The Tell
Spoilers through A Constellation of Doubt
This is for half of the challenge issued by Jlo
I may do the second half of the challenge, too, but...
Rating: PG for language
Disclaimer: The Farscape universe, and all that is in it, is not mine, but rather belongs to the Jim Henson Company. This is a work of fiction based in that universe. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has
been or will be collected.
Bobby couldn't believe his luck. Here he was, aboard a space ship – a space ship! – allowed to go wherever he wanted to, look at whatever he wanted to, record whatever he wanted to. It was amazing, really. Not only was he standing, right now, in the maintenance bay of a living space ship, which was fantastic enough on its own, but not one person had told him to be quiet, or to go to his room, or asked him if he had any homework to do. That was downright freaky.
And the cherry on top of it all was that he could hear his aunt and uncle coming toward the room, which meant that, if he could get behind something and stay quiet enough, he could maybe get a candid conversation between them on tape. He was pretty sure his Uncle John would tell Aunt Olivia stuff he would never tell a kid. For a second, Bobby felt a little guilty at that thought. Uncle John treated him just like his alien friends did – like an adult. Still...
Bobby scrambled to get behind a pillar as the voices came closer. He got the camera turned back on and focused just in time. "Man, am I going to get in trouble for this..." he whispered, the words at odds with the grin that he knew covered his entire face.
***
"John, are you in pain?" Olivia's question sounded surprised. They had been having a perfectly normal conversation, reminiscing about things in their shared past that were all over the map, when she had asked him a simple question about Aeryn. A simple question, yes, but none of the answers were simple. Damn.
When she had asked him about him and Aeryn, he had been unable to stop from wincing. He tried to cover it up by changing directions, ignoring the frelling question, and heading into the maintenance bay, but of course, that hadn't worked. That sort of thing never worked for him, but he'd had to try.
"Well, not of the physical kind, no." He didn't really have a choice but to answer her, since she was still following him like some sort of bloodhound hot on the trail.
"You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna be fine," he answered. Aeryn. Damn it all, everything lead back to either Aeryn or wormholes or both. "I'm just never gonna be the same."
"Aeryn."
"Stop that." He picked up a flimsy from the table, but he couldn't focus on it with his dear sister hammering at him, so he tossed it back down.
"Remember when you tried to hide that crush on...?"
"Stop it." Why couldn't she just let it go?
"Jill...What was her name?"
"Stop it!" He swung around to look at her, his little sister. His little sister, the frickin' terrier. "Steiner. Her name was Steiner."
Jill Steiner, the first girl he had ever worked up the nerve to ask on a date, and she had shot him down. You don't forget a thing like that at fifteen. What he could never understand, though, was how Olivia had known about it. He had been a sophomore in high school and Livvy had been, what, still in junior high? They hadn't had any friends in common...hadn't even gone to the same school, and still, she had known. "What's my tell?"
Olivia's voice softened when she replied, "Your lips. When you see Aeryn, they soften just a bit."
John shook his head as he picked up a data chip, turning it over and over in his hands.
He and Aeryn are in the hangar on Moya, next to her prowler. Two flight bags are on the floor nearby, remaining where they were dropped. John leans in toward Aeryn and brings his face in toward hers, close. She closes her eyes, but avoids his kiss, instead maneuvering so that his nose rests on her forehead. Again, he turns his face to kiss her, but she twists her face away. He tries yet again, not yet willing to give up, and finally they kiss, all too briefly.
"Then what does that taste like?" he asks, his voice defiant and just a little belligerent.
Aeryn still has her eyes closed as she answers him.
"She has a word for us. It's called 'yesterday.'"
"Yeah, right," Livvy snorted, her disbelief plain.
John tried to fight off a brief surge of hope, suddenly wishing that he could take a hit of the lakka, almost glad that he couldn't. His terrier of a sister would've picked up on that in a heartbeat. Reluctantly, he asked, "She have a tell?"
"Yeah."
"What is it?" he asked, still playing with the data chip, refusing to look at Livvy.
"Her eyes. She's waiting for you."
John tossed the data chip onto the bench, joining it up with the flimsy. He looked up toward the ceiling, as if he could find strength there. "Can we talk about something else? Politics?"
***
Bobby turned off the camera, realizing from the way his aunt and uncle were looking at each other and from the tones of their voices that this conversation was becoming a little too serious for him to be comfortable recording it. Before, they might have been a little mad, but now they'd just plain kill him. He wished he could leave the room, too, as the conversation continued, but that just wasn't going to happen.
