Over the Edge

Author: John Clifford (Elflore)

Disclaimer:  Farscape, it’s characters, etc. are owned by some maniacally brilliant people with whom I have no official affiliation, sadly.  But I still have sooooo much non-profit fun playing in their universe with fics like these, so it’s all good!

Spoilers: Look at the Princess trilogy, Won’t Get Fooled Again

Rating: PG-13.  Some cursing, and some situations which might be too disturbing for younger readers (or SACCers).

Archiving:  If you’ve already got something of mine (with permission, of course) than go for it!  Otherwise, please e-mail me first.  Thanks!  Elflore@aol.com

Feedback:  Please, good or bad, always! Again, Elflore@aol.com

Notes:  If you notice some parallels and similar themes between this story and my previous fic, “I Cheat the Hangman”, it’s not really a coincidence.  Both came out of the same brainstorm, more or less, but I felt they were different enough that I wanted to explore both versions.  I actually started this one first, but got bogged down, so I set it aside for a while.  I do prefer Hangman, personally, but there are elements in here I’m rather proud of.  Oh, and I realize my fellow SACCers are likely to want my head on a platter for this one.  All I can say is that it’s all in the name of character exploration and good old-fashioned (shippy) hurt/comfort!

---

PART ONE: No Place Like Home

 

John Crichton desperately needed something to take his mind off of what-or *who*-might be lurking in its depths. 

 

Surprisingly enough, it was Aeryn Sun who suggested a distraction, and the plan itself was nothing short of astounding.  She wanted to show him more combat maneuvers in the Farscape One, despite the chaos which had resulted from their last attempt.  Perhaps even because of it?  It sounded frelling insane, and John feared he was heading in that direction as it was.  But Aeryn had the most curious--and adorable--glint in her eye…

 

Well, he wasn’t getting his hopes up too high, but this had to be a good sign, right?  And just when he needed it most.  Perhaps Zhaan’s Goddess really was looking out for them…

 

Little did he know that in four arns he’d be cursing every higher power that might ever have existed, and in six, he’d be certain they meant to destroy him…and wishing they’d just get the job over with already.

 

*         *         *

 

John decided that they should conduct their practice outside the ship, in the asteroid belt along which Moya was now drifting.  As much as he would have loved to show Aeryn the wonders of ‘parking’, after last time…no, a nice little joyride would be much easier on both their nerves.

 

And so, for nearly an arn, everything was great.  The simple, immediate action of flying seemed to clear some of the fuzz from John’s brain, and Aeryn was unusually patient.  It could have simply been pity for the poor, deficient human who was losing what little sanity he had left…but even at his most paranoid, John couldn’t quite believe that.  She didn’t pull away as he leaned forward, his head not quite resting on her shoulder, and she barely tensed as he wrapped his arms gently round her waist.  Perhaps they were making progress after all…

 

Then an insistent bleeping from the sensor panel shattered Crichton’s thoughts, and Aeryn frowned.

 

“These readings, they make absolutely no sense…less than you do, most of the time,” she said, glancing back at him.  “But…do they look familiar to you?”

 

John’s mouth fell open.   “That’s…there’s a *wormhole* close by?!”

 

Aeryn nodded slowly.  “And it looks to be a stable one.”

 

John could only stare; at Aeryn, at the sensor panel, back and forth.  Aeryn stared back for a long moment, her eyes locked on his but her thoughts mysterious.  Then she set the small craft in motion again, guiding it smoothly above, below and around the asteroids, heading for the far side of the field.

 

Soon they dipped under a particularly large rock, and there it was, larger than life and twice as blue.  A wormhole, and maybe a way home.  But was this really the treasure John had been seeking so long?  Or just another grail-shaped beacon?  Reaching gently over Aeryn’s shoulder, John cut the Farscape’s engines.

 

“I need to think…” he murmured.  He’d been fooled before.  And what if it *was* stable?  If he left, what happened to his shipmates, his friends?  What happened to Aeryn?

 

“You have to go, John,”  Aeryn said softly.  There was no fear, no regret, in her voice, just a simple acceptance of fate.

 

*No…I’m not ready!*  John screamed inside.  Life had been moving too fast lately.  He could hardly fathom what *he* was thinking and feeling these days…how was he supposed to figure Aeryn out?  How could he decide forever this soon?  And even if she *did* feel the things he felt…then what?  Take her with him, back to Earth, and wait for the soldiers and the bureaucrats to find her, lock her away, experiment on her?  Or stay with her on Moya…until Scorpius found him?  Watch helplessly as she got herself killed trying to fight his fate?

