CHIANA WATCHED HIM ENTER COMMAND, dressed, clean, shaven, armed.

He'd been back two days.

They'd had their reunion, Crichton had been hesitant and distant, and all had welcomed him back without recrimination, without acrimony – all save Rygel, of course. They'd been worried, they'd said. He'd reassured them.

Whatever shape he was in, he'd told them, he'd done to himself. No one else was to blame, he'd said pointedly.

No one, as yet, had asked what had happened in his time away, nor was he volunteering anything. He spent his time away from them working on the 'Blaster'.

Even back, they barely saw him.

Crichton strode up to the navigational console, called to Pilot with no preamble.

"Pilot – any word from Talyn and Crais?"

His voice was calm, sharp, steady.

"Yes, Commander. Moya received a burst transmission from Talyn just under an arn ago. They will meet up with us in half a solar day. Talyn has been having… troubles, Crais says."

Yeah, I wasn't the only one, he thought, feeling coldly sardonic.

Half-a-cycle ago, Talyn had returned with the news of 'The Departure' - and then he and Crais had left, neither very happy, but Crichton suspected it was more Talyn than Crais. He'd not been long in following them.

Crais and Talyn had come back more often than he had. Talyn was still neurotic and twitchy, had lashed out at his mother on their last visit, two solar days ago. Fortunately, it had been verbal and not physical. The kid's mind was deteriorating at a rapid pace. Crais had managed a few stopgap repairs but nothing short of massive 'surgery' as it were was going to fix the kid.

"Not really his fault. How are we for supplies?"

"We will need re-supply within the weeken to stay within safety."

"When Crais gets back, you should probably find a decent Commerce Planet and re-stock. You never know how far away the next one will be."

"A good idea, Commander."

"Anything on Stark?"

"I was curious about that myself, but he informed me that Stark had left shortly before… the first time… – muttering something about a planet called Valdon. Apparently, he plans to seek to commune with… Zhaan. She was…calling him. Or so he claimed. He disembarked on Dambada and vanished. He could frankly be anywhere."

Shit. He could have used Stark. Never mind.

"Uh-huh. Well, you know Stark. He'll show up again when the whim grabs him."

"Very likely."

"Thanks, Pilot."

He turned, headed off. Chiana jumped in behind him to follow. He had more dim gray-white in his hair, starting to streak his temples. It was longer, past his collar. There was a slim braid behind his right ear, she noticed, with small, slender silver cylinders woven through it. Something new.

"It's a warrior's affectation here," She'd told him, climbing onto his lap to do it, pinning him effectively, began weaving deftly with her slim strong fingers. "It makes you someone."

"I'm no one. I'm not real." He replied, patiently trying to explain it again as she wove expertly. "I'm no warrior, either."

"Reality is highly suspect at the best of times", she laughed softly. "You'll be a warrior all right – you can't be anything else."

"Hey – where ya goin'?"

"To fix my ship."

"Can I come? I can help."

A shrug.

She followed along for another few moments, then asked;

"Are you ..okay?"

There's a pause there, it feels longer than it actually is, lasting no longer than a microt. He has weighed his answer and the one he gives is not the one he feels. This question has been asked of him many times, the answer never, she realizes, true.

"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, c'mon – you did kinda space out there for more than a couple of days."

He stopped, looked at her. He is deadly serious, more than she thinks it merits.

"Yeah – I'm sorry about that. Dunno what I was thinking. I'm better now."

He seemed to look past her for a moment, then continued on.

There is something different about his walk, Chiana notes, but she can't place it. It seems heavier, like the sound of police boots in a hallway. It doesn't mesh, it's not right, not coming from John.

"No, it was okay, I mean, it was understandable…"

"Chi – there's nothing to discuss."

"But…"

He stopped, stony - and the look her gave her scared her.

He turned and continued on. She didn't follow him.

CRAIS AND TALYN RETURNED ON TIME, MUCH CALMER.