***
"No, John, we can't talk about politics." She shook her head at her obstinate brother. He was such a guy. You'd think it would kill them to talk about their feelings, if they ever admitted to having them in the first place. John was hurting, that was as plain as day. It was equally obvious, even though Livvy didn't know her well, that Aeryn was hurting, too.
Aeryn's eyes, she had told John. Aeryn's eyes seemed to follow him whenever the two of them were in the same room. They would light up when he entered, if she were there first, but then the light would fade to a kind of wariness, a watchfulness, a kind of waiting. And John was just too dense to see it.
Livvy and John had always been close, much closer to each other than either of them had ever been to Susan. She and John simply had more things in common with each other. They had always understood each other, had always talked about things, maybe not things as serious as this, but... Livvy could tell that she was getting close to making him open up. She wasn't about to stop now, not out of morbid curiosity, but out of concern for her big brother. She couldn't stand to see him in such pain.
"John... I know it's none of my business..."
He snorted. "No, it's not, but when has that ever stopped you?"
"Hey!" She punched him in the arm, then sat on a bench, pulling him down next to her. "Talk to me, Johnny. Maybe I can't really help with whatever's wrong, but maybe just getting an outside perspective on it will help."
John leaned into the table, propping his head on one hand while he traced random patterns on the table's surface with the other.
"Why does she call you 'yesterday?'"
***
He really needed a hit right now, something to get him through this conversation his sister was determined to have.
Such a simple question, really... Why did Aeryn call them "yesterday?"
John runs into the hangar, seeing that the pod has landed and the stairs are down. Rygel comes down the stairs. He looks sad, but makes the effort to smile a little when he sees John. Almost immediately, though, the corners of his mouth droop again.
John knows he is grinning from ear to ear, but he just can't help it. He doesn't care how goofy he looks. "Sparky! How ya doin', man? Long time no see."
"Yes, uh, good to see you, too. But if anything is missing from my quarters, blood is going to spill." He laughs, but it isn't a happy sound.
"Whatever." John is a bit disgruntled by the unenthusiastic response, but chalks it up to the fact that, as far as Ryge is concerned, John's always been around. Not a happy thought.
Crais is next to leave the pod. He is carrying a stuffed flight bag in one hand and has another bag slung over one shoulder. He walks over to John and looks him in the eye, sighs.
"Crais." Crais nods. John nods back, a bit puzzled at the reactions he's receiving, but keeps looking at the stairs.
Finally, she is there. Aeryn, also carrying a full flight bag, makes her way down the transport pods steps and stops right at the bottom.
"Well, there's a familiar face," John says, goofy grin plastered again to his face.
Silently, she walks across the space to stand in front of John, head up, eyes straight ahead. John nods at her, just slightly. She doesn't look at him. "Hello, John."
John nods again, his happy grin fading fast.
Aeryn brushes past him and walks on into Moya without another word. She glances at Crais as she walks past him, who sighs and looks back at Crichton.
John stares after her in disbelief. "What's wrong?" He turns to look at Crais.
"The, ah..." Crais holds one of the bags he's carrying out to John. "...other Crichton...is dead." John looks at the bag in Crais' hand. He takes the bag from the former Peacekeeper and lets it drop to the floor. John stares down the corridor where Aeryn has gone.
John had never felt more hurt and alone in his life, than when she had just walked on by. Not even when Alex had made the decision to leave him for the job of a lifetime. That had hurt, yes, but even before that, there had been little fractures in their relationship. After all, he had chosen not to follow her... But Aeryn... All he could think about was her, from the time she left until the time she returned. And all she could think about was the other guy. The last thing she wanted to think about, the last person she wanted to see, was the John Crichton she had left on Moya.
Aeryn sits down at a table with a sigh. Wires and equipment in Command are sparking from Talyn's recent and irrational attack. "I have a bad feeling. About the command carrier..." she says.
"Do you think we shouldn't go?" John asks.
"I don't think we have a choice. If Scorpius masters wormholes, the..."
"Yeah," John replies when she doesn't continue her thought. "Some things...you die for." John sits down, too.
Aeryn closes her eyes, composes herself, reopens her eyes. She says, "I just can't watch that happen again." Her voice breaks as she speaks. "It was perfect. We were so...perfect. And you're just like him. I mean, you are him."
"No. I'm me. I was here. I missed that dance." He looks away for a moment. "Aeryn. Don't come with us."
