"Do we make it to Alpha Centauri this time around?" John asked.
"When do the changes start to take effect?" Will asked.
"Soon as you make the necessary adjustments." Chronos replied then gestured them toward the stations.
Will got back onto the treadmill then the professor rolled the leveler until a lout 'HALT' came forth.
"It is done." Chronos said. "Your entire crew makes it to Alpha Centauri."
"And Doctor Smith?" Will asked. "He was in trouble when he left."
"He gets swept under the rug." Chronos said. "The changes should occur after you and your family are fast asleep."
"When is Robot going to be here?" John asked.
"Shortly." Chronos said. "Once you wake up from your freezing tubes, you will remember everything that had once been . . . It will feel like you had a bad dream."
Will came toward the cage and waited for Robot's return then John joined his side. Chronos switched the camera display to reveal events that had occurred long ago. He watched as the Robinsons proceeded to walk backwards as did the doctor as everything unhappened before his eyes as the tapes of the history were being erased. He tapped his fingers on the counter watching time tick back watching as events come to a pause in the office of the older man and begin anew.
The elevator went up to the upper section of the support beams carrying Doctor Smith and Robot in hand with little discussion having been held between them. Smith leaped off the machine's figure then went toward the doorway that slowly closed and halted against the side of his shoe. Smith yelped, loudly then scowled at the development. The development that had terrified him the first time around always brought a head ache to his head each time that he had to restart the time loop.
Smith smacked the button then the door slid open completely letting them in. Smith lead the charge into the ship then Robot closed the door behind him with a hiss. They ran down the lower decks of the ship as time seemed to be going slower. Smith pressed a button and one of the crash couches came out of the lower panels. Robot went to the center of the bridge then the older man came up front.
"We have to do it."
"No." Smith said. "Not this time."
"We must preserve the timeline." Robot protested.
"We cannot do that." Smith argued back, calmly, without a flare of anger. "You will never see the Robinsons again shortly after you return to the present if I proceed to sabotage and take his place in his role in history."
"Doctor Smith, there is no buts about this!" Robot exclaimed.
"My sabotage was to kill them sooner, you bubble headed booby." Smith shook his finger as he glared at the machine. "And you want them to live, do you not?"
"I do." Robot bobbed his helm down. "I cannot return until history is corrected."
"Then I will do some programming and send you off." Then Smith smiled. "For old times sake, my dear friend."
He twiddled the switch then watched as color faded from Robot's grill and claws as his arms returned into his chassis. The figure belonging to Robot straightened as his helm raised up into the recharge glass of the center piece. He reprogrammed the machine to care for not only the Robinsons but for the entire crew of the Jupiter 2 for the long trip ahead as a defense mechanism. Smith made it into the chair then pressed a button and the chair retreated into the console where it became pitch black.
Will looked toward his son resting in bed in the room that had once belonged to his sister and himself. Zachary was fast asleep on his side of the bed with a arm that was draped off the edge of the bed while across from him was his older sister surrounded by plush dolls that covered her figure from head to toe snoring away in contrast to her nine year old sibling. Her seventeen year old figure was discarded on the bed curled in a ball as the lump of her figure under the blanket moved up and down with each snore.
Will smiled then slowly closed the door and came down the corridor spotting the men at the dining room playing hand held devices that made loud and playful noise. The women were seated across from them reading novels with rapid attention on to them with widened eyes leaning forward quite absorbed in the novels. Mason lowered his device as the older Robinson came in his general direction.
"What are you going to do, Captain-Will?" Mason asked.
The women lowered their novels then shifted toward him.
"What ARE you going to do now that you are on Earth?" Branca asked.
"Patent, maybe." Will shrugged. "Maybe. . . Eh." he grimaced. ""That machine can't be used again."
He picked up a apple then bit into it as the men paused what they were doing and listened to him.
"Shame it can't be used to bring us back to the moment where everything vanished from your life." Gale noted on the unresolved matter.
"I am not giving up." Will replied.
"Then what are you going to do?" Gale asked.
"I am going to send a message to a certain alien that I know and. . . hope. . and hope. . . and hope that I get to it before Doctor Smith dies." Will said. "Someone who may actively know where the machine that displaced us into your lives."
"Doctor Smith has five hundred twenty-four thousand nine hundred forty-four minutes left." Gale said.
"And then bring us back home." Will finished.
"His presence will still have made sure the ship didn't hit that asteroid." Gale said.
"What about your children?" Vulet asked.
"They deserve to spend time on the planet their grandfather was bred and raised on." Will said. "They get to stay behind."
"Rose is seventeen." Mason said. "She is too young to be left here."
"That's why I want one of you are their guardians." Will said as his attention swept from member to member as they froze.
His eyes settled on Mason and Gale with amusement on how far it had taken to become friends over the start they had. The disdain that Gale once had for Mason was still there but it wasn't as bad it had been once many years ago about his character similar to the relationship that Don and Smith once shared. Will felt nostalgia on a certain level and fondness of the past that had once been.
No one knew how to counter the argument that was being proposed by the captain as the captain smiled on the issue while they exchanged a glance with each other. And the shock of the announcement was enough to keep them silenced for whatever he had to say next.
