by Sarah P.
RATING: PG, althoug there's *gasp* kissing. :)
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters of Farscape are mine, and I don't wish to lay claim to any of them. This is simply a fanfic to say that I'm very much in love with the show and its characters. :-)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: About the beginning being so disjointed, it's because it's a dream. Haven't you ever noticed how you just seem to hop around in dreamland from one scene to the next, with often very little transition? Your mind thinks of it and you're there, glossing over the rest of the dream. Anyway, that's why the dream-part is so much different than my normal writing, I'm trying to get that, um, dreaminess. Or whatever. *grin* Also, this takes place sometime around second and third season, or at least before Zhann was, um, not spoilers but you know know what I'm talking about. I miss her old character.
* * * * *
That night, John Crichton dreamt he had found his way back home.
He couldn't tell it was a dream because nothing was strange, at least not compared to the life he currently led. Moya had found a constellation John knew, had used it to trace Earth's location from there, and had Starbursted there for John. He and Aeryn Sun had gone down alone, as D'Argo, Zhaan, and Rygel would have caused panic among the alien-phobic humans.
All of this John instinctively knew, but the dream started at the IASA base. All around him people were cheering, not noticing Aeryn standing to the side. John was finally able, in his dream, to embrace his father and the two didn't part for a very long time. When they did, John noticed Aeryn in the back and motioned her forward, asking his father if they could talk alone.
In a secluded room, John spilled his story out. "Pop, you have to believe me. My friends have a ship floating behind the moon, ready to pick Aeryn up if she wants to." He didn't tell his father that they had offered to take John as well, saying he was a part of their group.
Jack Crichton took the news remarkably well, although he did blink in astonishment at how close a Sebacean was to humans. "Remarkable," he breathed, staring amazedly at Aeryn, who looked uncomfortable at the attention.
Agreeing it was best not to tell anyone else about this, at least not yet until they could decide who to trust, John allowed himself to be taken away for interrogation. The military, no surprise, was very interested in his whereabouts for the past couple years: why hadn't he contacted his father, where was the ship he'd had, where had he *been*. John stuck to the plan, saying that yes he'd been carted through a wormhole, and yes he'd been aboard a ship with "aliens". Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say as they then kept him there for another four hours, grilling him over that tidbit of information, but John still stuck to the story that he had arrived through the wormhole back to earth without the aliens. He didn't even mention Aeryn, and was thankful that neither did they.
After several hours of questions, John finally got fed up and declared he was leaving, that if they needed him they could always just find him. Perhaps because this was a dream the military agreed easily; at any rate John found himself again with Aeryn, alone.
"How about we go for a night on the town?" he asked her with an impish grin. "Don't know what you're used to, but I just want to celebrate."
Aeryn gave a small laugh and a half smile. "'Night on the town', Crichton? Sometimes your human phrases are so strange."
"Fine then, how about going out? living it up? paint the town? have fun? Aeryn, I just want to prove to myself that I'm really back."
"Well, why didn't you just say that?" the Sebacean asked pointedly.
John stared at her, then snorted in laughter, rolling his eyes as he shook his head. "Loosen up, Aeryn. I'm going to show you just how humans party."
"Gods help us," Aeryn grumbled, causing another chuckle from John.
Surprising enough, they did have fun, although because it was a dream John just knew that. They jumped straight to when they were walking home, his arm around Aeryn and she was laughing.
"Do Sebaceans not take liquor well?" John asked jokingly, sending Aeryn into another fit of giggles.
"Look who's talking," she replied. "You only had half a bottle of that...what do you call it?"
"Tequila," John supplied.
"Yes, tequila. What an interesting name that is. Whereas I had three bottles. Now who can't hold the liquor, hm?" To emphasize her point, she poked him in the side and laughed again.
"Whoa, remind me never to get you drunk. Three bottles or not, the way you're going you're likely to do something you'd regret."
"Something I'd regret?" she asked peevishly. "Like, for instance, this?" And with that she practically threw him against the wall and pressed her lips to his.
A stunned John didn't react for a split second, but then his brain kicked in and he began kissing her back. His arms slid around her waist and up her back, tangling in her hair as she leaned into him, using her tongue to do battle inside his mouth. This was one fight, John reasoned, he was not going to win, and he didn't mind a bit.
A suden sense of foreboding swept over him. John disengaged himself from Aeryn just in time to see someone in the darkness bearing down on them from their right. He turned towards that intruder as Aeryn shouted a small warning about their left as well.
The man on his right took a swing at him, and John ducked, coming up and jabbing at the other man's jaw. The attacker went down with a grunt, and John turned to Aeryn deciding that his attacker was out of the picture for the moment. What he saw froze him in his tracks: Aeryn was down on the ground, and the other man had a club raised over his head ready to bash her with.
