A Day in the Life.... (PG-13)

[aeryncrichton]

Originally posted 5/3/04

Well, here I am FINALLY, with this very long (for me) fic.....  It's future fic, and pretty much fits into my future universe, with one exception (which will be obvious once you've read this....).

This has taken me forever, and I want to say thanks to the Bunnies for putting up with "question for a fic!" e-mails, and I especially want to thank shipsister, Loco, Shipscat, CretKid and MadScientist for much encouragement along the way, and Casper F. Joke, kazbaby, and One-Eye the DRD for the sanity check. (What can I say?  It was long.  It took forever!  I really appreciated the help! And if I forgot I dropped it on you, I'm sorry!!!)

This story basically came out of my "Midnight Tears and Mystic Spirals," wherein John discovers that his youngest child has inherited his wormhole knowledge. It started out as a wormhole adventure for John and Merry, now 13 years old....  You are warned....

Rating: PG-13 (for sex, plus a teeny bit more for some earth profanity)
Setting: About 20 years after BT
Spoilers: Obviously, through BT
Disclaimer:  Not my characters, not my universe, just my way of getting through to the mini! *g*  No harm intended....

Oh, and I promise a multi-part epilogue, right up front.....

(This will be broken into several parts, all posted here in this thread.)

A Day in the Life...

As Moya glided through space, John and Aeryn sat in the Crichton family's living area, enjoying some time to themselves. The room had been furnished over the cycles with Earth in mind, and the sofa they occupied was one of the items they'd actually bought on a visit to John's home planet. Aeryn was sitting sideways in his lap, her bare feet on the cushions in front of her, and the two were engaged in the kind of kissing that generally brought cries of, "Get a room!" from their three teenaged offspring. So Aeryn knew it was serious when the door opened and their youngest, Meara, simply cleared her throat and stood and waited until she had their attention.

Aeryn slipped off of John's lap onto the sofa next to him, mentally checking that her clothes weren't too disarrayed and patting ineffectually at the wisps of jet black hair that had escaped from her loose braid.

"Hey," John said to their daughter, giving her an opening to talk.

The thirteen-year-old stood there awkwardly, dressed for sleep in a T-shirt and loose pants, dark hair framing her face and blue eyes wary. Meara was as tall as Chiana these days, and looking more like her father's sister Olivia with each passing cycle.

"What's wrong?" Aeryn asked, when the girl showed no signs of talking.

With a slightly guilty look, Meara's eyes moved from her mother to her father. "Um, Dad, I feel something in my head...."

John went still beside her on the sofa, though the expression on his face never changed, and Aeryn knew with a certainty that he knew exactly what Meara was talking about. She could feel the anger surge inside her, because it could only be something to do with wormholes, and he must have felt it himself, and he'd never said a word.... But she bit her lip to keep from saying anything, because she'd find out more if she didn't go off half-cocked, and waited to see what John would say.

"Does it feel like wormholes?" he asked.

Meara wrinkled her brow, then said, "Not exactly. More like....like...."

"Like a buzzing?" John prompted.

Aeryn felt her stomach go cold as her daughter's eyes showed relief that her father knew what she was talking about, and the girl said, "Yeah. Like a buzzing. It gets louder sometimes, and then quieter."

Frell! Ancients, John, Dam-ba-da, Einstein....it had to be something like that.... And nothing good had ever come of any combination of those people and things.

John's gaze slid sideways to Aeryn, asking her to stay calm, and he said to Meara, "Come on in here and have a seat, huh?" He waved at the oversized chair next to the sofa.

Meara did as he asked, drawing her legs up into the chair with her, wrapping her arms around them, and resting her chin on her knees.

"So," John began when she was settled, "how long have you been feeling it? Can you tell what makes it change?"

Meara considered the question. "I've been feeling it pretty much all day. It started when Teej and Livvy and I first got into the hamman side conduits." Her father nodded encouragingly, and she continued. "And it seemed to depend which direction I was facing. I don't think Moya made any course changes, did she?" This time Meara looked at her mother for confirmation.

Pleased in spite of her apprehension, Aeryn shook her head and smiled. The children, raised primarily in space as she had been, all shared her innate ability to sense all but the most minor changes in direction. John had never quite mastered the art, not on such a large ship, anyway.

"No," John agreed, and when Aeryn looked at him in surprise, he admitted, "I asked Pilot."

Oh, this was getting better and better. He'd been concerned enough to check.

Meara looked back and forth between her parents, recognizing the tension between them, but not the cause. "Well, what is it then?" she asked, putting her feet on the floor and leaning forward, resting her arms on her knees.

John gave one more glance at Aeryn, and then turned his attention to his daughter. "It's a kind of homing beacon," he told her. "Someone, like maybe Einstein, you remember, I told you about him, is trying to get my attention. Looks like he's calling you too. He wants to talk to us. There'll be a wormhole or two involved."

Aeryn did her best, she really did, to keep her temper under control and gather more information. But one look at the sparkle in her daughter's curious eyes, and she lost the battle. "You knew!" she snapped at John.

"I didn't know Merry felt it," he snapped back.

"No, but you knew you felt it! And you didn't tell me!"

"I was going to tell you tonight," he said defensively, and then added with just a hint of suggestiveness in his voice, "Right after I softened you up some...."

Slightly mollified to know he understood she'd need softening up, Aeryn took some of the edge off her own voice. "Well, what do you propose to do about it?"

John shrugged, looked at Merry, and then back at Aeryn. "Follow it. See what happens. Go from there."

Aeryn's eyes narrowed. "You're not planning to take Meara with you!"

"Why not!" Meara demanded at the same time as John said, "She's flown in wormholes before!"

"Yes, stable wormholes that you knew how to navigate! To destinations you understood. And you just told me you don't have any idea what this is about!" And the last time you followed a frelling wormhole homing beacon, you died, a voice in the back of her mind was screaming.

Whether John understood her fears or not, he looked over at their daughter and said evenly, "Merry, can you give your mother and me a little time to work this out?"

"Don't I have any say in this?" she demanded, looking back and forth between them.

"No!" was their joint reply.

"You treat me like a child!" Meara snapped, but she hopped up and ostentatiously left the room.

In her wake, John and Aeryn glared at each other for a few microts, trying to gather their thoughts for battle.

Aeryn recovered first. "In many ways she is still a child, John. You can't possibly intend to take her into the unknown like that." It's too dangerous.

After a few moments, he replied, "When you were her age, you were in combat training with live ammo."

"She wasn't raised the way I was," Aeryn countered.

John said nothing, but, Trust me, was clearly written on his face.

They continued to stare at each other, until Aeryn said, "If you want someone with you, take me."

John shook his head, and when she started to object, he said, "Is your head buzzing?" He waited long enough for her to indicate it wasn't, and went on, "I didn't think so. But Merry's is, just like mine. Whoever it is that's calling us might just come to Moya for her if I don't bring her. I'm not taking the chance of leaving her here on her own."

He'd stopped short of saying that she couldn't protect their daughter, but Aeryn had the solid impression that in John's mind, wormhole affinity trumped pulse pistols when it came to dealing with wormhole aliens of whatever frelling kind.... She searched his eyes for a long time, wishing she could ask that he ignore the buzzing, knowing from bitter experience that it would do no good, and then sighed and said, "Then we'll all go."

"No." He took the sting out of the rejection by saying, "We'll need you to come and get us when things go south."

"If that's the case," Aeryn said, putting as much command into her voice as she could, "then you leave Merry here." When he looked puzzled, she explained. "I can pilot a wormhole, John, if I know where I'm going, and so can TJ, but I can't find you by 'smell.' Merry can."

It was hard for her to admit that, and she could tell by his eyes that he knew and appreciated it, but she also saw by the set of his jaw that John wasn't going to give in on this one.

"Baby, you know I'd never take her into this if I didn't think it was necessary. She hears the siren song. She needs to come with me." He cocked his head sideways and said bluntly, "If she doesn't learn how to deal with these people now, what happens next time, when they come after just her?"

It was a compelling argument, and the serious expression on his face said he meant every word of it. Frustrated, Aeryn retreated to her previous compromise. "Then take us all."

John chewed on the pad of his thumb for a microt, locked eyes with her, and shook his head, no. "I can't ask Moya and Pilot to go into the wormhole, you know that." At the moment, the Crichtons were the only occupants of the ship, so there was no one else to take into consideration. "I need you all to just wait at the edge of the wormhole for Merry and me. We'll go see what Einstein or whoever it is wants, and come right back. We'll be fine."

There was pleading in his voice, but Aeryn wondered if he had any idea how much he was asking of her. But he was right, this was his calling, and Meara's, too, and if she couldn't trust her daughter to her husband, then whom could she trust? "You had better come back in one piece," she said darkly.

John pulled her into a hug and held her tightly for several heartbeats, until he felt her relax. "I'd better go tell Merry what we decided," he said gently into her ear.

She nodded and said simply, "Go."

He let go with apparent reluctance, brushed her hair out of her face, and turned towards the door.

Aeryn sat on the sofa and watched him leave, her stomach a pit of apprehension.

* * * * * * * *

With Merry at the co-pilot's controls, John took a deep breath and plunged his research craft into the brilliant blue mouth of the wormhole they had found, as expected, at the "end" of the homing beacon. Father and daughter were both fully suited up and armed, more from his own sense of caution after his last encounter with the being he called Einstein, than from a need to placate his anxious wife, waiting back on Moya. Aeryn didn't like this, but she'd cope. He had a flash of his last view of her, standing in the docking bay to see them off. Her nervousness had communicated itself to their two older children, and TJ and Livvy stood flanking her protectively. God, he was proud of them all....

He let go of the image, and gave himself over to the wormhole.

He could sense Merry straining to follow the twists and turns he made as the ship swirled through the tunnel at breathtaking speed. He had no doubt she could pilot the ship back to Moya if she needed to.

But what they had to do now was get to the end of the rainbow, grab the leprechaun, and get the pot of gold.

Eyes closed, he followed the buzzing in his head, which had now taken on more of a rhythmic pattern, until he wrenched the controls to the right just as Merry said, "Here!" The sensation of motion ceased, as if they'd moved into some sheltered backwater, and John throttled back the engines and looked around through the viewscreen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Merry do the same.

They seemed to be hanging quietly in space, except that there were no stars. The nose of the ship was clearly visible in light that came from somewhere, though beyond it, there was only blackness. He didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed that there was no sign of the "ice floes" that had been present the last time he'd made a command performance inside a wormhole. He hoped that was because he had a ship this time, and it was large enough for visitors.

"Where are we?" Merry asked, when nothing more happened.

"Somewhere inside the wormhole," he said, stating the obvious. "Don't know more than that yet."

Before either of them could get too impatient, there was a shimmer of light from behind, and they both swiveled sideways in their chairs.

Standing two motras or so from them in the center of the crew cabin was a figure that looked almost human, if you ignored the black holes for eyes.... Yep. Funeral suit, thin white hair....it was the wormhole alien John had dubbed Einstein some twenty cycles before, or someone wearing the same mask.

The eerie almost-human gazed at him with those impossible eyes. With the silence, tension grew.

Merry, her mother's child in one way, at least, had the sense and self-discipline to stay quiet.

John, on the other hand, couldn't stand the stillness. "So," he said finally, gesturing to himself and his daughter while looking directly at their visitor. "What's up, doc?"

"Time--" Einstein began, but John cut him off.

"No, no, no! None of that 'time' shit! You dragged us out here, you want something. Tell us what it is, we'll oblige you if we can, and be on our way." He crossed his suited arms on his chest, and glared, wondering if the alien from another dimension could really see him.

"Time has passed in your world," the alien began again. "You show signs of aging."

Well, yeah, he had some gray in his hair. So what? It looked distinguished. "And?" John asked.

"You have offspring."

Oh, frell. This was about Merry. "Three of 'em, all teenagers," he said, glibly trying to take the attention away from her. "Terrific kids. A joy to their mother, and they never fail to help little old ladies across the street."

"Only this one," Einstein said, looking directly at Merry, "shares your dangerous talent."

Though they were still suited up, John could feel alarm and confusion rolling off the girl. He shrugged as casually as he could, and said, "She's smarter than her old man. She's already scared." The frelling god-like alien said nothing, so John took a deep breath and said, "Meara, what's the first thing I taught you about navigating wormholes?"

Without hesitation, she replied, "Never return to a familiar place prior to the last time you left!"

"Why?" John prompted.

"Because you can change how everything happened just by being there. It frells with the space-time continuum," Merry elaborated. "You can make unrealized potential realities real and totally frell up people's lives." She looked at her father for a sign of approval.

If they'd been alone, John would have hugged her, because it was exactly right, though he filed away in the back of his head the thought that maybe he should consider washing her mouth out with soap -- except, of course, that she'd only learned to swear that way from all the adults she lived with, including himself. He gave her a thumbs up that he hoped would reassure her, and then turned to Einstein, waiting to see his reaction. Please, please, please, let it be enough to let the bastard trust her. He remembered all too well Einstein's threats to kill him all those cycles ago because of the danger his frickin' talent posed.

The silence stretched again, and just when John thought he was going to burst, without warning his ship vanished, and he found himself standing in a corridor on another vessel altogether. John could only assume that this was another reality. His first thought was relief that Merry was standing beside him. His second, was surprise that neither of them were wearing their helmets, followed quickly by chiding himself for being surprised. After all, he'd been helmetless with Einstein the last time.... They were, however, both still armed.