 

That’s when he realized there was no choice.  Aeryn couldn’t live on Earth, and if they kept running, sooner or later Scorpy would catch up with them.  It was only John he cared about--or the wormhole blueprints the Ancients had put in his head, to be exact--so the others would never be safe until John was gone.  He should have left a long time ago.  But he hadn’t, and now he was here, and this was probably the best chance he would ever have.

 

“You’re right,” he agreed, and wondered why he wasn’t crying.  He *wanted* to be crying.  He felt like he was ripping out his soul and leaving it behind in the stars, but the tears, the release, just wouldn’t come.  “Guess we’d better turn around for now.  I’ll need to collect my things, tell the others goodbye…”

 

But instead of turning them around, Aeryn punched the throttle to full, heading straight for the mouth of the wormhole.  “It’s stable right now, but it won’t necessarily stay that way,” Aeryn explained, infernally calm.  “We may not have much time.”

 

“Aeryn…what do you think you’re doing?!”  John tried to cut the engines again, but she swatted his hand back out of the way.  His fist rebounded off of the roof of the cockpit with a loud crack.  “We don’t even know where this leads, if it *is* Earth on the other side!”

 

“If not, then we’ll just have to hope it remains stable long enough for us to get back,” she retorted.  “I am taking us through whether you like it or not, Crichton.”

 

“No…we have to go back!  You…you can’t come with me--”

 

“Are you saying you no longer want me to go with you?”  Aeryn interrupted, and for the first time her composure cracked, ever so slightly.  Her gaze was locked on the approaching wormhole, her head was held too still, her hands gripped the controls too tightly, and her voice betrayed the slightest flutter.

 

“I’m saying you *can’t*.  You remember what happened to Rygel and D’Argo on the other Earth, what almost happened to you…”

 

“An illusion.”

 

“But based on my memories!  I’m not sure it was that far off!”

 

“But you’re not sure it wasn’t, either.  I’m willing to accept the risk, John.”

 

“But I’m not, I won’t let you!  It wouldn’t be safe…”

 

“*I* won’t let you stop me.  And there’s no such thing as safe in this universe.  There’s always something waiting to trip you up.  All you can do is take what you have and make the most of it.  You deal.  *We* deal, together.”

 

John never had the chance to consider this last statement, to decide whether he could still allow himself so much hope, after all he’d survived in the Uncharted Territories.  At that instant, the wormhole swallowed them up.  There was a great lurch, as if Farscape One was a roller coaster tipping over that first big hill, and then they were falling into an azure maelstrom.  The ride was a thousand times worse than the one which had first brought John to Moya; something about the flickering lights outside seemed to cut right into his brain.  He felt like fireworks were going off inside his head.

 

Then blackness drove all the blue away…

 

*         *         *

 

The nightmare began the moment John woke up.  He was cuffed to a bed in a strange sickbay, and the décor screamed ‘Peacekeeper’.  There was no sign of Aeryn.  Of anyone, in fact, but either John himself or the electronic monitors he’d been plugged into were certainly being watched.  Only a few microts passed before a small door on the far side of the room--probably leading to some kind of office area--slid open.  The guy who stepped out wore a white labcoat over the more traditional PK black.  Some kind of doctor?  Well, whoever he was, he could answer a few basic questions, starting with…

 

“What the hell happened?  And where’s Aeryn?”

 

The presumed doctor studied the monitors by the bed, nodding to himself and ignoring John entirely.

 

“The woman I was captured with,” John tried again, from between clenched teeth.  “What happened to her?”

 

Still the weasel acted as if he hadn’t heard.  John lunged, his free hand catching the Peacekeeper’s arm in a brutal grip.

 

“I’m going to ask you this…One.  Last.  Time,”  John assured him; a deadly whisper.  “Where is Aeryn?”

 

“I’m afraid he’s not authorized to give you that information.  But I’ll be more than happy to.”  An officer in blood-red leather stood in the main doorway, his mouth twisted in a cruel yet gleeful smile.  “She’s dead.”

 

John’s arm, his entire body, fell limp, fear devouring in an instant all the strength rage had provided.  The doctor nodded meekly to his superior and scuttled away.

 

“She’s…no…she can’t…you can’t…”

 

“She is;  yes;  she could and did; and I really did just tell you that,” the officer replied cheerfully.

 

John felt the rage flaring right back up again, but he forced himself to take deep breaths, try to think this through, be certain of the truth.

 

“How?”

 

“Stupidity, on both your parts.  You fell for such a simple trap.  Well…not simple, really.  The technology to construct a pseudo-wormhole was rather expensive, but more than worthwhile.  You and your *tralk*…”  Here the officer paused for a long moment, but John refused to give him the satisfaction.  “…were dragged down to this base in that worthless scrap heap of yours.  A lovely little crash, I can tell you!”

