In the end, it wasn't that hard to find a wormhole that led back to Earth, or at least back to the Earth's solar system. Indeed, the hardest thing had been persuading Moya and Pilot to play along. They had, at first, been adamant that they wanted nothing more to do with the spatial phenomena. It was Aeryn who had eventually persuaded them to overcome their wormhole phobia in one of her long, private tete-a-tetes with Pilot. However, once out of the wormhole, Moya and Pilot soon forgot their earlier reservations as they played amongst the rocks of Saturn's rings.
"If I live to be a hundred I don't reckon I'll ever understand what goes on between you two sometimes," John teased his wife gently, propping himself up with both arms as he leant against the main control console on Moya's command deck. It was a running joke between them that, should Aeryn and Pilot had been compatible species, John would never have stood a chance with her. A flashing light on the console caught his attention, causing him to nearly miss her playful wink.
"I don't know why you didn't try this before," Aeryn remarked in an offhanded manner, munching on a piece of fruit as she perched on the edge of the strategy table. Young D'Argo, meanwhile, sat on the floor and played contentedly with the shiny metal buckles on her long, black leather boots.
John looked up from his console, shrugged and grunted something non-committal. Like Pilot and Moya, he had had his reasons for not wanting to go playing with wormholes again, even if that meant never returning to Earth. And some of those reasons were still a little too raw, too painful and too difficult to explain even to his wife. After all, Aeryn hadn't been present last year when the Ancient he called Einstein had given him his tutorial in ways-he-could-frell-up-the-universe-with-wormholes . Nor had she been there when he had made a deal with the devil to rescue her from the Scarrans, resulting in his complicity in the painful murder of the blended Chiana-Aeryn in an alternate universe. It had been easier just to tell everyone, Aeryn included, that he had closed the wormhole to Earth and that Einstein had taken all the wormhole knowledge from his head. Both were true up to a point, but neither assertion comprised the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
"I remember this place," Aeryn remarked through a mouthful of fruit, her eyes smiling, happy in her ignorance of his darkening train of thought. "I brought your father here in my Prowler. What did he call it...?"
"The Cassini division," John supplied, grateful for the distraction, for an opportunity to discuss something other than wormholes. Aeryn bit her lower lip, smiled at him and nodded, then turned her attention back to the magnificent view out of the portal.
"Uh hmm. That was it." Her happy expression faded a little. He looked at her, questioning her change in mood.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"I was just remembering. How we were, you and I, when we were last here."
"Well, that's all behind us now." John stated, reluctant to elaborate further. She turned her head towards him and he looked up and caught her eye. She smiled back at him with a hint of what he took to be nervous uncertainty, although it was always hard to tell with Aeryn.
"Jack and Olivia were convinced you'd 'come round,'" she continued. "They told me all you needed was time."
"It's always about time," he mumbled, looking down to check something on his own console, anything to change the subject. He really did not want to get into a discussion right now about that difficult period in their relationship.
She looked away, gazing out of the portal once again, giving him no indication if she was happy or sad, or even if she had heard his trite response.
John was half-tempted to go over to her, to take her in his arms and talk about their last visit to Earth, to try to unburden some of the guilt he still felt about what had happened, how he had behaved towards her, how he had pushed her away, angry at her for so many transgressions, real and imagined: A cycle before that trip to Earth she had left him to run off with his duplicate aboard Talyn. After his twin had died she'd come back to Moya heartbroken and almost unable even to talk to him. Then she had left him again, this time to run off to 'find herself' as an assassin. When she'd come back the next time she had been desperately ill and was protecting both his worst nightmare made flesh in Scorpius and a bucket load of secrets that she had refused to discuss with him.
But all that was behind them now, or so they both said. They had made their peace. It had been long and painful, and a wise man would know not to go picking at scars like that. He stole a surreptitious glance her way. She was still looking out the view portal, finishing her fruit while their son still played with her boot buckles. He so wanted to go over to her, to try to hug away some of their less happy memories in the hope that they could replace them with better ones. But thoughts of what had led to his anger towards her during their last visit were still eating at him, like an itch he couldn't scratch.
"Sure dad and Liv'll be cock-a-hoop to see you again," he said, looking away and holding tight to the console. "You and the little-un's," he concluded, stealing another glance her way. John's sister, Olivia, was a midwife - she loved small children and in addition had wasted no time in befriending Aeryn during their previous visit to Earth. This time, Aeryn looked back. Having drawn her eye once again, John nodded, using his eyes to pinpoint first her rounded belly and then young D'Argo playing at her feet. Best to let bygones be bygones and focus on the here and now, be grateful for what he had, rather than sulk about water under the bridge he told himself. Maybe if he kept telling himself that he might even start to believe it, some day.
