Like Tears In Rain (PG)

IMPORTANT: And now, at last, we come to the end of my 'Twist Of Fate' series. I wish I didn't have to end it. I wish I could think of more chapters, but I can't. This is always the ending I'd intended for it - I have an early draft of this from January 2012. Still, if you find this is not to your liking, I have an Equal and Original alternative ending posted in 'Tell Me What We Experienced Was Real.' I had originally thought to call the other ending 'Vinegardog's Shippy Ending' and call this 'The Mind Frell Ending', until she told me she actually preferred this version. Still, I reckon most people who read one will read them both, so does it matter? In an infinite universe there are millions of Johns running around leading millions of lives, after all.

Thanks: Thanks once again to Vinegardog for betaing

Like Tears In Rain (PG - My original, Mind Frell ending)

Part 1

Aeryn swirled the drink around in the bottom of her glass as she looked out of the hotel window, fascinated by the sparkling cityscape below, so different from everything she had ever known until just a few monens ago. She swallowed another mouthful of alcohol, relishing the strange, warm sensation it left as it slid down her throat. It tasted smoky, with a hint of sweetness. Far more satisfying than the harsh bitterness of the raslak she had grown up with. Indeed, she reflected, her thoughts about the drink could be extended to so many other things about her new life when compared to her previous existence as a Peacekeeper.

A strong arm snaked around her shoulder, pulling her out of her reverie and back onto a broad chest. She wasn't concerned or startled - she had seen the ghost of John's reflection in the sheet of glass in front of her and had almost been expecting for him to physically reach out to her. If she was honest with herself, she had been hoping for it.

"Penny for your thoughts?" He asked, nuzzling at her neck with his cheek and then nose.

She allowed herself a smile of indulgent incomprehension at the strange, human phrase. John seemed to pick up on her perplexity and gently kissed her neck. She longed for him to repeat the exercise, but instead he spoke again. Why did he never seem to appreciate that there were better things he could be doing with that mouth than talking?

"You know, these last few weeks? Well, they've been the best… I don't think I've ever felt so fulfilled." She stiffened in his embrace, feeling suddenly vulnerable, scared that he might be about to say how much being back on Earth meant to him. "It's not being back on Earth. I thought it might be, but it turns out it's not. It's being with you."

Aeryn was thrilled, yet terrified. Rejection would have, in many ways, have been easier to bear. Had he felt her stiffen and changed his words to make her feel more comfortable, less rejected? Frell it, why was everything suddenly so complicated?

"When we get off..." He was talking again, seemingly ignorant of her inner turmoil. She focussed on his words in order to still the voices in her own head. "Actually, whether we get off this planet or not, I want to be with you, Aeryn. I mean, for good."

Aeryn was caught too much by surprise to be able to stifle her shocked gasp.

"I...". Aeryn stumbled with her thoughts, blindsided as much by John's words as by her reaction to them. She was feeling things she was not familiar with, did not know how to cope with. She had not felt anything like this since those monens with Velorek. She had not wanted to feel such things again: they both scared her and reminded her of her own capacity for treachery and of how little she could trust herself to let down her guard.

"We can still call it off. If you want," John reminded her, as if she did not know it, rambling on in his ignorance of her innermost thoughts and fears.

"No, not now." Her throat was dry, protesting, as though it didn't want her to say the words. "I want... I think... I want to be with you." She held her breath, scarcely believing she had said such a thing.

"No, sorry," John laughed. "I mean, seeing my dad, trying to get D'Argo and one of our ships back."

She breathed again, relief washing over her that the conversation had turned away from Treacherous Emotions and back to something that she could understand and deal with on equal terms. But if they did abandon their plans to rescue D'Argo and escape Earth, what then? Stay here, wait for their luck to run out? Abandon D'Argo, should he still be alive? No, there wasn't really any choice. They had to go through with it tomorrow, they had to contact John's father, to try to enlist his help.

But, in the few arns until then, she could enjoy her new life. She twisted in his arms and smiled as she rubbed her nose against his.

"Can we get pizza and ice cream, and watch that movie again tonight?" She punctuated her request with a kiss on his lips. "The one about the peacekeeper and the bioloids?"

"Huh?" John enquired as her lips toyed with his once again.

"Dekker and Rachael?" She whispered, grinning as she reverted to another nose-rub.

"Oh... Blade Runner." He smiled and pushed in towards her. His nose nuzzled the delicate skin beneath her ear."Sure thing, Sunshine. And afterwards…?" She gasped in pleasure at his attentions and pulled him in tighter.

