Date Originally Published: 27/09/03
Disclaimer: They're not mine. This is not for Profit. Please don't sue me, I just love the show.
Rating: G
Setting: S4. Post Terra Firma.
Spoilers: None specifically.
Authors Notes: Inspired by a song. Thanks to Sweet Thing for the beta and for keeping me rooted in canon :)
Dedication: To all those who are left behind.
Send Your Love to the Future
Driving out to the desert has long been routine for me. We used to come here as children, and then later, less often, on certain anniversaries and celebrations. Now I come alone, keeping the tradition of marking dates made special only by a number. The drive out is long but familiar, and with a warn-out tape playing my mind is full of memory by the time I arrive. Pulling up, I climb on to the roof, wrapping myself in a spare jacket and old blanket.
Cocooned like that and settled comfortably back, I watch and wait as the sinking sun sets the sky on fire. Ever watchful, ever changing, the sky shifts from the bright clear blue of a 100 degree day to a subtler, darker, more peaceful shade as light is eased away from the sky above me to someone else's sky, someone else's horizon. As the transformation continues, blue turns to purple and to red orange and yellow; vivid white vapour trails criss-cross the sky, diving straight into the last shreds of radiance, almost as if they were alive and being drawn to the light. Time stretches on, and purple and black merge, the darkness which began at the eastern edge of the sky now reaches all the way across.
And then the show really begins. Out of the gloom appears the first star, and then another and another. Tiny pinpricks of light sent out millions of years ago, from suns not unlike our own, finally reaching this world. Soon the whole sky is littered with stars, the Milky Way appearing as a huge, intense band of shimmering colour. The beauty is astounding; it moves me to tears even now...
Out here, this vast expanse so close I can almost touch it, is the nearest I can get to John now. After the accident I came here often, not knowing what had happened, with everyone telling me he was dead, but somehow not feeling it. I had to come somewhere I could feel his presence still, and this was it. I'd make the drive several times a week in the first few months, and then simply fell into a regular pattern of visits.
Of course we had a funeral, when the suits decided to call the search off and pronounce the mission as a failure. They were loath to do that, IASA didn't need another failure, not with the whole world watching. But we didn't care much about that; we'd lost a light from our lives, a brother, a son, a best friend, an uncle. John was loved by many, that was one thing at least, which was never in doubt. One thing to hold on to in a world of uncertainty. We buried an empty coffin, and said an empty prayer. How could we grieve when all searches showed up no trace of Farscape One? So we went on fighting a silent, and sometimes not so silent battle, between the hope that made John who he was, the chance that somehow he'd survived, and the cold hard logic that said otherwise.
Hope and logic fought over my life for three and a half years before hope won out, and the call came in.
But he wasn't the brother who left me. As soon as I saw him, I knew, wherever he had been, someone out there had changed him. We hadn't been the only ones fighting for hope in a world full of calculating logic. He'd been there too, and I cried for us both, for the time we'd lost, and for our pain, seemingly without end.
He said Aeryn had saved him, and it doesn't surprise me that she did. Aeryn is possibly the most amazing woman I've ever met. Her strength is a testament to us all. To survive a childhood like hers, and not be a monster, it's a miracle. And for John's sake, one to be thankful for.
She said he'd saved her, although the way she told it, it sounded like he hijacked her, which is about the size of it where John is concerned. He comes into people's lives and turns them upside down, with his energy and passion, and apparently it doesn't matter which end of the galaxy you're at, it's still the same; he's still the same. But he's not.
Deep in there I can still see him, the John I knew, the brother I loved. When I look into his eyes the first thing I see is fear, not for himself, but for the people he loves. Constantly on his guard, like Aeryn, like a trained solder... I guess they've both changed each other, and I'm not sure I'm thankful to her for that.
This other world she's from, with Scorpius and the Scarrans, it's taken him back. Even here he wasn't safe.
At least this time we got to say goodbye.
Through my tears I watched him walk away, knowing somehow this was our last goodbye. Our fates lie in different directions now, however much I hate that, I cannot go with him, and he cannot stay here. It seems this is the story of his life now. His new life in a new world... one I will never be part of.
He takes with him my love, and I'm thankful for the few precious months we had. Now my prayers are no longer empty, and I no longer come out here and look at a soulless sky. He's out there somewhere, orbiting one of those suns that are just like ours. He still breathes the same air as I do, and the same gravity exerts its unrelenting force on him. He still eats and sleeps, laughs and cries...
I send my love to the future for the man who is with me only in spirit.
John Crichton - astronaut, test pilot, scientist, hero, explorer, best friend, protector.
My brother.