To Search the Sky
By Hold-out Trout
Disclaimer: I don't own it, I just love it.
Summary: Aeryn, possibly demented, possibly overly sentimental. Post-everything, but with a special sort of reference to "The Locket," and not because of the plot. No spoilers.
Author's Note: If I have any sort of following at all, they must be horribly confused by my genre-jumping. I know I am. Welcome to insanity. I wonder if all my pieces deal with crazy people because I myself am nuts? Probably. We'll, let's get on with it.
I am alone, and I finally understand that I have always been alone. Even when the others were here by my side, when we were struggling to stay alive together, the burden to stay alive rested on my shoulders. That the others interfered sometimes to help me, to keep me alive—that wasn't because they truly felt any responsibility for me. Crichton was the only one who felt responsible for anyone's survival but his own.
It's not quite true that I was always alone—not while Crichton was with me. But he's the only reason the others cared for me. Crichton made them care.
I mention this now, now that all of them are gone, because I have never been able to replace them. I know now that I am incapable of inspiring that sort of trust among strangers.
My family—my children—they have left, too. They settled on a couple different planets, and seem to be happy. Any of them would be glad to have me, but I'm known for my "restless spirit," a nice way of saying they drive me crazy if I stay with them too long.
They are so tame.
Crichton was many things—irritating, brash, arrogant, thoughtful, amusing, strange—but never tame. Where my children found the ability to stay in one place, do one thing, I can't fathom.
I miss him. Constantly. I prayed—to no one in particular--, every time I saw a new gray hair, noticed a new wrinkle, that I could slow his aging, or speed up mine. All I wanted was to be with him. I'm still trying to be with him, to look for him, on these travels. Each new world, without him, only makes me more restless. I know it's foolish, but I can't help it. I still can't believe that he's not going to run up to me, shouting that there's some frelling enemy after us and we have to leave now.
I re-write my travels. We share all the sights, always laughing, always crazy in love, and always running from some frelling mess that John got us into by some completely random twist of fate.
That's another reason I don't visit my children's homes much. When they ask me how my trips went, I can never think of anything real and interesting enough to warrant an answer. The events I made up seem more real to me than anything that actually happened.
Sometimes I think I might be crazy, thinking there's even the smallest possibility I'll find him. Other time I know it, and laugh at myself, because it appears Crais was right, those many years ago. "Irreversibly contaminated." Damn straight.
Even so, I'll keep moving, on and on and on, and I'll keep dreaming my impossible dreams, and eventually I'll find John, either in this life—stranger things have happened, especially since I met John in the first place—or in the next. Of that, I have no doubt. We have always found each other before, even through the most ridiculous circumstances imaginable.
Always.