"And afterwards, John Crichton, I intend to frell your brains out." She chuckled, her hands slipping down from his shoulders to his eema and pulling his warm, firm body close to her, clamping it as tightly as she dared without hurting him.

"I guess I'd better hurry out to the store, then," he chuckled into her neck.

"Hmm. I guess you better had," she replied, smiling at her mimicry of his words as she pointedly dug her fingers into his buttocks and pulled him closer still. Then, with a determined act of will of which her drill instructors of old would have been proud, she released him, encouraging him off of her by leaning back and slapping his behind.

"Hold onto those thoughts," he grinned.

"What thoughts?" she enquired with an obviously dishonest half smile. He grunted a laugh in reply.

"Later," he insisted. She chuckled, deep in her throat. Indeed, later, John Crichton, she thought to herself.

"Love you," He whispered. Releasing her with a final kiss, he turned towards the door, and the table where his wallet and the door key lay.

"Love you, too," she mouthed near-silently, expectant that the sounds of him leaving would muffle her words so that he would not hear.

'~'

Rain fell in a soft, fine drizzle, almost a mist. Not strong enough to soak anyone in the cemetery, but enough that only a fahrbot person would claim that the weather was dry. Aeryn would have loved to stand out in the open in the middle of the park to soak up the bounty of the Earth skies, but the soldier in her told her to stay under cover, to stay out of sight. Apparently this was where the body of John's mother was buried. John had tried to explain to her how his father came here once every other week. She had understood very well that Jack did this. What she struggled to comprehend was why.

She lurked for a few microts in the shade of the temple entrance, her eyes scanning the necropolis for signs of surveillance - human surveillance. She tried not to think about how bizarre, how typically human it was to devote so much space and resource to the disposal of the corpses of their dead. She remembered staring, the Peacekeeper in her dumbstruck with disbelief, when John had explained the concept to her a few days previously. And yet, the whole concept did not annoy her as it once might have done. What was so wrong with a calm place devoted to the memory of those who had died, but had meant something to you, anyway? She snorted in derision at her own thoughts. The human was clearly rubbing off on her.

She could just about make out the human- her human. He was on the other side of the cemetery, watching his father from a distance, checking that he had not been followed, just as she was checking that there was no-one already waiting there for his arrival. John seemed satisfied that Jack had not been followed, because now she could see that he was moving to catch up with him at a junction between three of the paths which wound their way through the park. Everything seemed to be going fine.

She checked her human-made pistol once again, suddenly nervous about how well things were going.

She looked up just in time to see John step out from behind a shrub onto one of the paths, barely five motras from his father.

"John?" Jack asked, turning his head, his mouth hanging half open in shock as his brows knotted. His voice was barely audible to Aeryn, could not have been heard at all had the light breeze not been in her favour.

"Dad..." She heard John reply as, hand outstretched, he took a step towards his clearly-stunned father. To Aeryn, Jack seemed reluctant to turn fully towards his son, as though in doing so he would be facing up to and accepting something which was unacceptable to him in some way that Aeryn could only dream of. Was it fear for his son, or fear of his son?

"But you're… you're not…"

Aeryn's attention was snatched away from the exchange as she noticed a third figure, dressed in what must have been an uncomfortably warm heavy coat, emerge from behind a tree. She saw the human begin to pull something small and metallic from beneath that coat. How could she not have noticed them before? Even as she wondered at her oversight, the newcomer's hands came together and started to rise, the object held firmly between them. To Aeryn's professional eye, it looked like they were pulling a hand-weapon on John. If she cried out and tried to warn John, she would draw attention to herself, leaving herself less able to act. However, the attacker had their back to her - if she moved now, she might have just enough time to intervene.

She sprang forward, closing on the figure with all the speed and stealth of an elite Peacekeeper commando.

She bowled over the would-be assailant, knocking him out from behind his cover. They wrestled on the ground for a microt, fighting for control of what was now clearly visible as some sort of gun before Aeryn got the upper hand and managed to get in an unimpeded strike to her opponent. There was a sickening thud as her hand connected with his head and the man went instantly limp.

Aeryn looked up, towards John - she could see John and Jack, standing almost toe to toe, but now both looking her way. In a microt, she took on the look of shock on Jack's face, and the look of horror on John's. John held his hand out towards her and opened his mouth to speak. Then something small and hard struck her in the back, the force bowling her over, rolling her face-forwards over and off of her victim. She barely felt the second impact as something else struck her leg.

"Aeryn!" John's anguished, strangled cry reached her as though her head was buried beneath thick, heavy bedding.

'~'

John pulled Aeryn's now limp body closer. His eyes took in the darts – one in her leg, one in her shoulder. She struggled to say something but only a gurgling sound emerged. He brushed a strand of ebony hair from her face and gulped back a strangled cry of his own.