 

“And…Aeryn was killed on impact?”

 

“Oh, nothing so merciful!  The fool thought she could hide you, protect you from my men, and got herself shot.  Repeatedly.”

 

It was all John could do to ground out one last question, to focus on the last scrap of hope, and hold back the fear and the anger building inside him with tidal force.

 

“Her body…I want to see it.”

 

Of course he didn’t.  If he hadn’t lost his mind already, he would surely snap then.  To see Aeryn, like that…But if they *couldn’t* show him a body…

 

“Oh, of course!  She’s right here!”  Laughing, the officer grabbed a fistful of empty air, then another.  “And here!  And here, and here…You’re familiar with dispersal rifles, aren’t you?  She’s all around you…her atoms were scattered.”

 

The hope collapsed, the dark wave broke.  John leapt at the man, his left hand still chained to the bed, his right going straight for the bastard’s throat; but the PK stumbled back, just out of reach.  He let John struggle, like a dog fighting his leash, for a full thirty microts.  Then he brought the butt of his sidearm crashing down on John’s head.

 

More blackness.

 

*         *         *

 

The next time John awoke, he was lying on the cold metal floor of a typically dungeon-like Peacekeeper holding cell.  There was no bed, and no window; nothing but four walls, a locked door, and a small surveillance camera lens.

 

John remained crumpled in the corner, once again wondering what was wrong with him, why the tears refused to come.  Aeryn was dead, not even a lock of her hair left behind, and the only hope that remained to him was that he might soon follow.  He had to.  Even if a miracle occurred, if he found a way to escape, or D’Argo or Zhaan were to orchestrate a rescue…what would be the point?  He could find his way back to Earth tomorrow and it would make no difference.  The best part of him had died with Aeryn.

 

An indeterminate time later, a guard came by with food.  Some slop in a bowl, which made food cubes look like gourmet.  It didn’t matter.

 

“I’m not eating.”

 

“I’m under orders to see that you do,” the guard answered flatly.  “Scorpius wants you in perfect health when he arrives to take custody.”

 

“My old pal Scorpy!”  John chuckled.  “This day just gets better and better, don’t it?  But I’m still not eating.” 

 

The guard pulled his gun, pointed it right at John’s head.  But when he saw the look in the astronaut’s eyes--almost begging him to fire--his own widened, and the weapon fell away. 

 

“You’re crazy!” the guard sputtered.

 

“No, no, I’m Gandhi!  I’m fasting…protesting…won’t eat ‘til my people are liberated!  ‘Til we can live free and see the sun!”  He hugged his knees, began rocking back and forth, murmuring over and over, “Lord, I wanna see my Sun…”

 

At last the tears had come.

 

END OF PART ONE

 

PART TWO: Voices and Dreams

 

On the far side of the cell, Scorpius prowled, circling the untouched bowl of gruel.

 

“You must eat, John!” he insisted.  “This behavior is childish!”

 

John nearly smiled.  “That’s funny, Scorp…’cause ya know what?  Right now, you’re almost remindin’ me of my dad, when I was about…I dunno, three or four?  And he could never get me to eat either!  Now, mom, that was a different story…”

 

“This is no time for self-indulgent journeys down…what is it you call it?  ‘Memory Lane’. ”  Scorpy sniffed disdainfully.  “I shall not allow you to starve yourself.  I refuse to let you die, John.”

 

“Am I supposed to find that touching?”  John shot back, one eyebrow raised.  “We both know what’s really going on here, Harvey.  You’re an illusion the real Scorpy planted in my mind, and you’re only trying to keep me alive long enough for him to get here and finish draining my brain.  Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

 

“You’ve become such a pessimist, John!”  Scorpius sighed.  “And I must admit, perhaps I share in the blame for that…to some small extent.  But are your goals and mine truly so irreconcilable, in this instance?  You don’t really wish to die…”

 

“Don’t I?”  John replied.  His tone was ice, and even the illusory Scorpy seemed to shiver when he saw the look in his eye.

 

But the shade pressed on regardless, with forced cheer.  “Of course you don’t, John!  You’re a fighter, a survivor!  And you’re going to get home, to Earth, to-”

 

A new voice cut him off, softly but firmly.  “Just leave him alone, Scorpius.”

 

Aeryn Sun stood in the entrance to the cell; behind her, the door was still closed.  She held no weapon, her posture was relaxed, but her eyes were determined.  Scorpius attempted to meet that gaze, for the barest fraction of a second.  Then he faded away.

 

“Aeryn?” John called; he expected to shout, but all that came out was a whisper.

 

“I’m here, John.”

