Chapter Three

"So how're ma boys?" Crichton stepped off the transport pod with his arms out wide, and despite being far too old for such things, both D'Argo and Jack let him pull them into a rough hug.

Crichton put his arms around the two of them and began to lead them immediately towards the control room, where his wife would be controlling.

"So? What did I miss? Anything happen while I was away?"

Jack glanced at D'Argo, and D'Argo gave him a glance in return.

"Nothing." Jack said.

"Nothing at all."

"Pretty quiet really."

"Positively boring."

"Well that's what I like to hear!" Their father exclaimed, giving them each a pat on the shoulder and continuing to lead them through. There always seemed to be a lot of fast walking when their father was about. Fast walking and running, broken up by periods of yelling and occasionally screaming. Good fun, really.

"How was your trip?"

"Three people tried to kill me, and I had to forcibly remove a woman from my room by waving a shoe at her face." Usually the boys understood even their father's weirder expressions, but this one they both looked puzzled at. "Don't ask." He said, his right hand making a waving motion to flick the terrible memory away, "…and don't tell your mother." He added as an afterthought, and both the boys flicked each other a smirk.

They rounded a corner a few moments later and strode in matching strides into the main control room, its brown and red walls only further contrasting with Aeryn, standing tall and at attention in Peacekeeper black, matched with her long, black hair.

Crichton walked straight into the room and without a moments hesitation leaned in to kiss Aeryn, his arm looping round her waist briefly. D'Argo turned away so he wouldn't have to see it, but he was always secretly happy to see his parents little gestures. They separated after a moment, but Crichton leaned against the panel she was standing by, keeping close to her.

"So, what did the boys do this time?" D'Argo's heart dropped instantly and he turned to his dad in indignation.

"What? Nothing! I said-"

"Oh, please! 'positively boring'? I was gone for a week. That means at least 1 major event and possible near death experience must have happened."

"I-" Whilst D'Argo tried to think of a single thing to go against such infallible logic, Aeryn raised a single, powerful eyebrow.

"Jack tried to talk politics to two Davin officials, by pretending to be you, and D'Argo got kidnapped and picked up a stray."

"Oh for Pete's sake, Jack! If you don't want to learn about politics, then don't go around pretending you know a damn thing about them!" Jack looked sheepishly at D'Argo, but even if he could have helped his brother, he was inclined to agree that Jack's fondness of "playing dad" was wearing thin. If only it were solely restricted to bad ambassadorship…Ambassadorness…? Ambassory...?

"…A stray what?" Crichton's voice cut D'Argo's thoughts short and his head snapped back round to the present and to his parents.

"Humanoid." Aeryn answered, when D'Argo hesistated with the answer.

"Could be worse. Who kidnapped you this time?"

"A creepy guy, went by the name of 'Collector'"

"What did you do to piss him off?"

"Nothing!" He looked at his hands and rethought his answer "...Possibly a drunken something. But nothing that would have warranted locking me up and putting me in a cage. A friggin' cage! It was all very Planet of the Apes!"

"Yeah? Which ape were you?" Jack's hilarious input got three matching glares from the rest of the room.

"You're sure you didn't do anything?" Crichton asked warily, the glimmerings of anger in the back of his eyes.

"Nothing! I am at least," D'Argo consulted his hands again, "…80% sure!"Crichton turned to Aeryn.

"What do we know about this Collector dude?"

"Nothing except what D'Argo has told us. I've never heard the name before."

"New kid on the block?"

"Quite possibly."

"Maybe it's time to talk to-"

"I already called him."

"That's' my baby!"

"Nobody kidnaps a Crichton-Sun without some serious consequences." D'Argo saw his mum's dark look matched by his father's and flinched a little. The two of them talked like death and destruction were parts of life, but if anyone laid a single finger on either himself or Jack, the two of them got a look in their eyes that made him think that nothing could get in their way.

Which made sense, of course, because usually nothing could.

"Well then, in the meantime, let's meet this stray of yours, D'Argo."

"She's not a stray." D'Argo said sharply, "I rescued her from whatever hell hole I was put into.

"So where is she?"

