Category: Drama

Spoilers: S1, S2, Major ones from "Nerve", "The Hidden Memory", "Won't Get Fooled Again", "LATP:1-3" and minor ones for "A Clockwork Nebari"

Season/Sequal: Set anytime after "A Clockwork Nebari"

Content Warnings: violent images, a few bad words

Rating: R, just on the safe side. I have this little problem with using the F word…LOL

Summary: First person POV, angst; John thinks about this life

Status: Complete

Disclaimer: FarScape and every single character in this story do not belong to me. They belong to people bunches cooler than I. So please don't sue me, I don't even own my wedding dress yet.

Author's Notes: Please review and comment on it! I need critiques. No flames, but I will not bitch about constructive criticism. I apologize for giving you yet another "John bitches about his life" fic. I seem to like doing this. I'll try to do something more original next time.

Acknowledgements: Thanks SO very much to my faithful beta readers: Lilolme and Cealliag Thanks for the encouragement! You guys rock!!!!!!!!

I'm sitting here, alone, playing chess with myself, wondering where my mind has gone. I'm thinking back upon the last two years and, I think, am getting a little reflective. This actually surprises me. I talk a lot, sure, but deep thinking? Nah, just not my style. I don't do the deep philosophical ponderings anymore. I don't think about life, the universe, and everything. I really just don't care.

How, you may ask, have I gotten to this point? Well, you see, once upon a time, there was this man named John Crichton. He got shot across the universe. He accidentally killed a guy. The guy's brother tried to kill him. And that was all just in one day. Weird how your entire life perspective can change in the space of about 15 minutes. One minute, you're a scientist living a dream, and the next you're a wanted criminal onboard a living ship filled with other criminals and outcasts. And it only gets more pathetic from there. I actually had someone tell me that my life was pathetic once, and ya know, I didn't try to disagree with her. Of course, that could have been 'cause she was holding a very sharp, pointy stiletto to my throat. Nonetheless, one upside to that whole miserable chapter of my life was that she felt sorry for me, didn't kill me, and then we had sex. Maybe not the brightest thing I've ever done…

But I digress. I was one of those ordinary, All-American guys. I loved (and still love, and miss very much) hamburgers, football, beer, fast cars, and fishing. I had a father, a couple sisters, a nice little apartment with a good CD collection, and a very respected job. I was loved. I, John Robert Crichton, was a made man.

And than all of that crap happened.

Picture me shrugging here. I've just come to the conclusion that Lady Luck is a sick, twisted, malicious bitch sometimes. But, I have adapted. Or, I was adapting, until this lovely group of PK commandos came aboard Moya and one of them, under the influence of an alien virus, decided to stab Aeryn. Picture me screaming in anger, horror, and oh yeah, did I mention anger? The bastard almost killed her. We thought she was recovering just fine and dandy until I discovered she was dying. Talk about your bad days.

So, of course, I had to go and play hero. Not that I regret it or anything; I mean, I would walk into hell itself if I knew that it would help Aeryn in some way or another. What can I say? I'm head over heels in love with the woman. As annoying and exasperating as she can be sometimes, I love her. We haven't actually admitted as much to each other yet, but I have hope that someday she'll be ready to.

A psychiatrist would have a field day with the two of us, let me tell ya. Un- requited love. Deep wounds from the past. Intimacy problems. Blah, blah, blah. But let me get on with my little story.

