Title: Be careful what you wish for

Summary: It's one of those future fanfics (set seven years into the future) about the long awaited return to Earth. Only the conditions under which John returns aren't really ideal. In fact he spends all of his time home trying to find a way to get back, not just for his sake, but for that of his daughter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Farscape or any of it's characters.

Be Careful What You Wish For





Flying lessons

" Hey dad, when's it gonna be my turn?" Jamie whined and she started practising a drum roll on the back of her father's head.

" As soon as we get far enough away from Moya, so that when I eventually let you loose on the galaxy you don't crash into the only stationary object out there kid, because that would make you look stupid," he said cheerfully. He could almost feel her rolling her eyes at him, a habit she'd picked up from her mother.

" Dad, mom taught me how to fly a prowler three years ago remember? I'm seven now, so I think I'm old enough to fly this antique without crashing it into any big stationary objects like Moya," she said equally as cheerfully.

" This antique requires a little more skill than a prowler kid," he said smiling. Jamie was turning into her mother.well her mother with her father's sense of humour and fun.

" Yeah, but you know perfectly well, that it's all about instinct, not." she began, but suddenly the sensors started flashing alarm signals in all directions. Jamie groaned and threw her head back angrily. John felt like a steel hand had wrapped around his nerves. That alarm could mean only one thing, incoming Scarran or Androlian vessel.

" Sit tight kid, we'll be home before you can say."

" Look there's a great big ugly Scarran fighter cruiser decloaking right in front of us," she said coolly, but if John could have seen her face he would have seen amusement in it. John snapped his gaze back to the front port.

" Uh oh," he said. " Jamie hold on, initiating evasive manoeuvres now."

" Dad its charging its frag cannons, want me to come take over weapons control?" she asked sounding eager. John sighed, but eventually nodded. So Jamie climbed over the back of the chair and landed in her father's lap. She instantly started tapping at controls in sequences her mother had been teaching her her whole life.

Jamie was the perfect daughter for Aeryn because she was a warrior at heart (how could she not be, growing up during wartimes), she was uncannily brave, she was trained in three different martial art forms and most importantly she kept calm in a crisis. Jamie was the perfect daughter for John because she was funny, mischievous, adorable and she hero-worshipped her father. All in all John and Aeryn couldn't be happier with their daughter.

It took John and Jamie five microns to outmanoeuvre and out fire the fighter cruiser before they reached the safety of Moya's hanger. Luckily the second they boarded Moya was able to starburst to safety.

" Sorry we had to cut the lesson short again kid," John said as they shut down all the systems and opened the hatch.

" It's okay dad, really," she said cheerfully and she climbed out of the pod and jumped down.

" No it's not okay Jamie, it shouldn't have happened again! That's the third time in two nomens that our flying date has been cut short and I'm fed up!" he muttered jumping down at Jamie's side. Jamie grinned and reached up to grab her dad's hand with hers. John smiled down at her. How could she remain so happy when he was so fed up with the war, but that was Jamie for you, she'd managed to keep a smile on her face even when they were held in a concentration camp on Delron, prisoners of the Androlians. The conditions had been terrible, but the young child had never given up hope that Moya and her crew would come rescue them.

" Well either way it did happen so we just have to deal, okay?" she said firmly. John rolled his eyes.

" Since when did you get so wise?" he asked grinning at his daughter.

" Yesterday, ten microns and three microts past five exactly," she said simply.

" Oh really? You know the exact time and everything? I must say, I'm impressed." he began, playing along with her joke, when they met a worried face at the hanger doors.

" What's wrong Kayto?" John asked feeling as though the steel hand was back. Kayto was one of Moya's oldest crewmembers. The gang picked him up from a imploding space station six years earlier, and he'd loved them all so much he'd hung around. He was Sebation and had rescued John's life and the lives of those he cared about enough times for John to consider the young man a valuable and dear friend.

" We have a.um.small situation on tier eight," he said sounding terrified. John frowned, this wasn't like Kayto, he was rarely scared by anything.

" What sort of situation?" John asked suspiciously.

" Well it's actually about Warer's pet Zanex." Both John and Jamie felt a sense of dread at the mention of that horrid beast and had a bad feeling about what Kayto was going to say next. ".It's escaped."