That was a bit alarming.

It was a token of her upbringing, probably, that Merry looked more surprised than frightened. She looked to her father for guidance.

He gave her the "quiet" sign, and they both looked around. The ship they were in had the look of a decommissioned PK vessel. The corridor was brightly lit and extended maybe twenty motras in either direction, where it dead-ended into a perpendicular corridor on one end, and a blast door on the other. Not far from their position was an open door. The sound of voices came from within, though they were muffled enough that nothing was understandable.

Damn, he hated god-like aliens! Always thinking they could treat you like a lesser species.... He leaned over to Merry and explained in a low voice, "This is some kinda alternate reality. Old Einstein wants us to learn something. So, the faster we figure out what it is, the faster we get outta here, got it?" He nodded towards the door.

Merry nodded briskly and moved into position to back him up. The girl didn't have her adult height yet, but she wasn't that small, and -- Aeryn's protests to the contrary -- no one would take her for a child at first glance, not the way she carried herself.

With his daughter following alertly, John slipped through the doorway.

In contrast to the corridor, the room they entered was poorly lit, except for an area along the far wall, which contained several rows of research apparatus and computers. A mechanical whirring and a smattering of indicator lights, some blinking, some not, indicated that the equipment was in use. As his eyes adjusted to the light, John saw that the rest of the room seemed to be used for storage. The voices were coming from the work area.

John and Merry advanced into the room towards the area where all the action, such as it was, was taking place. As they got closer, he could hear the harsh clicks and backstops of someone speaking Sebacean or something very like it, and the low growls of more than one Charrid. The cluttered room muffled the sound too much for his translator microbes to get a good hold on what was being said. John glanced at Merry, thinking she might be doing better.

She had a puzzled look on her face, but she was apparently getting the gist of the conversation. "They're doing wormhole research," she said in low tones. "The Charrids think they can break through into another....dimension," she ended, voice rising in question.

John began to have a sinking feeling he knew what this was about. He'd promised Einstein he'd guard the wormhole system to keep Einstein's realm safe, and it looked like someone was about to screw that up..... He motioned Merry stay behind him, and moved up close enough to see and hear what was going on.

When he peered around the corner, he got the shock of his life. Besides three Charrids, there were two very familiar figures standing in front of a computer and gesturing animatedly at the screen. One was a person he'd seen die on a vid recording Grayza had shown him fourteen cycles before: The corpulent figure giving orders was none other than that good old amoral capitalist, Furlow, the one person besides Scorpius, and now Meara, who shared John's obsession with wormholes.

Seeing a dead person was bad enough.

It was the other person that made his eyes bug out and his stomach lurch.

Because the other figure standing in the room, arguing animatedly with Furlow, was -- John Crichton!

"What the frell?" he yelped, and as startled faces turned towards him, the world changed again, and he and Merry were back in his ship, standing side by side gaping at Einstein....

* * * * * * * *

"What the frell?" John repeated, oblivious to Merry's presence. "That is not me!" For one thing, he realized as he began to process that last image, the Crichton he'd seen was half his age, probably less than that. He didn't look much older than TJ, who was only 18.

"It is an unrealized reality," Einstein said evenly, "but it isn't yours. In the normal course of events, it would have no impact on you."

Deep breaths, John, deep breaths. You've been alive for the last twenty cycles because Einstein thinks you could be useful. Figure this out so you don't look like a dummy and give him reason to dispose of you and your daughter. "In my universe," he said, glancing at Merry, "Furlow died about fourteen cycles ago." Einstein didn't interrupt, so John continued. "She was pretty good with wormholes," he said, thinking, even if she did steal most of what she knew from me. "So in this alternate reality of hers, she didn't die, and she's still doing wormhole research. She's smart, I'll give her that. She's probably learned a lot in fourteen cycles."

Merry was listening attentively, Einstein seemed okay, and John was feeling pretty good about his reasoning. But.... "Why me? Why a younger me?" This wasn't making sense. "If I'm in her UR, shouldn't I be the same age I am here?" He couldn't believe any version of himself would be voluntarily working with Furlow, but then, he also remembered some pretty scary Crichtons from the UR's Einstein had showed him the last time.

The wormhole alien gave him a hint: "In this unrealized reality, your path has not crossed hers in twenty of your cycles, not since you thwarted her efforts to sell wormhole technology to the Scarrans."

Oh, frell. Dam-ba-da visit number two. "Is that where this diverges from my reality?" Damn, he hated guessing games. Could she somehow have kidnapped the other guy and managed to keep him? But why would he be so young?

"It's a clone, Dad," Merry said suddenly.

"Your offspring understands," Einstein said approvingly.

With a totally irrational flash of irritation at being shown up by his own daughter, and one barely in her teens at that, John looked at Merry and said, "Explain it to me, then."

"You've got wormhole knowledge in your genes, right? I got it from you, and you said the Scarrans tried to get TJ before he was born 'cos they thought his genes had it. If you stopped her from giving the Scarrans the wormhole tech, Furlow probably told 'em about the gene idea to get them off her back. And in this reality, she took some of your DNA and made a clone to help her since you wouldn't."

Well, it was interesting reasoning. John wasn't exactly sure how she'd made the leap, though he'd certainly talked to her some about the cycles when everyone was hunting him for his wormhole knowledge, to help her understand the power -- and the danger -- of her abilities. A glance at Einstein suggested she was right, however she got there. "Okay," he said, getting to the heart of the matter, "Furlow's got a mini-me on her team, along with some of the more aggressive species in this universe, and they're about to break into your universe and screw things up big time, is that it?"

Einstein nodded, but before John could go on, Merry asked, "But I thought you said it was an unrealized reality. How can it hurt anyone?"

"Through this wormhole system, millions, billions of realities connect. Through the wormhole, it is possible for one with enough knowledge to penetrate our realm and cause untold disaster for both our world and yours."

"Whoa," Merry said, a look of alarm crossing her face.

"So," said John, taking the bull by the horns. "My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to go stop them is that it?"

Without any outward signs of disapproval in his face or his voice, Einstein nixed that idea. "A direct attack on this alternate reality, while possibly successful," he said, "would prove only a temporary answer to the problem, should there be other, similar realities. A more effective solution would be to stop this creature in your world, where she initially obtained the sample of your genetic material. That will prevent all unrealized realities which rely on her having the ability to create a clone of you, with your potentially perilous abilities."

John's heart sank. A frontal assault would have been a lot more satisfying, and the thought of tackling Furlow on Dam-ba-da while the other him was dying and Aeryn was grieving just tied his stomach up in knots. Oh, crap, Aeryn! She was not going to be happy about this. And he was going to have to talk to her if he was going to make it work. Unless.... He cleared his throat and asked, "You don't think she got the DNA somewhere else, do you?"

"No," the alien said flatly. "In the time we have been talking, I have investigated countless realities. None stems from your first encounter with this creature."

Terrific. "You wouldn't happen to know exactly what she took or how she got it?"

"No."

"Hair, fingernails, skin cells...." Merry volunteered, reminding John uncomfortably that she was still in the middle of this mess.

He stood up straight rolled his shoulders and announced, nodding in Merry's direction, "All right, all right, fine, I just need to take this one back home, and I'll be on my way to save your sorry asses."

"Hey! Don't I get to go?" Merry demanded.

"No," said John.

"Yes," said Einstein.

What the frell? "What, she didn't pass your test?"

The alien's sightless eyes turned towards the girl. "She is your successor. She needs training."

"She's a child," John objected, hearing the level of his voice go up with both anger and fear, and more than a little chagrinned at hearing himself repeating Aeryn's earlier argument.

Merry had the good sense once again to stay quiet, and Einstein said simply, "Will you not make use of her considerable talents merely to protect her life?"

John winced inwardly and sighed. "No, not exactly. More to protect my life. Her mother will kill me if I try to take her into something like that. She's not ready." If it was any other place and time, he might stand half a chance of getting Aeryn to buy off on it, but Dam-ba-da, twenty cycles ago.... Not a hope in hell.

"She won't care," Merry said, abruptly dropping into sulky teen mode. "She doesn't even like me."

John stared at her in astonishment. "Now, why would you say a thing like that? Your mother loves you."

She looked down at her feet in embarrassment, perhaps, and then back up at her father. "I know she loves me," she admitted. "I just don't think she likes me very much. She's always yelling lately."

John sighed, because that much was true enough. If Aeryn was unhappy, you knew about it right enough. He didn't much like getting into family business in front of a frelling god-like alien, but he had to say something. Gently, he told her, "Merry, girl, your mother likes you plenty. It's wormholes she doesn't like."

"Why not? They're beautiful."

And, of course, they were. Achingly beautiful, in ways far beyond the mere visual. He didn't think this child, born to grok wormholes, would ever really understand how her mother could hate them. "Well, you see beauty, and I see beauty, but your mother sees only trouble, and she's got good reason for it. And she doesn't want anything bad to happen to either of us. She's not going to want you to go into danger. And this place I have to go to, there's a Scarran dreadnaught on the way, and a bunch of hired guns, and Furlow's no piece of cake herself."

"I can help you," Merry insisted stubbornly. "I figured out about the clone."

John suppressed both annoyance and the thought that she might be useful at that, and bit back the suggestion that her mom wouldn't allow it so that was that. Truthfully, he didn't want to take her either, expose her to all the dangers he knew waited on Dam-ba-da, and that was the easy way out -- but it wasn't fair to Aeryn to lay it all on her. He looked from Einstein to Merry and back again. "I do have to talk to Aeryn," he said. "She knows a lot more about the situation on Dam-ba-da than I do. I'll talk to her about whether it makes sense to bring Meara to help. That's the best I can do. Take it or leave it."

Apparently the alien took it, because he vanished without a trace, leaving them to strap in and make their way back to Moya.

* * * * * * * *

[aeryncrichton]

It had been a long time since she'd had to clamp down so hard on her emotions, and Aeryn had forgotten how much the effort made her whole body ache....

Her first reaction when John had told her where and when he needed to go had been fury, overwhelming, absolute, blind fury. He had taken one look at the mask that descended over her face and sent Meara on her way. Proving they hadn't raised a fool, their daughter scurried off as ordered, with one backward glance from the doorway of the docking bay. When she was gone, they stared at each other for long microts, and then left the docking bay together, side by side, but with a wall of stormy emotions between them.

Without either of them taking the lead, they'd ended up here, in their bedroom. Her fury had subsided, and the mask was gone, but tension rolled off of them both in almost visible waves. From the looks he was darting her way as he talked, Aeryn suspected John was at least considering the possibility of what they sometimes jokingly described as "frelling her into submission." She also suspected she would let him, if he tried. Sex wasn't the answer to everything, as Chiana often claimed it was, but they'd found over the years that it usually didn't hurt, either, when they had something to sort out.

In the meantime, they paced the room on opposite sides of the bed, John explaining the situation he'd found inside the wormhole, Aeryn listening to every word, as much as she wanted to reject them unheard, unconsidered. More than twenty cycles at this man's side had taught her that he would do what he felt he had to do, no matter the cost -- but it had also taught her that he would never do something that would cause her pain unless he truly saw no way out.

When he ran out of words, he stopped pacing, and Aeryn stopped too. She searched his eyes long enough to see he hated this too, then took a deep breath and said, "You're sure she got the DNA at Dam-ba-da. That last time."

John took a deep breath of his own, and two steps towards her, around the foot of the bed. "Einstein says he checked out about a billion UR's. It has to be then. Just our usual frelling bad luck."

Just their usual frelling bad luck. Aeryn shook her head. "Can't we have good luck for a change?" she asked, knowing the answer, as she took two steps of her own towards him.

They were only two paces apart now, and John covered the distance. "We've got each other," he ventured, looking in her eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips. And of course, he was right; it was a miracle of no small proportions that they had each other to come back to every time the universe tried to pull them apart.

Aeryn nodded her agreement of that much, at least. What she wanted to say was, Don't go. Instead, the words that came out of her mouth were, "Take me. I can help."

"I can't. You were there."

"Take me."

"I can't," he repeated. "You know it'll screw the pooch."

"Take me. We can fix it, like we did on Earth, with the Shuttle."

He shook his head, and reached to tangle his fingers in her hair, a gesture of comfort to both of them.

Before he could say anything, Aeryn covered his lips with her fingers. "Take me," she whispered. "Take me!"

She wasn't sure just when the meaning changed, but they both knew that it had, and they stood looking at each other for just a heartbeat, maybe two, quivering with desire. Aeryn felt a familiar warmth pool between her legs as she leaned forward, bringing her mouth closer and closer to his. As their lips touched, John's arms snaked around behind her and pulled her tight against the solid evidence of his arousal, and the kiss went from tentative to devouring in mere microts.

And then all of a sudden, it seemed, without any awareness of fumbling with zippers or buckles or belts, there were clothes scattered all over the floor and the two of them were on the bed, united, sharing their bodies and their hearts in a way they'd never been able to do with words. It was one of the strengths of their relationship that this basic biological function brought not only such pleasure, but such joy, and they gave themselves over to it completely....

The tension built steadily, unbearably, in time with the rhythm John set up, until they came as one, calling each other's names. Spent, they ended up tangled together, hot, and sweaty, and breathing hard, but completely at peace.

As her breathing slowed and she came back to the here and now, Aeryn took delight in the feel of her fingers sliding through John's short hair. He responded by capturing her mouth with his and giving her a long, lazy kiss. When he broke off, he said, "I love you."