"Jared's just running a couple of medical examinations, see if she's okay."

"Well let's go see if she is!"

The three boys walked down the corridor, leaving Aeryn to watch them go from the control panel. He glanced back and gave her a little smile, and D'Argo saw his mum give him a small one back, worry still hidden slightly behind it.

They strode through the maze of Moya's corridors with quick ease. Crichton knew Moya like the back of his hand, but his sons knew her better.

They had begun to learn the maze of rooms and corridors as soon as they could crawl, and by the time they could walk, they realised that whilst they were big enough to clambour about quite effectively, they were also small enough to fit into the nooks and crannies that Moya had to offer. D'Argo could not count the number of times he had stumbled upon a new area as a child, squeezing through a gap barely bigger than a DRD and discovering a secret hideaway no one else knew existed.

D'Argo suspected he knew Moya better than the Peacekeepers that had raised her. The only ones who rivalled his knowledge were his younger brother, and Pilot himself of course.

They turned a corner into the medical room and nearly walked straight into Jared, who saw them and stumbled back in surprise. He looked like it wasn't his first shock that day.

"Jared, how's it going buddy?" Crichton clapped a hand on Jared's shoulder, and the younger man beamed up at him with unrestrained admiration.

"Just great, meester Crichton seer, just great!" His thick, Cheveon accent snuck through into every word he said, but "i"s were where his speech stuck in his throat, something the translator microbes might have been able to deal with if it had been an accent that any of the rest of his species had. Jared stood almost a foot shorter than D'Argo, his thick frame making his awkward mannerisms almost comical.

"How's Hannah?" D'Argo asked, stepping around him to walk into the medical room, where Hannah sat on the bed, sitting in an old peacekeeper uniform that D'Argo didn't recognise, clearly having been scrubbed from head to foot. Her skin was even paler without all the dirt than it had been when he first saw her.

"Hi, Hannah, how's it going?" He asked, approaching her carefully and, having no idea what the social niceties of speaking to a clearly terrified, and possibly slightly crazy woman you had rescued but knew nothing about, D'Argo settled for a half-hearted wave.

It seemed to do the trick as she seemed completely relieved to see him and gave him a small wave back, leaping up abruptly, and half running to grab onto his arm, turning to the others in the room with a look that questioned what they were doing there at all.

"Um…Okay…" D'Argo said, not wanting to put an arm around her, but definitely not, not wanting to.

"Hi, Hannah?" Crichton asked, "I'm Crichton. Pleased to meet you." He reached out his hand, and D'Argo saw the surprise in his face when Hannah reached out and shook it.

Jared walked up to them and spoke in a low tone, until all of them leaned in close to what he was saying. He had a flair for the dramatic, something his father had shared. Jared was from Gaving Primus 3, the third best country in a cluster of fairly insignificant planets save for the huge lakes of Gaving Oil that scattered the surface. Gaving Oil was a key element in the production of many different machine parts – the most notably being rather large guns.

Crichton had been in peace talks with the four Gaving planets a few years before, and had successfully managed to get Primuses 1, 2 and 4 on board with the Wormhole Peace Treaty. Gaving Primus 3, however, which boasted the largest oil deposits, largest cities and the fourth highest free standing mountain in the entire Gavinus galaxy, would not agree to something that could limit their selling (and mountain tourism) potential.

Unless of course Crichton agreed to take on the High Minister's son as an apprentice and teach him all that Crichton knew and show him the galaxy?

D'Argo remembered his mother had still been laughing when they got back on the ship, and even Crichton had been forced to admit that perhaps he wasn't the best candidate to teach a man about how to survive in the big wide universe.

Still, that was 3 years ago, and Jared was practically one of the family now. One of the weirder members, perhaps, but that had never stopped their family before.

"So ee ran some tests." Jared said, glancing to his right for anything sneaking behind him. To his surprise, there was nothing there. "Wanted to see how she was doeeng, pheesically. So ee ran through some blood scans, then ee thought, heck, thees blood eesn't peacekeeper. No seere." He paused for effect."Eet's human."

"Humanoid?"

"No! Human! Just like yours meester Crichton!"