" Oh that's just great," John burst out whilst Jamie scanned her immediate vicinity and pulled out her pulse pistol ready to shoot any Zanexes she saw. Zanexes were creatures not dissimilar to what a cross between a scorpion and a snake would look like.only it was furry. Though Warer, the boy who owned this particular one, claimed it wasn't venomous, the other members of the crew always gave the creature a wide berth.

" Do the troops know anything about it yet?" John asked quickly and was relieved when Kayto shook his head. " Good, let's keep it that way. The last thing we need is for them all to get rowdy. What's being done to contain it?" And so Kayto went off into details. Jamie grew bored of the conversation and excused herself before rushing off to find her friends.

There were only four children on the whole ship, well five, if you included the fourteen-year-old peacekeeper female Breiyden. Other than Jamie there was the boy Warer, a seven-year-old Sebation boy the gang had rescued from slavery and Aeryn had decided to take under her wing as it were.so in essence he had been Jamie's brother for the past five years. The other two children were a pare of nine-year-old Nebari twins - a boy and a girl called Ty and Kara, they were the children of Adriana, a Nebari crewmember. Breiyden had been rescued from her damaged prowler three years ago, she had been part of a regiment that partook in cult-like rituals and had sacrificed the girl to battle. After much persuasion she remained on Moya.

Jamie found the kids playing one of the maintenance bays. They seemed surprised to see her.

" I thought you were out with John," Warer said when he saw her approaching. Jamie frowned at them all.

" You guys not notice us starbursting?" she asked incredulously and they shook their heads. " A Scarran fighter cruiser decloaked like right in front of us, so we had to get out of there real quick! Anyway, Warer, shouldn't you be looking for Trax along with the rest of them?" she asked the boy in an accusing tone. " He is your frelling pet after all!"

" Aeryn told me not to get involved," he said meekly and shrugged his shoulders. " They'll find him, he can't have gone far! I uh.don't think she's too happy with me."

" Can you blame her?" Kara demanded. " With that thing loose!"

" Why mom let you keep it in the first place is a mystery, what did you do? Was it the 'Jamie's got one so why can't I?' line or did you pull the orphan routine?" Jamie asked grinning. Warer raised his eyebrows, faking a hurt expression.

" Would I do a thing like that?"

" Yeah," the other three said simultaneously and they all cracked up.

" Well let me tell you one thing bro, if I come across him, he's getting a belly full of pulses," Jamie said cheerfully and that marked the end of the conversation. They were about to set off on an adventure when Aeryn commed Jamie.

" Time for lunch," she informed her daughter. " Oh and tell Warer that we've found the Zanex. Its safely contained in the habitat!"

" Alright mom, see you in a bit," Jamie replied and she relayed the message to her foster-brother, before leading the kids through the conduits (their favoured mode of transport) to the mess hall, where all the gang were gathered for lunch.it was obviously a meeting of some sort. The kids climbed out of the crawl space and were met by fond smiles. They picked up a plate each and walked over to their usual seats.

" Good now we're all gathered can we please begin?" Micola, a Sebation woman, asked John. On Moya the kids were treated as part of the crew. They all fought hard to protect her and they fought hard in the war effort, so they were treated with respect and responsibility.

" Of course," John said and he stood up so everyone could see him. " As you all probably know, we're nearing the drop off point for our latest visitors. Tomorrow we should arrive at the outpost where we'll drop the troops off," he explained. Everyone nodded, they knew this already. " Well the point of this meeting is about what we're going to do afterwards. The outpost wouldn't mind using our services to transport some more troops to a medical base.but, I promised you guys that this would be the last delivery round we'd do in a while. I know you guys are all aching for some more action and the Nebari could use our help in transporting much needed supplies to the front lines, which would mean that some of you would have to get out there in some prowlers and escort Moya safely." He paused whilst the whispering that had broken out died down. " I know it's dangerous, but personally I've had enough for now of being a frelling bus service," he muttered. " But that's just me, what do you guys think. You still up for it?" He was greeted by an uproar of approval as every single crewmember.except Aeryn who had already informed him of her thoughts.started cheering.

" Well I guess that's unanimous," he said smiling at his friends. Jamie looked at her own friends excitedly. This was more like it! For the last six nomens they'd only been transporting troops in safe space, everyone on board was itching for some action, everyone, including the children!