Without preliminaries, they were asked to follow Moya to the nearest Commerce Planet, which they did. The re-stocking of Moya went off without incident, and the two Leviathans moved on. Eventually, they came across the Thonexia Commerce Station, and Crichton abruptly decided that he needed some "R&R", to which Chiana and Jool loudly seconded and thirded.

D'Argo and Crais had reservations – to which Crichton had merely replied with a curt, "Suit yourself", and went anyway. He moved his module out of the 'Blaster' and took the Frigate.

Twelve arns later, Jool was returned - very drunk – by station security, with a large lump on her head.

Chiana came back unconscious, so inebriated she would not awaken for two days.

An investigation by D'Argo could find no trace of Crichton. Further investigation revealed that a Nemedjian frigate was seen heading for the Tilenkia Commerce Station on the other side of the system arns before.

As she sped toward the station, Moya received word that the Tilenkia Commerce Station was currently under security lockdown, pending an investigation into a roaring firefight that had broken out between a Sebacean male and a squad of Peacekeeper commandos on shore leave and raged across the station. There were nine dead - all Commandos - and over four million krindars of damage had been done to the station via the ramming of a Nemedjian Frigate into it.

Said Sebacean had then stolen the Commandos' Marauder and was last seen heading to Arkkanoi IV.

When, D'Argo wondered, had John learned to fly a Marauder?

By the time Moya and Talyn had reached Arkkanoi IV, all that they could glean was that the one they were looking for had left for either Tarklian or the Vomannis Tor worlds.

Crais suggested that they split up, he and Talyn would head to Vomannis Tor. D'Argo, more worried than angry - agreed. They would meet back at Arkkanoi.

A half-day went by and Talyn settled into orbit around Osakis Lashing, the only habitable planet in Vomannis Tor, a sector-notorious den of outlaws, rebels and malcontents. Crais armed himself heavily and went to the surface.

He asked Talyn to attempt to key in on Crichton's biosigns to narrow down his search. Talyn had some difficulty scanning through the thick pollution from the heavy oil refineries that clogged the planet, but he eventually managed to send Crais to the area called Volker's Den, arguably the worst part of a very seedy planet.

Crais finally found Crichton in a bar just off one of the spaceports. He walked into the place that probably should have been more raucous than it was.

The Human was not hard to spot, in that he and Crais were the only Sebaceanoids on the planet. Crais stepped over the bodies of two Hekhmaji - bipedal Felinids - bounty hunters - there was clear path and space around them and their killer.

Against the wall in the corner, sat Crichton himself, looking cold and dangerous; having acquired a new wardrobe, a very black leather, armored and hooded longcoat with blood-red and silver inlays, new boots and pants. He also had a heavy pulse rifle resting on the table before him, and as Crais approached the table, he could see it was a brand-new, very illegal-for-a-civilian-to-have Peacekeeper-issue Forge-class heavy assault pulse cannon, obviously liberated from the Marauder. It did not use Chakkan Oil and it was designed solely to kill Scarrans. At his feet was a very large duffel, stuffed full.

"Crais." Crichton nodded when he saw him. Cold blue eyes regarded the ex-Captain from the shadows of the hood.

"Commander Crichton." Crais said, trying to determine his mood. Notoriously hard to read, was this one. The other had been no problem at all. This one was a wall.

Crichton squinted at him, reached over, took a drink.

"You want something?"

Crais blinked.

"We have been looking for you."

Crichton smiled a thin smile at him.

"Well, hell, Crais – here I am. If you'd started here, you would have found me before I'd arrived." The smile was a razor-thin thing, and it was only when Crichton set the mug back down that Crais realized that Crichton was drunk – no, not drunk, but what Crais' father had called 'frozen in drink' – numbed – and he recognized the kind of numb.

It was the kind that got people killed.

Crichton casually picked up the rifle, swung it squarely around to point directly into Crais' face. The barrel stopped a dench from his nose. For all his supposed imbibing, the barrel was as steady as a rock. There was a collective step back by the other patrons.