She smiled nervously back at him. He suspected he knew what she was thinking, and it was nothing to do with when there were two John Crichtons in the Universe. She was probably thinking of how people would react to her now: he had wondered the same thoughts too. Would his father, his family, hell, would Earth, be ready this time to accept her as his mate, and more, to accept their half-human children? They would have to tread so carefully if they didn't want to end up as someone's little science project, especially now that they didn't have Big D'Argo and Lo'laan, or even Scorpy and Sputnik, for back-up should things go wrong.
"Pilot, you got a handle on them broadcasts yet?" he snapped.
"Umm, sorry Commander... I am afraid... Moya has intercepted some transmissions from your planet, but the number and power of transmissions is much reduced, compared to when we were last here."
"Say what, Pilot?"
"Some ... umm... time dilation may have taken place in the wormhole. I am attempting to determine..."
"Just so long as it's not before the last time we were here?" If there was one thing he really didn't want to go doing it was messing with the timeline. Star Trek might have had a ridiculously upbeat approach to most things, but they had gotten that 100% right.
"No, Commander, I do not think we are. I am not quite sure what... I am running tests."
Oh frell, John thought. What the hell could that mean? Well, there was only one way to find out. They would just have to go and take a closer look.
'~'
"OK, Pilot, take us in, but slowly and carefully," Aeryn had joined John at the main console by this time, leaving D'Argo playing beneath the strategy table. She laid a concerned hand on his upper arm.
"What do you think it is, John?" she asked.
"Dunno. But we're here now, so, in for a penny, in for a pound."
Aeryn frowned at his latest incomprehensible John-ism. She activated her comm. "Chiana?"
"Aeryn?" came the Nebari girl's reply after a couple of microts. "So, are we back in Crichton's backyard, then?"
"Yes. Could you look after D'Argo for us for a couple of arns, please? John and I need time to do some research."
Chiana was silent for a few microts. "Alright." Came the eventual reply. "See you in your chambers in a few macrots." In the monens since the death of her lover, D'Argo, at the battle of Quajaga Chiana had taken to keeping herself to herself: Sometimes no one saw her for days at a time. She had, wisely, soon abandoned her hastily conceived plan to accompany Rygel to Hyneria and had instead sought solace in the familiar halls and chambers of Moya, her home. The Leviathan was big enough to accommodate all of the remaining crew's needs, and, even if much of the time Chiana did prefer her own company these days, at least she still had friends to hand, should she need them or should they need her.
"I'll just drop D'Argo off," Aeryn announced, lifting their son onto her hip. John nodded in acknowledgement from where he stood at one of the consoles. "Back soon."
'~'
"It's definitely the right time-period?" Aeryn asked for the second time in a less than five minutes. They had been in high Earth orbit for half an hour now, but were little wiser about what was going on now than when they had been beyond the orbit of Mars.
"Yes!" John snapped back at her, instantly regretting his testiness. It wasn't her fault and it wasn't fair to blame her. "But there's no satellites, no ISS... Lots of orbiting debris, though." He tweaked the magnification on his screen, focussing in on the planet surface. "Lots of debris on the ground, too."
"It looks to me like there has been some sort of military action." Aeryn continued, scrolling through pictures of the damage down on the planet surface. John nodded. The stupid frelling idiots: had they really gone and blown themselves up in the year or so since he had last been here?
"If you want my professional opinion, the pattern reminds me of a subjugation-bombardment performed from orbit." John glanced across to see Aeryn tapping away at her console, totally absorbed in her tasks. She'd have made a good Vulcan. "Like Peacekeepers or Scarrans would perform."
John opened his mouth and then swallowed the urge to retort that she should know, being a Peacekeeper. Aeryn had been a Peacekeeper once, but that was in her past. He reminded himself to control his shock and anger at seeing the Earth in such a state and not to take the easy route and let it spill over into lashing out at his wife. "... umm... but, if true, where are they hiding?"
Aeryn nodded. "Pilot was adamant. Moya is currently the only space vessel in the entire system."
"So, the bad guys ain't here now."
"Unless they're behind the moon or one of the other planets and we can't see them." She looked up and pulled an unhappy face at him. He shrugged in reply. It was possible. In his experience, anything was possible, likely, even, if it implied trouble for him and his family.
"On the positive side, they did not destroy the planet - there still seems to be plenty of life, even some radio traffic," Aeryn continued. She gave a weak, encouraging smile. She was obviously trying, in her own way, to put an upbeat spin on things for him, bless her.
"So, whoever it was didn't come to destroy Earth. Maybe they came for something, got it and left?" John fell silent for a while, thinking about the unknowns in his theory and what to do next in practice.