"I know," she told him, knowing he needed to hear it under the circumstances. She kissed him gently and added, "I love you too."

He grinned in response, and they lay there facing each other, limbs wrapped around each other's bodies and enjoying the heady sensation of skin against skin, until John reluctantly brought them back to the job he needed to do. As if their conversation hadn't been interrupted by intercourse of a physical kind, he cleared his throat and said, "You can't save him."

"I know," she said carefully around the tightness in her own throat. There had been a time she would have given anything, including her own life, to save the man she lost, and she would always regret his death, but it was a long-ago sorrow now, one she'd long since learned to live with.

"You can't kill her. She doesn't die till later."

"I know that too," Aeryn repeated stubbornly.

The confused expression in his blue eyes said he really didn't understand what was driving her, and it was a measure of how much he hated mysteries that he took a breath and ventured, "You can't tell yourself not to leave m-- leave Moya, I mean...."

"I don't want to do any of those things," she promised, though she really did wish she could do that last one. So much misery had come of her time away from Moya -- and John. But even that painful separation had to be endured to bring them to the place they were now, she understood that. If she changed their past, she changed their present, and that she wouldn't do for, what was the phrase, Not for all the tea in China.

"Then what, Baby? Explain to me what's so important you're willing to risk changing reality for it."

Shifting ever so slightly in his arms, she leaned forward and rested her forehead on his, and closed her eyes. " I lost you once on Dam-ba-da, when I should have been watching your back, but wasn't," she started briskly, thinking she could just get it out and that would be the end of it. But fear overtook her, and her body shook and her voice cracked as she finished, "and I ca -- can't -- let that happen again."

John went completely still for a moment, not even breathing, and then he shook his head, gently pivoting his forehead on hers, and whispered, "Oh, Babe. It'll be okay. It'll be okay."

She knew it wasn't a promise, because that promise wasn't his to make, but he gathered her in his arms, and she let him hold her tight, let him kiss her and comfort her, and let herself pretend that it would be okay this time, just as he said it would. And when she'd pushed the fear aside, back into the place she kept it when it wasn't safe to let it out, she opened her eyes and smiled at him, and took a breath and said, "All right. It's too risky."

John searched her eyes for what seemed like forever, and then rolled over onto his back and held his arms out.

Without any other urging, Aeryn draped herself atop his body, skin against skin, her cheek on his chest, and let herself meld into his form. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her, and she kissed the salty skin beneath her lips.

His breath tickled her ear, and he said, "Can we work out a compromise here?"

That startled her, because she thought she'd just given in completely. "Like what?" she asked curiously.

He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head and said, "Like, I go to Dam-ba-da alone, because I have to go, and I wasn't there before, and that means no unrealized realities. But," he said, before she could respond at all, "we keep a communications link through the wormhole, and if I get into trouble, I holler bloody murder and you come save my ass."

"What about my presence changing things?"

"If it happens, we'll fix it," he said, echoing her earlier words.

That was awfully cavalier from the Guardian Knight of Wormholes. Perhaps he truly believed he wouldn't need to call for help. Another thought struck her. "What about the solar flares at Dam-ba-da? They really frell with communications. What if I can't hear you if you call?"

John sighed and ran his fingers down her arms, and finally said, "It's the best plan I've got, Aeryn."

He didn't say "Take it or leave it," but she heard the words anyway as he trailed his fingers around whatever parts of her body he could reach. And he was right. It was the best plan they were likely to have. If D'Argo were there, she'd make sure the Luxan went with him. Chiana, even. But there was only her just now, and their children, and TJ couldn't go for the same reason she couldn't -- he'd been there, if only as a tiny, frozen fetus she hadn't even known was in her belly -- and the girls just weren't experienced enough.

She nodded into his chest and said, "It's a good plan." He only snorted, but that was enough. They had a bargain. He didn't have to tell her what came next.

"How much do you need to know?"

"Pretty much everything you remember," he said, regret tingeing his voice, "especially after Furlow left him. That's going to be the key timeframe. Catch her just before she bails."

They would probably do this again before he left, go over details and coordinates and times, so he had it all straight in his mind, but this time, the first time, she wanted to do it here, in bed, in the safety of John's arms. She acknowledged what he needed with a simple, "All right," and then slid off of him and settled on her side. He understood, and curled up behind her, nestling his knees in the crook of hers. Before he pulled her close with one arm, he reached down and pulled up a silky sheet to cover them.

She took a deep breath and began at the beginning: "When we first arrived, Talyn was blinded by a solar flare, which affected Crais as well, so Stark took him back to Talyn in a transport pod. John and I were able to fight our way inside Furlow's bunker and apparently rescue her from the Charrids. After that...."

* * * * * * * *

In the end, he never even suggested taking Merry to Dam-ba-da, despite what he'd told Einstein. His body had made a promise to Aeryn, even if he hadn't said it in words. He was risking his own hide and no one else's.... So, here he was, in one of Moya's transport pods, dressed in black leather, complete with the long duster he used to wear so much, flying through a wormhole and searching for the vibe that would tell him he was in the right place at the wrong -- that is, right -- time. Among his supplies were protective goggles and a hand-held detector for the violent solar flares that were common in the Dam-ba-da system, plus a pulse pistol and a pulse rifle.

The choice of ship and the clothing were Aeryn's ideas, to make it less likely he'd stand out as "wrong" if he were spotted by Furlow or any of Talyn's crew. When he'd expressed concern about the gray in his hair, she'd simply pressed her lips together and then breathed out again and said, "People see what they expect to see. There was a lot of sand and dust in the air. Just make sure to stay away from John and me." Well, that was a no-brainer.

He'd hated the need to make Aeryn relive that day, especially more than once, and though he'd never admit it, it had made his stomach queasy to talk about it, too. But she'd been a trooper, God bless her, dropping into PK mode as if she were giving him reconnaissance reports that meant nothing to her personally.... The first time through, though, after they'd made love, had been the hardest, he could tell. Her recitation had been halting at times, but for the most part steady. He hadn't really pushed her for details then, just held her close and made mental notes what to ask over dinner.

And now, here he was, making like Superman and trying to save the universe. Again.

Aeryn hadn't asked him how he intended to find the right place and time, and he hadn't volunteered that he thought he had enough connection with the other guy, or second-hand memories, or some damn thing, for the fire bell to ring for him just fine.

He closed his eyes, and sure enough, he could feel that odd little tingle that said he was on the right track. He hoped that didn't mean that the universe was going to decide it was a mere technicality that it had been the other guy and not him who was there 20 cycles ago, and hit him with a Do Not Return penalty.... The buzzing grew stronger and he gave up thinking and just followed the sound.

Goggles covering his eyes in case of bad timing for his entrance, he exited the wormhole abruptly and scrambled to get his bearings past the dinging in his head. He grunted when he realized he'd ended up outside Dam-ba-da's orbit. That was good, because between the solar flares and the displacement engine, he figured everyone still on the planet would be focused in the opposite direction, towards the sun. He aimed a tight communications signal behind him, through the wormhole that was still open. "Aeryn? Pilot?" he called.

Aeryn's voice came back to him immediately. "John! Are you there? Did you make it?"

"No reason not to think so," he told her, pulling the goggles down to hang around his neck since he didn't need them just yet. "It's definitely Dam-ba-da, and from the feel of things, it's the right time. Haven't seen Talyn yet, though," he admitted from a sense of honesty. There was quiet from the other end, and he suspected Aeryn was biting her lip to keep from giving him reams of advice -- or telling him to be careful. Well, it was best to just get on with it and stop torturing her. He cleared his throat. "Pilot, could you lock onto this signal and home in on the location of this wormhole entrance, please?"

"Done, Crichton," Pilot assured him after a few microts. "We'll time the cycle for the wormhole entrance while you complete your work."

"Thanks, Pilot," John said. Well, it was now or never. If it were done when 'tis done, t'were best it were done quickly.... The quote wasn't quite apt, but it sounded good in his own mind. "Aeryn," he said, putting a reassuring smile on his face so she could hear it in his voice. "I'll give you a yell if things go south. Otherwise, I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?"

"Do it," she said, and he cut the comm line and turned his attention back to the job he had to do.

Making for the planet, John finally caught sight of Talyn, hanging in space some distance away. There was no comms chatter coming from him, but the young ship didn't appear to be fleeing in panic, either, so, based on the timeline he'd constructed with Aeryn's help, either he was far earlier than he'd hoped to arrive, or Crais and Stark were back aboard and working to restore control. Much to his surprise, the sight of Moya's doomed offspring brought tears to his eyes. There was no time for that now, dammit! A quick swipe with the back of his hand, and he forced himself to move on, scouting the surface of the planet to find Furlow's lab.

With the goggles pulled up again, he used the cover of a solar flare to set the transport pod down on the planet far enough away from the complex not to be seen from immediate area. If Aeryn and the other guy were chasing Furlow, he didn't think they'd notice him landing, and if they were indoors, there shouldn't be any problem at all. Well, except maybe from the Charrids, but from everything Aeryn had said, they should be focused on Furlow's complex.

Time to face the music.

John stood up and stretched, then pulled Winona out of her holster and double-checked the Chakkan oil cartridge. Flare detector on his belt, check. Goggles still around his neck. Reluctantly, but knowing how much firepower the bad guys out there on the planet had, he slung the pulse rifle over his shoulder, and walked down the ramp and onto the sand dunes of Dam-ba-da.

The place was even nastier than it had been the last time. Of course, he'd been pretty green then, still the wide-eyed innocent from Erp, and just about every place they'd gone still held wonders for him, even when people were shooting at them. And he still associated the place with the true beginnings of his friendship with D'Argo. Now, the place was nearly deserted. There was only sand, wind, and, he quickly discovered, the occasional mortar round lobbed towards the bunker that housed Furlow's lab.

He still needed to firm up the timeline a little better. His best chance of making sure Furlow didn't run off with, well, whatever piece of Crichton DNA she had, without interfering with the way this timeline played out otherwise, was to catch her after she left the other Crichton to die, or anyway, to get himself zapped. With a little luck, if they had to interact, she'd think he was the other guy. He and Aeryn had worked out two time markers to check before he entered the lab complex. One was whether the small collection of dune buggies remained scattered in front of the place. The other was the state of Rygel's health. The once and future Dominar of Hyneria should be parked out in one of the gun turrets, trying to keep the attacking Charrids away, and he'd gotten a pretty nasty wound a few arns before things went completely to Hezmana.

The wind blew sand in John's face, and every once in a while as he walked towards the first of a series of turrets, he had to spit to clear the grains from his mouth. Coming up to the top of a dune, he got a glimpse of a field containing some ground vehicles. He threw himself on the ground and crawled towards the crest. The scene that stretched out in front of him when he peeked over the edge looked pretty close to the way he'd imagined it when Aeryn had described the place: More sand, dust, the occasional puff of smoke, gun emplacements, hostile forces -- and four or five dune buggies, presently being ignored by all parties.

Well, that answered that question. He wasn't too late, at least, 'cos it couldn't be after the road rally with the unhappy ending.... Furlow should still be inside her compound. Part of him really wished that he'd been too late. Sorry, Einstein.... Yep, that's really what he wanted to be able to say. Sorry the known universe may be about to be destroyed, but hey, I tried! But, he knew he wouldn't. Damn.

He got up on his knees and scrambled down the other side of the dune and into the protective shadow of the nearest gun turret, noting with a certain amount of satisfaction that his breathing was smooth and normal. It was too much to hope that he'd hit Ryg the first time, and sure enough, when he climbed up and stuck his head into the pillbox, there was no sign of any occupants. It did, however, contain some unused ammunition. He grinned with satisfaction as he collected it to use as his excuse for coming to see Rygel, should the Dominar prove conscious when he found him.

He threw the ammo belts over his left shoulder where they wouldn't interfere if he needed to pull up the pulse rifle, and dashed for the next gun emplacement. Aeryn remembered Rygel as being in the one nearest to the door to the compound, and she was probably right, but the turrets also made a nice series of cover to hide behind, not that the Charrids seemed to be paying much attention to him so far.

John passed two more turrets, climbing up far enough to check inside just to be on the safe side, but by then, he could see that there was defensive fire coming from the one he'd pegged as probably the place where Rygel was playing the hero, and apparently remarkably well, according to Aeryn.

So far, he was working entirely from Aeryn's memories. It was the oddest feeling, like being magically transported inside a movie you'd never seen, but your best friend had described to you in exquisite detail. You thought you knew what was going on, but you weren't quite sure....

When he climbed into the last turret and found Rygel sitting there, green blood leaking from a gaping wound on his abdomen and tiny hands working the weapon in front of him, it was both exhilarating, because now he truly believed, and a total shock. "Damn, Sparky!" he blurted, causing Rygel to actually look at him. "Aeryn said you'd been sliced, but I didn't think it was that bad!"

"Did you bring more food?" Rygel asked.

Food? What the frell? Even for Rygel in those days, that seemed unreasonable. John shook his head. "Just some ammo," he said, unloading the rounds from his shoulder.

"Hmpf," the Hynerian said, but he reached for it anyway.

Having gotten the information he needed -- Rygel's wound meant that time was marching on, and there might be as little as an arn or so before Furlow would return and make her escape -- John figured he'd better get out quickly before he said the wrong thing and made Rygel suspicious. Once upon a time, he would have assumed that the slug was too self-centered to notice that something was wrong with the bigger picture. Now, however, having helped put the Dominar back on his throne, a campaign largely directed by Rygel himself, John had a completely different view of him, or at least of his abilities. "I'd better get back inside and see what's happening," he said vaguely, and hopped down before Rygel could say anything one way or the other.