He looked around, trying to catch sight of the second trench-coated figure, the one who had shot Aeryn. From the edges of his vision John could see a trio of large, black off-roaders in the parking lot. A host of black-clad paramilitaries were disgorging from them, heading their way. In just a couple of seconds the newcomers were carefully spreading out and moving towards them in formation, their weapons held out and sighted towards him and Aeryn. Still cradling Aeryn, John looked frantically around him, trying to see some route, some means by which they might still escape. But there was none.

"John!" He heard his father call. "Who…?"

He looked down at Aeryn's head, cradled in his lap and hands. Her skin was pale, her breath ragged. Her eyes fluttered as though, even now, she wrestled to stay awake, fought against the death of all of their hopes, indeed, against the loss of their very lives. Then her eyes rolled back in their sockets and all sign of consciousness left her.

He couldn't let them take her, couldn't let them do to her what they had done to Rygel and, most likely by now, to D'Argo. It wasn't just the promises she had made him make to her. John knew now that he could not live with knowing that she had been taken and subjected to such horrors as his two other shipmates had been subjected to. One bullet was all that was left in the handgun. John pressed his mouth to hers, lifting her head slightly with his free hand so that he could get the angle he needed with his right, gun hand. The angle which he hoped would kill them both with a single bullet.

"I'm sorry, babe. I'm so sorry!" A single tear fell from John's eye onto Aeryn's face, which was still damp from the rain, and was instantly lost to sight, absorbed into its surroundings.

There were so many things he'd wanted to say to her, so many things to experience together.

His heart sunk. He had lost. All of the hopes of a life with Aeryn which had been growing in him were now surely dashed.

But there was no more time….

'~'

Part 2

'~'

Time

'~'

Time…. Is flexible. At least the perceptions of it may be. Although Time's Arrow, the perception of the passage through time is not reversible for an individual observer, their memory of their observations may be altered. The observer may, for instance, travel through a wormhole and re-enter the timeline at a previous point. If their memory is altered so that their intervening experiences are erased, then, to all intents, from their perspective, Time may be seen as reversible.

From every point of entry - a wormhole branches into multiple paths. The subdivision continues until at length you are deposited back into space/time. The journey can be random, or with purpose.

Destination is the key.

'~'

John sat in an isolation tank, alone with his memories, alone with an imagination which would not leave his worst fears unexplored. He wondered how long he had been here, how long they had had to subject Aeryn to indignities best not thought about, but they hadn't even left him with a way of measuring the passage of time, so he could only guess.

Since they had dragged him away from graveyard, cuffed and guarded by half a dozen silent men, anonymous in their suits of SWAT armour, and tossed him in the back of a blacked-out van, no one had told him anything about what was going on or what they were doing with Aeryn. More accurately, no one had told him anything. He hadn't seen another human face nor heard anyone's voice.

His demands for information both in the van and since being hustled, blindfolded, into the holding tank, had gone unheeded. Indeed, as he could not see out of the isolation tank, it was possible that they now went unheard as well.

Time crept by interminably. It was almost as though the powers that held him were unsure what to do next, were debating his fate.

Perhaps they were debating Aeryn's fate?

An involuntary shiver shook him at the thought. But then, if they were, perhaps there was still time?

'~'

John Crichton was uncontrolled. Intervention was necessary. If they had continued in their actions the consequences would have been, at best, disastrous. Uncontrolled and unpredictable. Dangerous.

We could not allow exposure on his home planet at this time.

We are in agreement regarding the necessity to intervene. Some of us are of the opinion that the experiment should not have been allowed to continue for so long.

We thought that it was safe to let them go, that they would disappear and not risk interacting with anyone. That they would not expose us.

No matter. The intervention was timely. Only a few alterations will be required. We do not anticipate any long term complications.

We gained valuable data. Important insights into whether we can expect the subjects to fulfil our needs.

To prevent the most aggressive species of his realm from acquiring wormhole knowledge.

We remain unconvinced that either of these subjects will serve the greater agenda.

We disagree. We believe the male will do so. For her. And she would do so for him, too in time.

She is a Peacekeeper. And she is expended.

Both of those things can be addressed.

We should implant the skills and knowledge.

We cannot allow them to access it directly. It will need to be well hidden.

Naturally.

You propose to grant the knowledge to both of them? Is that not too risky?

Perhaps. Perhaps just the human, then?

Regardless, we cannot proceed from this point, or even close to this point. Too much has happened.

Agreed. We should redact their memories and then insert them into the simulation shortly after their escape.