"You realize that all of this was your doing, yes?"

His eyes narrowed. Crais remained calm, watching Crichton closely. He nodded. Yes, he regarded that as a fact. A few dozen microts ticked by.

"Goddamn universe." Crichton sighed a half-sigh/half-growl, looked at Crais for a few moments, suddenly slammed the Forge back onto the table. "Why is it so frelling capricious? You know?"

He swayed unsteadily for a moment, stopped.

"No… 'course you don't." He examined his half-full mug, looked back over at Crais. "Why the frell would you? Who frelling cares? Sit the frell down."

Crais did, opposite him. Crichton glanced down at his rifle, looked up across the bar, stared away from Crais for a moment. He reached into his pocket, pulled a small pouch out, tossed it at the bartender, who caught it, opened it, counted, nodded back.

"I don't like you, Crais. Never have. Never will. But that comes as no surprise to you. You won't be losing sleep over it."

Crais shook his head. No, of course not.

"That's not me – you understand? Those are memories. Those memories have emotional components I can't help. It's not mine. I've decided that I'm going to try. You did nothing to me, I understand that now. So - I will give you the benefit of doubt – not trust, but some leeway. That …hate… that's John's. I'm gonna cut you some slack – provisionally."

Crais wasn't entirely sure what he meant, though he got the gist. He and the other Crichton had managed to reach a kind of accord. Not much, a working one nonetheless. This too, could be considered a step forward, one he was happy to accept.

"That is fair," Crais told him and received a curt nod in return.

"Don't –" he returned with a cold edge. " - ever mistake me for him. I will kill you."

Crais simply nodded again. Crichton stared at him for long microts. He looked away as a raucous group laughed and bellowed their way by the table.

"Crais…" he said, not looking back. "Did you ever want to go home - so badly you could taste it - and then realize that a home was something you never actually had?"

Crais said, utterly honestly and openly, "Yes."

Crichton almost smiled.

"Tell me one more thing, Crais."

Crichton turned cold and bloodshot eyes back onto the ex-Peacekeeper Captain.

"If I can."

Crichton leaned across the table, looked closely at the ex-Captain.

"Was she…" A pause. "…happy?"

Crais knew better not to lie.

"Yes, of course. Very much so."

Crichton looked a moment longer and then pulled back, sat silently. After what seemed like a very long time, he said, quietly -

"Yeah."

He stood again, picked up the Forge rifle, slung it on his back, picked up his duffel, slung it over his shoulder. Crais rose with him.

"Let's lock and load. You mind getting that?"

Crichton kicked another large duffel under the table. Something had changed in him, Crais could see it. Something was …missing, but Crais merely nodded, slung the duffel, grunted at its weight, nodded to indicate the way out.

"Room on the Kid for my ship?"

"The Marauder?"

"Yeah, that."

"I believe so." Crais wanted to ask him where he'd gotten it and changed his mind.

"Fine. I'll meet you at the Kid."

Crichton veered off and vanished up the street.

Parked in Talyn, Crichton exited the Marauder and met Crais at the hatch, retrieving the duffel he'd left Crais to carry. He vanished back into the Marauder with it and then reappeared, pulled back his hood to ask,

"The Kid okay with me onboard?"

Crais wondered at the question for a moment then realized what Crichton meant. I look and sound like the other one, and Talyn's not fond of that one at the moment. He can make the distinction, right?

"Talyn has no objections to you, Commander."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, of course."

Crichton gazed around the red hanger, at the angular red DRD on the wall above his head.

"Ka'D'Argo has been informed, Commander." Crais told him. Crichton still had his rifle on his back. "He will meet us at Arkkanoi IV."

Crichton scrubbed his hands through his hair.

"He's pissed."

"No. He understands. We all do."

Crichton leaned against the hatch frame.

"Yeah, sure…" he looked up at the ceiling. "Sorry, Kid."

Talyn warbled. Crichton looked at Crais.

"Talyn asks, 'sorry for what'?"