He stood at the base of the turret, briefly immobile. This was the moment of truth, or one of them, anyway. He was going to have to go inside that base, where his other self, Aeryn, Furlow, and the Ancient called Jack were on opposing sides of a desperate struggle to protect -- or exploit -- the power of wormholes. He'd never felt such a kinship with his dead twin, and at the same time, his skin crawled with the thought of being in that place. This planet had already killed him once.

John gave himself a mental kick and slipped into the bunker. Sticking to the shadows, he followed the sound of voices towards Furlow's lab. Aeryn hadn't remembered too much about the layout of the bunker itself, but it wasn't too complicated.

The voices got louder, and two black-clad figures stepped through together into the darkened hallway. John jumped back into the shadows, brain all but refusing to identify the figures as his other self, and Aeryn. He'd tried to move as soundlessly as he could, but the pulse rifle must have knocked into something, because they paused, and Aeryn looked around carefully.

"What?" the dead man walking asked, arm possessively around her waist.

Aeryn held the pose for a few microts longer, while John held his breath, and then she shook her head and said, "Nothing, I guess. This place is practically falling down. We're not going to be able to defend it much longer."

The very familiar face beside her grimaced. "Well, we shouldn't have to hold it much longer. We only need it to finish building the displacement engine." They started moving again, apparently making rounds.

Well, clearly the Ancient called Jack must still be alive. Furlow was still somewhere in the lab. John had a while to wait before his chosen ambush time, and he needed to keep out of sight of everyone, especially the two lovers. The plan he and Aeryn had cooked up for this eventuality was for him to go back outside and look for Furlow's escape craft. She had to have had one, for e-mer-gen-cies -- he couldn't help parsing the word in Furlow's distinctive cadence -- and it was possible she already had the DNA stashed on it. When he was sure that they had moved on, he headed back outside the lab to search for the ship.

* * * * * * * *

[aeryncrichton]

Back on Moya, Aeryn had disassembled her pulse pistol and was carefully cleaning and examining each piece before putting it back together. Their lives had been mostly peaceful these past few cycles, and she hadn't fired the pistol except for practice in quite some time, but she still believed in being prepared. The ritual of cleaning her weapon, familiar from childhood, kept her mind from wandering into useless worry. She'd chosen the steps beneath Pilot's console for her chore, rather than hiding out in her room, both for the comfort of Pilot's presence, and as something of a statement to the children. See, Mom's not freaking out, everything will be fine.

She knew they'd notice where she was.

It wasn't long before Meara appeared in the chamber, carrying a sketch pad and a graphite drawing stick. Mother and daughter exchanged hellos, and after a brief chat with Pilot, Meara, dressed in a pink tank top and black leather pants, settled herself on his console and began to sketch what appeared to be a face.

Aeryn stuck to her work and let the girl draw in peace, though she thought perhaps Merry might be drawing a portrait of her father and she would have loved to watch his features emerge. Meara was remarkably talented, and her parents had no idea where that talent had come from. John disclaimed any artists in his background, which Jack had confirmed the one time Aeryn mentioned it, and of course she had no idea about her progenitors.

Just as Aeryn snapped the last piece of her pulse pistol back in place, a ball the size of her fist flew into the room, bouncing off Pilot's console only a motra or so away from her and heading back towards the doorway. The ball was quickly followed by her two older children, TJ and Olivia, racing each other to thrash the thing with the sticks they carried. They, too, were wearing the family "uniform" of black leather pants, though TJ had on a ribbed gray T-shirt over broad shoulders, while Olivia's tank top had a pattern of bright flowers.

Meara and Pilot spared them only a brief glance, but Aeryn couldn't help smiling as she watched them smashing at the ball, while simultaneously trying to deflect each other's bat, if you could dignify the simple wooden sticks with such a name. There was probably some other point to the contest, as there was to most games, but she had never figured this one out. They'd invented it themselves when they were quite young, and it had remained their private pastime, shared with no one else in the family. The rules, if there were any, seemed to change on a regular basis. This was the first time in cycles that she'd seen them play it, though, and she'd thought they had long-since outgrown it. It seemed she wasn't the only one retreating to childhood comforts today.

Not surprisingly, the ball soon ended up being belted over the edge of the walkway to fall into Moya's depths, and after high fiving each other, TJ and Livvy collapsed on the floor in front of their mother, laughing, and trying to catch their breath.

Aeryn loved these far-too-infrequent moments when she could see the children they'd once been in her rapidly maturing offspring. She and John were going to have to let them go soon, especially TJ, who at eighteen was an adult even by the reckoning of his father's relatively gentle world. Livvy was only fifteen, but already her face showed her mother's angular features framed with soft brown waves, the rounded lines of childhood long gone. "Hello to you, too," Aeryn said to them with a grin, sliding her pulse pistol into its holster now that she was done cleaning it.

"Hey, Ma, hey, Pilot, hey, Squirt," TJ said, grinning back with his father's self-assured smile. Except for his black hair, which he had recently cut short after Aeryn had offered to teach him how to do up a Peacekeeper braid, there was no mistaking him for anyone but John Crichton's son.

Meara, who hated the nickname, didn't deign to answer her brother even though she knew he was only teasing. Pilot acknowledged the newcomers with a simple, "TJ, Olivia." After a moment, managing to sound just a bit reproachful, he added, "I see you've been playing stick ball again."

"The ball's non-toxic," Livvy hastened to assure him. "It won't hurt anything down in the bat dren."

Pilot snorted, and turned his attention back to Moya.

Olivia wandered over to see what Meara was drawing. With no qualms about offering her opinion, she said, "Ewww! That's a freaky one, Merry. What happened to his eyes?"

Meara shrugged. "He doesn't have any."

Curious, Aeryn and TJ both stepped closer to see who or what Meara was sketching. She held the pad up for them to see. It was indeed a portrait in shades of gray, apparently of an elderly Sebacean or human male, with thin light hair on the sides of his head, and deep black pits where his eyes should be. There was little expression on his face, but even with his sightless eyes, he gave the impression of someone who was used to giving orders.

"Is that 'Einstein'?" Aeryn asked, fairly sure of the answer from John's long-ago description of the wormhole alien who'd commandeered his unasked for talents.

"Uh-huh," Merry said, eyeing her work critically. With one finger, she smudged the line of Einstein's cheekbones just a bit, and then said, "That's better."

Aeryn couldn't have said if it improved the likeness, because she'd never seen the creature, but the picture did look more alive, for want of a better word.

Pilot chose that moment to send a thread of his consciousness to the den to see what they were up to. He took one look at the picture in Meara's lap and would have leaped backwards if he could have. As it was, he let out a startled cry, his head jerked back and all four arms waved wildly in the air.

"Pilot?" They all looked at him with concern.

"That creature," Pilot stammered, "kidnapped Moya and me! Moya was terrified! He looked more like a Builder than a Sebacean then, but he had those eyes...."

"Oh, Pilot, I'm sorry," Meara said, flipping her sketchbook closed so the offending portrait could no longer be seen. "I didn't know."

"It's all right, Pilot, that was cycles ago," Aeryn said, reaching for his head to stroke it reassuringly. "He's not interested in you any more, only John."

"And me," Meara added darkly.

"They have an understanding," Aeryn said firmly. "Everything will be fine."

"Is it this creature who sent Crichton on this mission, then?" Pilot asked, calming down.

"Yes," Aeryn admitted.

Pilot shook his head disapprovingly, and said, "I hope he knows what he's doing."

"Everything will be fine," Aeryn began, but TJ, tired of platitudes, interrupted.

"I should have gone along to help him."

She sighed. "Talyn, we went over this earlier. I wish I could have gone as well. But I can't go, because I was there, and you can't go because you were there too. I was carrying you at the time, even though you were still in stasis." It occurred to her suddenly to wonder if the Ancient they called Jack had known of her pregnancy, even though she hadn't. He'd gone out of his way to get her away from the potential dangers of the partanium isotope he'd used to power his weapon. But TJ was still looking frustrated, and Aeryn knew he wasn't going to give it up. He had too much of his father in him.

But the other kids were thinking, too. "So if Dad can go there without causing a whatchacallit, then he wasn't there, have I got that right?" Olivia asked.

Aeryn nodded.

"Then how did Furlow get a DNA sample from Dad if he wasn't there?" demanded Merry.

Aeryn closed her eyes and thought frantically. Hiding in her room suddenly sounded like a really good option. They'd been deliberately vague in discussing the situation on Dam-ba-da with the family before John left. It wasn't that they'd intentionally hidden the existence of John's dead twin, but....it was an uncomfortable part of their past, and it just hadn't come up before with the kids. And they'd both instinctively known that John couldn't afford the energy to explain it to the children at the time, with this job ahead of him, so they'd avoided specifics. And now those evasions were coming back to haunt her. So. Was this secret hers to tell, or should she put them off, wait for him to get back?

"Mom?" TJ asked reluctantly, when she was silent too long. "Did she somehow get it from you? From me? Like the Scarrans tried to do?"

Aeryn couldn't bear the worry in his voice. Please forgive me, John, she thought, making the decision to tell them the truth. She reached out and patted her son's shoulder. "No, TJ," she said soothingly. "We don't know what she took, but it had nothing to do with you."

She looked at all three kids, peering at her with concern, and then turned her gaze to Pilot in his console. "Do you mind, Pilot, if we sit down for a bit and talk? There are some things I have to tell the children."

"Of course not, Aeryn," he said, giving no hint that he knew exactly what she needed to confess.

"Thank you," she said, and sat down again on the step just below him. "Come on, sit," she said, gesturing to her offspring. Meara hopped off the console, and the three young people sat, legs crossed and feet tucked beneath them, in a semicircle in front of their mother. Aeryn was reminded uncomfortably of John telling bedtime stories when the children were younger. She was no storyteller to begin with, and this was not a story she wanted to tell. She planted her feet firmly on the floor and leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees.

TJ, Livvy and Meara waited quietly while she surveyed their nervous faces, then deliberately took a deep breath and settled herself. Finally, she opened her mouth and began, hoping she'd find the right words. "All right, your father was not at Dam-ba-da twenty cycles ago. That's why it's safe -- at least from the possibility of altering our reality -- for him to go there now, and try to stop Furlow from getting the genetic material she needs to make a clone of John Crichton. Merry," she continued, looking at her younger daughter, "you asked how Furlow got an appropriate DNA sample if your father wasn't there. And the answer to that question is, Your father wasn't there. But John Crichton was on Dam-ba-da with me twenty cycles ago."

The three teens stared at her as if she'd grown another head. "Do you mean that Dad isn't John Crichton?" Olivia finally asked.

Aeryn grimaced, realizing she was making a terrible muddle of something that should be -- no, wait, it shouldn't be simple. It was a muddle. That realization made her feel slightly better about it, and she shook her head. "No, Livvy," she said, and looked at the other two to make sure they understood she was including them. "Your father, the man who just left us a few arns ago to go try and fix something that as usual wasn't his fault, is most definitely John Crichton." She smiled a little at that.

"Mom, you're not making sense," Merry said plaintively.

TJ was getting impatient enough that Aeryn could see he'd be on his feet and pacing soon. She might as well give him something to pace about.... "About half a cycle before the time your father has gone back to, John Crichton had the misfortune to run into a madman who duplicated him. This madman created two John Crichtons where there had been one."

"Like a clone?" TJ asked, logically enough, since a clone of John Crichton was what had them in their current mess.

"No, not a clone. Two men, exactly the same in every way. Same DNA, same memories, same history, same thoughts, same feelings...." She trailed off, and from the looks on their faces, she suspected all three of them understood that those feelings included both men's love for her.

As expected, TJ got to his feet. "And one of them was on Dam-ba-da with you."

Aeryn lifted her head to look up at him, still leaning on her knees. "Yes. He and I were part of a small crew aboard Talyn."

Missing the undertones, Merry asked, "Where was Dad?"

"On Moya," Aeryn told her. Wondering where the frell we were, and what the frell we were doing. She contemplated saying that out loud, but decided not to. She had a suspicion TJ was headed there anyway as he paced the floor in front of Pilot's console. He was smart, and he was good at reading her. He would figure it out. She wondered if that was one of the reasons they'd never gotten around to mentioning the other John to the kids, having to explain that she'd loved both men. To cover up her thoughts, she added, "Moya and Talyn had gotten separated for a while. I think we must have told you about that at some point."

She expected questions about the separation. The girls, however, were more curious about this extra copy of their father whom they'd never met. "So, where is he now? The other John Crichton?" Olivia asked, and Merry had the same question in her eyes.

The answer to that was still painful, even after all this time, but she'd started this, she would play it out. "He died," she said, and couldn't keep a hint of sadness out of her voice. "Actually," she elaborated, trying to stay factual, "he'll be dead or dying by the time your father leaves Dam-ba-da to come back here."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that, and they all sat quietly for a little while, except for TJ, who was still pacing a long oval on the walkway in front of them..

Then Meara changed the subject just a little. "Did he have the wormhole knowledge from the Ancients like Dad?" Leave it to the child born to intuit wormholes to ask that question.

"Yes," Aeryn told her. "That's why if Furlow gets his DNA, it's as bad as if she got it from your father."

