Chapter Text
Tradeoff
By Kelly Hill
"Pilot, you're sure about those readings?"
"As sure as I can be. This phenomenon has never been very well documented. But according to everything available in Moya's data banks, yes, it is accurate."
John scanned the data one more time, as if trying to convince himself he really was reading it correctly. A wormhole - a stable wormhole. And right here in front of them. He could feel the grin starting, despite the 'rattlers' in his stomach. Now to find out where it went ...... He murmured something under his breath that Pilot barely caught and couldn't make any sense of, and laughed.
"Thanks, Pilot. Log and save this, and make sure the coordinates are recorded. I'll be back soon." John exited at a near-run, and his whoop of delight echoed in the corridor. Pilot just shook his head over the vagaries of humankind, or at least this representative of it, and did as requested.
A few minutes later, Aeryn's voice came over the intercom. "Pilot, have you seen Crichton?"
"Yes, he was just here, but he left. He said something about jumping down a rabbit hole .... "
In the Farscape, John hovered at the mouth of the wormhole, trying to steady his breathing. Calm down, man, your fillings are starting to shake loose. Just take it easy .... oh, frell that! Let's ROCK! He pushed the engines to maximum and slammed into the vortex.
And entered, for what seemed an eternity, a nightmare realm, hell on a bad acid trip. Swirling around him, disorienting, frightening, seeming to pull him in all directions. Demons shrilled at him, reached inside him, and he bit back a scream....
.... as he came out the other side, into quiet, star-spattered space, black and silver and so calm. That calm seeped in and enveloped him, and he drank in the vast expanse before him.
Then he saw it, distant but clear, blue and green covered by wisps of clouds. He flew in closer for a better look. It wasn't his imagination. His sight blurred suddenly, and he realized he was crying. He was unwilling to blink the tears back , for fear that the vision in front of him would disappear, become a mirage. But it stayed, serene and beckoning. He gave awe-filled, tentative voice to the myriad emotions inside him, and they coalesced into one word:
"Home......"
"And of what interest is this wormhole to us? It's your home on the other side, not ours." Rygel, as usual, was bored with any discussion that didn't center around him.
"Rygel, behave yourself," Zhaan admonished, fixing him with a stern glare. The Hynerian subsided, and Zhaan continued, "What is it that you need from us, John?"
"I'm asking you all to buy me some time -- a few arns -- for a visit home, to tell my family that I'm alive."
There was a murmur of disbelief from his shipmates. Aeryn felt her mouth drop open and closed it with a snap, then asked, "A visit? You have a chance to go home - to stay - and you're not taking it?"
"I very nearly did - man, you'll never know just how close I came to waving this place goodbye in my rearview! But I couldn't - for three reasons.
"First, there's Crais. I'm at least part of the reason he's still after the rest of you - he might have given up the chase if he didn't want my head so bad. As long as he's out there, whether I'm with you or not, you won't ever be safe. He's just crazy enough right now to take you out for spite. I
helped get him on your ass, it's my job to help get him off. Someone told me once - you don't desert an ally in battle." John met D'Argo's eyes, and watched surprise, then a slight smile form on the big Luxan's face.
"Second," he continued, "you've all been looking for home for a lot longer than I have. Maybe the reason I got slingshotted here was to help you find your way there. " He grinned ruefully. "I'd sure like to think it was more than Someone's idea of a big cosmic joke.... The wormhole is there, Moya has the coordinates, and Earth isn't going anywhere. At least, I hope it's not. Humans being what they are, I'm not sure they won't blow themselves to hell before I get back again. But I'll chance it.
"And third, and maybe most important - I have a tab to settle up. Zhaan, I owe you my life, literally. You saved me from Maldis. It cost you your priesthood, and almost cost you your sanity. I've made a downpayment on that debt, but I still have a way to go." Zhaan looked away, and John thought he saw a glimmer of tears in the Delvian's eyes. "D'Argo, you've always backed me up when I needed you, even when you thought I was acting like a - what did you call me? - a higher brain function deficient lifeform." D'Argo shook his head. "Rygel, you've negotiated us out of some
really sticky situations - and into a few of them, too." The Hynerian snorted, but looked pleased - at least John thought he did; it was a bit hard to tell with him. "Aeryn, you went against everything you were ever taught and stood up for me with Crais. That took more courage than I thought could be possible." Aeryn looked away, pride and sadness warring on her face. "Pilot, Moya, without you I'd be a space popsicle somewhere, if not dissected on a table in Crais' lab. I owe all of you, big time. And I pay what I owe.