"Just… sorry. I'm sure I owe a few apologies here and there."

Talyn warbled again.

"Talyn accepts your apology, Commander, for whatever it was."

"Thanks." Crichton seemed to hesitate a moment, then asked: "How is he, anyway?"

"As well as can be expected. The repairs to his neural synapses has been patchwork at best. I have tried everything I can think of, alas my funds are limited, and those who could help are understandably suspicious. I have managed to keep him going this long… but the damage by… the Retrieval Squad was rather extensive." Crichton looked around, made a slight cutting motion with his thumb across his throat, looked up as he did it. Crais understood.

"Talyn – if you will excuse us for a moment, Commander Crichton and I wish to talk privately." Talyn warbled. "Thank you. Engaging privacy mode." He looked up at Crichton.

"A concern, Commander?" Crichton, surprisingly, seemed perfectly sober, and Crais wondered briefly how that was possible.

"How extensive was the damage to the kid, Crais? Really?"

Crais sighed, crossed his hands behind his back.

"Extensive. Initially, I had to impose a simulacrum of my own neural patterns over his own to stabilize him – it was only a framework, but it did not last. I have managed to install neural shunts and a few synaptic patches, and as you can imagine, they are merely stopgaps, holding actions as it were – and they will not last, either. The experts I knew were all Peacekeepers and they are understandably reluctant to aid me. Those experts I could find were either hostile or prohibitively expensive." Crais almost sighed. "Even now he is becoming increasingly more erratic and unreliable. In two weekens, perhaps less, perhaps slightly longer, I fear his entire neural network may collapse. He could very well go insane."

"Okay, that's bad. I find it hard to believe that for a people who use Leviathans so extensively - no one seems to have any decent repair or rehab facilities for them."

Crais looked a little discomfited by what he was about to say, "I'm afraid that most races who employ Leviathans tend to think of them as, well, disposable. Unfortunately true."

"Yeah – most. Someone has to give slightly more of a crap for them. If there's nothing we can do for him, there has to be somewhere and someone that can."

"What do you suggest?"

"I suggest we stop dicking around and find one." Crichton straightened. "I don't know about you, Crais… personally, I've had it with being at the mercy of every whim of fate in this galaxy. I think it's past time to be a bit more… proactive." He turned to re-enter the Marauder. "How long until we meet up with D?"

"Perhaps half-a-day, a few arns more."

"Cool. I'm getting some sleep."

"Of course."

Crichton stepped in and the hatch sliced closed.

Crais disengaged the privacy lockout on Talyn, then contemplated the Marauder, shook his head and started Talyn on the long flight back to Arkkanoi IV.

He did not see Crichton again for the entire trip.

D'ARGO STARED ACROSS THE TABLE AT HIM UNTIL HE LOOKED UP.

"What?" Crichton asked. It had been another day since Crais had returned him to Moya. Crichton had awakened long enough to carry his stuff over, then immediately pass out again.

"You sure you're all right?" D'Argo asked.

"Fine. Got a headache that could etch steel..."

"What in Hezmana were you thinking?"

Crichton slapped his mug down on the table, startling Jool, who squeaked. She was ignored. She was still feeling faintly ill from her own binge.

"I wasn't. That's the goddamn problem. I was trying to find a focus, D. I had thought I had gotten my act together. Coming back tipped things over again. I had to get out and think – at least try and get my head back on straight. I'm better. I know what to do now."

"John…" He'd debated broaching it, tried tentatively, "I know what it was, I can understand. You loved Aeryn and she…"

It came down like a steel door closing, hard, arctic and final:

"No, D." His eyes were flint. "I don't love anyone. Those are John's memories, not mine. She loves him. She's happy. She had the right, okay? Whatever happened between the two of them – has nothing to do with me."

He narrowed his eyes and his voice was even colder.

"I accept it. I am what I am, whatever that is."

He stopped, looked at his friend, the empathy on his face, the sorrow in his eyes.

"You need to stop thinking of me and him as the same. We're not."