Olivia shook her head. "Mom, this is fahrbot. You're saying he was exactly like Dad?"

TJ paused in mid-step, waiting for the answer, and although she wouldn't let herself look at him, she knew he was watching her.

"Exactly," she said, trying not to let her emotions betray her.

But her voice must have given up a lot more than she'd hoped, or maybe it was the stiffness of her spine, or the way she bit her lip, because TJ finally made the leap she'd been expecting and dreading. Some change in his manner, seen from the corner of her eye, made her shift her gaze, and she saw it on his face as he stood there, watching her: Suspicion turned to shock, and shock segued right into anger. She braced herself for what she expected was coming.

"Dad's not my real father, is he?" he asked, towering above her, arms crossed defiantly on his chest.

Aeryn's breath caught in her chest at his words. Even anticipating the question, even understanding that he didn't mean to denigrate the man who'd raised him, her first reaction was still anger. "Of course he's your father," she snapped. "He claimed you for his own before we even knew whose genes you carried! He wouldn't have cared if you'd had tentacles, or four arms, or if you'd been born purple. He's been here for you every moment of your life, unlike my mother, who showed up once when I was a child to tell me I was special, and a second time twenty cycles later to try to kill me! He is your father!" Shaking, she blinked back tears of fury and turned her head away from her son.

In response to her tirade, TJ crouched down in front of her, face white with anger or distress. "I didn't mean--"

Hearing the contrition in his voice, her anger drained away as quickly as it had come, and feeling slightly hollow, Aeryn raised her hand to cut him off before he apologized for asking a perfectly reasonable question, given what she'd just told him. "I know you didn't. I'm the one who's over-reacting. I'm sorry." She cleared her throat and glanced over at the girls to include them in what she had to say next. "Truthfully, TJ, you were probably conceived during the time I spent on Talyn, with the other John Crichton. But it is actually just possible that you were conceived before John was split, in which case both Crichtons were your father. How unbelievable is that?" She caught her son's eye again and held it.

"You should have told me," he said stubbornly, that self-righteous Crichton anger resurfacing.

"To what purpose? Whenever it happened, you owe your existence to the love between John Crichton and Aeryn Sun, the same as your sisters do." She shook her head, and said, "I'm sorry, Talyn, perhaps we should have told you before, but we didn't. Does it really make a difference?"

He didn't have an answer for her, and she decided it was probably a mercy she didn't deserve that he hadn't actually accused her of betraying the father he knew. She was sure he was thinking it; in many ways he was very much his father's child, though he was more likely to let things out than to brood on them. She looked at him closely, and at his sisters, too. Meara seemed to be running through the implications of what she'd just learned. Olivia looked confused, not by the new facts, but about how she felt about those facts, emotionally. And TJ looked like he was teetering between the same emotional quandary, and flat out anger. She wasn't exactly a tower of tranquility herself.

They didn't need this right now, none of them. It was time to try undo what she had done, at least temporarily. She took a deep breath and blew it out through her mouth. "This must be a shock to all of you. It was never meant to be a secret, and I will answer any question you want to ask me about all of this." She placed a heavy emphasis on the word "any," and caught the gaze of each child in turn and held it long enough to feel they believed her. "But this isn't the time for those conversations. I cannot afford to be distracted by old emotions if your father needs help escaping from Dam-ba-da. Can you accept that and let me off the hook until after he is back here safely?"

The three teens looked at each other before making a joint decision, voiced by TJ, as the eldest. "Yeah. You're off the hook for now." He had a faint smile on his face, and his voice carried a note of relief.

"Good," Aeryn said, letting out the breath she'd been holding. Perhaps they were glad of the opportunity to absorb the news before talking about it more. Perhaps they didn't want to talk behind their father's back. Whatever the reason, she was grateful that TJ, in particular, was able to push his feelings aside for now. Impulsively, she reached out and pulled all three children into an awkward hug. One at a time would have been better, perhaps, but she needed to hold them all at once, all of her babies who had grown so big.... But they weren't babies any more, and she let them go before they could assert their independence and pull away.

There was still the problem of waiting, waiting for John, or waiting for his call. "I think we've been bothering Pilot long enough," she said. "We should go do something else. What do you want to do?"

"Basketball," TJ suggested, just a little too quickly, and Aeryn stifled the impulse to hug him again.

Olivia promptly disagreed. "I'm hungry. Dinner would be good."

"Basketball! Two-on-two," was Meara's choice. "I get Mom!"

Just as Aeryn started to agree that basketball would be fine, TJ switched sides. "Wait, I'm hungry too. Dinner!"

Grateful for the sheer normalcy of the scene, Aeryn fixed the three of them with her most maternal glare. "You work it out between you," she said. "I'm not going to listen to your arguing...."

* * * * * * * *

Things had actually been going a lot more smoothly for John on Dam-ba-da than they were back home on Moya. The Charrids hadn't taken any notice of him, and he hadn't had to contend with even one solar flare while he searched for the escape craft that Aeryn was certain Furlow had hidden somewhere relatively nearby. He'd eventually had the inspiration to try her old "garage" around the other side of the compound, and he hit pay dirt right away.

The craft looked like it had started life as a Peacekeeper scout ship. It was small, and old, but meticulously maintained if the exterior was anything to judge by. John stood for a moment and listened to the occasional mortar round hitting somewhere in the distance. The sound traveled to his position, as did a low vibration that rumbled through the ground, but bits weren't falling off the ceiling as they were on the other side. Good.

He searched the outside of the ship for booby traps, and then wasted a little time on getting it open without damaging the lock. With a little luck, he could get what he needed and slink away again, and Furlow would be none the wiser until it was much too late for her to gather a new sample. Once inside, he left the door open so he'd have some warning if anyone showed up, leaned his pulse rifle against a bulkhead within easy reach, and systematically searched the two-seater. He looked inside the handful of storage compartments and then turned his attention to the underside of the consoles, followed by the over-sized pilot's seat with no success. Nothing under the co-pilot's chair, either.

Now what?

He couldn't get access to the ship's computer without some hacking he didn't have time for, but that didn't really matter, he hoped, since he was looking for physical samples taken somehow from his twin -- hair, teeth, spit, vomit, who knew? Furlow couldn't possibly have had the time to analyze or scan whatever DNA sample she had and load the results into the computer. The group from Talyn hadn't been there that long.... No, she had to have gotten a sudden inspiration, probably after Jack had started talking about the wormhole knowledge stuffed in Crichton's head, and just stashed whatever she could get her hands on somewhere quick and easy.

He chewed his lower lip for a minute, wondering where the frell her hiding place was. There had to be one. It was in Furlow's nature.

Pathetically, it was an image from his youth that set him on the right path -- he suddenly flashed on a scene from Star Wars, where the heroes reappeared from the smuggling compartments hidden under the floor in Han Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon, and he dropped to his knees to examine the deck. It couldn't be that simple, of course, not for him. The floor in this ship was one solid piece of metal, and it was definitely immovable, but the idea stuck with him, and he got up and carefully searched the bulkheads, tapping, listening for hollows, and looking for mismatched edges.

At last, he heard a quiet "snick," and a small panel near the rear of the ship popped open. His heart soared when he saw it wasn't empty. Reaching in, he retrieved several bundles and hastily searched through them.

No joy. There were some hand-written notes and a couple of data storage units, but nothing that could by any stretch of the imagination contain his DNA.

Crap.

Wait, wait, this stuff was probably a back up copy of her wormhole research! Hell, if he took that, he could set her back by cycles!

And then he sighed, realizing that he couldn't take it. She must have gotten away with it in the original timeline, and he couldn't do anything that screwed that up. The only thing that made snatching the DNA feasible was the fact that Furlow apparently hadn't done anything with the sample in his real timeline anyway, only in some of her URs. Keeping her from getting it at all seemed to fall under the time travel safety clause which said that in the event of a change, the timeline would try to return to its original state if it wasn't deformed too far. Taking the data was probably too far.... Reluctantly, he gave up the idea of lifting her records, no matter how tempting it was to get back some of his own.

Abruptly the tenor of sound from outside changed. There were shouted voices first, tossed on the wind, and he was perversely grateful that he couldn't recognize his own. Next came the buzzing sound of the dune buggy engines in the distance.

His stomach curdled because this had to be the beginning of the end. Jack was dead. Furlow had the displacement engine. The other Crichton was chasing her. And Aeryn should be running to catch up with him any time now....

Aw, shit.

He almost laughed, because he rarely resorted to cursing in earth terms any more, but this whole fucked-up situation just really seemed to require it.

Well, suck it up, he told himself, because if you don't, some damn copy of you is going to help Furlow destroy the fabric of the universe, and that's a hell of an epilogue to your fine reputation....

He looked around the craft once more, satisfying himself that he'd found the only secrets hidden in it, then picked up his pulse rifle, closed up the ship and headed back to the lab.

The sound of the dune buggies had faded by the time he got there, and he assumed that the chase was still on. Nevertheless, he entered the lab carefully. The silence of the compound made him twitchy, and he found himself thinking it felt like a tomb.

"For the love of Cholak," he muttered, in an exclamation borrowed from his wife. Just toss the frickin' place....

The complex was large, and he tried to keep from panicking as the microts ticked by while he looked under work benches and in bins and drawers. This was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, because he didn't have any idea what the needle looked like. And he was gambling that Furlow actually had it hidden here. If it was somewhere else on the planet, he was screwed. The universe was screwed. The solar flare alarm went off once while he was searching, almost giving him heart failure, but since he was indoors, he just turned it off and kept working.

His heart was pounding, and he'd stopped for a brief rest when he heard footsteps somewhere in the compound, growing louder. He scrambled behind a counter and tried to guess what might be coming. Charrids were his best guess, or possibly Rygel. Aeryn thought the old boy had stayed in his gun turret the whole time, but he could have gone anywhere while she was out on the dunes. On the other hand, someone the Hynerian's size wouldn't have made that much noise....

John peeked around the corner of his hiding place and was stunned to see Furlow entering the lab, huffing and puffing from exertion. It hadn't been that long, had it? He should have had at least half an arn before Furlow came back. Aeryn had been so sure of the timing of events once the chase started. She hadn't said so, but he'd bet the farm that she'd gone over and over the events in her mind, looking for something she could have done differently, and beating herself up over it.

He didn't bother checking to see how much time had actually elapsed, because he realized he'd just been given a great gift. Furlow knew where the frelling DNA was, and she was probably here to get it. All he had to do was let her lead him to it.

Crouching low to keep out of sight and trying not to make noise, he followed the amoral genius around the lab as she picked up a few very specific things and stuffed them into a pack. Obviously, she'd had a contingency plan. She muttered under her breath cheerfully as she collected her essentials, none of which looked promising to John. In the meantime, he studied her. She hadn't been on any diets, that's for sure -- She must have weighed 300 pounds. Her coveralls, and her face, for that matter, were dirty, her stringy hair was flying every which way under her hat, and there was at least one cut on her face covered with dried blood. It looked to him like she'd come down in the world since the last time he'd seen her, despite her deals with the Scarrans and who knew who else.

At last, she slipped her hand into a long pipe with a diameter about the size of John's head, and brought out two clear cylinders, each about six inches long and maybe about as wide as his thumb. She held them up in front of herself and smiled. Hope surging, John snuck as close as he dared and took a look at the two vials in her hand. One was full of clear yellowish liquid. The other might have been empty for all he could see from that distance, though he thought there might be something dry and dark in the bottom of it.

"Okey-doke," Furlow muttered to herself as she pulled open the pack to put her latest acquisitions into it. "Time to get the frell out of here...." She set the samples down on the counter while she rearranged the contents of the pack.

If those were the samples....his mind ran through a list of bodily fluids and other parts that came off, like hair and fingernails, and realized there was only one possible conclusion.

Piss? She'd stolen his piss?

Hezmana, he knew she was disgusting, but piss?

Well, why not? It's not like the plumbing in this place was working, and when ya gotta go, ya gotta go, so it was available, and it would certainly do the trick.

None the less, he screwed up his face in disgust. Nothing bothered her, did it? He was almost afraid to find out what was in the other vial.

Drawing Winona, he stepped out from his hiding place.

"Going somewhere?" he asked cheerfully.

Furlow whirled around, fear on her face, until she saw it was "only" him. "So you walked away after all, eh, Johnny?" She shook her head with mock sorrow. "I misjudged you, I see."

He could only guess at what she meant. Aeryn didn't have any idea what had passed between his late other self and Furlow, only that once the weapon was activated and the casing opened, Furlow had bailed real fast, leaving him to close the casing on his own -- and incidentally take a fatal hit of radiation. But that was probably enough to let him string her along. He shrugged. "You were right. Too dangerous. Thought I'd come back and see if there was anything here I could use to build another one."

The rotund woman looked him over and saw something missing. "Where's your Peacekeeper tralk? I thought you two were joined at the hip."

That didn't hurt, that didn't hurt, that didn't hurt.... Frell it didn't. But he played his part without flinching and nodded toward the door and said, "Took the long way back. She'll be here soon."

Furlow grimaced. "It's a shame you're wasting yourself on her, Johnny. We could have something special, you and me, and wormholes. Make a fortune."

Suppressing a shudder, John tried to move things along. "You don't want to be here when she gets back, you know." Because if she was there when Aeryn got back, Aeryn would tie her up just for safekeeping, and after that, when she knew what the corpulent woman had done.... He pulled his finger across his throat, the universal sign for slitting someone's throat.