 

“But…you’re not real either, are you?”  He gritted his teeth, hard, fighting valiantly against the threatening tears.  He’d already cried all he wanted to, and he didn’t think he could take any more.

 

“No, John…I’m not, and I’m sorry.  But at least you can still recognize that.”

 

John laughed bitterly.  “I’m not crazy yet, you mean?  Maybe it would be easier if I was…”

 

“Maybe,” Aeryn agreed quietly, and crossed the cell to sit beside him.  John couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or shrink away.  “What will you do now?”

 

“I suppose you have some suggestions?”

 

There was a vague suspicion in John’s mind and his words, but Aeryn shook her head.  “I’m not here to argue with you.  Or to rescue you, though I wish I could be.”

 

“Then just what are you here for, if you don’t mind my asking?”

 

“So that you’re not quite alone,” she answered simply.

 

“Or to remind me just how alone I am, now…” John countered.  “I…suppose I appreciate it, all the same.”  He smiled.  She smiled back, and placed her hand atop his.  He actually did feel something, and wondered idly what that might mean.  That the cell was drafty?  Or perhaps he really was losing it, after all.  He almost hoped.

 

“Tell me something, Aeryn?” John asked, following several long minutes of silence.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Why did you insist on taking us through that wormhole?  On trying to get us to Earth?” 

 

*On dying…*

 

“Because…”  She took a deep, uneasy breath.  Even now, even as a figment of John’s imagination, these words didn’t come easily.  “Because I wanted us to be together.”

 

John laughed, and wept.  “That’s exactly how it was supposed to be.”

 

Aeryn gave him *that* look.  The one that asked ‘are you being deficient again, human?’.  The one that used to fill him with such righteous indignation.  The one he would have given anything to see again, for real, just one more time.

 

“I’m not sure when I started thinking like that,” John went on, “or if I ever even got around to admitting it to myself.  But somewhere along the way, ‘getting home’ stopped being enough.  I had to take you back with me.  Dad would have loved you, and DK, and my sisters…and we would have had a home, and a family of our own, and…just that whole American Dream package.  And somehow, deep down, I always thought we’d make it.  Even with all the craziness in our lives…and our relationship…somehow I

thought we’d get there.”  John lost focus, but he was vaguely aware of Aeryn watching him, her eyes never leaving his face, burning in their intensity.

 

“But not now,” he said finally.  “And that’s why I can’t go back.  And that’s why I’ve no reason to go on.”

 

“But…couldn’t there still be a chance, a place, for us?” Aeryn asked hesitantly.  “Didn’t you tell me once of a place humans believed in?  Somewhere we go after we die…where we see those who’ve died before us?”

 

“Heaven, you mean?”

 

But Aeryn was already fading away.

 

“Please,” she called as she vanished, “hurry…”

 

And John knew what he had to do.

 

*         *         *

 

He continued refusing to eat, so John’s captors stopped giving him the option of normal meals.  Instead, each night, after he had collapsed from exhaustion, a guard was sent into the cell with a syringe, injecting all the nutrients Crichton required directly into his bloodstream.

 

This only made John more creative.

 

He came close to smashing the surveillance lens.  He bloodied his knuckles quite nicely, but the glass was replaced with shatter-proof plastic before he could break off a big enough shard with which to slit his wrists.

 

He slammed his head into the wall, repeatedly and at speed, but was dragged back to the infirmary before any real damage could be done, and his entire cell was padded before they threw him back in the next morning.

 

He tore a long strip of cloth from his shirt and braided it into a thin rope.  As a guard was leaving the cell, John managed to get one end of the rope caught in the door, then tied the other end around his own throat.  Then he ran for the far wall…but his neck didn’t snap, and the guard rushed back before he could try again.

 

“Where’s Kevorkian when you need him?”  John muttered darkly.

 

*         *         *

 

After the third suicide attempt, the Peacekeepers strapped Crichton down to the floor of his cell, and drugged him into a near stupor.  Yet even then, with what little consciousness remained to him, he was working toward his own demise.  He’d heard that some Buddhists, during meditation, could slow their heart rates down to nearly nothing.  Perhaps he could stop his altogether…

 

And one night, it worked.

 

The guard who arrived with John’s nourishment injection--like all the guards assigned to this ‘deranged and dangerous alien prisoner’--wore full body armor.  But as she raised the syringe, she subtly flexed her left wrist, and the beam of the flashlight mounted there glanced across the faceplate of her helmet.  For a moment, John saw illuminated the fierce eyes and hope-giving smile of an angel.  His angel.

 

Aeryn Sun had come to take him home.

 

END OF PART TWO

 

PART THREE:  Guardian Angel

 

Aeryn jabbed his arm with the syringe, and John yelped.  "Ow!  What was that for?!"