"What I'm asking for is a lot, under the circumstances. We're out here, no cover, and pretty much defenseless. If you can give me eight arns, that will be enough. And everyone has to agree to it. Zhaan?"
The priestess didn't hesitate. "Of course, John."
"Thank you. D'Argo?"
"You are asking us to take a big chance," the Luxan said, frowning.
"I know, but think of this: If you had a chance to find your son, and tell him you were alive, and that you loved him, what would you be willing to ask?"
D'Argo was silent for a long moment, then he nodded. "Agreed. But eight arns, no more."
"Good enough. Aeryn?"
"Well, it's a foolish risk, but since we're so close, I suppose it's all right," she said, trying to act disinterested and failing utterly.
John grinned, then turned to Rygel. "What about you, your Eminence?"
Rygel opened his mouth to veto the whole idea, then felt the weight of three other gazes on him. "Oh, all right," he blustered after a moment. "If you have to, I don't suppose we can stop you. But if we get retaken by the Peacekeepers while you're gone, I hope you can sleep nights!"
"Very gracious. Pilot, Moya, you're in on this, too, maybe even more than the rest of us. If you say no, I stay put. How about it?"
"Crichton, Moya says she has misgivings, but since she is beginning a family of her own, she believes she knows how you feel. She says yes."
John released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Thank you, all of you. I'll make it as fast as I can. Now, Aeryn, from you I need a really big favor."
"What?" she asked, immediately suspicious.
John couldn't suppress a grin. "I've got a hot date - can I borrow the Mustang?"
"Now, are you sure you can handle this?" Aeryn demanded, a worry frown growing deeper by the second between her blue eyes. "Because if you bring it back damaged in any way .... "
"I know, I know, you'll rip off my arms and beat me to death with 'em. Relax, you're a good teacher, and I'm a good student. I'll take good care of it, and hopefully it'll take good care of me."
"You were lucky the last time, you know. You could get halfway in and that thing could collapse on you."
"Well, look at it this way," John said, settling himself in the cockpit, "if that happens, you'll have me out of your hair permanently."
"Yes, but you'll be taking my ship with you!"
"Consider it a trade-off." Since time as John knew it didn't really exist out here, wearing a wristwatch had become more a matter of habit than anything else, but he felt semi-naked without it. He set the alarm function for seven hours. "Cinderella will be back home before the coach becomes a pumpkin again, promise. See you in a few."
Aeryn laid a surprisingly gently hand on his arm. "Just .... be careful, all right?"
John looked into her eyes, saw the concern, and knew it wasn't all for the prowler. She's come so far, he thought, it's really gonna be something to see how much farther she goes. "I'll do my best. You take care of things on this end, and I'll be back soon." He got his helmet in place, slid the canopy forward and watched Aeryn as she climbed down and left the landing bay. Please God, let me come back to see it.....
As he neared Earth, John activated the cloaking function on the prowler, This had been the main reason he had wanted to borrow Aeryn's ship in the first place - to be able to slip in and out unseen by Earth radar seemed like a really good idea. The last thing he needed was a couple of nukes aimed in his direction.
As far as where to land the craft, he knew of a patch of woods not too far from his old home, perhaps a half mile up the road. There was a clearing in the middle of it, and he and D.K. had spent many a summer night camped out in it, gazing up at the stars and making plans to visit them.
John smiled at the memory. D.K., brother in all but blood - the smartest move John had ever made in his life was pulling Jimmy Sorenson off him in a schoolyard fight back when they were both eight. Jimmy was twice D.K.'s size, but the smaller boy had been putting up a really good fight. It wasn't quite good enough, and he was getting the crap kicked out of him when John added his muscle to the fray. Jimmy was sent home with a bloody nose and the beginnings of a black eye, and John took D.K. home with him. They had missed the bus, so they walked and got to know each other. Along the way, John discovered that his new friend had no family to speak of - he had just moved into town, his mother wasn't very well, and his father had 'some problems'. The 'problems' turned out to be alcoholism and a tendency to use fists instead of words to make a point.