Furlow studied him for a brief moment, then shook her head. She couldn't know she'd essentially killed Aeryn's mate, but there was obviously no love lost between the two women. "You could have a point there, John. I'll just be leaving then, shall I?" she asked, batting her eyes at him.

John felt his stomach heave, almost sick at the thought of how his other self had underestimated this unprincipled "entrepreneur." But, he wanted her to leave now that he had the DNA, because if she stayed, things would go down differently. They both had to be out before Aeryn and the other guy got back with the displacement engine, intending to reattach it to Furlow's copy of the Farscape module and blow up the dreadnaught. "Get outta here," he said, but when she reached for the two vials on the counter he waved Winona at her. "Uh-uh. Leave those. Take what's in the bag and go," he said, counting on her instinct for self-preservation to make her cut her losses and leave without the genetic material.

She looked him up and down and smiled. "Remember what I said, Johnny. Don't be a hero." She snatched the bag and took off, moving far faster than he would have thought she'd be able to. Score one for self-preservation!

Before she'd reached the door, John had the vials in his left hand. He watched carefully, his weapon ready, as she left the lab.

She never looked back.

He took just a moment to examine the two vials and assure himself they were what he'd come for. Telling himself not to be a wuss, he opened the one with the yellow liquid and wafted the odor towards his nose with a wave of his hand. Ooof, that was vile, no pun intended! He snapped the lid back on as quickly as he could. It must be a mixture of urine from several species currently on the planet, but clearly the contents was piss. Furlow must have collected it from a communal urinal. The other vial, seen close up, proved to contain short pieces of hair. Most were brown, probably his, though a few seemed to be gray. Maybe they'd belonged to the Ancient.

The sound of an engine approaching the compound pulled his attention back to the one tiny little detail that still had to happen to call this a success: Getting the hell out of here alive and unseen.

He stuffed the vials in his jacket pocket, not wanting to leave them behind should Furlow have a change of heart and come back looking for them, and headed for the dunes and his transport pod.

He tried not to think about the drama playing out in the hanger but it made him queasy just the same....

* * * * * * * *

[aeryncrichton]

There had been considerable decrease in the Charrid population while John had searched for Furlow's stash, so he was able to make more directly for his transport pod on the way back than he had coming in. He was just beginning to congratulate himself on a job well done when he crested the last dune, only to discover that his transport off of this rock had been hit by mortar-fire, intentionally or not. There was a gaping hole in one side of the pod, and shrapnel was scattered in a wide pattern around the ship.

He stood there for a microt or two, oblivious to the possibility of more weapons fire, shaking his head in disbelief. Why the frell did these things always happen to him? The universe was screwing with him again, and goddammit, he was trying to save the frelling universe here!!

He let out a long string of his most satisfying profanity, trying to calm down.

Hoping despite all reason that the damage wasn't as bad as it looked, John rushed down the side of the sandbank so fast that he slipped and stumbled in the sand, duster flapping behind him in the wind. Even with his arms thrashing wildly for balance, he landed on his face at the base of the dune. Ignoring the stinging in the palms of his hands, he got up and approached his transport.

But it was obvious with even a cursory look that the ship wasn't spaceworthy, and it probably wasn't even airworthy. Besides the hole that was blown in the midsection, the engine compartment had taken a hit, too. He was stuck here until and unless Aeryn came and saved his skin. The flare detector went off, and he scrambled to pull the goggles up over his eyes. The last thing he needed was to end up blinded.

When the flare subsided, he tried his comms. "Aeryn? Pilot? Anybody read me?" There was no immediate answer, probably because of the residual effects of the flare. He tried again. "Aeryn? Pilot, I need a little help here!"

His comms crackled with static, and also just a hint of familiar voices. There wasn't anything he could make out in words yet, but he was already relieved that he'd made contact at all. He knew his wife. Even if he never got a clear word through to her, that static-laced contact would have her on her way in microts. Still, they'd all feel better if they managed even a few real sentences.

"Pilot, tell Aeryn I need a surface pick up! My ship's damaged, I can't fly out of here on my own."

Still as much crackle as voice, words came through in reply. "....read you, Cricht...."

"I need a pick-up!" he hollered, as if by sheer volume he could penetrate the electro-magnetic interference of Dam-ba-da's unstable sun.

After a bit more noise, a fragment of speech in a voice that his heart identified as Aeryn's came through. "....on my way, John! Stay pu...."

Stay put. That's my girl. Where does she think I'm going to go? "I copy, Aeryn!" he hollered anyway. "I copy you!" He sat down to wait, wondering how soon the Scarran dreadnaught would appear.

* * * * * * * *

"John! John, are you hurt?" There was only static in reply, and Aeryn tried to stifle her fear. She and the children had just finished eating and were cleaning up when Pilot routed John's interference-filled call to them. After a few microts she gave up waiting for a response. "I'm on my way, John! Stay put!"

"....opy, Aer...." came through the comms and she sighed with relief. At least he'd frelling heard her.

Heart pounding and body ready for battle, she looked at the three worried faces looking to her for direction. "Dam-ba-da's sun is unstable. That's why communications are so poor," she explained, hoping to reassure them before she left. "Solar flares." When the children nodded back solemnly, to reassure her in turn, she gave a quick nod and turned to her youngest. "Meara, go get your gear and meet me at the Marauder. A hundred microts."

Meara gaped at her in astonishment, and the other two looked equally stunned.

Actually, Aeryn was pretty surprised herself. It certainly hadn't been part of the contingency plan she and John had worked out before he left to bring any of the children along, much less the youngest. But without being able to really talk to him, she was worried. "We don't have any idea if your father is injured or not. If we lose the fix on Moya and he isn't able to navigate the wormhole, I can't get us back here by myself. Meara can," she said bluntly, looking pointedly at TJ and Olivia. "I need you two up in Command to monitor us."

They didn't look happy about being left behind, and Aeryn had no doubt they were worried at the thought of having both parents and their sister in potential danger, but neither one of them tried to argue with her logic. "Right," she said, "let's move, now!"

Housekeeping was left behind as they all scrambled to their stations.

In 98 microts flat, Aeryn and Meara were backing out of Moya's docking bay, on their way to what was arguably the worst event of Aeryn's life.

* * * * * * * *

John couldn't decide if it made more sense to stay in the shadow of the ruined transport pod so he wouldn't stand out against the sand, or if that just made him more likely to get hit if the Charrids took another shot at the pod. On the other hand, why would they bother? It obviously wasn't going anywhere....

Crap....

He kept imagining the Scarran dreadnaught arriving at any moment, just in time to shoot down the cavalry when Aeryn arrived, but he still hadn't heard the Farscape module taking off, so he thought there had to be more time.

Come on, Aeryn. Come on, come on, come on.....

This waiting crap was for the birds.

There was a sudden roar from the direction of the compound, and he turned his gaze to the sky to see if he could recognize the ship. The sound was all wrong for his module, and he'd decided it probably wasn't the other guy when he finally caught sight of Furlow's escape ship.

Well, that was probably good. Best Aeryn could figure, she'd gotten away in the original timeline when Aeryn was helping the other guy get the displacement engine back onto the module.

Oh, now there's something else delightful to worry about: Aeryn Sun is already here. So when she turns up again, something is going to screw up, and before you get to go home, you have to figure out what it is, and fix it.....

But before he waded too deeply into that pit, he heard the distinctive sound of Aeryn's Mark II Marauder slamming through the atmosphere and heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Aeryn!" he called into the comms. "That you babe?"

"I've got a fix on your position, John, I'll be right there."

"Yes ma'am," he replied, and made a quick search of the area to make sure he wasn't leaving anything incriminating behind.

Aeryn put her ship down a little distance away from his position to avoid kicking up too much sand. As the dust began to settle, he ran headlong for the access ramp. When he got there, he was startled to see Merry standing in the doorway at the top of the ramp.

"Hurry, Dad!" she yelled.

He didn't waste time wondering why she was there, he just barreled up the ramp and towards the cockpit. Merry slammed the door controls and followed him, taking up a passenger seat when John dropped into the co-pilot's chair next to Aeryn.

Aeryn flashed him a smile, and one at Merry, too, but turned her attention to getting them off the planet as quickly as possible. It wasn't until they were in Dam-ba-da's shadow that she took a breath. "Did you get it?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think so."

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't actually reproach him for his uncertainty. "So, I'm here. And down on the planet?" There was just the slightest oddness in her voice, and John knew better than to comment on it. "Did we frell something up?"

"Prob'ly," he admitted. "And I hate to say this, but I think you're the one who's going to have to figure out what's wrong."

"Me?"

Merry piped up from behind them. "You were here, Mom. You know how things are supposed to happen."

"Oh. Of course." Her face went absolutely blank for a moment, and then she pulled herself together and asked, "Do you know if John is still down there?"

John. She'd just said "John," and their daughter was in the back seat listening to every word. He widened his eyes at her and leaned his head minutely in Merry's direction, and Aeryn shook her head slightly in a way that suggested it didn't matter any more. Great, more fallout of this little adventure. Worry about that later, Johnny boy....

"I think so," he said, going through the time indicators as dispassionately as he could. "I heard the two of you come back with the displacement engine and got the hell out of there. I didn't hear the module leave. Furlow's gone, though. Saw her bug out just before you got here."

Aeryn took a deep breath and let it out again. "All right. Let me see if I can tap into Talyn's comms. We all communicated through them, and I should be able to tell what's happening."

"That's good, baby, that's good," he said softly, and left her to it. While Aeryn flipped switches to match Talyn's comms frequency, John stole a glance at Meara. She was watching them solemnly. He wasn't sure if that was because she knew about, well, the other guy, or if she was worried about having to fix their time screw-up. He smiled at her, and she gave him a thumbs up and a weak grin.

"There," Aeryn announced, as John's voice came through loud and clear: "Aw, damn it Crais. Knock it off. You're gonna to make me start liking you." He sounded....weary.

"That's me?" John mouthed. "Him?" he amended.

Aeryn nodded and said softly, "It's all right, they can't hear us. I have the outgoing comms blocked."

On Talyn, Bialar Crais ignored Crichton's smart remark and asked, "Is there anything we can do?"

Now there was a blast from the past, John thought. It was an odd feeling to realize that Crais, too, hadn't long to live, and that he, too, would sacrifice himself for the greater good.

From the planet's surface, the other guy replied, "Yeah. It would be helpful to have the ah...dreadnaught directly in line with the mouth of the wormhole."

"What wormhole?"

"The one I'm about to rustle up," Dead Crichton said with a hint of a sigh.

John let the conversation wash over him, trying to imagine what it would have been like, knowing you were dying, knowing you had to get this thing right, and you only had one shot at it. It tied his stomach up in knots.

Crais certainly understood the one shot at it part, and he said gravely, "We will attempt to lure them. Good fortune."

After that there was silence, and John wondered briefly if they'd lost the link. "Aeryn?" he asked.

He'd meant to ask about the comms, but there must not have been a problem, because she took a breath and said, "That's about how I remember it. No deviation so far."

"What's happening then?" John asked, not wanting to pry, but wanting to understand the situation.

"He's getting ready to take off. It shouldn't be long." Aeryn's gaze seemed to be somewhere far away � in space, or in time.

Well, yeah, of course she was preoccupied. They hadn't heard her younger self yet, but she had to be remembering. As much to distract her as to get the answer, he asked, "Is it going to be a problem that we have a wormhole here already? He said he's going to rustle one up."

Aeryn took a deep breath and actually smiled, in a soft, wistful way. "I don't think they can see ours," she said. "They're focused in the other direction."

Merry cleared her throat behind them. "Is that his ship?" she asked, pointing to the view screen where a small, white snub-nosed craft was leaving the atmosphere and heading sunward. "It looks like the Farscape module."

Aeryn quietly upped the magnification and studied the image longer than she needed to. "Yes," she said finally.

The softness of her voice spoke of emotions churning beneath the surface. Telling himself she needed the support, John got out of his chair, tossed a reassuring look at Merry, and positioned himself behind his wife. He settled his hands on her shoulders, slipping his thumbs under her hair to rub circles at the base of her neck. He bent down briefly and kissed the top of her head. "You know, don't you. Down there, I mean. He told you before he left."

Aeryn brought her hands up to rest on his. "Only because I insisted. I knew something was wrong."

He squeezed her shoulder without saying anything, and she squeezed his hand in return.

The comms crackled to life again, and they could hear Crais trying to attract the attention of the dreadnaught.

Irritation in his voice, the other guy called, "Crais. Where is it? I can't see that damned dreadnaught anywhere." John was absolutely certain his twin had the same sick feeling that he had in the pit of his stomach, frantic that this wasn't going to work.

Crais spoke again. "Closing fast on the planet, but I don't think they've seen Talyn yet."

Aeryn frowned slightly, but continued to wait and watch.

"Crichton," Crais added, "there is no wormhole to maneuver them towards when they do see us."

On board the Marauder, the three interlopers heard the flare detector go off and pulled up their goggles, just in case. A bright streamer poured forth from the distant sun and Aeryn nodded, apparently synching up memories to events.

"Oh, there's my flare. Mama Crichton's baby boy, makin' wormholes."

As a wormhole began to form towards Dam-ba-da's sun, Crais said desperately, "Crichton, they don't see us. We're not going to be able to position them! Hold off!"