So, John the Hero goes down to a PK Gammak base, and tries to fool some Peacekeepers. Well, as with everything else in my life lately, it failed. I got captured by the Uncharted Territories version of a Nazi scientist, and then got tortured. It was major fun, let me tell ya. If you've never been tortured, let me give you a little clue as to what it's like. 'Cause there's nothing else like it in the world. I've been beat up and kicked around before, sure, and every time I've recovered from it, sure, but what makes torture different from getting abused by your normal run of the mill bad guy is the psychological aspect of it. When you're sitting in a cold, dank cell, hungry, afraid, and hurting, you have nothing else to do but think about the next time someone is going to hurt you. You're suffering from the after-effects of the last session, and you know that the next is going to be just as bad, or even worse. It's all psychological. Fear and terror and pain creep into you so deep that all you can do is shake, and hope that you'll die before they get another go at you. I really think I could have taken beatings. Hell, I could have taken electric shock therapy and getting beaten by a wet noodle if that's what they wanted to do. But no, I am just never that lucky. Instead, I get stuck in this lovely little invention called the Aurora Chair. Sifted through my memories like a sieve, and pulled out the fact that this other group that had frelled with my mind had put some information in my subconscious about wormholes. So, we go from bad guy Scorpius thinking I'm just a spy to bad guy Scorpius wanting to dissect my brain for knowledge I couldn't (and even if I could, wouldn't) give him.

Not a very happy moment for our Hero, trust me. It hurt more than anything I'd ever experienced. I still have trouble walking down an empty corridor without getting skittish. I've told Aeryn some of this, but it's hard for me to admit that, as a grown man, I want nothing more than to curl up with the security blanket I had as a kid and hide. For a very long time. Fear like that really never leaves. It gets in your mind and your skin so deeply that it permeates every waking and sleeping moment. I went way dark side for a very long time, and I think I may still be there.

Long story short, I did get out of the base, thanks to D'Argo, Zhaan, Aeryn, and a very sweet, very kind, very loyal Peacekeeper Tech named Gilina. She's also very dead, currently, thanks to that bastard Scorpius. After the short funeral we held for her, I wandered the halls of Moya for days, feeling guilty and ashamed. She loved me, died trying to save my life, and I could do nothing to truly comfort her in her dying moments. For some reason, that song by Queen kept running through my mind. There's no time for us, there's no place for us, what is this thing that builds our dreams then slips away from us… This world has only one sweet moment set-aside for us…However; unlike the lovers in the song, I couldn't love her back. She deserved to be loved by someone who could give her a nice little house with a white-picket fence and some cute kids running around the yard. God, if I could kill Scorpius, I would. In my darkest fantasies, I stick a pulse rifle down his throat and pull the trigger. But, like someone once said- hell, might even have been me- life isn't always fair.

Aeryn did recover. That was the one very bright and very good side to that whole experience. I didn't enjoy my little playtime with the neurosurgeon from hell, but I'd do it again if it meant her being okay.

Then I began to have visions. Hallucinations, if I'm honest, of Scorpy, in all his nightmarish splendor. I first started getting them while under the influence of yet another bad guy, Tralltix. Fuckin' crackers. I swear. Well, at least Zhaan had fun. And fun. And yet more fun… Scorpius was wearing Hawaiian shirts, of all things. Pizza and Margarita shooters, my ass. That's how I knew it was a hallucination. That's just gross. After we all became sane again, I was more disturbed by my behavior than ever. I had killed a man in cold blood, almost raped Chiana, and had tried to kill Aeryn and D'Argo. What, in the name of all that was holy, I wondered had gone so completely wrong with me that I would do those things. Sure, I was under the influence of Tralltix, but, due to my visions of Scorpy, I did have some small amount of control. I told Chiana later that the things I said to her were "just there". That was never like me before. I tried to backtrack to the point when they got there, but couldn't find it. The apologies I gave and the friendships I tried to mend didn't stop the nightmares or the guilt. I would give anything to have never have said or done any of those horrible things. The past is the past, though, and I can't do anything to change it. Life sucks.

It was as if something had been triggered in my mind. A floodgate had been opened that I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried, close. I began seeing the leather-clothed bastard everywhere. Not a good thing. I couldn't function. I almost shot Aeryn once, thinking it was him. I was talking back to him, playing chess with him, of all things, and I was getting about the same amount sleep a night as a new parent. The final straw came, though, during that miserable chapter of my life on the Royal Planet. Scorpius was there, with a full command carrier, and trying very hard to get me again. No way in hell was I gonna let that happen, so, I married a princess. Or almost did, anyway. What did most assuredly happen was me getting turned into a statue (another one of those things that fell into the major 'ouch' category in my book of "Bad Things that have happened to John Crichton"), going for a space walk without a helmet, getting my head cut off, AND getting dumped into a vat of acid (those last three went into the category of "if this ever happens again I am going to be in a cationic state for a very long time")!