He didn't even think: he reached under his coat and pulled out a blaster, firing two shots at Aeryn's attacker. The man barely had time to inhale for a scream before he died. John started to rush to Aeryn but a rustling behind him made him turn around. Thoughts of Aeryn dead flooded John's mind and he raised the blaster on the remaining attacker.
"Please, don't," the man pleaded, and even though shadows still covers his face fear fairly radiated off him.
John glanced at the downed Aeryn, then back at the shadowy figure. "Sorry bub," and shot him point blank. The other man collapsed to the ground, and John turned back around.
He blinked in surprise as he saw, not Aeryn, but his father standing there. Shock was showing on his face as he stared at the two men his son had killed before turning anguished eyes to his son. "What's happened to you?" Jack breathed. "My son wouldn't...couldn't..."
The clincher was when DK came up behind Jack and took in the scene, then raised fearful eyes to John. "My God John, why?"
John tried to explain it to them but couldn't get the words out. He tried to tell them he was sorry, but those words wouldn't come either, and to his own shock he realized he didn't even mean them. He had wanted to kill these men, had virtually executed the last man, and he felt no remorse. None whatsoever.
Aeryn's hand came seemingly out of nowhere and turned him around, away from the fearful and condemning stares of his human brethren. "You're one of us," her voice said, eerily monotone. "You can never go back. Look at the face of the man you killed."
The second man had been shot at point blank range, right into the face. John did not want to look, but the dream wouldn't let it be otherwise. No wound marred the now lit face, which stared up at John in a final state of shock. The eyes were glazed over and the face already grey, as if it had happened more than just seconds before, but John knew that face. He'd seen it every day of his life.
He'd just shot himself, his mirror image.
"You can never go back to what you were...." Aeryn's voice floated through his mind softly, just before he woke up.
* * * * *
John staggered out of his quarters, breathing hard and wild-eyed. The dream had, on a fundamental level, freaked him out more than anything ever had before. He stumbled down the corridor into the cockpit, collapsing on one of the chairs there.
"Is something the matter, John?" Zhaan, who had night watch, turned around from the controls with worry in her eyes.
"Just a...bad dream, is all," he replied, trying to get ahold of himself.
"A portend, perhaps?" she asked, walking over and kneeling at his side.
Shaking his head, he tried to speak once but couldn't, then blurted, "I don't know." The dream still rememberable (he wondered if he would ever be able to forget it), he spilled it out to Zhaan, who listened in silence.
When John finished Zhaan thought for a moment, giving John time to pull himself together. It was only a dream, he admonished himself. No need to get worked up about a dream. One had them every day, although perhaps not always this...realistic.
Zhaan said something, snapping John out of her reverie. "What was that?" he asked.
"I do not believe the dream is a portend of the future," she repeated softly. "I do, however, believe that your soul is trying to tell you something."
John barked a laugh, a little too close to hysteria than he felt comfortable with. "So, what you're saying is that subconsciously I'm trying to tell myself that I've turned into a killer."
"Not a killer, perhaps, but something infinitely more prepared to take care of itself."
John's face crumpled and he sank low in the chair. "What's happening to me, Zhaan?" John whispered harshly, closing his eyes and resting his head between his knees.
"You are becoming a survivor, John," Zhaan replied softly.
If it had been the Luxan or the Sebacean who had said the words, there would have been pride over John's apparent accomplishment. Zhaan's voice, however, only conveyed a sadness that echoed John's thoughts.
Along with becoming a survivor, John had learned to do something he hadn't ever thought he would: kill without any regret. He'd done it twice already, purposefully; and he had threatened to do it more times than that. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when he would not have believed he could do such a thing. Now, it was a reality that he had only now been able to face. "Is it possible to change back, Zhaan?" he asked, raising his head to look the Delvian in the eye. "Can I go back to the way I once was?"
Pain flickered across the woman's eyes and she averted her gaze. "I have been asking myself that same question for many years," she said finally, after a brief pause. "I did murder once, so long ago, and it has not stopped haunting me." She looked up at him, her eyes sadly compassionate. "I realize that is not what you want to hear, but I cannot help you. It is a question I am still trying to answer myself."
John took a shaky breath, then lurched up out of the chair. "Last time I go to bed after eating an order of pizza," he quipped, but the joke fell short even for him. "Goodnight Zhaan."
"Would you like to stay here with me for a while?" the Delvian asked, standing up herself.
John took a serious moment to think about it, then finally shook his head. "I'd rather be alone now, if you don't mind. Thanks for the offer." With that, he staggered, then caught himself and walked a bit more calmly away from the cockpit and out of Zhaan's view. He managed to get back to his quarters and let himself inside before he collapsed on the bed. For a few hours he lay there, unable and unwilling to cry, just staring out into the darkness. He wondered if he would ever be able to sleep again after this, but the gentle humming of Moya's engines slowly calmed him, lulling him back to sleep.
This time, there were no dreams.