Aeryn shakes her head. "No. We started this together, Crichton." She stands. "It's how we'll end it."
Equal and original. Maybe so, maybe not. But either way, the things that had happened to him while she was gone had changed him, made him different from the guy she had been with. They may have looked the same, talked the same, had all the same memories and experiences, right up to the time that bubble Kaarvok had shot at him had hit, but after that, nothing was the same. You can't go back again.
"I'm coming with you." He has found her in the hangar, loading her things into her prowler.
"No. I'm sorry." She shakes her head, unwilling to even consider it. He isn't sure if she is sorry that she's leaving, sorry that doesn't want to be with him, or sorry for something else entirely.
John climbs up onto the prowler and looks inside, sits there, looking at Aeryn. "Well, you're not leaving without me."
Aeryn sets down the case she's about to stow aboard and sighs. "What do you want?" There's nothing particularly friendly in her tone.
"You." He nods at her.
"I'm afraid it's not that easy for me. You see...you died. I watched that happen and yet you're still alive. I have to go."
John looks down and laughs a little. "Then say good bye."
Aeryn shakes her head. "We don't say good byes."
"We do this time." He jumps down from the prowler, ducks down under the wing, and walks over to Aeryn. "You see, you leave and then you come back and I...I can't handle the in between. Aeryn. Say good bye."
"Fine." She averts her eyes and walks past him. "Good bye, Crichton."
He grabs her arm as she hurries past, spinning her around to face him. The action isn't gentle and a grunt is forced from her. "John...is my name." He pokes a finger at her, his voice rising just a bit. "It's John. Good bye, John. To my face."
Aeryn hits him in the chest with both hands, pushing him backwards. He catches himself. She follows him. "Guarantee you won't..." She hits him in the chest again. "...die in my arms again."
"Guarantee you won't die..." He pushes her in turn. "...in mine."
"I can..." She hits him again, more than a little angry. "By leaving." She turns and walks again toward her prowler.
John yells after her, "Do you love John Crichton?" The question, raw with emotion, brings her to a stop, her back to him. He takes a couple of steps toward her. "Not him..." She starts to slowly turn back around. "Not me... John Crichton." He has come close enough to duck under the prowler wing and come face-to-face with her.
"Yes."
John didn't think there was any way Livvy could understand all that had happened between him and Aeryn, but, looking at her as she more-or-less patiently waited for him to answer, he thought that maybe he had to try.
***
Just when she was about to give up and let him off the hook, thinking he wasn't going to answer, he said, "It's complicated."
She laughed softly. She had him. "Of course it is. When is anything you do ever simple?"
Finally, he looked at her, really looked at her. Stuck his tongue out at her. Shook his head. "It's just so hard to fight a ghost." He sounded so tired.
"A ghost?"
"Yup. A ghost. The other guy. Bastard died a hero."
"I don't understand. There was someone else?" Aeryn hadn't gone into any detail when they had spoken at the mall, but she had said that John had ruined her for any other man. Livvy had gotten the impression that, once Aeryn met John, he had been the only one from then on.
"Nope. No one else. Just John Crichton." He looked her in the eye then, with a quirk to his eyebrow, and said, "I told you it was complicated."
"Are you going to explain that? If there was only John Crichton, then who's the ghost?"
"That would be John Crichton."
"Oh, just stop that, you dork." She had thought he was going to open up to her and here he was, messing with her head. Wasn't he? She frowned a little, realizing that he had gone back to tracing patterns on the table. He didn't look at all like he was playing games.
"John?"
"I don't know the how of it, Livvy, but... There was this other Leviathan, Rohvu. He was being used as a Peacekeeper prisoner transport for the criminally insane."
He stopped talking again, but she didn't try to prod anything more from him. He was definitely telling her at least some of what had happened between himself and Aeryn and she didn't want to scare him off.
"The prisoner they were transporting... He was a real nutcase. He had this device. It shot out a...bubble that surrounded his victim and then, where once there was one, suddenly there were two. Twins. Equal and original, or so he claimed."
Olivia held herself very still as John's quiet voice continued. "Then he'd take this little sippy straw and—" He stopped again, running both hands over his face. "That's not important. What is important," he focused on her again, "is that he did that to me. Two John Crichtons, both on Moya, both with Aeryn. But things happened and we had to split up. I stayed on Moya. Aeryn and...the other guy went off on Talyn."