 

"The same thing it was for when the Peacekeepers did it," Aeryn replied evenly.  "You've not been eating.  The only difference is, they've been adding sedatives the past few solar days.  I've included a stimulant which should counteract their effects." 

 

"Wow…that *is* impressive.  But couldn't you have just waved a magic wand or something?"

 

"John, now is not the time for your Erp humor," Aeryn answered with a sigh.  Whether it was born of exasperation, or whether she was actually relieved to hear his strange jokes once again, she couldn't say.

 

“All right, all right…I’ll play along,” John muttered.  Aeryn frowned, but ignored the comment as she undid the straps holding Crichton to the floor and helped him to his feet.  He groaned, and leaned heavily against her, but at least he could still walk.  More or less.

 

John was murmuring to himself worse than usual, and Aeryn was forced to shush him several times as they made their way through the detention area.  Luckily, the few Peacekeepers they passed were either too drunk or too sleepy at this time of night to see anything odd in this particular prisoner being dragged down to the infirmary yet again.  Of course, long before they reached that destination, Aeryn led John down an out-of-the-way corridor, and yanked a large metal grate from the wall to reveal a narrow crawlspace.

 

“Inside,” she ordered.

 

“Of course!  A handy ventilation duct!”  John chuckled.  “They’re always there when ya need ‘em in these stories, aren’t they?”

 

Aeryn’s frown deepened as she followed him inside, swinging the grate back into place behind them.  “Stories?  John, are you…”  Of course he wasn’t all right.  “…going to be okay?”

 

She took off her helmet.  She needed to see his face, his eyes, clearly just now.  As clearly as possible in the dim light of the tunnel, at least.  And perhaps he needed to see her eyes, too; he stared into them for a long moment.  As he did so, his goofy grin faded away.

 

“Oh God…you’re…really real…not an angel, not a dream…you’re really here!”  But the pain, the fear, the tears burning in his eyes simply didn’t make sense.  At first Aeryn could only nod, dumbly, so John struggled to explain.  “If…if we’d been dead, or if this was a dream…then it could have had a happy ending.  But it’s not, this is all real…we’re trapped in another Peacekeeper base, with Scorpy on the way, and…”

 

“John, listen to me.” Aeryn’s voice cut into his panic, and she gripped his shoulders firmly.  She spoke slowly, almost as if he were a child.  Which was strange, in a way…before she’d met this man, and been dragged into this curious life aboard Moya, she’d never even realized she knew how a child should be spoken to.  “I got you into this mess, John, and I *swear*, I am going to get you back out again.  All you have to do is trust me…and keep moving, because we might not have much time before they realize you’re gone.  All right?”

 

John took a long, shaky breath…but at last his eyes and his mind seemed to clear, he smiled bravely, and he nodded with the first determination he’d shown in too long.  “All right.”

 

They started down the shaft.

 

*         *         *

 

“Where exactly are we heading?” John didn’t think to ask until several microns later.

 

“To get your module back.”

 

“So…if there was no crash, what happened?  The last thing I can remember before waking up here is entering that ‘wormhole’, and then I blacked out…”

 

“The ‘wormhole’ was a trap,” Aeryn replied, and kicked herself for the hundredth time.  She should have seen through the deception, and instead she’d nearly gotten them both killed.  “It concealed another asteroid, where this base is located.  The tunnel itself was designed to overload our senses and force our brains to shut down.  It didn’t affect me for some reason, though…all I can think is that the DNA I share with Pilot offered me some protection.”

 

“Because of his multitasking abilities, you mean?”  John cut in.  “Yeah, that’d make sense…”

 

“So I was able to fly the module through the false wormhole just fine.  Unfortunately, there was a pair of Prowlers waiting for me on the other side.  They swooped in between us and the wormhole before I could turn around, and I had no choice but to let them chase me down to the planet.  I managed to land in a narrow canyon, inside a shallow cave, but you wouldn’t wake up, and I barely had enough time to get out myself…I hoped the Prowlers would pass us by and I’d have a chance to go back for you, but…”

 

She bit her lip, and now it was John’s turn to comfort her.  Why did that still feel so wrong and so right all at once?  “Aeryn…you did what you had to do.  And you came back for me.  That’s all that matters.”

 

“Would that have been all that mattered if you’d been killed, Crichton?” she shot back.  “Or if Scorpius had gotten a hold of you?”  She just didn’t know how to hold the anger inside anymore, even though she knew it was herself she was really mad at.

 

“No…” he answered gravely.  “In that case, all that would have mattered would be that you got yourself the hell away from here.  Perhaps you should have anyway.”