"Can't, Bialar," came the other guy's rough voice. "Gotta do it now."

Aeryn stiffened at that, and gasped softly.

"This it, babe?" John asked.

"It's taking too long," she agreed urgently. "They should have seen Talyn by now! They're not going to be in position!"

"Crap," was John's response, both terrified and glad that they'd found the misstep in history.

"Sit down, now," Aeryn commanded. "We're going to give that dreadnaught something to follow!"

John dropped into the co-pilot's seat and Meara checked her safety harness as Aeryn kicked the Marauder into high gear and headed for the impossibly large Scarran nightmare. "You sure it's going to give a crap about us?" he asked.

Aeryn's response was to dive her relatively tiny craft directly towards the bridge of the dreadnaught, a position they'd learned during the Peacekeeper war was vulnerable to attack. The sound of beeping filled the cockpit, and Aeryn smiled in grim satisfaction. "Targeting lock," she said, yanking the controls fiercely to the side.

John found himself oddly comforted by her wild flying. He hung onto the armrests of his seat, though, because he'd never actually strapped himself in. Trying to keep his balance kept him from thinking the obvious: So this is it, we're going to die.

Flying an evasive path, Aeryn headed towards Talyn, praying that they wouldn't be noticed by those on board Moya's offspring.

The lumbering dreadnaught followed, and John started trying to think of ways to transfer the Scarrans' attention from themselves to the Peacekeeper gunship.

Fortunately, Crais helped with that little problem. "Scarran dreadnaught," he said, sounding just as pompous as John remembered him from all those years ago. "This is Captain Bialar Crais... Peacekeeper. Approach any closer, you will be engaged and destroyed."

The annoying beeping shut off, as the Scarrans dropped the targeting lock. John, Aeryn, and Meara all held their breath, hoping for confirmation that the dreadnaught had targeted the correct ship for the timeline.

"Crichton, that's done it!" Crais announced. "They've got a lock on us!"

John listened for sounds of weakness in the other guy's voice as the Crichton who belonged here said, "Okay displacement engine. Time to displace."

"God, he sounds like me," John whispered, chest tight. It wasn't so much the voice, because your own voice always sounded strange when you heard it from the outside....but it was just the way he talked.... Aeryn reached out and touched his knee gently, and it occurred to him that he was actually having a harder time being here than she was.

Aeryn settled the Marauder out of the line of fire without asking what she should do. There wasn't any question about that. There was no way they were leaving without making sure that the other guy's sacrifice wasn't in vain, not to mention that their reality wasn't screwed.

As the three of them watched in silence, the mouth of the wormhole began to change.

On the comms, Crais continued his efforts to draw the dreadnaught in. "Scarran dreadnaught, withhold your fire. We surrender. I repeat, we surrender."

"Oh, sure, I believe him, don't you believe him?" John muttered to release some of the tension he felt, and Aeryn shot him a concerned glance. "I'm okay," he murmured.

The mouth of the wormhole was definitely changing. John reached for Aeryn's hand and held it, whether to comfort her or himself he really wasn't sure, as they listened to the desperate gamble play out.

Down on the surface of Dam-ba-da, twenty cycles ago, Aeryn apparently was having trouble waiting. "John?" she called out, worry in her voice.

"I'm almost there," the other guy assured her, unwittingly assuring Aeryn here and now as well.

After a series of bright flashes from the inside of the wormhole, another new voice spoke up. Sounding completely amazed, Stark, the Bannik slave they hadn't seen in cycles now said, "The wormhole is touching the star. It's touching the star."

On the Marauder, John was startled when Merry gasped. "He's using the wormhole to displace part of the solar mass as a weapon?"

He'd almost forgotten she was there with them. He turned around briefly and said, "Yes."

She fell silent again, and Aeryn began to tense.

In the module, John said, as if the words were difficult to get out, or to say, "Okay, Jack. This one's for you."

A ball of fire appeared inside the wormhole as they watched, growing larger until it flew from the mouth of the wormhole and engulfed the dreadnaught completely. Though the viewscreen automatically stepped down the brightness, on the Marauder, John, Aeryn and Merry shielded their eyes against the glare.

When it faded, they could see there was no sign the huge vessel had ever been there. Even knowing as he had what was going to happen, John was hard-pressed to believe it, even with the evidence of his own eyes. "Goddamn," he breathed.

From the comms came Stark's awestruck whisper, "I have no prayer for that."

Somewhere along the line Aeryn had closed her eyes, and when she didn't open them right away, John was frightened. "Baby?" he asked in the silence. "You okay?"

She opened her eyes and nodded, but she still seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for something.

The comms crackled again, Aeryn's voice this time, full of anguish, unable to complete her question. "John? Are you...?"

John was absolutely certain that sitting here, twenty cycles later, she was waiting for the same answer.

From the module, the answer came. "Yeah, baby," John Crichton struggled to assure the woman he loved. "I'm...I'm still here." She didn't manage a reply, and he must have known how devastated she was. "Told ya I'd come back," he said, proud of keeping his word.

God, John knew that cocky tone, even as he could hear the effort it was costing the other guy just to get the words out.

On the Marauder, the John Crichton who didn't belong in this place and time, the one who was healthy, and happy, and the one who'd ended up with the girl, he was overwhelmed with a sense of loss. His, the other guy's, Aeryn's. They'd all lost. Maybe they all gained some, too, but.... God, how did she stand it? No wonder it had been so difficult, all those cycles ago.

But when he looked at his wife, she was smiling through the moisture in her eyes. "He did it," she said. "He did it."

"Yeah, baby, he did," John said, tears in his own eyes. He reached a hand out to stroke her cheek.

Before his fingers touched her, Merry cried out a warning, and simultaneously Aeryn jerked the controls of the Marauder sharply to the left. Safety belt still unfastened, and with no warning to enable him to brace himself, John was thrown out of his seat. He heard Merry scream, and then he landed hard, against the bulkhead. There was a microt's awareness of pain, and then he blacked out....

* * * * * * * *

[aeryncrichton]

"Dad!" Meara screamed, as Aeryn dropped into full combat mode without even thinking.

Their attacker was probably a stunned -- and enraged -- Scarran fighter pilot who'd been far enough away from the dreadnaught to survive its destruction. There'd been a few of them. Checking on John was going to have to wait until she'd neutralized the threat. But behind her, Aeryn could hear Merry fumbling with her safety harness.

Frell!

"Meara!" she commanded. "Stay where you are!"

"But...."

"He's safer on the deck," she barked, nevertheless explaining to her daughter as she would never have done with a member of her unit. "And I can't worry about you too!"

"But--"

"Not yet!" Aeryn bellowed, running out of time and patience as the Scarran got a lock on them. "Sit the frell down now!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Meara comply.

Focused on avoiding being vaporized by the pulse blasts coming from the other ship, Aeryn twisted and turned the Marauder's flight path until the Scarran lost its lock.

She wanted very much to destroy it, but she'd learned the hard way cycles ago about taking actions when you were in the past. Better not to do something that Talyn hadn't, if she didn't have to. The handful of Scarran fighters that had escaped the encounter with John's displacement engine had reported, because of Talyn's involvement, that the disaster had been caused by the Peacekeepers. Her Marauder's presence would only reinforce that impression, which should be all right.

With a sense of satisfaction, she whipped the ship around and dove for the wormhole that led back to her own time, locking onto the comms signal from Moya.

The wormhole was smooth and stable, and despite the speed at which they were traveling, their bumpy ride settled down considerably once they were heading through the blue tunnel.

Just as Aeryn was about to send Meara over to the heap that was John, he groaned and moved slightly, making as if to get up, and Aeryn exhaled in relief. "Now, Meara," she allowed, as John waved a hand in her general direction. I'm okay....

At her mother's words, Meara unlatched the buckle on her harness and barreled across the cabin to go to her father's aid. She had him on his feet straight away, which was a good sign.

Sparing him a glance as she navigated towards the exit that led to Moya, Aeryn guessed that he wasn't seriously injured, despite a trickle of blood on his forehead. He looked a little dazed, though, and she silently willed Meara to get him buckled into a seat quickly so he didn't have to do anything more than sit and rest till they got home.

Without warning, Aeryn lost the comms lock to Moya. "Frell!"

"What's wrong?" Meara asked, halfway to the co-Pilot's seat with her father leaning on her shoulder.

"I've lost the frelling lock!" she said. Making the snap decision that John wasn't up to navigating, she added, "I need you here! Get him strapped in and get up here." John didn't argue, so she was probably right about his current state.

Aeryn continued down the main branch of the wormhole, hoping she wasn't getting them hopelessly lost. After only a few microts, she heard John land in one of the back seats with a loud "oomph," and then Merry dropped into the copilot's chair beside her and fastened her safety belt.

"What do you want me to do?" Meara asked.

"Tell me where to go to get back to Moya, after we left," Aeryn told her. There was no question of relinquishing controls to the girl. She wasn't qualified to fly the Marauder. But she was certainly capable of finding their way home, and Aeryn trusted her completely to do it.

Merry nodded and closed her eyes. "Stay in this branch for now," she said.

"All right," Aeryn agreed.

Merry counted under her breath. "One, two, three -- Left!" she said, and Aeryn turned into the branch that appeared on that side.

"The next turn will be on the right," Merry warned. "About five microts....Now!"

Aeryn concentrated on staying in tune with her daughter and following her directions promptly.

There were two more turns and one long straightaway before Merry ordered, voice rising in intensity, "On the left, now!"

They burst through into normal space, and when Aeryn saw Moya in the distance in front of them, she heaved a great sigh of relief. "Well done!" she said, grinning at Meara, who smiled back. "Pilot," she called, "Can you deploy the docking web, please?"

"Of course, Aeryn." Pilot's voice over the comms was as calm as usual.

Behind them, John cleared his throat. "Hey, Merry?" When they both turned and looked at him, he continued, "I know you were concentrating on getting us home, but did you get any sense that that UR of Furlow's is still out there?"

Merry shook her head promptly, as if she'd been thinking about it. "No, Dad, I didn't feel it at all. I think you must have fixed it."

John looked at Aeryn and shrugged. "That's what I thought, too, but I'm not quite at the top of my game right now...."

"I'm sure Einstein will let you know if you didn't get it right," Aeryn said with a tone that left no doubt about her feelings for the wormhole alien with black holes for eyes.

John cocked his head and looked at her. "I think it's time to tell him to take this job and shove it," he said softly.

Aeryn shook her head and smiled wistfully, knowing full well that John wasn't going to do any such thing, however much he might want to. And then her nose caught a whiff of something extremely unpleasant that they'd apparently all ignored during the crisis. It seemed to be coming from John. "What the frell is that stench?" she demanded.

John managed to wrinkle his nose in disgust and look embarrassed at the same time. "Me," he said. "The DNA samples were in my pocket. The really disgusting one got broken when I fell�."

"Naturally," she said, shaking her head. Anyone else would have a 50-50 chance that the less nasty one would break. But this was John Crichton, and the universe loved to frell with him. Still, he was back, safe and sound, from the place that had taken him from her once before, and she wasn't going to begrudge the universe its little games.

On the other hand, the sour odor really was foul. Aeryn said pointedly, "You'll want to get cleaned up right away if you expect anyone to stay in the same room with you."

Beside her, Meara nodded her agreement vigorously.

John let out a sharp bark of laughter. "I'd better get cleaned up if I expect me to stay in the same room with me," he said.

But as Pilot pulled them safely into Moya's docking bay, Aeryn surprised them both by turning around and taking John's face in her hands and kissing him so hard she almost forgot to breathe -- which was probably just as well....

* * * * * * * *

"So, what's it feel like to be in the past?" Olivia asked Merry. The three teens were doing the post-flight maintenance on the Marauder while their dad got a shower and their mom made sure he hadn't been seriously injured.

Merry shrugged. "The same as being here," she said. "At least for me. It's not like I was there before and reliving anything. Stuff just happened. It looked like it was pretty freaky for Mom, though. Dad, too."

Something in her voice caught her sister's attention. "Did you see him? Dad's twin?" Livvy asked.

TJ looked up from his work, interested in the answer.

Merry shook her head. "No, we only landed long enough to pick up Dad. I heard him on the comms, though. Mom, too. We were trying to figure out what got frelled up by Mom being there when she already was, so we listened in. Mom was on the planet back then, and, um, Dad's twin was flying the Farscape module."

"What did he sound like?" Livvy asked, as she made sure that all the switches on the pilot's console were in the correct positions for shutdown.

"Like Dad. Exactly the same voice. He talked the same, too."

"Exactly?" Livvy interrupted, skepticism in her voice. 

"Exactly," Merry confirmed. "It was spooky. I could tell Dad thought so, too. But the one in the past, he sounded, I don't know, hurt." She thought for a moment. "Or scared."

Livvy shook her head in sympathy, and then shifted gears. "What about Mom? Back then I mean," she asked. "What did she sound like? Did she talk to him?"

"Just stop it!" TJ erupted from the other side of the ship, taking his sisters completely by surprise.

"What's the matter with you?" Livvy said. "Aren't you interested? It's not every day you get to really hear about something that happened with your parents before you were born! Merry was really there!"

TJ glared at Livvy, and then pointedly turned away, busying himself with the hamman side sensor array.

Livvy and Merry looked at each other, and then Livvy said, "Well? What about Mom? Back then?"

