surprise.
“You don’t need to worry about the details.” She answered. “Just… be ready.” She was silent for a long moment. “Do you know why I wasn’t a part of the group flying to intercept the Leviathan when you so…unexpectedly arrived?”
John shook his head, curious.
“My prowler. It wasn’t sound for flight. Tiny thing, really. Took 40 microts to repair once they’d found the problem. But I couldn’t fly with my squadron that day. So they changed their formation to account for my absence… and that’s it. One tiny piece of metal, and here we are.” She stood up to go. “It was a small thing, to change so much.”
CHAPTER 8
The plan was ultimately very easy to set in place. It was amazing to find out how liberally one could operate when one was preparing to blow their life all apart in a real take-no-prisoners fashion.
Scorpius was planning to leave for his Gammak base and was going to be taking Crichton with him. He’d ordered her transfer as well. He wanted her to continue helping him with Crichton, and more importantly, to be on hand if the other Crichton returned. “You two had such a touching love affair in the other reality, after all. Perhaps you’d be able to… bring him out of his shell, a little, if he ends up back here.” That chilling smile, once again.
When she knew what he had planned, she made her decision to get John out, and she figured out how she’d do it.
She contacted the bounty hunter that had helped John find her. She was familiar with him by reputation, and he was easy to find if you knew what you were looking for, and who to ask. She knew he’d be able to put her in touch with Moya. A bounty hunter like that never really lost track of a former client, knowing where things were was their business.
He’d agreed to take her request to Moya. Seemed that John’s friends had kept up with him, these past monens, in an effort to get news of John. In a matter of arns from her initial contact with the bounty hunter, she was on a secured line with Ka D’Argo, Zotoh Zhaan, and the Nebari girl, Chiana.
It was… surprising… to see them in the flesh, to say the least. They appeared to be transmitting from some undisclosed location off of Moya. Wise of them not to trust her. Unnecessary, but wise.
“Who are you? What do you want? Where is Crichton?” Growled D’Argo.
“I’m Aeryn Sun. Crichton is… here, on the base still. But not for long. That’s why I’m contacting you. Scorpius will be moving him soon. We need to get him off the transport ship.”
“We?” Asked Zhaan. “A bit presumptuous, aren’t you my dear?”
“Yeah…” Added Chiana. “And why in the frell should we trust you, anyhow?”
Aeryn gritted her teeth. She’d expected this, of course, but it was still irritating.
“Look, Crichton and the whole frelling universe will be in very real trouble if your Crichton comes back while his body is still in Peacekeeper control. I don’t know what else I can do to convince you.” As she spoke, Aeryn clenched and unclenched her fists, out of sight of the view screen, attempting to vent her frustration.
It was a moment before any of them spoke. Finally, Zhaan, looking more at the other two than at Aeryn, nodded her head. “John trusted her. I…sensed she was important to him. I think that, for Crichton, we have to take this chance.”
D’Argo scowled, but nodded. “For Crichton.”
“For Crichton!” Chiana agreed.
“Tell us the plan.” Demanded D’Argo.
**
The plan was simple. Frighteningly so, D’Argo had seemed to think. No doubt he’d been getting geared up for one of Crichton’s massive frell ups waiting to happen. She simply waited ‘til they were on the transport ship and headed for the gammack base. Then she’d waited ‘til they reached the designated rendezvous point with the Leviathan’s hybrid son, Lo’la, and she HAD received the signal from the Moyans, indicating they were in position.
At that point, she’d taken a last look around her room, at her few meager possessions. Nothing all that hard to leave behind, in the end. Then she’d walked out of her quarters to the room where Crichton was being held, and cold cocked his guard. Quickly, before anyone could happen by, she opened the door to the room, and dragged the guard in.
**
John stared, caught off guard, when Aeryn backed into his room dragging along a limp form. He leapt to help her. Hastily, she wiped a hand across her brow, pushing spikes of hair back from her forehead.
“We’re leaving.” She said brusquely.
The radiant Aeryn Sun, come again.
“Aeryn, how can you… what will…” He paused, unsure what he was trying to say.
“I’m leaving too.” She answered, forcibly shoving him towards the door. He complied with her indelicate request and followed her out. She yanked the door closed behind them and started down the hall at a fast clip.
“You’re…leaving? The Peacekeepers? You’ll come with us?” He asked, stunned.
“I’ll leave with you. I won’t stay,” She answered. Her raised hand and stern look broached no further comment. Quietly, they advanced down the hall, and then down a tier of the ship, ‘til they reached the ship’s hangar. There was one tech on duty.
“Lieutenant…” he greeted, confused. He was more confused when she pulled out her pulse pistol and shoved it under his chin.
“Open the hangar door…” She demanded. Shaking slightly, he complied. He was a tech, not a hero. Aeryn beckoned John over and unhesitatingly shoved the pulse pistol into his hand. “If he tries anything, shoot him.” She explained, before turning towards the line of prowlers behind her. She approached the nearest one, opened the hatch and climbed in. He heard the prowler’s engines starting up.