She closed her eyes for a moment at the pain in his voice. "Talyn is Moya's child?" she asked, opening her eyes again in time to see him nod. "How long were they gone?"
"Oh, I dunno. Maybe three, four months. Long enough."
"But she came back."
"Oh, yeah, Aeryn came back. After he'd gotten himself killed, trying to save the universe. Bastard died in her arms." He had that challenging look on his face again, and he sounded like he wanted her to think that none of this mattered to him anymore, but she knew better. It was in his voice, in his eyes, in the way he was holding himself.
"He died?" She knew there was more to it than that. He had said that his twin was killed, trying to save the universe. Sure sounded like the brother she knew. "What did he do? How did he die?"
"Doesn't matter, Liv. He's gone and I'm not. I'm not the one she wants."
Livvy didn't believe that for a minute, but she would let it go, for now. "Are you going to tell Dad about him?"
"Why the frell should I?"
"Well, don't you think he has a right to know?"
"A right to know what, Liv? That his son may be dead and a fucking Xerox took his place?"
"John—"
"No!" He stood abruptly, leaving her sitting on the bench, feeling a bit stunned at his reaction. Running his fingers through his hair, he said, in a much softer tone, "Livvy, I'm never gonna know if I'm... Frell." He took a couple of steps. "Kaarvok said the 'twins' were equal and original." He looked Livvy in the eye. "They're not. You didn't see those poor creatures on Rohvu. They started out as Peacekeepers."
"Like Aeryn? Sebaceans?"
"Yeah. They started out Sebacean, but they ended up...less. More like animals." John held himself rigid as he spoke. "No, I'm not going to tell Dad about this. Neither are you."
"John, I really think he'd like to know—"
"To know what? Olivia, this is not like he has lost a son. We were not brothers. One of us was a frickin' copy, I don't care what Kaarvok said." He stopped talking again, dropped back down next to her on the bench. "What if I'm not me, Liv? What if there's something missing? I'm not the same guy who left here four years ago, that much I'm sure of."
"Oh, Johnny." Her heart ached for her brother, who had always tried to protect her when they were kids, whether she needed it or not. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're a copy. I think you're the real deal. And I won't mention any of this to Dad, even if I don't agree with you on that."
Livvy reached over and took John's hand, squeezed it. "Aeryn did come back, John. Maybe not right away, but she did. To you. Not to anyone else. To you." She squeezed his hand again for emphasis. The look in his blue eyes said that he didn't believe her. But she knew better. Maybe he was only sure that he had changed, and while that was certainly true, Olivia knew something else, too. "Aeryn loves you, John."
Before she could say more, D'Argo's voice interrupted her from the doorway. "Did you turn your comms off, John?" He continued without allowing an answer. "Everyone's ready to head back down. Now that I've located you two, we just need to find Bobby."
John pulled his hand from Livvy's and stood. "You two go on ahead. I'll see if I can find Bobby and catch up."
***
John watched as D'Argo lead Livvy out to the corridor. D'Argo paused at the doorway, though, turning his head slightly as he said, "You should turn your comms back on, John. We've got too many people on Moya to try to keep track of, right now."
"Aye, aye, Cap'n D'Argo, sir." John lifted his hand in a snappy, if somewhat sarcastic, salute. D'Argo snorted inelegantly and he and Livvy went on their way.
Once the sound of their footsteps had faded, John turned around. "If you had that camera on while your aunt and I were talking, I may just have to throw it down the fresher..."
He was rewarded with a startled gasp from behind a pillar and the sudden appearance of his red-faced nephew, camera in hand. "How'd you know I was here?"
"I didn't." John laughed when Bobby's eyes widened and then narrowed in a perfect imitation of John's sister Susan. "Now, am I going to have to destroy that recording?"
"No, Uncle John. I didn't record that, I swear. I turned it off when you mentioned something about politics."
"Too confusing?"
"Too boring."
John laughed again and clapped a hand on his nephew's shoulder, steering him out to the corridor. If the kid turned off the camera about then, he supposed there wasn't anything too embarrassing or incriminating. No real tabloid material to worry about. Just some stuff about old girlfriends. Jill. Aeryn.
Hell, maybe Livvy was right. It had been one of her most annoying traits, when they were kids, being right all the time.
He looked down at the top of Bobby's head. Huh. This little scene wasn't quite right, but... As they ambled to catch up with the others, his hand still on Bobby's shoulder, the camera slung over the boy's other shoulder, John began to whistle and the strains of the theme to the Andy Griffith Show surrounded them.