The children fought alongside the adults. When Jamie had been little John had kept her away from all fighting, he had protected her completely, so that she was never exposed to the war that raged around her, but when they rescued Warer and saw what could happen to children if they didn't know how to protect themselves, he'd encouraged her training. Even when she was fully trained, John refused to let her near a battle situation, but Jamie was an audacious child and she eventually won her father over and she began to fight alongside them. Now, at the age of only seven, she was a war hero to the Alliance. Having fought in more battles than she could recall and having rescued too many important leaders to be considered menial. The child was a tactical genius, so she rarely ended up in any real danger. The children formed their own unit, mainly in charge of protecting Moya from any invasion. They were perfectly suited to this task, knowing where all of her hundreds of crawl spaces and conduits went and they knew how to use them to disappear and reappear wherever and whenever they wanted to. Over the last few years they'd helped rescue Moya from invasion too many times to count.

" Finally some action," Ty muttered as the usual chatter restarted.

" Wonder where we're going," Warer said, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

" Only problem is, now it seems unlikely that I'm gonna get any flying lessons done," Jamie said grimly. " I'm never gonna learn how to fly the module!"

" Why do you want to?" Kara asked frowning. " It's alien outdated technology!" Jamie sighed and shrugged.

" I'm half human right? I should at least learn something about their technology," she said grimly.

" Jay, you already speak 'human', and you know pretty much all of their major history and you know the geography and the topography of the planet and all about their solar system.what more could you want?" Warer said, ticking the list of on his fingers. " In fact, you know more about Earth, than I know about any planet!"

" That's because you don't have a home planet," Kara said grinning at the boy. Warer shrugged.

" True, but still, you get my point right?" he said. " John's taught her pretty much everything he knows about Earth."

" Not about the module though, that's something you can't learn purely by remembering facts, you have to experience it," Jamie muttered.

" That's right," John said, suddenly appearing next to the little group of children. They all smiled at him uneasily, how much had he heard? " But you and I are going on a little trip," he told his daughter. Jamie raised her eyebrows.

" What.as in flying trip?" she asked eagerly and John nodded.

" As in we leave Moya in a few arns and meet up with her in about a weeken, how does that sound?" Jamie's face split into a gleeful smile, which was answer enough for John. " Good, I'll go finish making arrangements. Be ready in two arns okay. Meet you at the module." With this he left the children on their own again. Jamie turned on her friends happily.

" Did you hear that? I'm finally going to learn how to fly that thing!" she boasted. The others were feeling slightly jealous (especially Warer), but they didn't let on, they didn't want to ruin it for Jamie. " I'd better go pack," she informed them and she jumped up and crawled into the conduit and set off. Within microns she reached her room and she crawled out. Her room was as usual, a complete and utter state! So finding enough clothes was going to be a hassle. Soon enough she'd gathered some spare trousers and shirts and underwear.her problem was socks.

" How come I never have any socks?" she muttered to herself as she turned over a few of her toys (well gadgets and spare parts from vessels that she'd adopted as her toys), but to no avail, she couldn't find any. So she left her room and moved quickly down the corridor to Warer's room. His room was in a worse state than hers.

" Why can I feel a mass tidy up coming on?" Jamie groaned, but she pushed the thought aside and searched his drawers till she found where he kept his socks. She soon realised why she didn't have any. " The little thief," she hissed and she quickly reclaimed all her own socks and was about to leave when she was caught in the act.

" What are you doing in my room?" Warer demanded appearing out of a conduit. Jamie rounded on him angrily.

" Reclaiming some of my possessions!" she hissed. " Sock snurcher!" she added as an afterthought. Warer glared at her.

" I didn't steal them! Jenna must have put them in my drawers by mistake!" he countered defensively.

" Jenna's worked here long enough to know whose clothes are whose! You just always have to take what's mine!" Jamie yelled at him and so the fight went on. Within no time they had moved to the corridor and it had turned into a scuffle.

They were rolling around on the floor screaming when Aeryn rounded the corner.

" What is going on?" she demanded and she quickly separated the two children, both looking totally dejected and upset.

" Warer's been taking my socks!" Jamie complained indicating the socks that were lying scattered over the corridor.

" I did not, I am not a thief!" Warer cried angrily.

" Liar!"

" Dranit!"

" Eat Hynerian dren Warer!"

" That's enough both of you!" Aeryn ordered. " We've told you before about swearing! Jamie I thought you were hoping to go on a trip with your father."

" But mom he started it." Jamie began in a whining tone, but Aeryn silenced her with a look.