“John! Knock him the frell out and let’s go!” John never waited to be told twice by Aeryn Sun.
“Sorry, man…” John offered apologetically. Even as he pistol whipped the cringing man, he heard the tech’s comms activate. “Provost! You’re operating the hanger door without authorization, what the frell is going on down there!”
John didn’t wait to hear the end of the irate message. He ran at a full sprint to the prowler and crawled in the back, the hatch closing right behind him. Aeryn gunned the ship towards the looming exit, and a microt later they were free.
**
Lo’la was waiting exactly where they’d planned for him to be, which Aeryn greatly appreciated. No one was waiting for them in its hangar. As they were exiting the prowler, Aeryn felt quick bursts of fire from the gunship’s impressive arsenal. Then she felt the strange pull of starburst all around her…
What felt like an eternity later, the ship settled. There was a sudden consuming quiet, a sound Aeryn recognized as the end of a dangerous mission. A sound that marked the end of her life as she’d known it.
“Hey…” John whispered, standing close at her shoulder; a place where it felt dangerously like he belonged. “You okay?”
She nodded, reluctant to look at him just yet. She was spared the necessity by the sound of doors whooshing open, and Crichton’s comrades rushing in.
“Crichton!” Bellowed D’Argo.
“Hey, D!” John answered. The pleasure was evident in his voice.
“John… it is good to have you back, in… whatever state.” Said Zhaan, stepping forward to take his hands in hers. He stood there, looking at her and smiling. Aeryn knew how much it meant to him to see the Delvian again - perhaps more than even Zhaan did.
“Hey John! You miss me?!” Chiana asked, breaking in to wrap John in a hug. John returned it easily.
“Baby girl, I always miss you…” He stepped back, looked at his three friends, beaming uncontrollably. Finally he turned and looked at her, still smiling. She stood off to the side, close by the Prowler, uncomfortable with intruding.
“Guys - this is Aeryn Sun. The Peacekeeper I went looking for. I know you don’t have much cause to believe me, but… she’s our friend.”
The three looked at her, expressions somewhere in the range between skeptical and hostile. She simply nodded, and then looked around her.
“Crichton…” she whispered, amazed. “It’s Talyn.”
He grinned at her. “Not here. Here there was no one to name him Talyn. Here, he’s Lo’la.”
She shook her head in wonder.
Zhaan spoke up. “John, come. Let’s enjoy a meal together while we can. Lo'la will be starbursting again shortly, towards our rendezvous point with Moya.”
John looked a little stricken all of a sudden. “Moya… is that where Katralla and Katrana are?”
D’argo nodded in the affirmative. “Yeah. We decided it wasn’t wise to have them here. We didn’t know what to expect and - “
John clapped him on the back. “It was the right call. I’d rather they be safe, man.” He turned back towards Aeryn. “Come on, let’s go eat.”
**
She spent several days on Lo'la. She found she liked John’s friends. She wasn’t surprised. She felt as though she knew them already. Liking them made it a little harder to leave, but she knew it had to be done, and when they passed by a trade planet, she informed them of her intent to depart.
The others met the decision with a courtesy that masked their relief. Crichton, though, looked stricken. She was just finishing loading her prowler with the few spare items that the Moyans had supplied her with when she heard the door open behind her, and turned to see him standing there.
“You don’t have to go Aeryn…” He said, ever so beseechingly. He might as well have whispered ‘don’t leave me here.’
“I think I do… This -“ she said, gesturing around Talyn’s - no, Lo’la’s - walls, “-is not my life. And it’s not your life either…” She reminded him, gently, before turning back to her ship to finish her preparations.
“Where will you go?” He asked.
Slowly she turned back to him. “Not sure… maybe I’ll join an elite assassination squad. I hear that was a great life choice for an Aeryn in another reality.” She smiled a little, shrugging. She really didn’t know.
She stepped away from the prowler and a little closer to him. “Goodbye, Crichton. I don’t think we’ll meet again.” And she really didn’t think they would, so for an instant she simply appreciated taking in the sight of a face she’d come to love.
“You know we don’t say goodbye.” Crichton said, smiling sweetly at her, reaching out to take her hand.
“We do.” Was her only answer. He looked at her, looked into the dark blue eyes he knew better than his own, and saw resignation, and that same bottomless aloneness he’d sensed in her from the beginning.
“You’d better go, they’ll -“ Aeryn began to say, before he leaned forward and kissed her, softly. For just a short microt, she didn’t respond. Then he felt her sigh against his lips and melt closer into him. The kiss was gentle and sad. He threaded his fingers through her hair, and even when she broke the kiss off, she stayed there, her forehead leaned against his, eyes closed, quiet, peaceful. He knew then that he’d done the right thing in going to find her. He knew that she’d be okay, she’d be everything he knew she was capable of being.