"But that's not possible." Crichton said, suddenly looking at Hannah in as though she had grown a pair of heads. Possibly a pair of heads with rather large teeth.

"Ee checked! Honest to anytheeng meester Crichton, ee double checked!"

Crichton turned slowly to Hannah and twisted his mouth to the side thoughtfully, "You come from earth?" He asked her, his voice gentle but broking no argument. She just looked at him blankly for a moment and looked up at D'Argo; so Crichton tried a different tack.

"Hannah. That's a pretty funny name, huh?" She shrugged and watched Crichton's causal air with a wary one of her own. "Not a name you hear much round here. Do you remember how you got it?"

Hannah looked at him like he was a little bit dim before answering, "My parents."

"And where do your parents live?"

"On the farm."

"And where is the farm?" Hannah seemed to think for a while, then her eyes got dark from behind and she shook her head slowly.

"I don't know." She backed up a little from Crichton, still gripping onto D'Argo's arm like a vice. He winced a little but made no move to shrug her off.

"It's okay, Hannah. We're friends. We won't hurt you." Hannah's looked managed to be both disbelieving and accusing. Crichton tried again, a little more firmly, and little more loudly; "Where was the farm?"

Instead of replying, Hannah clenched her teeth tightly together and bit one side of her lip, then the other, then the other, then the other. Crichton looked like he was about to ask again, but she took a breath, hesitated, took another, and spoke softly through her teeth with one side of her lip still clenched between them.

"I had a dream once," she began slowly, thinking through her response bit by bit, "that I was on a farm, and there were people there, and there wasn't a cage, and there was the sun." She gained a little momentum as she went. "We called it Weatherford Creek, but sometimes we called it Tenessee." Crichton gave a sharp intake of breath that confirmed to D'Argo what they suspected without any words.

"And sometimes there would be rain, and sometimes there would be sun, but it didn't really matter which was which, because they both made the plants grow, and we kind of liked both."

There was a heavy silence that settled on the room like a layer of dust or ash. Crichton took a slow inhale and D'Argo saw him bite down a few swear words, opting instead for: "Do you remember how you got here?"

The dark look rose behind Hannah's bright blue eyes, and she swivelled them upwards to D'Argo's – a request for help, a request to stop, to go backwards. D'Argo wanted to grant it, but his father gave him a sharp look, so he returned the stare with the kindest one he could muster.

"Hannah, can you tell us exactly what you remember?" D'Argo said gently. Hannah swallowed and looked down to the ground, her request not granted, and the only way forward from there.

"In the dream I am ten years old. But I might be older. Or maybe younger." Hannah plucked at an invisible strand on her borrowed uniform and slowly released her arm from D'Argo's grip. "I was playing in one of the fields and then there was this bright light, and there were all these voices and screams and then I was in a cage." She looked at the ground and paused. The four of them exchanged glances and waited for her to pause again, but she took a small breath and powered through.

"There were men that yelled at us and said a whole bunch of things I didn't understand, then it went dark and there was just me and lots of other people and the people cried a lot and then after a while we were all just quiet."

"The Collector's men took you from Earth?" Crichton asked gently; but to their surprise, Hannah shook her head.

"No. The men were so pale, they looked almost white. They had sticks and spoke in a language I didn't know."

"Do you remember anything about the ship? What it looked like? What clothes the men wore?"

"I was in a big, dark room. The men wore rags and held sticks… I" Hannah trailed off and her mind seemed to get lost in a thought process. She muttered something to herself then looked back up at them, as though she was confused why they were still there.

"Is there anything else you remember?" Jack asked, leaning in a little so D'Argo could see the impatience behind his eyes.

"No…It wasn't a nice dream." Hannah stated, daring them to question her, "I tried to forget that bit."

Jack gave his dad a look and Crichton nodded. He straightened up again and beckoned his two sons closer, leaving Jared to lead Hannah back onto the medical cot.

"So pale, almost white. Cages in a big dark room. Doesn't narrow it down by much." D'Argo muttered under his breath, glancing at Hannah, who now stood, a thoughtful frown on her face, her lips pressed tightly together.