"I don't see any difference, John." D'Argo told him and meant it. Crichton just shook his head.

"I know. But I do."

D'Argo nodded slowly, and Crichton glanced around the table.

"Look, I'm sorry I sent you guys all over. I apologize for the binge. It was weak." He looked pointedly at D'Argo when he said it. D'Argo just nodded again. Yeah, he understood better now.

"Is that going to be your excuse forever?" Rygel groused.

"Fuck off, Sparky."

"John…" D'Argo tried again. "It wasn't that. I can understand that. I wouldn't hold it against you." He pushed a disc across the table at him. "It's this that worries me. This was everywhere we went."

He pressed a button on the side of the disc and an image shimmered above it. It was a face he recognized – Myklo Braca, Scorpius' ass-kissing shadow. Images of the crew followed their names on the beacon.

"An unprecedented reward is offered for the capture of the terrorist John Crichton. If captured alive, twenty-five million currency pledges. If dead, five million."

Aeryn's image floated up, and Crichton just looked at it, his face stone.

"For the capture of the Peacekeeper deserter Aeryn Sun, a reward of 15 million currency pledges. For Ka'D'Argo the Luxan…" D'Argo reached over, shut it off.

"All our bounties are substantially higher than they were."

"Why is Aeryn's so high?" Rygel asked, missing the shadow that crossed Crichton's face.

"Because, Ryge – 'grab Sun and Crichton comes running' – that's the refrain." He laughed, but there was absolutely no humour in it. "Are they ever behind the times."

"My only concern was…" D'Argo began.

"Yeah, I know." Crichton interrupted. "I had to kill two Hekhmaji on Osakis Lashing. The hunt for me is intensifying."

"What do you think we should do?'

"I was talking to Crais about Talyn – about finding somewhere to help him. It might be a good idea to see what we can do for Moya, as well – in way of armor, other defences, maybe. She's gotta be getting pretty damn tired of taking shots all the time."

D'Argo eyed him for a moment.

"Agreed. Do you have a plan?"

"Yeah. First – we have to find professionals that can work on Leviathans. They deserve that much. We upgrade them as much as they can stand and we can afford."

"Is that even possible? Upgrading a Leviathan?"

Crichton shrugged as he went back to eating.

"I don't know but we have to do something. We've got all this cash – let's make it work for us."

Jool coughed. All eyes turned her way.

"I think I know a place." She began. "Where they work with Leviathans, with no Peacekeeper interference, I mean."

"Where?"

"That's the problem – it's a very professional outfit, all experts. I'd heard about it before I'd been frozen. I should say I know of it, I don't know exactly where it is."

Crichton shoved his plate away.

"Think hard on it. Is there anywhere or anyone you might know to find out?"

Jool looked uncomfortable.

"Well?" D'Argo ground at her.

"Dovanni Notia. There's a small group of expatriate Interions living on the farside of the planet. They might know."

"Why am I anticipating a 'but', Jool?"

"I, uh, didn't exactly leave there under the best of circumstances."

"Do you know how to get there?" D'Argo asked her.

"Not exactly." Sheepish. "It's been twenty-three cycles!"

D'Argo sighed. Crichton glanced over to the clamshell, glanced back at her as he said,

"Pilot – does Moya know where this Dovanni Notia is?"

Pilot shimmered onto the clamshell.

"Yes, Commander – it is on the edge of the Abraxi Tor – about a weeken and three solar days from here – with Starburst." Crichton looked at D'Argo, who nodded in agreement.

"If you would, lay in a course."

"Very well."

Crichton looked back at Jool.

"You can talk to these people?"

"I shouldn't have too many problems. I'm an Interion, they're Interions."

Her voice implied there was more to it, but he let it slide for now, nodded, got up. D'Argo glanced over at him.

"Now why does that sound like famous last words?"

Crichton quirked a cold grin at Jool, said to D'Argo – "Let's just hope it's not her epitaph." - left, leaving them wondering what he had meant by that.