Finally, she stepped back, and rubbed a hand quickly across her eyes.
“John Crichton…” She whispered, seeming to struggle for words. “I hope you find your way home.”
“Fly safe, Aeryn.” He whispered back. Then determinedly, she turned, and climbed into her prowler. He stood in the hangar and watched after her until she was all the way out of sight.
CHAPTER 9
He was on the alternate Moya for another monen or so. It was a strange time of laughing with D’Argo, and talking with Zhaan, and trying to be some sort of a dad to Katrana, and always dodging the Peacekeepers - and even more so, dodging Katralla’s wounded stares. And always, always thinking of Aeryn. Both of them. He was more lost in those days than he had been in a cell on the Peacekeeper base, but he did his best.
And then one day, without warning, while walking through the halls and talking with D’Argo over the comms, that long absent vibrating sensation overtook him a second time. “D’Argo, man, I think…”
That was all he could get out before speaking became impossible. There were no words that could have described the sensation. It was like each of his molecules letting go. He screamed. The last thing he was aware of was D’Argo’s alarmed voice calling his name…
… no. Not D’Argo, he thought to himself, confused. That was Aeryn. Aeryn’s alarmed voice calling him name. This was Aeryn’s embrace he was cradled in. That was Aeryn’s gentle hand stroking his cheek then brushing sweat soaked hair back from his forehead.
And as he gingerly opened his eyes it was Aeryn’s slate blue gaze that he was looking into. Beautiful worried eyes in an unscarred face.
He reached up and touched her face. “Aeryn…” He whispered. “Baby, it’s good to see you.” He dropped his hand and slowly, he pushed himself up to a sitting position.
“John…” She breathed, relief evident. “What happened? You started screaming, and then just.. collapsed.”
Looking around them, he realized exactly where they were. Still in the Hynerian doctor’s office. Deke was still sitting on the exam table. Rygel hovered just a few metres off, watching on anxiously.
“How long was I out?” He asked, looking back at Aeryn.
“Thirty microts, no more. Are you okay?”
John rubbed his face hard, before pushing himself back to his feet. “I don’t know. I think so… Let’s just get back to Moya. I’ll tell you about it there.”
**
The incident was isolated, and in time John and Aeryn’s concern about what had happened to him gave way to concern about what Deke was apparently capable of. But the alternate reality haunted John. He didn’t even know if it had been real, and yet he wondered about the other Moya and the other John, and sometimes when he slept, he dreamt of an Aeryn with an angry scar, and deep, sad eyes.
EPILOGUE
They were spending a couple of days on a planet called Urauss, to restock Moya and Lo'la, and to just get a break from the endlessness of space. It was good for Katrana to experience a day with the sky above and the earth below. Or the urauss. Whatever you called this stuff, he thought, rolling some gravel under his boot.
Katrana was with Katralla now, who was determined that her daughter experience some of the culture of the planet. John was dubious about how much culture there could be on a backwater planet like this, but Katralla had a gift for uncovering it wherever they went. Must be the royal blood.
The others were shopping for supplies, and probably getting up to trouble. That gave John about two arns probably before he had to bail them out of jail, in which time he was hoping to find a part he needed for his module.
As he walked into the parts dealer’s shop, he ruffled his hair a little. He’d gotten used to the close cropped cut, although he still wasn’t sure how he felt about someone giving him a makeover during his lost months.
Inside, John approached the dealer, and explained to him what he was looking for. He had the broken one with him to give the guy - gal - creature more of an idea what he was looking for. It scuttled towards the warehouse to see what it could find.
While he waited, the door behind him swung open. John turned to look and see who was coming in. It was a Sebacean woman, with long black hair, and dark blue eyes. She was stunning.
But apparently, so was he… because she stood there, halfway-in halfway-out of the store, a ghost of a smile playing at her lips.
Slightly confused, John cocked his head and returned the smile, brow furrowed questioningly. His lack of comprehension seemed to settle something for her. She took a deep breath, stepped the rest of the way in, and closed the door behind her.
“Hello…” she said, as she walked up to the counter.
“Hey.” He answered back. He couldn’t stop looking at her.
The parts dealer came back, with some roughly comparable replacements for John. It took John a long minute to notice the creature on the other side of the counter, trying to pass the parts to him.
“Oh… yeah. These’ll be fine.” John fished around in his pocket for the credits, and gathered up his purchases.
He walked to the exit, but he hesitated before pushing the door open. Slowly, he turned around. The Sebacean woman was watching him, secrets behind her dark eyes.
“Bye.” He said, at a loss for words.
“Bye..” She answered softly. She smiled, but John thought it seemed sad.
Finally, nothing left to say, he turned, pushed the door open and walked into the street.
Right after he left, Aeryn Sun walked away from the counter, and over to the doorway. She watched him go until he was all the way out of sight.