The little adventure ended with me holding Scorpy's head inches above said vat of acid. I desperately wanted to kill him. I tried with every fiber of my being to kill him. But I couldn't. I, instead, had a very lovely flashback to my time in the Aurora Chair. I started shaking and couldn't do it. I couldn't kill him. It was if I was suddenly physically unable. I told him instead to leave me the hell alone. I didn't want the guy to go away mad, I just wanted him to go away.

I have this very sneaking suspicion that he didn't take well to that. In short, I am so frelled.

On the upside, Aeryn and me kissed. Picture me jumping up and down for joy, with a very big grin on my face. She tasted so very sweet, like cotton candy or chocolate. I walked around like an idiot for days after, feeling so euphoric that I actually got some sleep for once.

Nothing lasts forever.

Apparently, I had attracted the attention of the Scarrans. I was put through this twisted, Alice-In-Wonderland-on-acid mind trip that left me unable to form complete sentences for days. Especially whenever I was near Rygel. There are just some things I'll never be able to forget. Rygel in a leather dominatrix outfit is one of them. I want to forget it, but somehow it's just stuck in my mind. Picture me shuddering here – oh come on, wouldn't you?! It was an attempt to break me. To make me go insane. It almost worked, too. I mean, if you'd seen the things I'd seen… My mother, who is also very dead, begging me to stay with her when she died. I don't know if there are words to describe how effectively this tore my heart out. I loved my mother. She was the sweetest, warmest, most decent woman anyone could ever want for a mom, and those fuckers recreate her dying moments. And her words "Be with me when I go this time, John" ripped through me like a knife. I would have given anything at that moment to make it go away. I vaguely remember screaming for it to stop, that what they were making me see was too cruel for anyone to endure. I closed my eyes, waiting for it to stop…

It was if everyone I'd ever know showed up for a visit. Aeryn, Zhaan, and Chiana as either doctors, astronaut groupies, or my love slaves; D'Argo in a pair of golf pants and trying to seduce me…I could go on, but I don't want to give you nightmares. There's something else, too. Something that's right on the edge of my mind, something that I can't remember that I know is very important. I think it has something to do with our best friend Scorpy and the visions I keep having, but I blank whenever I try to grab it. I know he helped me; in fact, he was nice enough to show me how to kill the Scarren torturing me, enabling me to escape. Before he left, he did the whole "I'm a scary villain and I'm going to go back into your head now, but I'll be here again when you need me" but, of course, but I expected nothing less.

He was right. He did help again. Got me out of the mind-cleansing thing with the Nebari…Another one of those "please don't ever let that happen to me again" things. Ever had your eyeballs pulled out of your head? No? Well, I don't recommend you try it at home.

Stop the ride I wanna get off…

So, all of that, up until now, is the sad, pathetic story of my life. This is how I have come to be by myself, very late at what passes for night on Moya, wondering when my next psychotic episode is going to happen. And the sad thing is that I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I used to be sane. Once upon a time I didn't have flashes of the man who tortured me. In fact, once upon a time, I didn't even know what that felt like. I've felt my sanity slipping away from me like sand slips through your fingers. I'm paranoid, jumpy, and trigger-happy. Hell, I even named my gun. I really outta be in a mental institution, on lots of medication, being fed mushy peas by an aide. I am having a hard time telling reality from fantasy sometimes, and keep wondering, just as I did when I was in my Scarren induced nightmare, when I'm going to snap.

And ya wanna know what really terrifies me? I'm afraid that I'm gonna hurt someone when I do. That's what makes cold sweat break out all over my body. So, right now, I sit alone, where I can't hurt anyone, and pray that either sanity or death catches up with me before I do.

I'm really, really praying sanity gets me first.