"What're the chances she's making it all up though?" Jack asked.

"What?" D'Argo's sudden anger told far more than he had probably intended it to, "I don't think she has a clue what's going on, why would she lie?"

"It's not like we haven't been infiltrated before." Jack said, pointedly, and D'Argo's face burned bright red.

"That was different." He defended, and then forced his mouth closed to stop it from rising to the bait so neatly set up for him.

"Boys," Crichton stated, his eyes still glancing at Hannah from time to time, Hannah's gaze always managing to flick upwards as he did so to meet his eye. "I'm inclined to believe her, but I don't want to take any chances, we'll talk to Snitch first." He looked over to Jared, meaningfully, "I think it would be best if Hannah stayed here for a little while. Until she gets her bearings."Jared nodded, knowingly and tipped an imaginary hat that he may or may not have actually believed was on his head.

"Reeght you are meester Crichton!"

"Aeryn, did you catch all that?" Crichton leaned into his comm badge and listened for the voice on the other end.

"Yep, I got it. Starburst is ready to go."

"Then let's letta rip!"

"Counting down to starburst. Three, two, one-" A lurching feeling lifted D'Argo's stomach up towards his ears and filled them with the roaring sound of blood. He had once listened to his brother explain the feeling of starburst to a Luxan woman while drunk. D'Argo had watched, amused as Jack had managed to manage:

"Feels like … mgbhl… you're moving in a thousand directions at once…uslumph… your brain is squiggling but your eyesight stays the same and … oopl…Also you get a hangover afterwards without the fun part beforehand … Hey, do you wanna get out of here?" And at that point the woman had given him a punch square in the nose, and Jack had fallen back onto his ass, where he could get a fantastic look at the Luxan woman's legs as they strode off.

He had been pretty proud of the description then, and had demanded to know why his older brother hadn't defended him.

"When you need defending, I shall defend you." D'Argo had stated, as he dragged his brother to his stumbling feet and helped pull him out of the bar.

After a few moments of sea-sickening movement, they lurched to a halt, and everyone in the room stumbled forward, nearly onto their faces, with Jared and Hannah perhaps coming closer than the others.

After recovering the remnants of their brains and dignity, the three boys exchanged identical smiles and Crichton pushed his comm on his shirt again.

"That was quick."

"We missed the mark by a little way. Heading towards Gyrhna#pl3 now."

"Great, how long?"

"About three arns, give or take."

"Well then, looks like it's time for a bit of dinner." Crichton announced and gave his boys a quick thumbs up before leaving the room and a side glance at Hannah as he strode through the door. Her eyes instantly went up to meet his.

Jack gave D'Argo a quick look of his own, and then powered after his father, but D'Argo hesitated a moment, and looked over at Hannah, who was sitting at the bed and staring at him again.

"Hi." He said, shifting from one foot to the other, and then back again under her gaze.

"Hi." She agreed, swinging one leg to and fro and keeping her blue eyes fixed on his.

"What are you thinking?" He asked, genuinely and suddenly incredibly curious.

"The Collector told me I was unique, special. The only one like me. There was a time I knew he was wrong, and there was a time for a little while I would tell him that, but he never believed me, and every day I forgot whether I was right or not."

"You were right, you're-"

"But you people think the Collector was wrong, that I'm the same as other people. You think the place of Tennessee is real, not a dream, don't you? That the people I remember are true."

"Yeah, we do, I-"

"So now I wonder who is crazy? Is it me? Is it my dream? Or was it the Collector all along?" Her eyes flicked a little to the left to look at the wall beyond, and D'Argo could almost feel his temperature drop as her look left him, "but then, maybe it's just me again. Maybe I've gone crazy again, switched back."She seemed thoughtful again.

"I saw a man go crazy once, in the cage next to me. He was crying and crying until suddenly he went quiet, and then he stopped eating, and the Metal Men called him 'crazy' and that made it true.

"See, if someone says you're crazy, then you are. But what happens when different people say different things? Who's crazy then?"

"I don't think you're crazy." D'Argo said, quietly, and Hannah looked at him once more.

"Really? I think you are."