Spoilers through A Constellation of Doubt
This is for half of the challenge issued by Jlo
I may do the second half of the challenge, too, but...
Rating: PG for language
Disclaimer: The Farscape universe, and all that is in it, is not mine, but rather belongs to the Jim Henson Company. This is a work of fiction based in that universe. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has
been or will be collected.
Bobby couldn't believe his luck. Here he was, aboard a space ship – a space ship! – allowed to go wherever he wanted to, look at whatever he wanted to, record whatever he wanted to. It was amazing, really. Not only was he standing, right now, in the maintenance bay of a living space ship, which was fantastic enough on its own, but not one person had told him to be quiet, or to go to his room, or asked him if he had any homework to do. That was downright freaky.
And the cherry on top of it all was that he could hear his aunt and uncle coming toward the room, which meant that, if he could get behind something and stay quiet enough, he could maybe get a candid conversation between them on tape. He was pretty sure his Uncle John would tell Aunt Olivia stuff he would never tell a kid. For a second, Bobby felt a little guilty at that thought. Uncle John treated him just like his alien friends did – like an adult. Still...
Bobby scrambled to get behind a pillar as the voices came closer. He got the camera turned back on and focused just in time. "Man, am I going to get in trouble for this..." he whispered, the words at odds with the grin that he knew covered his entire face.
***
"John, are you in pain?" Olivia's question sounded surprised. They had been having a perfectly normal conversation, reminiscing about things in their shared past that were all over the map, when she had asked him a simple question about Aeryn. A simple question, yes, but none of the answers were simple. Damn.
When she had asked him about him and Aeryn, he had been unable to stop from wincing. He tried to cover it up by changing directions, ignoring the frelling question, and heading into the maintenance bay, but of course, that hadn't worked. That sort of thing never worked for him, but he'd had to try.
"Well, not of the physical kind, no." He didn't really have a choice but to answer her, since she was still following him like some sort of bloodhound hot on the trail.
"You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna be fine," he answered. Aeryn. Damn it all, everything lead back to either Aeryn or wormholes or both. "I'm just never gonna be the same."
"Aeryn."
"Stop that." He picked up a flimsy from the table, but he couldn't focus on it with his dear sister hammering at him, so he tossed it back down.
"Remember when you tried to hide that crush on...?"
"Stop it." Why couldn't she just let it go?
"Jill...What was her name?"
"Stop it!" He swung around to look at her, his little sister. His little sister, the frickin' terrier. "Steiner. Her name was Steiner."
Jill Steiner, the first girl he had ever worked up the nerve to ask on a date, and she had shot him down. You don't forget a thing like that at fifteen. What he could never understand, though, was how Olivia had known about it. He had been a sophomore in high school and Livvy had been, what, still in junior high? They hadn't had any friends in common...hadn't even gone to the same school, and still, she had known. "What's my tell?"
Olivia's voice softened when she replied, "Your lips. When you see Aeryn, they soften just a bit."
John shook his head as he picked up a data chip, turning it over and over in his hands.
He and Aeryn are in the hangar on Moya, next to her prowler. Two flight bags are on the floor nearby, remaining where they were dropped. John leans in toward Aeryn and brings his face in toward hers, close. She closes her eyes, but avoids his kiss, instead maneuvering so that his nose rests on her forehead. Again, he turns his face to kiss her, but she twists her face away. He tries yet again, not yet willing to give up, and finally they kiss, all too briefly.
"Then what does that taste like?" he asks, his voice defiant and just a little belligerent.
Aeryn still has her eyes closed as she answers him.
"She has a word for us. It's called 'yesterday.'"
"Yeah, right," Livvy snorted, her disbelief plain.
John tried to fight off a brief surge of hope, suddenly wishing that he could take a hit of the lakka, almost glad that he couldn't. His terrier of a sister would've picked up on that in a heartbeat. Reluctantly, he asked, "She have a tell?"
"Yeah."
"What is it?" he asked, still playing with the data chip, refusing to look at Livvy.
"Her eyes. She's waiting for you."
John tossed the data chip onto the bench, joining it up with the flimsy. He looked up toward the ceiling, as if he could find strength there. "Can we talk about something else? Politics?"
***
Bobby turned off the camera, realizing from the way his aunt and uncle were looking at each other and from the tones of their voices that this conversation was becoming a little too serious for him to be comfortable recording it. Before, they might have been a little mad, but now they'd just plain kill him. He wished he could leave the room, too, as the conversation continued, but that just wasn't going to happen.