"You two, now," Will pointed at the women. "I can totally see you doing something but I don't know what it is."
"Helping people escape cults." Mason said. "It takes a lot of guts to kidnap someone and make sure they get deprogrammed with the help of the family all on their own."
"Or helping people out of toxic families like yours, Mason." Gale reminded.
"Vulet and Branca, what are you going to do?" Mason looked toward the women.
The women were quiet at the unexpected question.
"When are you leaving for space, Will?" Branca changed the subject.
Will was quiet for a long moment as he bit into the apple thinking it over.
"There is nothing I can do except let history play out the way it should have had. Mom's heart attack. . ." Will pursed his lips then rubbed his chin. "If I could somehow put Doctor Smith into freezing status and make sure that he lives for maybe four months around the Robinsons then history would go on a little bit differently."
"That wouldn't be a little given they would be on Gamma, Will." Gale reminded the older Robinson. "That's a big difference."
Will chuckled, heavily amused.
"It is the best cheating that I got on hand." Will admitted. "Something that works for me and my family."
"On the bad side, the Jupiter 2 could crash land and everyone would die if he were aboard because the ship wasn't programmed to land with one additional passenger." Mason said, leaning forward, holding his finger up and Will's head fell into his hands with a groan as he realized the younger man were right then everyone else groaned once seeing it were a evident problem. ". . . I don't like a thought being proven right."
"There has to be a answer to this complicated puzzle." Will grumbled lifting his head up from his hands.
"It is not like we could make a tiny worm but time hole in there that transport Doctor Smith from one point in time to the next point where the Jupiter 2 is likely to be." Branca said.
Vulet's head bobbed up."If we can modify the time vacuumn machine and created a simulator to determine the path of the Jupiter 2 should his weight go removed then we can make sure that your family get to wake up, treat your mother, and . . . "
"Get to know him and lose him." Mason finished for Vulet.
It was quiet for the group at the table.
"If they awakened and they remember what the time loop had been before, they wouldn't have that problem." Will said then became quiet as he chewed what bite that he had taken from the apple and swallowed. "Will won't be happy. But, he will be when he learns that his friend is alive and well on Earth." he finished the bits of the core then tossed it into the trash can and smiled bitterly as he leaned back into the chair folding his arm. "I know Doctor Smith and he wouldn't want that life saving procedure after everything is settled."
"So, Robot is going with you?" Vulet asked.
"Yes." Will said.
"It began with you, Robot, and Healer Smith." Gale said.
"Now, it is down to you two." Vulet said. "It shouldn't be that way."
"I agree." Mason said. "It is unfair. It is cruel. It is depressing. It isn't right."
"It was always going to end this way." Will assured the pitying group. "I accepted that long ago when I was thirteen when Doctor Smith and I were on the bridge on shift."
"That was a long time ago." Vulet said, softly.
"This is my mission." he leaned against the counter with a tired smile as Zachary listened, halfway peaking out, listening to the conversation that was under way as his hazel eyes were slowly widening as he listened. "I have to see it through."
Will washed his hands thoroughly into the sink then dried his hands off shifting toward the group.
"If we can extend Smith's last year long of existence then maybe if I don't find a way home immediately, I know everything is set for what happens after five years."
"Five years of your son's existence. . . and maybe longer," Gale said. "Do you want to leave him behind?"
Will started to open his mouth then closed it with a sigh.
"Gale, it will be kind of weird for my dad to see his thirteen year old son with two children of his own." Will replied.
Gale snorted in amusement.
"Right." Gale said.
Will went toward the window then withdrew the curtain and spotted the shape of the saucer flying through the night sky and smiled. Good luck, Doctor Smith. He could already see in his mind the older man waiting in the lower decks of the ship as it flew off course. He could imagine the events that got them not being allowed to get lost to pass.
Will could imagine how happy that he was to see the familiar faces of the other members of the Robinsons, how confident but miserable that Smith would be all alone in the ship armed with supplies that Robot moved into the younger Jupiter 2 that would last him for the remainder of his existence. But, it was far better than dying alone in one of his troubles while Will and his personally made family were gone beyond hos reaches. The fact soothed the captain.
"The couch has a bed underneath." Will said. "Good night."
Zachary ducked into his cabin fighting back tears and wiping them off with his sleeves as he quietly went to his bed and his hand reached out for thin air to close a door that wasn't there following old muscle memory and fell into bed with a plop.
"Good night." Was the unanimous chorus.
"Tomorrow, we start going our separate ways and preparing for our new lives." Will announced.
Will went into a room that had once been his parents room, closed the door behind him, and tucked into bed for the first time in a long time underneath the blankets.
From the launch pad of the Jupiter 2, Robot stood and watched as the ship flew off into the sky to face the new destiny that had been written for her.
"Good-luck." Robot waved a red claw at the fleeing saucer. "Old chum!"
Robot's claws retreated into his chassis and read his external advanced sensor report of the saucer going out of range of visual. Robot returned into the older Jupiter 2 and the door closed behind him as the lights fell to pitch black.