Photographs and Memories
By Modulegirl
Disclaimer: “Farscape” does not belong to me; would that it did. It does belong to a whole raft of people like: the Jim Henson Company, Hallmark Entertainment, Nine Network Australia and the Sci-Fi Channel. I have borrowed these characters with love but without permission. No copyright infringement is intended or should be inferred.
Author’s Note: I have to acknowledge two people without whose help this fanfic would not be here. My mother, who thinks I spend waaayyy too much time thinking about “Farscape”, listened patiently as I hammered out the plot and then wept in all the right places. The Other Kelly, Kelly Hill, offered to help a newbie writer by betaing and giving me pointers on how to post. Her thoughtful suggestions were kind and gentle. Any inconsistencies or errors that remain are not her fault but the result of outright stubbornness on the part of the author. Also, she gave me a title I was delighted to use; “Photographs and Memories” is the name of a Jim Croce song. Thanks, Kelly!
“Five years ago today, astronaut John Crichton disappeared when his test module collided with an anomalous electro-magnetic wave. After sixty months of intensive study and investigation, this board concludes that the experimental acceleration maneuver that Commander Crichton was testing, combined with the electro-magnetic wave, created a proto-wormhole. The proto-wormhole dissolved within 37 seconds of confirmed detection. No wreckage or remains of the Farscape module and it’s pilot were ever recovered.
“It is, therefore, the conclusion of this board, after due consideration and diligence pursuant to the truth, that Commander John Robert Crichton, Jr., was killed when his module struck the event horizon of the proto-wormhole. Available telemetry confirms that Commander Crichton was unable to avoid the collision due to the sudden appearance of the spatial anomaly and the technological limitations of the module he was piloting. This board concludes that there was no pilot error and that Commander Crichton was in no way at fault for the loss of the module or his life.”
Excerpt from the summary of the published Farscape Review Board Findings
Jack Crichton watched himself on the evening news, standing at the back of the stage as the review board chairman announced the board’s findings. The man on the television screen looked past the cameras trained on him, the grieving father vindicated by an IASA review board. Sometimes Jack was amazed by how much John’s loss had aged him; even more so than the loss of his wife. He clicked the TV off and tossed the remote into one of the open boxes on the couch.
He’d become used to the public eye in the five years since John had not come home. As the first Western astronaut lost in space, John Crichton had been elevated to the status of American Hero. Every facet of his life had been gone over with a fine-tooth comb. Books had been written about him and about the mission. There’d been a movie and several documentaries. And the fact that the Hero’s father was also an astronaut and a moon-walker at that…well, Jack had grown used to the scrutiny. He had not reconciled himself to it. But he was used to it.
Of course, there were many things Jack had not been able to reconcile himself to. Like the fact that John was dead. He knew, in his head, that after five years his son was not going to climb out of that ‘62 T-bird and come strutting up the walk of his father’s house, calling for a beer as he came in the front door. But his heart refused to believe that John was dead. He might never come back, but that didn’t mean he was dead. Did it?
Still, after five years and a review board’s conclusion that his son was dead, Jack finally decided it was time to pack up John’s condo loft in Canaveral. DK and the girls had been bugging him to do it for the better part of four years, since the first anniversary of the accident. But a patent that John and DK had taken out on the acceleration maneuver had paid the remainder of the mortgage; as John’s beneficiary Jack hadn’t been able to think of much else to do with the newfound wealth, which he still referred to as blood money. He knew cowardice was a big part of the reason he had paid off the mortgage rather than sell. As long as the loft belonged to John, no one would come and make him clean it out to make way for a new owner. Clean it out and force himself to admit that John no longer needed these things because John was dead.
Now he stood in the large central space of the loft and looked out the wall of windows. He watched the blue-black darkness creeping up from the eastern horizon, bleeding like a wash of watercolor into the orange sunset behind him. When John bought the place, it had a good view of the water. After five years of space flight expansion, due in large part to the breakthrough that the acceleration maneuver had brought, Canaveral was growing. With growth came development, which was taking its toll on the view John had prized so much. John liked the place because it was a hop, skip and a jump from the beach. He’d often been vociferous in his complaints about the lack of surf but he always enjoyed the attention he got from the girls in thong bikinis. And they had been vocal in their admiration of Jack’s tall, handsome son.