In the Safe House.

Agreed. The Safe House.

Insert them into the simulation.

'~'

Aeryn awoke with a start, immediately alert. Like the Peacekeeper commando on the run that she was.

It was less than a day since her transport pod, containing herself, Rygel and D'Argo, had been sucked down the wormhole, following John down to his planet. Instead of the welcome John had promised that they would find on Earth, they had instead found themselves prisoners. Then, in short order, some of them had found themselves to be casualties. Then she had escaped. With John.

She shuddered at the memories, so clear, so raw. Rygel was dead. D'Argo probably, too, by now.

But John had helped her to escape from the humans' base. He had shown by his actions that he was with her, not with them. He had brought her to the safe house, through the rain. The wondrous rain. Then had come the beer, and their desperate coupling, born of lust and a shared need to affirm that they were both still alive.

Today, however, was a new day. The first day of the rest of their lives. The safe house would not be safe for long. They needed to plan their escape from this place, needed to find somewhere where it would be less likely that they would be discovered, captured and, she had no doubt, killed.

Leaving John to snore on for a few more microts, she slipped from the bed and began searching their rooms for things which might be of use to them in their escape.

'~'

The Ancient who had taken the form of Jack observed the couple as they talked, dressed and ate. It had been a most intriguing experiment: A Peacekeeper and an alien of a previously almost unknown species. The Ancient was familiar with Peacekeepers attitudes and behaviour and so he had not expected things to develop between the two subjects as they had done. However, he was not disappointed – he had learnt a lot from what had happened. The Peacekeeper had behaved most unexpectedly, showing traits which had showed that perhaps she could be redeemed, after all. Perhaps, as others in the Hive had suggested, she might even be useful to their greater purpose at some time? As for the other, the human, it was clear that, although this particular specimen showed great promise, his species as a group was not ready, would not greet the Ancients.

The Hive had learnt all that they needed to know from the experiment. But it had gone on for too long, and the unexpected outcome had been dangerous for both of the subjects and to the Ancient's own agenda. The Ancients had only just managed to intervene in time to save them. There still might be something more to learn from the pair. They would merit a further contact at some future time.

For now, they needed to terminate the simulation, but to do it in a credible way, a way that would ensure that the human and the Peacekeeper did not hold any further suspicions afterwards. So that they would not realise how utterly they had been misled and manipulated.

After the human and the Peacekeeper left the Safe House they would begin walking across the square, past a news stand. The Hive would alter the trajectory of the female runner, make her more obviously an object of suspicion to the human, draw his attention to the news stand, to the evidence that they would place there that would cause his suspicions to rise, hopefully to reach a critical level.

'~'

"I KNOW EVERYONE! GET AWAY FROM ME AERYN! GET AWAY! BACK OFF! Every place I've been, I've been there before. Every place. Frank Kokonis! I dated your sister!"

"So much for 'I'm with you, Aeryn'," she thought as she watched the ranting human rush off, towards the edge of the square. He had pulled a gun on her. Waved it in her face, then abandoned her. Anger struggled with disbelief and loss to emerge as the dominant emotion to boil to the surface.

She felt betrayed.

She had started to believe in some of the constant dren that the frelling human spouted about friendship and trust and her being important to him. She had opened up to him so recently when they had been trapped in the flax and shared her deepest fear, that she would be left alone. She had thought that she could trust him. Frell, the previous night she had even recreated with him, the first time she had been with a male since Velorek.

She had thought they had a chance of being More.

"After all that, the frelling human has abandoned me!"

She had been lied to. Everybody lied to her, though. She had been a fool to think Crichton might be any different.

And yet something didn't seem quite right. It was almost as though there was another memory, buried deep inside her mind which she could not quite recall. Her thoughts, her memories about something important, something important concerning her and John seemed to be hidden, lost. Like a raindrop, made invisible by a downpour.

She wanted something so much it hurt. And yet she could not grasp what that something was.

She knew that John was somehow at the heart of that something. But, should they survive, how could she ever trust him with her life again?

After a microt a single tear formed at the corner of her eye and slowly trickled down her cheek. Then it fell away and was lost.

The end

Post-script by author in anticipation of the perhaps inevitable questions or discussions about whether they were ever on Earth in this version, and if so, when? You, the reader, can choose. This was the ending I had in mind from the very start with this series of fics, and I deliberately tried not to paint myself into a corner on these question. That proved to be harder and harder to do as the fics went on and I probably failed a few times. That said, I don't get paid for this and my beta had no idea where I was going until she read this fic, so... Tough noogies ;-)

It's whatever you want. If you still don't like it, perhaps the alternative ending will work better for you?