Title: Wherever You Go, There You Are

Spoilers: Nothing new.

Rating: Um, PG just to be safe. Minor language.

Disclaimer: Stargate SG1 and Farscape are owned by lovely, wonderful people. I am not among them.

Author's note: Well, here it is. The end. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me. To those that read and reviewed, your feedback was a great inspiration and much, much appreciated.

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Maybe You'll Be There

John sat below Pilot, book open in his lap, hands resting on the pages, when Aeryn walked in. She waved a small greeting to Pilot, then sat beside John, leaning over to see what he was reading. Instead of seeing strange words, the pages showed a mountain range covered in early morning mist. Aeryn gently pushed his hand off the page to turn it. The next picture was of a beach, sand dunes covered in wavy grass stretching out the length of the page. Then a cityscape at night, little lights twinkling in the darkness.

"Home?" Aeryn asked.

"One of 'em," John said. "We moved around a lot, until Dad became an astronaut. "This," he turned several pages, "is where I spent most of my summers growing up." The picture was an aerial shot of a small city, bordered by green rolling hills and a winding river. "My grandparents lived here. My grandmother made the best buttermilk biscuits. Every Sunday morning I would eat a whole plate of them with her redeye gravy and then go fishing with my grandpa."

He picked up another book. "And this is where Sam and I went to school."

Aeryn traced the letters on the cover as she said, "She was not happy that you stayed."

John shook his head. "I wasn't too excited about it either, but it was the right thing to do."

"That's twice you've chosen to stay."

"Twice? Mmm, yeah. But the other time wasn't real."

"Real enough."

"Well, you know what they say. Third time's a charm."

"Really? Here they say if you need a third time, you're frelled anyway." That earned her a glare. "So...next time, you'll choose to go."

"Next time I make my own way. No choice necessary."

"Right."

He studied her for a moment. "You heard Sam. You're always welcome there."

Aeryn met his gaze for a brief moment, then smiled. "Considering how you usually 'make your own way,' I'll have to go along just to get you out of trouble."

"Trouble? I never get into trouble."

"Right. And Rygel is never annoying."

"Hey, I'm just minding my own business out here."

"You're a magnet for trouble."

John smiled. God, he loved arguing with her. That alone was reason enough to stay.


Jack reached to open the door, but noticed Carter hadn't moved. "Hey." She looked at him, startled. "You okay?"

She nodded. "I'm just not sure I can do this."

He leaned back into the seat. "I know you'd rather have brought John back. But you're bringing the next best thing."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Hope. A way to be involved. It seems like such a little thing, especially since you had the chance to actually bring him back. Look, it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing." He hesitated for a heavy moment, then said, "It's what I'd want in his place."

Sam nodded again. It just didn't seem like much, considering what she might have done. She stepped out of the car, following O'Neill up the steps of the modest brick home. He moved back to allow her to ring the bell.

The door was opened by a man dressed in khakis and a black polo, a NASA meatball logo embroidered on the front of the shirt. O'Neill saw the resemblance right away, not so much in appearance, but in the attitude and bearing. Jack Crichton greeted Sam with just slightly less exuberance than his son had. O'Neill hung back to give them a few moments together, but Sam drew John's father forward to make introductions.

The two men shook hands and Crichton said, "Pleasure to meet you, Colonel. I've heard good things about you."

"You must be talking to the wrong people then," Jack replied with a smile.

The older man laughed. "Come inside, you two. I just got back from the Cape, so there's not much in the house. However, I think there may be a beer or two in the back of the fridge."

"You were at the Cape?" Sam asked as they walked inside.

"Shuttle launch. The NASA administrator invited me at the last minute to watch and chat about old times."

"Nice," Jack commented.

"Yeah, well, not that I mind any chance to see them light the candle, but I would just as soon not have been there this week." He waved them toward chairs and walked into the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, "Speaking of which, I didn't expect to see you here, Sam."

"I didn't know I was going to be out this way when we talked."

"So, what brings you this way?" He came back into the room carrying three beers and handed one each to Jack and Sam.

"We came to make you a job offer."

Crichton laughed. "I'm retired, Colonel."

"Yeah, see, I said the same thing. Twice."

"What job could you possibly want to offer me?"

Sam took a deep breath. "I thought you might like the chance to get back into space."

"Would I. At one time, I would've given anything for just one more trip. Now, well," he trailed off and Sam knew he was thinking of finding John. "Besides, Glenn already cornered the old-guy-in-space market."

