While You Were Gone, Part II
(See Part One for disclaimer and notes)
Part Two
It was deep into the sleep cycle and Moya was quiet, except for the faint sound of hydraulic fluids and the hum of power generator, sounds Aeryn had grown so accustomed to that in their absence, in her time away from Moya, she had trouble sleeping. It was another absence that drew her from bed tonight. Aeryn moved silently to John’s quarters, the path so well known she could do it with her eyes closed. She moved a hand over the door controls and entered.
Her eyes swept the familiar and unfamiliar sights: his chess set, a large box of chocolate bars, a pile of black shirts neatly folded on the shelf that lined the outer wall, piles of music discs, his old and faded red vest, a photo album Olivia had given him, his short black leather jacket hanging in one corner with his tool belt, a child’s toy made from a thin coiled wire, and his black Peacekeeper overcoat laying atop his bed where she left it during the last sleep cycle.
Aeryn moved to the bed and sat on the edge, looking at the largest addition to his room, the television she bought him for Christmas, along with every movie she could remember him mentioning: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the Star Wars movies, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wizard of Oz, as well as a long list of movies Olivia had suggested. They were still wrapped in the bright red paper that seemed to be traditional at Christmastime; John hadn’t had time to open his gifts before they’d departed.
Aeryn picked up the remote and switched on the television and the Earth-made playback devise. The tape contained an Earth program Pilot had intercepted soon after John disappeared. She advanced past the first segments-the segment focused on her and the speculation that she was John Crichton’s lover, past the first part of the interview she did with Mr. Monroe, past the segment on D’Argo and the panic his revelations inspired, stopping when she got the first segment about John. Though Pilot had the program for awhile, he’d been reluctant to tell her about it, worried that it would only upset her. But as the days stretched to weekens without Crichton’s reemergence he gave her a copy, in the hope that seeing and hearing Crichton might somehow help her sleep. Pilot’s initial concern had been correct-the program did not bring her comfort.
“And then there is Commander John Crichton, the lost and presumed dead IASA astronaut,” Monroe intoned dramatically. “From the little he has said about his time aboard Moya, he has spent the past four years exploring the galaxy with a ship full of aliens he calls friends. But what really happened to him?”
The camera shifted to a darkened room where Olivia, John’s sister sat across from R. Wilson Monroe.
“Your brother was gone over four years. Though he’s been reticent to tell us about his experiences, it’s clear that your brother has been through a lot. How has he changed? What sort of differences have you noted?
“There’s one obvious difference, he can now understand every human language and dialect, minus the swear words. I mean…I came home late one night to find him watching Spanish soap operas. Consequently, John sees Earth differently. We are not Americans or Europeans or Chinese. Just humans.”
“A universal translator, something your brother calls translator microbes. As I understand it, these microbes infect the host body, forming a colony in the pons region of the brain. And your brother’s brain is infested with these alien microbes?”
“Yes.”
“Besides these microbes, has your brother undergone any other alien alteration?”
“No. Not at all. He’s just the same as when he left-no leftover Borg parts or anything.”
“But clearly your brother has been changed by his experiences.”
The picture switched to a close up of Olivia while a smaller image taken from Bobby’s recordings played in the corner. In it, John sat on the stairs in his father’s home, flipping through a photo album.
“Of course, John has changed. Who wouldn’t? The change in John is…he’s even more thoughtful than he was. He studies everything keenly before deciding what to do.”
The smaller image taken from Bobby’s video recordings now filled the screen and Bobby, John’s nephew spoke into his camera.
“I'm here with IASA Commander John Crichton, the first and only human to boldly go where no man has gone before." The camera turned back towards John. “You spent over three years in deepest, darkest space, battling aliens and evil races. What was the worst part?”
“The worst part? Um…was the complete and utter lack of toilet paper.”
Aeryn paused the recording. She couldn’t help but smile at this comment, remembering one of the first days she’d spent on Moya. She had been in the center chamber eating along with D’Argo and Zhaan when John entered looking uncomfortable.
‘Umm.....Excuse me. Can anyone tell me where the toilet paper is?’
Aeryn had exchanged puzzled looks with D’Argo and Zhaan.
‘I’m sorry, Crichton,’ Zhaan answered. ‘We don’t understand what you mean.’
John had shifted uncomfortably on his feet, ‘Toilet paper? You don’t know what toilet paper is. Then what do you use when…when you have to go…you know…number two?’
‘How can anyone ‘go’ a number?’ D’Argo had snarled. ‘What the dren are you talking about, human?’
Crichton had looked even more perplexed. ‘Dren? Why doesn’t that word translate? What does it mean?’