" If you still want to go Jameson, then I suggest you be on your best behaviour!" Aeryn continued. " And Warer you know better than to fight about something so trivial as socks. You're already in enough trouble for letting that animal loose! Both of you apologise immediately and then go tidy your rooms, it's like living in a scrap yard!" Jamie and Warer glared at each other, but held out their hands and shook them rather roughly. Then they turned round and stalked off (Jamie pausing momentarily to pick up all the strewn socks). Aeryn rolled her eyes and then allowed herself a small smile before leaving herself. There was nothing that Aeryn enjoyed more than having the whole family together out of any immediate danger.

Jamie packed the socks in her bag and then fumed for a while. Eventually she shook herself out of her mood and she went about tidying up her room, but she got distracted by her pet Teracs (fuzzy little rodent-like creatures, similar to Gerbils, only in more exotic colours, i.e. bright blues and pinks and oranges). She played with her pets for the remaining time she had left, and then she pulled on her jacket and grabbed her bag, before making her way stealthily to the hanger where the module was kept. She ran into her favourite crewmember just outside the hanger doors.

" Hey Deacon," she said cheerfully. Deacon was an ex-peacekeeper, who had left the ranks when he grew tired of their way of life. He'd delivered Jamie when he'd found himself locked in a lift with Aeryn who went into labour, since then he'd really looked out for the girl and he liked her as much as she liked him.

" I hear you're going off on an adventure, you watch yourself you hear," he warned good-naturedly. " I'll see you in a weeken!" With this he let her go through to find John and Aeryn standing next to the module talking about something that was making Aeryn look very worried. When they saw Jamie they instantly changed the subject, feeding Jamie's curiosity even more.

" You all set?" John asked excitedly.

" Ready as I'll ever be," she replied and threw her bag in through the module's open hatch. Then she turned on her mother and hugged her quickly. Jamie hated being away from everyone on Moya, especially her mother. She'd seen too many people come and go because of the war, that now she was wary about leaving anyone.

" Now you mind your father, if I hear you've disobeyed him, there will be trouble," Aeryn said in a strict tone, but then she dropped to her knees and pulled her daughter into a proper embrace. " Take care little one," she whispered in her ear. Then she gave her daughter a kiss and let her climb up into the module. Aeryn meanwhile had turned on John. " You watch her Crichton! If anything happens to my daughter, you'll not know what's hit you," she said, but then she smiled and hugged her lover closely. " Please take care!" They kissed quickly, but passionately and then it was time to go. John climbed in through the hatch and closed it.

" Now are you sure you're all set?" he asked Jamie, who nodded impatiently. " Alright then, let's get this show on the road." With this they both waved to Aeryn who'd taken a few steps back and then they were off.

John flew the module for the first arn or so, whilst Jamie sat in the back thinking about Warer. Had she been too harsh on the boy? Either way, when she got back she'd apologised. They were very close, but they fought lots too, just like real brothers and sisters. Finally they reached an area of Space John thought Jamie could have fun with. There was a planet and nearby was the planet's sun.

" Right you ready kid?" he asked and Jamie quickly climbed over the seat and landed in his lap. " Right, now this isn't like controlling a prowler so you have to." he began, but Jamie had taken matters into her own hands and grabbed the steering controls. It sent them into a sick-making spiral. John snatched the controls and evened them out soon enough. " Jamie don't do that!" he said through his laughed.

" Sorry," she said feeling incredibly sheepish. " Carry on." And so John explained the basics of steering the module. Finally he let Jamie try. Jamie was a fast learner and soon enough she'd mastered all the basics.

" Wanna try playing with that planet's gravitational pull?" John asked eagerly. Jamie turned around and looked at him with a strange look. Half of her was very eager to try, but the other half of her was worried, so she had a contorted look on her face.

" Isn't that a bit dangerous?" she asked worriedly. " I mean, for me it is!"

" You'll be fine," John assured her. " I'm right here to take over if something goes wrong!" Jamie thought about it for a bit, but soon a mischievous grin appeared on her cheeky face.

" You're on," she said and she turned back around and steered them straight at the planet. They were going in at a rather steep angle, it was a little too steep for John's liking.

" Uh Jay, maybe you should be pulling out now?" he yelled over the noise that the module was making entering the atmosphere. Jamie was about to pull out when all of a sudden alarms were ringing all through the module. Something big was approaching them and it was making all the sensors fluctuate rapidly. Whilst John was trying to discover what the problem was Jamie looked up to see what was going on. What she saw made her heart stop. She barely had time to scream before it hit.