 

For a moment, Aeryn didn’t breathe.  Then she stopped moving forward, sagging against the side of the cramped shaft.  After another microt, John noticed she’d stopped following, and turned back.  She could only stare at his face, into those weary, bloodshot blue eyes, until he laughed nervously.

 

“What?  You lookin’ for somethin’?”

 

“The Crichton I knew,” she said sadly.  “I don’t know what it was Scorpius did…but he really is gone, isn’t he?”

 

John’s face fell; he could no longer meet her gaze.  “Aeryn…I’m trying, I’m fighting as much as I can…”

 

“No, I didn’t mean…”  She shook her head, kicked herself again.  “I didn’t mean it is a criticism…”  *…not this time…*  “But…I heard about what you did…what you nearly did…in that cell, before I got to you.  And what you said just now…do you really *want* to die?”

 

“I want *you* to live, Aeryn.  When I thought…that you were gone…”  His voice faded, then he swallowed, and began again.  “But you’re not, so that doesn’t matter now.  What matters…it’s not you that Scorpy wants.  Or Zhaan, or D’Argo, or Moya, or anyone else.  It’s me.  And we both know that he’s not gonna give up until he finds me, until he finishes picking apart my brain.  So maybe…”

 

Aeryn cut him off.  “There is no ‘maybe’.  We keep running, for as long as it takes.  Until we find a way to stop Scorpius for good, or lose him.  It may not be an easy decision, but it’s a clear one.”

 

“Is it?”  John laughed, but his eyes didn’t.  “We keep running?  And what happens when Scorpy *does* catch up to us?”

 

“We fight.”

 

“And die?  You…all of you…die, for me?  How am I supposed to live with that on my conscience?”

 

Aeryn smiled tightly.  “Well, if it comes to that, you won’t have to live with it for long, will you?”

 

“That’s not funny, Aeryn!  You know what I mean, you know exactly what I mean!  Give me one *good* reason why I shouldn’t be turning myself back in, right now?  Why I shouldn’t have turned myself in a long time ago!”

 

“Because I won’t let you!” Aeryn replied fiercely.  “You can get that through your head right now, Crichton.  You don’t give a frell about your own life anymore?  Fine.  But don’t think you’re ever going to be stop me, or any of the others, from worrying about you, or trying to save your sorry ass.  And if we all get blown to hezmana in the process…that’s our choice, not yours.  Got it?”

 

For a time, John just sat there, head tilted to one side, mouth hanging open.  Part of Aeryn wanted so badly to hug him just then.  Another part wondered what was wrong with her, that the first would want to hug him.  But she just kept glaring, and waiting.

 

At last, he looked down at his hands, muttered a barely audible, “Okay,” and started moving along the service duct once more.

 

*         *          *

 

As they crawled the rest of the way to the hanger bay, Aeryn finished explaining what she had been through since John’s capture.  She had managed to elude capture among the asteroid’s caves and craters, until she ran across a straggler from one of the Peacekeeper search parties.  She’d shot the young man before he could report his quarry found--a feat she might once have been proud of, but now found herself regretting, despite it’s necessity--and traded her flightsuit for his uniform.  Several arns later, when the soldiers were called back to base, she’d merely headed in alongside them.  Base security was almost unbelievably lax, and the PKs never even considered checking for the hunted amongst the hunters.  She’d been able to move more or less freely among the guards, and it had been a fairly simple matter to find out where both John and the Farscape One was being held, as well as a convenient service shaft connecting the prison and transport levels.

 

*         *         *

 

“So far, so good,” Aeryn murmured as they exited that shaft.  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s noticed that you’re missing, yet.”

 

“Since no one’s announced a Red Light Special…” John replied, nodding to one of the dark, silent alarm bulbs hanging overhead, “Yeah, I’d say you’re right.”

 

Their luck began to fade, however, when the door to the hanger bay slid open before them.  The Farscape One was nowhere to be seen.

 

“You there!” Aeryn called out imperiously, striding over to the tech on duty; John shuffled silently behind.  “I have orders to make this…*alien*…demonstrate his flight module.  Where has it gone?”

 

“I’m sorry, sir,” the tech answered meekly.  “But there must be some mistake.  The module was just transferred to the main service facility.  Couldn’t have been more than three microns ago!”

 

“The main service facility…on the outskirts of the compound?”

 

“Yes…” the tech replied, her eyes betraying the first sign of suspicion.

 

Aeryn didn’t wait for the second; she hit the girl with a Pantak Jab, knocking her instantly unconscious, then grabbed John’s arm and just about threw him into one of the moon-buggy-like groundcars sitting idle near the open bay doors.

