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Crais and Talyn had been gone for a couple of weekens now to find a real Pilot—like Moya’s—for Talyn who was wise and able to teach Talyn what he needed to know to survive using more than his weapons. Crais had said he planned to stay aboard Talyn in a less conspicuous capacity. More as a military advisor rather than the sole being Talyn interacted with on a regular basis. Before he left, he expressed his wish to Aeryn and John that they all meet up again soon.
At the moment though, Moya orbited the Royal Planet waiting patiently for her passengers to return. John had stayed aboard her for obvious reasons, but distance didn’t diminish his feelings of sorrow for what was going on down there. Aeryn had received permission to secretly bury the body of John Crichton on the Royal Palace grounds. D’Argo, Chiana, Jool, and Rygel had accompanied Aeryn in spite of her protests to the contrary. They reminded her that John—any John—was their friend, too, and it would seem odd if none of them were there to pay their respects. Mainly they just wanted to be there for her. In the end, she couldn’t deny them.
John no longer felt any lingering animosity toward his other self. Not for loving Aeryn, not for having the wormhole knowledge figured out, not for having exorcised Harvey. He would have that jackpot someday too. And more. It just took…time.
A couple of arns later, Aeryn and the rest of the crew returned. John waited at the docking bay for them to debark from the transport pod. Nothing but somber faces emerged, but he was greeted in turn by a pat on the shoulder, a bear hug and a quick kiss, a gentle squeeze of the hand, and a regal nod. Aeryn was the last one out and for the first time John noticed a couple of lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there before, but he also saw a peacefulness about her that had been missing since she returned from Talyn after his twin’s death.
“Hello, John,” she said and stopped in front of him.
He looked in her eyes, brushed back a stray hair from her face and took her hand. They walked along the corridor in silence toward the common room where John had a meal waiting for them. Just outside the door, Aeryn stopped and bent down fiddling with her boot. She pulled something out, stood up and pressed it into John’s hand.
“I saved this for you.”
It was Scorpius’ data chip with the wormhole knowledge.
“I thought it would be…useful to you.”
He leaned in and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Thank you, Aeryn.”
John looked at it for a moment. He turned it over in his hands—it was all there. The ins and outs of wormholes. And it was as useless to him as it was to Scorpius. He had the secret message but not the decoder ring. The Ancients’ warning echoed in the back of his mind as he contemplated everything the chip offered: “If you're not smart enough to discover it for yourself...you're not smart enough to use it wisely.”
He already knew too much about the evils of wormholes thanks to his twin, Furlow, and Scorpius, and his presence alone put everyone on board Moya at risk every day for what he *may* know. The data chip was just one more thing to fight over and possibly lose to some other God-like alien. He wouldn’t sacrifice another friend for it. There wasn’t much he could do about what was in his head, but he could do something about that chip.
John bent down and put the data chip on the floor. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, John raised his foot and let it slam down on the chip, shattering it into several pieces. He sighed and stared at the scattered shards. Pushing the pieces aside with his foot, he said quietly, “It’s for the best.”
Aeryn looked at him stunned. “What?! Are you completely fahrbot? Wait…no…let me answer that…you *are*. I hand you everything you’ve been searching for and you destroy it?! Why?”
“It’s not destroyed, Aeryn.” John pointed to his head. “It’s all up here. I’ll figure it out on my own and in my own time. Right now there are more important…destinies…to persue.”
Aeryn wanted to believe him more than anything. She had to be sure. “I thought your destiny was to return home. To Earth.”
John became very serious. He bent down slightly to meet Aeryn’s shifting gaze. He locked on and held her with one look. “Baby, I *am* home.”
John put his arm around Aeryn’s shoulders and they walked into the common room together.
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Scorpius had been floating through space in the dead Prowler for what seemed like weekens. The wormhole had disappeared shortly after he exited it, leaving him no means to return. He fell in and out of conciousness as he tried to control the coolant rods in his head. When he could think coherently, he knew he would survive this. An opportunity would present itself soon enough. He could see a bright planet off in the distance and tried to calculate how long it would take for him to get there if he could just get the Prowler back on line.
“Give it up, Scorpy. You don’t know where you are, and you don’t look so good.”
“Silence, Crichton.”
“No, really, I think you need help. I’ll call 9-1-1.”
Scorpius could feel the heat rising in the Prowler. In the confines of his suit he was unable to tell if his body was breaking down like all the other test pilots. He did know that he was already tired of Crichton filling his head, breaking his concentration. Maybe death *would* be preferrable. Just as he was contemplating a means to silence the neuroclone forever, the Prowler lurched forward violently as something crashed into it from behind. Scorpius’ head slammed into the console and he blacked out again, but not before John Crichton’s voice echoed in his brain one more time. “Th..thh…That’s all, folks.”