"Oh, we were thinking of something a little different than a shuttle ride," O'Neill said.

"You mean the space plane or MOV - whatever the Air Force is calling it this week?"

Sam and Jack exchanged a look. "Think bigger," she said.

"Like mother ship bigger," Jack added.

"Actually, sir, it's nowhere near the size of a mother ship."

"It's a saying, Carter, a point of reference."

Crichton held up one hand. "Stop," he commanded. "Explain."

"Yes, sir," O'Neill said. "But before we can tell you anything, I need you to accept our offer."

"And if I don't?"

"Then as much as I'll hate it, I won't tell you anything."

"Sam?"

She shook her head. "Believe me, we have a good reason for the secrecy. And we have a good reason for making this offer."

Crichton thought for a long moment, studying the two officers. "Very well, Colonel. You have a new... Exactly what is it I will be doing?"

Sam grinned and handed him a binder with a cover that read "General Accounting Office, Report on Department of Interior Acquisition Procedures."

Crichton opened the binder and flipped past the first decoy pages. As he realized what he was looking at, his perusal intensified. Finally he looked up. "How? When?"

Sam gave him an even bigger grin. "It's a long story. First there's something else I need to tell you."

"More important than this?" he lifted the binder.

"Well, actually, in a roundabout way, it will answer some of your questions. And it's why we want you to come work with us." She handed him a small tape player. "I was asked to give this to you."

He pushed play. A quiet whirring emanated from the speaker, followed by a voice. The color drained from Jack Crichton's face a he heard his son's voice for the first time in 2 years. "Hey, Dad. I'd hoped to give you this tape myself, but it looks like it's going to be a while before I get home. You won't believe all the stories I have to tell you."

Crichton pushed the stop button, and in a choked voice asked, "Samantha, where did you get this?"

"From John. About three days ago."

His head shot up, eyes glistening. "Are you telling me..."

"He's alive," she nodded, tearing up a bit herself. "He's safe, for the moment anyway."

"Where?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Another part of the galaxy." She held up a hand, palm out. "Even if I could tell you, you wouldn't be familiar with it. I wasn't, and that's saying something."

Crichton studied her. "Deep Space Radar?"

"Something like that." She gave him a wry smile.

"Then you're not allowed to tell me everything."

O'Neill answered for her. "No, sir. Not right now."

"This ship," Crichton held up the plans, "does it have anything to do with John?"

"Not directly. And I'm not going to tell you that we will use it to find him."

Sam jumped in to forestall his protest. "He's never in the same place very long. Having a ship wouldn't do us much good."

"You saw him. I mean, you were actually in the same room with him."

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you bring him back with you?"

Jack did the jumping in this time to take the brunt of the angry outburst he knew his next statement would cause. "We were ordered not to."

"WHAT? My son is missing, a great deal of time, money and brainpower was spent on an extensive search and rescue mission and when you find him, you're not allowed to bring him home?" His voice got louder and louder. "Who the hell made that decision?"

"The Pentagon."

"Who? I need to know whose ass I'm going to kick when I get to Washington." He slapped the binder on the coffee table.

Sam started to speak, but Jack beat her to it. "No, sir. You're not." The look he got made him fairly certain that if he'd been any closer he'd be nursing a broken nose right about now. He pressed on, saying, "It sucks, I know. But it won't do any good. He's not on that particular planet anymore and it wouldn't do him any good to go back there. We're not even going back there again."

"Why the hell not?"

"We can't. The reason why is part of the stuff we can't tell you, so you're just going to have to trust us."

He sighed, at once looking older and like a great burden had been lifted. "Can I at least listen to this a few more times before you leave?"

Sam held up a finger. "Actually," she said as she reached into her bag with her other hand, "You can keep it – along with these." She handed him a stack of tapes.

He stared at them. "The Pentagon?"

"Doesn't know. He wasn't military – in fact, these could be considered IASA property."

"And you're listed as next of kin, so they should go to you anyway."

Crichton took the tapes gingerly, as if expecting them to disappear. Sifting through them gently, he asked, "You've listened to them."

Sam nodded. "John asked me to. Some of them have information that could be useful."

"Will these answer questions you can't?"

"Some of them, but not about what we do or who kept him from returning," Sam said.

"And when will I find out those things?"

O'Neill answered. "As soon as we can tell you without endangering you or the rest of the Farscape team. You have my word on that."

Crichton smiled at them. "Then let's get started."