 

“Um…Aeryn?” John called over the revving engine.  “If we’re goin’ after the module…shouldn’t we take *that*?”  He nodded towards the Prowler sitting empty on the other side of the hanger, but Aeryn shook her head firmly.

 

“It’ll have start-up codes, and we don’t have time to crack them.  Our one chance is that they don’t believe you’re intelligent enough to put together a decent engine,” she explained, smirking mischievously at him, even as she punched the accelerator.  The little car shot forward, bouncing high and recklessly in the asteroid’s light (and even so, mostly artificial) gravity.  “Hopefully they’ll decide it’s safer to move it along the surface than to risk flight before they’ve done more tests.”

 

John smirked back.  “Meaning we’ll be able to overtake.”

 

Aeryn nodded, her smile growing even brighter.  The wind (or rather, the asteroid’s bottled atmosphere, just as ersatz as its gravity) streamed through her hair; she was obviously having fun, and looked more beautiful than ever.  For a wonderful moment, John closed his eyes, and was almost able to imagine that he was back home, back in his ’62 T-Bird, racing along highway with his girl…

 

Then Aeryn called out, “There it is!”, and the dream shattered…

 

*         *         *

 

About half a metra ahead of them, the Farscape One could now be seen, trundling along the asteroid’s surface and kicking up a light, silvery dust cloud.

 

“Not moving very fast, are they?” John observed.  But instead of following the module, Aeryn swung hard to the right, into the shadow of a low ridge, and brought the groundcar to a halt.  “What?”

 

“We need a plan,” Aeryn answered.  “They’re not just going to pull over because we ask nicely, and we can’t shoot them.  But the *instant* they see us coming after them, those alarms are finally going to be tripped, and we’ll have maybe two microns before the Prowlers are in the air.  If we’re not off the ground ourselves by then, we won’t have a chance.”

 

John only gave the matter a moment’s thought before giving her a cocky, lopsided grin. 
“Piece of cake.  But I’d better drive.”

 

Aeryn didn’t quite like the almost manic gleam in his eyes, but she nodded slowly and traded seats.

 

She regretted it the very next microt, and barely resisted the urge to hit him as he let out an ear-splitting “Yeeeeeee-haw!” and gunned the engine.  They shot right up to the top of the ridge…and then they were literally soaring in the asteroid’s weak gravity, right over the top of the Farscape One.  If she hadn’t been so busy hanging on for dear life, it might have been fun to take a look down into the cockpit, and see the expressions on the Peacekeepers’ faces.  Perhaps they wouldn’t be reporting in so instantly after all…

 

Then the groundcar was crashing down.  John was swinging it back around in a tight arc, right into the path of his oncoming module; a massive dust storm was swirling around them as he stomped on the brakes with both feet.  And then, even before they’d come to a complete stop, John was leaping to his feet, waving his arms furiously, both to clear the dust away again, and to get the attention of the men inside the Farscape One.

 

“Hey guys, it’s me, John Crichton!” he was yelling at the top of his lungs, and at last Aeryn knew just what it was he was playing at (though it only slightly decreased her desire to hit him).  On several occasions, Scorpius had made it quite clear that he wanted John taken alive and unharmed, and with any luck these men would be aware of those orders…assuming, of course, that they actually managed to recognize the prisoner in question.  Aeryn quickly flipped on the groundcar’s comm system and switched it to the Farscape One’s frequency; something John should have thought to do himself.

 

Amazingly enough, the module *did* slow to a crawl, and then a stop. 

 

John hopped out of the car and over to his ship, and Aeryn followed, but the Farscape’s cockpit remained closed.

 

“Come on, boys!”  John called out, pounding loudly on the module’s viewport with the butt of his pulse pistol.  “Knock knock!”

 

“Frell!” Aeryn swore.  “Now what?  All they have to do is sit tight another couple of microns…”

 

“Naw…we’ll just have to hit the *manual release*, is all,” John answered, and loudly.  But nothing happened.  “Fine, you want to play it like that…”  He jumped right up onto the nose of the ship and began tapping at one small area of the hull, punching a set of imaginary controls.

 

Sure enough, the cockpit began to slide back…and in that same instant, several deadly bolts of light shot right past Crichton’s ears.  He fell backwards with a strangled yelp, then dove behind the cover of the groundcar.  Aeryn was already there, returning fire with her own pulse rifle…but only enough to make certain that the PKs kept their heads down.

 

“It’s no good!”  John cried.  “They know we can’t risk damaging the ship, so they can just sit there!”