Jack turned away from the windows and the beach and looked at the loft that held all of the few earthly possessions that his son had accumulated in his brief stay on the planet. The industrial style lamps cast bright light over the largely empty space, producing an illusion of cheer that Jack found grating given the circumstances. To the rear was a loft bedroom with an ornate spiral staircase set to one side of the kitchenette that was tucked up against the wall of the bathroom. The bedroom was empty of everything but the up-ended mattress and box spring of the bed John had shared with Alex. He’d brought it from Houston after they broke up, when he made the astronaut program and she had gone on to Stanford to continue her medical studies. Jack still got a card from Alex every Christmas. There had been a lot of awkwardness at the memorial service six weeks after the accident. It was the first time Jack had seen Alex since she and John had broken up. She’d looked good and her husband was rather star-struck to meet the Jack Crichton. She had a little girl now. Jack remembered a time he thought Alex might be the one for John; suddenly, tears came to his eyes as he realized that his son would never find the true love of his life. Realized that his son would never give him grandchildren to be fawned over. Realized that John’s sense of humor and million-dollar smile would never be passed on.
For a moment, Jack thought of giving in to the tears and letting go. But even as the urge struck him to finally mourn his son, the grief was swept away by the awful conviction that John still lived. He didn’t know where it came from; he only knew that all the facts and telemetry and conclusions the Farscape Review Board came up with had not been able to disperse the conviction that his son had not died when the wormhole closed. He’d given up trying to explain the certainty of the feeling as it had only worried his daughters and irritated DK. DK still blamed himself for the accident, though the review board had long ago cleared him and all of the flight crew of any malfeasance. DK had been convinced from the first moments after the accident that John was dead and Jack’s insistence on flying in the face of logic nearly drove a wedge into their relationship until Jack had backed down and started keeping his opinion to himself. After all, who in the world was he helping by believing that John was still alive, somewhere?
DK had offered to come and help with the packing, but Jack said no. He knew it hurt DK to be shut out of this last bit of letting go but Jack felt he had to do this alone. This was the last chance he would have to say good-bye as the world finally let go of the Hero and gave him back his son.
Now the books and the CDs had been packed. A few of the physics books and all of John’s prized Charlie Parker albums were in packed in a separate box to go home with Jack. Boxes were stacked beside the door ready for when the movers came to take them away. The few pieces of furniture had been covered with sheets for most of the last five years. Jack had uncovered the TV to watch the news but the stereo had been given to DK three years ago. The loft had never felt as empty of John’s presence as it did now. The only things remaining to be packed were a few pictures hanging over the low bookcase along one wall.
Taking down the first photograph, Jack was swept by a desolation that left him breathless. He dropped the picture into his lap as he collapsed into a shrouded chair. The small tow-headed boy in the picture grinned up out of the past at his father as he proudly indicated a lopsided pup tent behind him. Jack had taken John to the lake in Maine for the first time during the first moon landing. It was close enough to John’s birthday that Jack, still smarting from being passed over as pilot in favor of Neil Armstrong’s stronger science background, was more than relieved to be away from the Cape for this mission. The night the astronauts made their historic walk, father and son listened to the news coverage on the radio. John lifted his face, made golden by the light of the dying fire, and said, “Dad, one day, I’m going to walk on another planet.” If Jack hadn’t already been aware of his son’s intelligence and precociousness he would have laughed at the conviction in John’s four year-old voice. Still it gripped his heart in the here and now with cold chills as he thought of John’s destiny and the sureness of his course in meeting it. And still the certainty that John wasn’t dead was there even in his grief. Jack picked up the heavy frame from his lap and threw it across the room.
“Dammit, he’s dead, you fool!” he cried out as the photo hit the wall and shattered. “John’s never coming back. My son is dead.” It was the first time he’d ever said the words out loud. Suddenly, five years of stoic effort broke as Jack began to cry in the great sobbing gasps that strong men who never cry are tortured with when grief finally overwhelms them.
He cried that way for nearly an hour. When he came back to himself, the windows were black and reflected his image back at him without pity. He slumped in the chair, emotionally drained by the day’s events. His eyes wandered up the wall and came to rest on John’s graduation photos. He looked so young and eager in his high school portrait. Of course, Jack reflected, he was a year younger than the rest of the class. Skipping the third grade thrilled John at the time, but he complained about the effect it had on dating in high school. The girls in his class were older and he’d been very self-conscious about hanging out with kids his own age.
There were several candid shots at his graduation from MIT. One featured John with a sister on each side. They all grinned into the camera, John with his arm draped across each girl’s shoulder, pulling them in close. Another showed John with DK in a headlock as they both mugged mercilessly for the camera. Jack’s favorite was the shot of John and his mother. Nora had been taking the pictures all day but now she wanted a picture of herself with her son. Jack stood waiting as she straightened John’s mortarboard, rearranged the tassel and vainly brushed at wrinkles in his robe. Finally, as she began to straighten his collar and tie, John cried out, “Save me, Dad, take the damn picture!” They were facing each other, both laughing as Nora playfully raised one hand to slap John’s shoulder. The one informal picture of Jack also featured Nelson, Jack’s feisty little Jack Russell terrier that John had, on more than one occasion, laughingly accused his father of loving more than his only son.