"I would imagine that it would be safest to try to contact your government. I mean, if whoever did this is still here, hiding, then they probably know that we're here anyway. If they're not, well, you will want to check if you are welcome and make sure the humans don't mistake us for someone else. We would certainly need to do that before we could safely consider going down."
John nodded. Interesting: So, she was still thinking of going down? Maybe she wouldn't just knock him out and tie him up if he suggested it? "Good thinking, Aeryn. Pilot, could you, umm, could you see if you can open us one of the radio frequencies we used to talk to Earth last time we were here, please?"
"One moment, Commander," Pilot replied from the clamshell. As they waited, taking in the devastation below through the viewing portal now rather than on their consoles, Aeryn moved across behind John. She leant her head on his shoulder, reached around and gave John's hand a comforting rub. How different she was now from the angry, detached woman he had met just a few cycles before. Back then she would have rather died than seek or offer comfort to anyone. He moved his other hand up to cover hers.
"I have managed to contact a Lieutenant Colonel Collins, United States Air Force, Commander." Pilot broke in on their private moment after maybe half a minute.
"Put him on, I guess?" John replied. Why not, after all? They had come home to visit, there didn't seem to be any point in just sitting up in orbit, watching, wondering, trying to piece together what might have happened when they could just ask?
"Connecting you now," came Pilot's disembodied voice.
"Lt Col Collins?"
"Speaking. And who is this?" John could barely control his laughter. The whole thing seemed like some sort of cliche or déjà vu - him standing on Moya's command, trying to persuade some Earth-bound military or IASA contact that yep, he really was John Crichton. How come it never happened like that on other planets? If there was any conversation at all it normally involved him trying to convince someone that he wasn't the infamous John Crichton and please could they stop pointing those guns at him. He rubbed his face with one hand, dismissing the feeling that this had all happened before, that his life consisted of an endless series of tableaux, comprising him calling up Houston from Moya's command. He'd only been to Earth once before, and that first contact sure as frell hadn't gone anything like this.
"Would you believe, Commander John Crichton, from IASA? Look I'm up in orbit on Moya. I'm kinda wondering what the hell's happened down there."
There was a long pause from Collins. "John Crichton, you say?" Well, not exactly the response he'd asked for, even if it was the one he'd half expected.
"Yeah, the one and only. Least that's who I was last time I checked. Look, I've not been gone much more than a year: You remember me, right?" How could anyone possibly forget? Their visit the previous year had been conducted under the glare of the world's media. There was another long pause. Aeryn came round from behind him and he shot her a brief, pained expression. She took his hand and squeezed it. Giving comfort sure didn't come naturally to her, but he had to give her top marks for trying.
"Uhuh. I know who you are. Or who you claim to be. And you're in orbit, you say?"
"Yeah. That's right. Up on Moya." There was a long pause from the other end, filled first by off-microphone discussions then by static once they killed the mike. John frowned. He wasn't quite sure how he had imagined this might go, but this sure wasn't it. What the hell was going on? After about ten seconds Collins came back on, heralded by a momentary squeak of feedback.
"Okay, well, we're going to have to speak to a couple of people, but I think we're going to want to see you down here. There's things we need to talk about and, well, it would be best if we did it face to face."
"How so?" There was another silence from Earth, pregnant with as yet unrevealed meaning.
"Are you serious? Look, Commander Crichton, if that's who you really are, just get yourself ready to get your ass down here. We'll talk in an hour and let you know the when and where, OK?"
"No that is not frelling... oh-kay," Aeryn interjected angrily in English.
"Sorry, who is that?" Collins demanded with no hint of apology in his tone.
"Aeryn Sun. And my husband goes nowhere unless I agree to it!" John glanced at her, half grateful to be the beneficiary of her protective passion even if he did wish she'd left the negotiations to him. She was hardly the most diplomatic person in the universe, after all, and her statement that he wouldn't be going anywhere without her say so was setting off a whole bunch of alarms in his head. He also felt distinctly uneasy that she had revealed her presence and connection so early. He wasn't sure why he felt that way, but the rattlers had definitely woken up en masse. Her contribution to the conversation seemed to have sparked a hullabaloo at Collin's end, too. Multiple voices filled the ether for several microts before they subsided suddenly and he came back on.
"Umm, we're... gonna... have a talk down here... and get back to you in about an hour, OK? Collins out." There was a click and then more static. After a microt Pilot must have dialled the volume down because it died away.
Aeryn turned her head to look at John. She was smiling, obviously pleased with herself, and, despite his misgivings, he found it contagious. She so rarely smiled, and when she did, well, she was truly a sight to behold. "Well, that's put the Vorc amongst the pigeons." She remarked, to John's barely stifled amusement.