"She didn't say very much, but when she did talk, she sounded really, really upset." Merry shut up for a minute, as if she was thinking about how much to say. "I think she must have known he was dying. When we were listening, Dad asked her about it, at least, I think that's what he was asking. He asked if she knew back then, and she said yes, she knew something was wrong and that she'd made him tell her. But they didn't say what was wrong with him."

Livvy had completely stopped working on her checklist. She glanced over at TJ, still buried in his share of the work, and then said hesitantly, "Do you think she really loved him?"

Merry looked at TJ, too. He was studiously ignoring her, so she gave up and answered Livvy. "Yeah. She must have. She sounded totally devastated on the comms. And she was almost crying listening to them. Listening to the comms, I mean."

TJ surprised them once again. "What about your Dad?" he asked, a defiant note in his voice. "How was he when she was crying over this other guy?"

Merry's eyes narrowed and she glared back at her brother. "Teej, I get that this is freaking you out, but this is Mom and Dad we're talking about here. How do you think he acted? He went and comforted her!"

"It's not like it was news to him," Livvy added. "They've been together since before you were born, TJ. That's a long time. If it bothered him that she loved this other guy, he must have gotten over it! You could at least wait and hear more of the story before you go making judgments!"

"Besides," Merry added, "if there's a chance this other John Crichton was your father, don't you want Mom to have loved him?"

TJ glared at her, as if she'd said something he didn't want to hear.

"Don't you?" she reiterated.

TJ glanced down at the floor, then stuck the pad of one thumb in his mouth and nibbled. His sisters stayed quiet and went back to their work, letting him think. Finally he took a deep breath and nodded. "Maybe," was all he said when Merry and Livvy looked up at him again. It was clear he wasn't making any promises, but he'd lost the defiant tone. He looked around the Marauder absently and then said, "Are we done here?"

Livvy said, "Just about," and Merry agreed.

"So, you guys want a snack?" he offered. "I'll cook if you clean up."

"How big a mess are you planning to make?" Livvy asked with a grin, glad he'd stopped brooding for the moment, at least.

"Pretty big," he said, grinning back.

"What the frell, I'm in," said Merry.

"Me too," said Liv.

"Race you to the kitchen," TJ said, and took off running. The girls were right behind him in a flash.

* * * * * * * *

Even though the worst of the stench had ended up on his clothes, not his body, John had turned the water temperature up as high as he could stand it. The heat and the steam and the sweet smell of skin cleanser and shampoo had combined to help loosen tight muscles and unclench his stomach. It made it easier to think, too. By the time he turned the shower spray off, he'd managed to let go of all the demands put on him by outsiders, and felt fit to be in the company of his family once again.

He stepped out of the shower and reached for his towel -- which wasn't where he'd left it. What the?

"Over here." Aeryn's voice came from the middle of the room. She was sitting on their bed, legs and feet crossed beneath her, comfortably dressed for the evening in a black tank top and loose-fitting fabric pants, hair pulled back in a casual ponytail. His towel was in her lap.

"Hey," John said, leaving a trail of water on the floor as he crossed over to her, stark naked. "I'm freezing the boys off here you know," he groused, though he really wasn't that cold, and he never got tired of the light in her eyes when she looked at his body.

Sure enough, she checked him out thoroughly and smiled with appreciation before handing him the towel. "Feeling better?" she asked with poorly disguised concern, as he dried himself off.

He stopped working on his legs, and reached up and touched the small wound on his forehead, then dabbed at it with the end of the towel. No blood. He offered it to Aeryn as evidence of his well being. "Yeah, I'm okay. It's no big deal."

She nodded, and exhaled a deep breath of relief.

Steadying himself with one hand on her shoulder, he bent down and kissed her, well aware that he'd managed to scare her to death once again, not just by the bump on the head, but with the whole Einstein-wormholes-Dam-ba-da scenario. "I'm sorry," he said, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face.

"Not your fault," she said grudgingly. And then she cocked her head sideways and blinked twice before she said, "I'm just happy you're back and everything's okay."

Knowing she wouldn't want him to comment on the tears, he said simply, "Me too."

There was just enough tension in her posture that he knew she wanted to talk about something, and truly, he needed to talk, too. Maybe it wasn't his fault that he kept getting into these frelling life and death situations, but as a result of this one, he had a much better understanding of how hard it had been for Aeryn to let him walk into danger, and do what he had had to do, all those times over the past twenty cycles. He just didn't know quite what to say to her, or how to say it. Stalling, he toweled his short hair dry and walked across the room to his dresser, where he pulled out underwear and casual clothes much like those Aeryn was wearing.

Dressed, and feeling slightly less vulnerable, he walked back to Aeryn and sat down facing her on the bed. He dropped his hands in his lap and gave her an encouraging smile.

When she started to open her mouth, he realized he needed to have his say first. With mental apologies, he hijacked the incipient conversation. "Are you okay?" he asked softly. "I mean, being there...." He trailed off, not wanting to say too much.

She reached out and took his hands in hers. "I'm fine," she said. "It was...." She paused for a moment, frowning as she searched for the right word. "It was sad to remember him dying, and how much it hurt.... But...." She paused again, this time squeezing his hands. "It was only a memory I learned to live with cycles ago, it wasn't here. Now. I was actually more worried that he wasn't going to get the chance to destroy the dreadnaught than anything else. Does that make any sense?"

"Yeah," he said. "I get that. I'm glad."

"But?"

He took a deep breath. "But this was the first time it's really felt real to me. When I knew I had to go there, I was just thinking how much it would upset you, I wasn't thinking about me at all."

"You?"

He didn't want to tell her about seeing her so cozy with the other guy. Or about how he'd felt when Furlow had made that crack about how close she and the other guy were. That was just old jealousy, old news. But when they'd listened in on the comms, when he heard those voices.... "When I heard him talk, I knew I was listenin' to myself. I could hear how sick he was, and how scared. And I could hear how hard he was trying just to do what he had to do, knowing he was dying. And you know what? I knew I woulda done exactly the same frelling thing if it'd been me...."

As she listened to him, Aeryn's face softened. She reached a hand out and cupped his cheek. "Of course you would have," was all she said.

"Now, see, that's the thing. You knew that, and I didn't."

"You must have done. We talked about it."

He shook his head ruefully. "There's knowing, and there's knowing. And I'm really sorry for asking so much of you all these cycles."

To his surprise, Aeryn chuckled softly. "No you're not. You've done what you had to do, and you'd do it again. And the way the universe treats us, you will have to do it again."

He looked at her and contemplated that for a few microts. "I expect you're right. But I'll know how much I'm asking you next time. You'll get more brownie points."

Unexpectedly, Aeryn blushed. She bit her lip, and said, "Well, can I get some of those points in advance? I think I'm going to use up a lot of them on this one...."

He frowned, and then realized they must have segued into whatever it was she'd wanted to talk about. "Okay," he said, stifling his apprehension, "as many points as you need. Let's hear it."

"Once you left, the children had time to think. They asked the obvious question. If it was safe for you to go to Dam-ba-da, then you weren't there at that time -- so how did Furlow get a DNA sample? And I...told them about your twin."

He was more irritated than he should be, especially since he realized that he'd known that in the back of his head ever since she'd been less than circumspect around Merry in the Marauder. Still.... "Why the frell did you tell them that for? Couldn't you wait for me to get back?"

She searched his eyes. "I wasn't going to lie to them, John, and tell them I was carrying a lock of your hair around my neck or something fahrbot like that...."

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, "Why not?" but he knew he wouldn't have lied to them either. He sighed.

"And then TJ was afraid it had something to do with him, because I was carrying him then, and I couldn't bear the worry on his face...."

"We should never have told him about the Scarrans," John muttered darkly, even as he acknowledged he would probably have spilled the beans too. But dammit, they'd avoided the whole insane subject for eighteen cycles.... That's another one I owe you for, Einstein.

Aeryn sighed. "And so I told them the truth, or the basics of it. That you had been twinned, and that one John Crichton was on Dam-ba-da with me twenty cycles ago, and that you were on Moya then. And I told them that he died." She paused a moment and looked down at her hands, then lifted her eyes and looked back at him.

John had trouble meeting her steady gaze. "What else?" he asked, finally.

Aeryn shrugged, apparently buoyed by actually being in the middle of this conversation instead of anticipating it. "Not much. But it was enough that TJ guessed that he might have been conceived by the other Crichton. He's very angry with me right now, I think. He's upset that we didn't tell him, and I'm sure he feels I betrayed you."

Oh, crap. But John shook his head. "A boy's first love is his mother, Aeryn. He worships the ground you walk on. He may be feeling you done me wrong somewhere deep down inside, but he's probably not letting himself think about that right now. He's more likely to be mad at me for not being his real father."

"You are his father," Aeryn began indignantly.

John sighed. Her denial came so quick, their son almost certainly had said exactly that. "Babe, we both know if you want to get technical about it, it couldn't have been this me who did the deed, whenever it happened. That's what's upsetting TJ right now. Boys his age see things in black and white, right and wrong. And it can't be making him feel real good that we can't say for sure which John Crichton is his biological father.... I can see where he's upset. He'll get over it."

"You're sure?" Aeryn asked, peering into his eyes, searching for the truth.

"Yeah. I'm sure," John told her, as much to hear the words out loud as to reassure her. He truly believed that. His relationship with TJ was too good -- much better than his had been with his own father when he was the same age -- for him to think that this might frell it up for more than a little while. Nah, he and TJ loved each other, father to son, and vice versa. They'd sort it out. He still felt a little queasy about having to deal with it, though. Why the frell couldn't things run smoothly for a while without the universe jerking him around?

"Well, you have to talk to him," Aeryn said into the silence. "He's your son!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, babe, but TJ may not see it that way." Not at first, anyway. When Aeryn opened her mouth to protest, he promised, "I will. I will talk to him. When he's ready to talk." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "What about the girls? They take it okay?" He didn't think the news would rock their world like it had TJ's. After all, their parentage wasn't in question.

Before she could answer, there was a knock at the door, where the privacy curtain was still drawn because of John's earlier shower.

"Mom?" Livvy's voice carried comfortably into the bedroom.

Aeryn's head turned towards the doorway, and then back to John. He'd have described the expression on her face as, "Saved by the bell," or maybe, "The cavalry has arrived!" Truthfully, he had to agree with her. Talking was sometimes overrated, or at least overwhelming. And they hadn't even gotten to Einstein and Merry yet.... It was time to take a break. He grinned and nodded.

"Come in," Aeryn called out to Olivia, as she and John both unfolded their legs and stood up beside the bed.

"What's up, Liv?" John asked when their daughter pulled back the curtain and stepped into the room.

"TJ's making grolak," she said, ducking her head in the direction of the kitchen before adding, "and we were all wondering if you guys wanted some while it's hot."

"Hmm, let me think. Is he using Chiana's recipe?" John asked, just to tease.

"Of course," Olivia replied, looking back and forth between her parents. "Only the best around here!" she snickered.

Aeryn smiled. "That sounds really good. We'll be there in a few microts, okay?"

"Okay," Liv said, "I'll tell TJ he can start frying a fresh batch." With a satisfied smile, she turned and headed back into the corridor.

When they were alone again, John turned to face his wife. He slid his arms around Aeryn's waist and pulled her close to him, her arms automatically sliding around to his back. "That sounds suspiciously like an olive branch to me," he pointed out once he'd gotten comfortable. "It's a pain in the butt to make grolak from Chiana's recipe."

"Mmmm. It's a pain to make grolak from any recipe." Obviously feeling better about the situation with TJ, she leaned her head forward and nuzzled his neck, and he felt tingles all the way to his toes.

"I told you we'd be able to sort it out," John said, kissing her gently on the lips. "I think," he began, dropping another kiss on her mouth, "we've survived," kiss, "another," kiss, "frelling adventure in the Uncharted Territories," kiss, kiss, kiss..... "No thanks to frelling Einstein," he groused during a pause in the kissing, and then he completely forgot about wormhole aliens with black holes for eyes.

Somehow during the kissing game, Aeryn had snuggled up against him, every dench of her body pressed up against his, front to front, with just a thin layer of clothes separating them.... Oh, yeah.... He was slipping his hands under her tank top when his brain kicked in. "Um, Aeryn, if we're going to get any grolak while it's hot, maybe we ought to put this on hold for a bit, hmmm?" he managed to get out, an effort which was made even more difficult by the fact that her hands were wandering as well.

Aeryn laughed, a throaty, happy laugh, and pulled herself away from him. "Yes, of course, you're right. Frell later. Hot grolak now."

And, of course, they both knew the grolak wasn't important at all, it could be frozen for all that they cared. It was TJ and Livvy and Merry who wanted and deserved and needed their attention. They straightened their shirts, and Aeryn quickly redid her ponytail, and John took her hand as they headed out into the corridor. They had each other, and they had their family, and together they would handle whatever the universe threw at them....


Click here for Fallout, Part 1, and the Crichton Sun family deals with the fallout of this adventure....

[aeryncrichton]

This is GREAT!.  I am not sure why, but I love future fics in which John and Aeryn are parents and need to deal with all the parent "stuff".  I guess it gives more depth to their characters rather than just dealing with each other (which is nice).

In my mind:

J/A with babies - very nic
J/A with post - babies, preteens, teens - very very nice
J/A dealing with son/daughters first date - very very very nice.  I would hate to be the guy calling on the daughter of J/A for the first date.  Forget the father, it would be the mother that would concern me .

In any case, I loved this futurefic, thank you.

Bruce Micales
bmicales