Jack pushed himself out of the chair and finished removing pictures from the wall, laying them gently in the box that would go with him when he left. He smiled sadly as he took down the last picture. It was a simple Polaroid elaborately framed and matted. The boy standing in the center of the frame grinned from ear to ear as he struggled to hold up a huge rainbow trout. John had just turned ten when Jack snapped that one. He’d nearly gone back on yet another birthday promise when work kept him away. But when he spoke to John on the phone the night before, the boy’s disappointment was so transparent, though he tried to hide it, that Jack basically told IASA to go stuff itself. The mission wasn’t about going to the moon and, anyway, he’d already been. Twice. His son turned ten but once in a lifetime and he’d be a poor excuse for a father if he couldn’t be there to celebrate the happy day for his boy. He still remembered the muddled look on John’s face when he leaned down in the early morning light and called his son’s name. It had taken several minutes to convince John that his dad was really there and expected him to get up and go fishing. Jack laughed out loud as he remembered John’s mumbled, “Dad’s at work and I’m just dreaming,” as he tried to go turn over and go back to sleep. Jack sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Son, you’re not dreaming,” he said gently. “I’ve come home just like I promised I would. I’ve come to take you fishing, John. Happy birthday.” He felt John tense under the blanket as he came awake. Then Jack slid off the bed and onto the floor with a thump as John leapt up with a cry of glee and began a subdued jumping on the bed, hunched over so as not to hit his head on the roof of the dormer his bed was tucked into. The three-day weekend that ensued remained Jack’s most beloved memory in a host of memories, each more precious than the last.
He went to the mess on the floor where the thrown photograph lay. Carefully, he pulled the photo out of the pile of glass shards and put it in his shirt pocket. He glanced at the ding in the plaster and sighed. The new owners would have to repair the ding, but the glass needed to be swept up.
Jack’s footsteps rang hollow in the empty space as he went into the kitchenette, looking for a broom and dustpan. A case of Foster’s still sat in the bottom of the pantry. DK would joke that they could leave it for the new owners. Certainly neither of them could stand the stuff. John learned to drink the strong Australian brew while he was Down Under testing the module in the Outback. He told tall tales of the amount of beer Cobb had been able to drink without showing any ill effects. Jack pulled the case out and put it on the counter to go out with the rest of the trash; after five years, it would be unpalatably stale.
Looking up, Jack caught a metallic glimmer out of the corner of his eye. He stood up on his toes and reached back into the top shelf. Lying on its side, he pulled out a magnum of Dom Perignon. The bottle was heavy in his hands as he cradled it to look at the label. John must have bought it in anticipation of the success of the experiment. He was given to spending too much money on fine champagne in order to celebrate the milestones of his life. The little party he’d thrown when the Farscape project was approved left the four of them, John, DK, Jack and Alex, nearly comatose with hangovers the next day. Jack hadn’t touched the stuff since.
John would have kept it in the fridge, chilled and waiting for him when he got home. DK had come through sometime after the accident and cleaned out the perishables. He stored the bottle since the refrigerator had been unplugged as part of the initial clean-up effort. Jack had been walking an emotional tightwire for weeks when he gave DK the keys; he simply didn’t have the ability to cope with the flood of emotions and memories at that point. He tucked the bottle into the box of photographs.
He found the broom eventually, hanging behind the bathroom door. There was no dustpan so he made do with a piece of cardboard and got the worst of the glass up off the floor. He made a quick trip out to the dumpster in the back of the building with the little bit of trash he’d come across.
At last, he stood on the floor of the loft surrounded by the empty space John loved so much. His mother had loathed the barren, industrial quality but Jack understood that the loft had given him an illusion of the void between stars, a void that had called to his son from an early age, a call that John had heeded, a call to his true destiny. Jack picked up the box of photos and walked across the room to the front door. He turned to look at the place his son last called home, waiting for the movers to come and take away the last vestiges of his occupancy. Then he shut off the lights and closed the door on his way out.
In the parking lot, Jack shifted the box to get at his keys and remembered the photograph in his pocket when it crackled beneath one of the box edges. He put the box on the hood of the car and pulled the photo out. He looked again at the blond boy shining with the promise of the man he was to become, smiling up at his father across time and space. Then Jack turned his face to the night sky. The lights of the city drowned out all but the brightest stars. Jack still felt the hope in his heart that John was still alive out there, somewhere, somehow. But now it was tempered with the knowledge that wherever John was, dead or alive, his father would not see his son again in this lifetime. And that was closure enough for Jack Crichton.
He tucked the picture in beneath the bottle of champagne that he planned to share with DK on John’s next birthday. Then he settled the box carefully in the passenger’s seat and drove away.
Please take a moment to rate the story you just read