***
"No, John, we can't talk about politics." She shook her head at her obstinate brother. He was such a guy. You'd think it would kill them to talk about their feelings, if they ever admitted to having them in the first place. John was hurting, that was as plain as day. It was equally obvious, even though Livvy didn't know her well, that Aeryn was hurting, too.
Aeryn's eyes, she had told John. Aeryn's eyes seemed to follow him whenever the two of them were in the same room. They would light up when he entered, if she were there first, but then the light would fade to a kind of wariness, a watchfulness, a kind of waiting. And John was just too dense to see it.
Livvy and John had always been close, much closer to each other than either of them had ever been to Susan. She and John simply had more things in common with each other. They had always understood each other, had always talked about things, maybe not things as serious as this, but... Livvy could tell that she was getting close to making him open up. She wasn't about to stop now, not out of morbid curiosity, but out of concern for her big brother. She couldn't stand to see him in such pain.
"John... I know it's none of my business..."
He snorted. "No, it's not, but when has that ever stopped you?"
"Hey!" She punched him in the arm, then sat on a bench, pulling him down next to her. "Talk to me, Johnny. Maybe I can't really help with whatever's wrong, but maybe just getting an outside perspective on it will help."
John leaned into the table, propping his head on one hand while he traced random patterns on the table's surface with the other.
"Why does she call you 'yesterday?'"
***
He really needed a hit right now, something to get him through this conversation his sister was determined to have.
Such a simple question, really... Why did Aeryn call them "yesterday?"
John runs into the hangar, seeing that the pod has landed and the stairs are down. Rygel comes down the stairs. He looks sad, but makes the effort to smile a little when he sees John. Almost immediately, though, the corners of his mouth droop again.
John knows he is grinning from ear to ear, but he just can't help it. He doesn't care how goofy he looks. "Sparky! How ya doin', man? Long time no see."
"Yes, uh, good to see you, too. But if anything is missing from my quarters, blood is going to spill." He laughs, but it isn't a happy sound.
"Whatever." John is a bit disgruntled by the unenthusiastic response, but chalks it up to the fact that, as far as Ryge is concerned, John's always been around. Not a happy thought.
Crais is next to leave the pod. He is carrying a stuffed flight bag in one hand and has another bag slung over one shoulder. He walks over to John and looks him in the eye, sighs.
"Crais." Crais nods. John nods back, a bit puzzled at the reactions he's receiving, but keeps looking at the stairs.
Finally, she is there. Aeryn, also carrying a full flight bag, makes her way down the transport pods steps and stops right at the bottom.
"Well, there's a familiar face," John says, goofy grin plastered again to his face.
Silently, she walks across the space to stand in front of John, head up, eyes straight ahead. John nods at her, just slightly. She doesn't look at him. "Hello, John."
John nods again, his happy grin fading fast.
Aeryn brushes past him and walks on into Moya without another word. She glances at Crais as she walks past him, who sighs and looks back at Crichton.
John stares after her in disbelief. "What's wrong?" He turns to look at Crais.
"The, ah..." Crais holds one of the bags he's carrying out to John. "...other Crichton...is dead." John looks at the bag in Crais' hand. He takes the bag from the former Peacekeeper and lets it drop to the floor. John stares down the corridor where Aeryn has gone.
John had never felt more hurt and alone in his life, than when she had just walked on by. Not even when Alex had made the decision to leave him for the job of a lifetime. That had hurt, yes, but even before that, there had been little fractures in their relationship. After all, he had chosen not to follow her... But Aeryn... All he could think about was her, from the time she left until the time she returned. And all she could think about was the other guy. The last thing she wanted to think about, the last person she wanted to see, was the John Crichton she had left on Moya.
Aeryn sits down at a table with a sigh. Wires and equipment in Command are sparking from Talyn's recent and irrational attack. "I have a bad feeling. About the command carrier..." she says.
"Do you think we shouldn't go?" John asks.
"I don't think we have a choice. If Scorpius masters wormholes, the..."
"Yeah," John replies when she doesn't continue her thought. "Some things...you die for." John sits down, too.
Aeryn closes her eyes, composes herself, reopens her eyes. She says, "I just can't watch that happen again." Her voice breaks as she speaks. "It was perfect. We were so...perfect. And you're just like him. I mean, you are him."
"No. I'm me. I was here. I missed that dance." He looks away for a moment. "Aeryn. Don't come with us."