 

Aeryn gave the slightest, grimmest of nods, and kept firing…

 

END OF PART THREE

 

PART FOUR:  Aftershocks

 

*So this is how it ends?* John wondered, searching the skies overhead.  No sign of the Prowlers, but it couldn’t be much longer now.  And at the first sighting, he knew, he’d be throwing himself right up into that cockpit.  He *would not* be taken alive, never again.

So the only question that remained was what to tell…what *could* he tell Aeryn in the meantime…

 

But even as he turned to speak, inspiration sparked in her eyes.

 

“Cover me!” she ordered.  “We still have one chance…”

 

Then she was running, crouched low, below the Peacekeepers’ line of sight--and of fire.  John did as he was told anyway, keeping up a steady barrage of yellow light across the hull of his beloved ship.  Even after more than a year in the Uncharted Territories, however, his aim wasn’t nearly a match for Aeryn’s…he winced as a stray shot nicked one of the fins.

 

Any concern for his ship was immediately forgotten, however, when he realized that Aeryn had found a good sized boulder and, using it as a springboard in the moon’s light gravity, was launching herself up over the Farscape’s cockpit.  She twisted in mid-air, like an Olympic gymnast, and brought her pulse rifle to bear…

 

Two quick, clean shots, and it was over.

 

*          *          *

 

The Prowlers finally appeared as the Farscape One was clearing the asteroid’s atmosphere, but the module would easily be inside the false wormhole before they could catch up, and lacking Aeryn’s genetic ‘gifts’, the Peacekeeper pilots wouldn’t be able to follow.  It was hard to feel any elation, however.  It was hard for John Crichton to feel anything but numb, just at that moment.

 

He could still see the glassy eyes of the Peacekeeper technicians who had been driving the Farscape; not seeing, but staring up at him from the cockpit.  And then from the ground, where they had been so unceremoniously dumped as he and Aeryn strapped in and took off.

 

John didn’t…he could *never*…blame Aeryn for what had happened.  She had had no choice; those two men would have killed her in an instant, and saved John for a fate far worse than death.  But had they really had any idea what they were doing?  To them, John and Aeryn were probably just the UT equivalent of faces on wanted posters. 

 

Not long ago, John had wondered if he should be turning himself in, worried that he was putting his friends in constant danger.  But what about these strangers?  How many more would die because of him?  How many lives was John Crichton worth?

 

“They made their own choices, John,” Aeryn said, suddenly and quietly.  More and more often these days, she seemed to know just what he was thinking.

 

“They were techs…not even soldiers.”

 

“They were Peacekeepers, and they would have killed you in an instant.  Killed both of us.”

 

“I know that…of course I do…but why?  To them, we’re the bad guys, the outlaws.  They were just…”

 

“Following orders?  You know better than that.  And so did they.  Any Peacekeeper knows the system isn’t right…even if they can’t admit it to themselves.  If they don’t…then they’re probably too stupid to live in any case.”  John almost balked at that, but she rode over him as easily as the buggy had flown over the module.  “And the system will remain wrong as long as people like you give in.  Convince yourself the price to fight it is too high.”

 

“We’re not exactly working to bring down the system, Aeryn.”

 

“We may not be fighting a war, but that doesn’t mean the battles aren’t important.”

 

John was silent then, until the faux-wormhole swallowed them up, and the blackness beyond.

 

*      *       *

 

When he woke once more, John found himself not only on the other side of the wormhole, but back aboard Moya; in Zhaan’s makeshift medical lab, to be exact.  He was alone, and the Leviathan was quiet for a change.  He suspected Aeryn had spoken with Pilot the moment they were back on board, and he’d initiated starburst before the Peacekeepers could shut down their trap and pursue.

 

He lay there in the near-dark, almost feeling safe, for the first time in so long.  Able to think…about how close he’d come to giving up, and about how right Aeryn had been, probably. His ideals were still worth living for, and so were his friends.  Or perhaps he was just being selfish, just wasn’t willing to give up what little he had left after all.  But either way, he was sick of second-guessing himself, even more than he was sick of running, and of fighting.

 

And besides, maybe what little he had left was more than he’d realized…

 

*         *         *

 

When Aeryn Sun at last arrived to check up on him—pretending to be just passing by on the way back to her quarters, never mind that she was on the wrong tier—John had a question ready and waiting.

 

“Aeryn…back before I got you into that mess--”

 

“It was you who were in the mess, Crichton…and you still look it!”

 

Enduring her laughter for a moment, he considered letting this go; but in the end he had to ask.  “Would you really have gone with me?  Back to Earth?”

 

Aeryn only shrugged.  “If I’d let you miss your chance to go home, we both know how insufferable you would have been afterwards.  Moping around the ship for monens on end…we couldn’t have had that, now could we?”

 

She walked away then…but for the first time in far too long, John found himself grinning.

 

END