‘It is a crude term used to describe the extrusion of solid waste material from the body,’ Zhaan had replied matter of factly.
‘That’s it!’ John had exclaimed happily. ‘What do you use around here when you want to clean up after you’ve had to...extrude?’
They had all laughed at that point.
‘Come with me and I will show you,’ D’Argo said as he led John back to his quarters.
John had not been pleased to learn that the large flatworm in the basin next to his personal waste funnel was related to the dentic, but he had adapted, eventually. Sometimes it was hard to remember that John had ever been different. Aeryn started the program again.
“Seriously,” John said as he held up a picture of his mother when she was a young woman. “Missing family.”
“When you got back, what was the most different about Earth?” Bobby asked next.
John answered without looking up from the photos, “Nothing, Bobby. Earth’s pretty much the same.”
“Are you different?”
John raised his head and stared directly into the camera, before dropping his gaze once again. “Yeah, I’m different.”
“How?”
“Well, things that used to bother me don’t bother me that much anymore. The world seems smaller. And I keep waiting for something to happen and I have to remind myself when it doesn’t happen…that that’s normal.”
Aeryn let the program continue, too caught up in her own appraisal of John’s differences to listen to the opinions of the Earth experts. When had John become so guarded? She’d presumed that his reserve towards her was the result the promise she’d extracted from him to grant Scorpius’ asylum request, not to mention the complicated nature of their relationship and her stasis pregnancy. It had never occurred to her that there might be another cause, another reason why he had withdrawn. She’d been so focused on winning back his trust that she failed to see what was clear to her now. John had suffered greatly while she had been gone, and it affected the way he acted around everyone, not just her.
Aeryn reached over and picked up John’s latest journal and opened it to his last entry, staring at the flowing cursive script she had not yet learned to decipher other than a few words: Aeryn, Scorpius, baby, love, wormholes-the words that circumscribed his world and caused him to take the drastic action he did. As angry as she was at him for leaving, she understood why. But understanding his reasons didn’t lessen the loss. If anything, it only made her feel worse-he’d left because he loved her, he left in order to rid himself of Scorpius, and he left because he wouldn’t risk harming the baby. The sound of her own voice brought her attention back to the television.
“Well, what you have to understand is while cultures and civilizations may vary wildly from socially primitive to hyper-mechanized, there is still a uniformity in the way that people conduct their lives.”
“You’re saying wherever you go in the universe…we’re all the same?”
“Essentially, yes. In that way, Earth is no different from other planets.”
“Other species, from different worlds, uh...do they have relationships, marriage, children?”
"Most definitely. There are limits. The genetic patterns would have to support such a union.”
“And could a Sebacean, such as yourself, procreate with a human male?”
That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question, as John would say. If only she had an answer to that question, perhaps things would have been different, perhaps John would have trusted her enough to confide in her, to share his concerns. It was just one more thing to come between them, one more thing that D’Argo blamed her for, the accusation present in D’Argo’s eyes as he came to relieve her each night on Command, recognizable because she saw the same look mirrored in her own image each morning.
The program continued as Aeryn answered Monroe’s question as best she could, followed by various human experts discussing the implications of her response. Finally, Olivia Crichton appeared, doubting the credibility of the speculation. Without explanation the broadcast shifted to another snippet shot from Bobby’s video camera. Bobby hid in Moya’s maintenance bay, surreptitiously recording a conversation between John and Olivia, the camera jerking back and forth between the pair.
“You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. I'm gonna be fine. I'm just never gonna be the same.”
“Aeryn.”
“Stop that!”
“Remember when you tried to hide that crush on...”
“Stop it,” John interjected.
“Jill... what was her name?”
“Stop it! Steiner. Her name was Steiner.” John paused for a moment. “What's my tell?”
“Your lips. When you see Aeryn, they soften just a bit.”
“She has a word for us. It's called 'yesterday’.”
Aeryn paused recording again. One word. One frelling word she had thrown at him in that very same bay came hurtling back now, scoring deeply.
“Did it hurt this much when I said it?” Aeryn whispered to the television, to the image of John frozen on the screen.
She shook her head wearily at the irony, at the cascading chain of cause and effect that led to the current situation. If only she’d gone with John, if only she hadn’t shot War Minister Ahkna. But hindsight wasn’t always clearer. There was no way of knowing if things would be better had she acted differently.
Aeryn placed the journal that she still held on the shelf and pulled John’s overcoat around her shoulders. She lay down on his bed, her eyes never leaving the image of John’s face staring just past her, unreachable.
“Please come back,” Aeryn begged.
He was lost somewhere in tomorrow and all she wanted was a chance at today. Fatigue and countless skipped meals finally caught up with her. Aeryn shut her eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.
~ * ~ * ~