Aeryn shakes her head. "No. We started this together, Crichton." She stands. "It's how we'll end it."
Equal and original. Maybe so, maybe not. But either way, the things that had happened to him while she was gone had changed him, made him different from the guy she had been with. They may have looked the same, talked the same, had all the same memories and experiences, right up to the time that bubble Kaarvok had shot at him had hit, but after that, nothing was the same. You can't go back again.
"I'm coming with you." He has found her in the hangar, loading her things into her prowler.
"No. I'm sorry." She shakes her head, unwilling to even consider it. He isn't sure if she is sorry that she's leaving, sorry that doesn't want to be with him, or sorry for something else entirely.
John climbs up onto the prowler and looks inside, sits there, looking at Aeryn. "Well, you're not leaving without me."
Aeryn sets down the case she's about to stow aboard and sighs. "What do you want?" There's nothing particularly friendly in her tone.
"You." He nods at her.
"I'm afraid it's not that easy for me. You see...you died. I watched that happen and yet you're still alive. I have to go."
John looks down and laughs a little. "Then say good bye."
Aeryn shakes her head. "We don't say good byes."
"We do this time." He jumps down from the prowler, ducks down under the wing, and walks over to Aeryn. "You see, you leave and then you come back and I...I can't handle the in between. Aeryn. Say good bye."
"Fine." She averts her eyes and walks past him. "Good bye, Crichton."
He grabs her arm as she hurries past, spinning her around to face him. The action isn't gentle and a grunt is forced from her. "John...is my name." He pokes a finger at her, his voice rising just a bit. "It's John. Good bye, John. To my face."
Aeryn hits him in the chest with both hands, pushing him backwards. He catches himself. She follows him. "Guarantee you won't..." She hits him in the chest again. "...die in my arms again."
"Guarantee you won't die..." He pushes her in turn. "...in mine."
"I can..." She hits him again, more than a little angry. "By leaving." She turns and walks again toward her prowler.
John yells after her, "Do you love John Crichton?" The question, raw with emotion, brings her to a stop, her back to him. He takes a couple of steps toward her. "Not him..." She starts to slowly turn back around. "Not me... John Crichton." He has come close enough to duck under the prowler wing and come face-to-face with her.
"Yes."
John didn't think there was any way Livvy could understand all that had happened between him and Aeryn, but, looking at her as she more-or-less patiently waited for him to answer, he thought that maybe he had to try.
***
Just when she was about to give up and let him off the hook, thinking he wasn't going to answer, he said, "It's complicated."
She laughed softly. She had him. "Of course it is. When is anything you do ever simple?"
Finally, he looked at her, really looked at her. Stuck his tongue out at her. Shook his head. "It's just so hard to fight a ghost." He sounded so tired.
"A ghost?"
"Yup. A ghost. The other guy. Bastard died a hero."
"I don't understand. There was someone else?" Aeryn hadn't gone into any detail when they had spoken at the mall, but she had said that John had ruined her for any other man. Livvy had gotten the impression that, once Aeryn met John, he had been the only one from then on.
"Nope. No one else. Just John Crichton." He looked her in the eye then, with a quirk to his eyebrow, and said, "I told you it was complicated."
"Are you going to explain that? If there was only John Crichton, then who's the ghost?"
"That would be John Crichton."
"Oh, just stop that, you dork." She had thought he was going to open up to her and here he was, messing with her head. Wasn't he? She frowned a little, realizing that he had gone back to tracing patterns on the table. He didn't look at all like he was playing games.
"John?"
"I don't know the how of it, Livvy, but... There was this other Leviathan, Rohvu. He was being used as a Peacekeeper prisoner transport for the criminally insane."
He stopped talking again, but she didn't try to prod anything more from him. He was definitely telling her at least some of what had happened between himself and Aeryn and she didn't want to scare him off.
"The prisoner they were transporting... He was a real nutcase. He had this device. It shot out a...bubble that surrounded his victim and then, where once there was one, suddenly there were two. Twins. Equal and original, or so he claimed."
Olivia held herself very still as John's quiet voice continued. "Then he'd take this little sippy straw and—" He stopped again, running both hands over his face. "That's not important. What is important," he focused on her again, "is that he did that to me. Two John Crichtons, both on Moya, both with Aeryn. But things happened and we had to split up. I stayed on Moya. Aeryn and...the other guy went off on Talyn."
