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She'd tried, he had to give her that.
It had taken time, just as his doppelganger had advised. Working side-by-side in the weeks they had taken to plan and execute the infiltration and sabotage of Scorpy's wormhole research base, Aeryn had gradually started talking to him again.
She'd come to him one night, during the final days before the execution of their plans. Perhaps it had been guilt, or maybe hope -- she had loved him before there were two of him, she'd explained, and she knew he was essentially the same man she had loved and lost. Perhaps they could find happiness together; she was willing to try.
He'd been deliriously happy at first, and for a while the experiment in a new/old relationship had worked. But gradually John became aware that the sight of him still brought more sadness to Aeryn's eyes than joy. Maybe, he finally realized, she had convinced herself that it was her duty to try to love him, something she owed to the memory of a dead man who'd worn his face.
Now he lay in a hospital bed on some nameless planet, recovering from the injuries he'd sustained in taking down Scorpius. The wounds had been severe, but Crais found another Diagnosan who had pulled him through.
The doctor had left the room just moments ago, having informed her patient of the results of one of the many tests she'd run. Scorpius was dead, finally, his wormhole research destroyed, but now it seemed that, at least in one respect, Scorpy was going to win. John's brain was slowly breaking down, succumbing at last to the damage inflicted by the aurora chair, the neural chip, the surgery, and all the other insults his mind had suffered over the last three cycles.
Soon, within monens according to the Diagnosan, the effects would start to show -- speech and memory functions would start to degrade, followed by motor skills and cognitive function. Within a couple of cycles, he'd be nothing but a vegetable.
John knew he ought to be angry, or frightened, or at least saddened by the news, but instead it was almost a relief. It made the decision he'd been toying with that much easier.
He loved Aeryn. More than life, more than Earth, more than anything. Enough, he'd realized in the heat of battle, to give her up in order to spare her further pain. And now, with the doctor's harrowing diagnosis to spur him, he knew what he had to do. She'd watched him die a slow and painful death once already; he could not make her face that again.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Aeryn walked into Talyn's command, searching for Crichton. He'd been strangely quiet since they'd left the Diagnosan's planet, and now was nowhere to be found. When she asked Crais, he handed her a vid chip, not saying a word, and left the room. Puzzled, she plugged the chip into a reader.
"Aeryn," said John's image on the screen, "I'm not quite sure how to do this. In all the time we've known each other, all the times we've parted, we've never said goodbye to each other. And yet, at the same time, we've both had to say goodbye at least once, in the worst possible situations. We've each watched the other die, each attended the other's funeral, and yet somehow we're both still alive, through the strangest of circumstances.
"We've done our best, Aeryn, but some things just weren't meant to be overcome. I look into your eyes now and all I see is his face -- your John -- reflecting back at me. I'm not him, no matter how many genes and memories he and I might share, no matter how much you and I tried to pretend I was. My presence, the constant reminder, is only prolonging your suffering.
"I love you, Aeryn. And love, I was taught, means that you value your loved one's happiness even over your own.
"So I'm saying goodbye. The Diagnosan was able to unlock the wormhole information in my brain, so by the time you hear this message I should be safely back home on Earth. Tell everyone back on Moya that I'll miss them, but tell them I finally made it home.
"And as for you -- mourn for John Crichton, the man you loved, the man who died a hero. In time, the pain will fade. Cherish the memory of love, and learn to love again. Find someone else you can love, someone whose every word and gesture doesn't remind you of him. And someday, maybe, you can go to the Royal Planet and tell his daughter about him. He'd like that, I think."
Aeryn sank to the ground as the message ended, staring at Crichton's sad smile frozen on the screen. She couldn't decide what to feel.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
John Crichton sat alone in the Farscape module, gazing down at the world he'd chosen. It was blue and green, with white splotches of cloud and ice. If he blurred his eyes slightly, he could imagine he was home, orbiting Earth.
He chose a spot at random and landed, near the shore of a mountain lake. As he had on Aquara over two years before, he built a small shelter and went about the motions of survival in the wilderness. This time, however, there was no nearby village of helpful natives to aid him. He was alone here, just as he wanted.
He'd died three years ago, at least in the eyes of everyone he'd ever known and loved. His father and sisters would have mourned him for a time and then moved on with their lives, but he hated to think of the pain he'd caused them to endure. He'd died again three months ago, in the arms of Aeryn Sun, and she was still being wracked by that loss. This time he'd gotten to see the pain first-hand, in her eyes and in the eyes of all of his friends.
Never again. Thanks to the story he'd concocted and left in his message to Aeryn, all of his friends would believe he'd made it home. They'd miss him, but they'd be happy for him.
It might be tomorrow, it might take months, but eventually the combination of his growing mental debility and the harsh living conditions here would take their toll. Here, at last, he intended to let death find him one last time, and this time he'd leave no one behind to mourn.