She closed her eyes for a moment at the pain in his voice. "Talyn is Moya's child?" she asked, opening her eyes again in time to see him nod. "How long were they gone?"
"Oh, I dunno. Maybe three, four months. Long enough."
"But she came back."
"Oh, yeah, Aeryn came back. After he'd gotten himself killed, trying to save the universe. Bastard died in her arms." He had that challenging look on his face again, and he sounded like he wanted her to think that none of this mattered to him anymore, but she knew better. It was in his voice, in his eyes, in the way he was holding himself.
"He died?" She knew there was more to it than that. He had said that his twin was killed, trying to save the universe. Sure sounded like the brother she knew. "What did he do? How did he die?"
"Doesn't matter, Liv. He's gone and I'm not. I'm not the one she wants."
Livvy didn't believe that for a minute, but she would let it go, for now. "Are you going to tell Dad about him?"
"Why the frell should I?"
"Well, don't you think he has a right to know?"
"A right to know what, Liv? That his son may be dead and a fucking Xerox took his place?"
"John—"
"No!" He stood abruptly, leaving her sitting on the bench, feeling a bit stunned at his reaction. Running his fingers through his hair, he said, in a much softer tone, "Livvy, I'm never gonna know if I'm... Frell." He took a couple of steps. "Kaarvok said the 'twins' were equal and original." He looked Livvy in the eye. "They're not. You didn't see those poor creatures on Rohvu. They started out as Peacekeepers."
"Like Aeryn? Sebaceans?"
"Yeah. They started out Sebacean, but they ended up...less. More like animals." John held himself rigid as he spoke. "No, I'm not going to tell Dad about this. Neither are you."
"John, I really think he'd like to know—"
"To know what? Olivia, this is not like he has lost a son. We were not brothers. One of us was a frickin' copy, I don't care what Kaarvok said." He stopped talking again, dropped back down next to her on the bench. "What if I'm not me, Liv? What if there's something missing? I'm not the same guy who left here four years ago, that much I'm sure of."
"Oh, Johnny." Her heart ached for her brother, who had always tried to protect her when they were kids, whether she needed it or not. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're a copy. I think you're the real deal. And I won't mention any of this to Dad, even if I don't agree with you on that."
Livvy reached over and took John's hand, squeezed it. "Aeryn did come back, John. Maybe not right away, but she did. To you. Not to anyone else. To you." She squeezed his hand again for emphasis. The look in his blue eyes said that he didn't believe her. But she knew better. Maybe he was only sure that he had changed, and while that was certainly true, Olivia knew something else, too. "Aeryn loves you, John."
Before she could say more, D'Argo's voice interrupted her from the doorway. "Did you turn your comms off, John?" He continued without allowing an answer. "Everyone's ready to head back down. Now that I've located you two, we just need to find Bobby."
John pulled his hand from Livvy's and stood. "You two go on ahead. I'll see if I can find Bobby and catch up."
***
John watched as D'Argo lead Livvy out to the corridor. D'Argo paused at the doorway, though, turning his head slightly as he said, "You should turn your comms back on, John. We've got too many people on Moya to try to keep track of, right now."
"Aye, aye, Cap'n D'Argo, sir." John lifted his hand in a snappy, if somewhat sarcastic, salute. D'Argo snorted inelegantly and he and Livvy went on their way.
Once the sound of their footsteps had faded, John turned around. "If you had that camera on while your aunt and I were talking, I may just have to throw it down the fresher..."
He was rewarded with a startled gasp from behind a pillar and the sudden appearance of his red-faced nephew, camera in hand. "How'd you know I was here?"
"I didn't." John laughed when Bobby's eyes widened and then narrowed in a perfect imitation of John's sister Susan. "Now, am I going to have to destroy that recording?"
"No, Uncle John. I didn't record that, I swear. I turned it off when you mentioned something about politics."
"Too confusing?"
"Too boring."
John laughed again and clapped a hand on his nephew's shoulder, steering him out to the corridor. If the kid turned off the camera about then, he supposed there wasn't anything too embarrassing or incriminating. No real tabloid material to worry about. Just some stuff about old girlfriends. Jill. Aeryn.
Hell, maybe Livvy was right. It had been one of her most annoying traits, when they were kids, being right all the time.
He looked down at the top of Bobby's head. Huh. This little scene wasn't quite right, but... As they ambled to catch up with the others, his hand still on Bobby's shoulder, the camera slung over the boy's other shoulder, John began to whistle and the strains of the theme to the Andy Griffith Show surrounded them.