Nora Crichton fussed over her son's friend like a mother hen over a chick, got him cleaned and patched up, and got him a shirt and pants that John had outgrown to replace the ones that had been torn in the fight. They fit nearly perfectly. She called his mother and told her gently but firmly that D.K. would be staying to supper and spending the night. From that day on, he was an unofficial member of the Crichton clan, and John couldn't have been happier.
The clearing was isolated - the nearest house was the Crichton place, and the closest from there nearly a mile up the road in the other direction. John landed the prowler smoothly, shut down the engines, deactivated the cloaking, and climbed out. He shed the flight suit, put it in the back of
the prowler, and headed up the road, reveling in the late afternoon sun and familiar sounds of birds.
He saw the house from the road, a bit more in need of a new paint job than the last time he'd seen it, but still the most beautiful sight he could imagine. There was Dad's truck - he refused to trade it in and get a newer model. He always said it was because the trade-in value wasn't squat, but John knew how much he loved that old Ford, babying it through every mechanical illness and fit of pique. It gleamed bright blue in the driveway, polished to a gloss, not a speck of rust on it anywhere.
John remembered when Mom had teased Dad about loving the truck more than her, saying she was going to file for divorce and name the truck as co-respondent. His reply - that at least the truck wouldn't ask for alimony if he got rid of it - nearly got him a frying pan upside the head. Then Mom saw the grin in Dad's eyes and started to laugh. It was the first time John had seen his parents kiss, and he knew, even as young as he was, that this was the way it was supposed to be between two people in love. It was a lesson he never forgot.
He mounted the steps to the front porch, tested the doorknob, and found to his surprise that the door was unlocked. Dad was a stickler for that - even when someone was home, the front door remained locked. No one could walk in unannounced. Mom and John had been alone a good bit, and he worried for their safety. An alarm bell rang at the back of his mind, and he tried to ignore it, thinking it was an overactive imagination.
He walked into the entryway, and saw the living room blinds were drawn - another bad sign. Blinds were never drawn until it truly began to get dark out - that was his mother's rule, one that Dad always enforced. The last time he remembered the blinds drawn during the day was for a brief time, after his mother died. Dad had been doing his best to cope with the loss of the only woman he'd ever loved, but sometimes the outside world was just too much to deal with, so he simply shut it out for a few hours. The darkness lifted after a while, and life went on, and the blinds went up and stayed up.
Now they were drawn tightly against the invasion of the sun. John, worry plain on his face now, walked into the living room. The TV was on, but the volume was low, making little more than a quiet hum in the background. He walked around to the front of the sofa, and there was his father, stretched out on his back, hands folded over his stomach. John froze for a moment, watching him intently, praying without words that everything was all right. The steady breathing told him what he needed to know. But the alarm bells were really clanging now - John had never, in his life, seen his father asleep on the sofa. Jack Crichton had fought insomnia his entire life, and never napped during the day no matter how tired he was.
John's heart was in his throat as he knelt next to the sofa and watched his father. Jack Crichton had aged visibly since the last time his son had seen him - his hair was grayer, and there were new lines in his face. I haven't been gone that long .... have I? There was a newspaper on the floor and John glanced at the date. His mental calendar was accurate. He looked back at his father's sleeping face.
God, Dad, did I do this to you? Tears welled up unbidden and spilled down his face, wiped away with a trembling hand. I'm so sorry ....
Jack Crichton began to stir, and John fought the tears back. He did not want that to be his father's first sight of him. Several deep breaths, and he finally managed something that would pass for a smile on a good day. Under the circumstances it was the best he could hope for.
The face that Jack saw as he came up from slumber didn't particularly surprise him - he'd seen it often in his sleep, and sometimes shortly after waking, but after the first blink or two it always vanished. This time it didn't -- the short brown hair, the mutable blue-green eyes, the even features all stayed right where they were. And there was a voice laced with tears despite the smile: "Hi , Dad."
It took Jack a moment to find his own voice, and it came out in a barely audible whisper full of disbelief battling with hope. "J-John?" He tried again, and it came out stronger, the hope winning. "John?'
"Yeah, Dad, it's me."
The next thing John knew, he was enfolded in a bear hug, and he hung on for dear life, needing to make a memory that would last forever. He could feel his father's shoulders trembling , and suspected the older man was weeping silently, but he didn't want to pull away to see. He closed his eyes and let the love and joy wash over him.
After a long moment, Jack released his son, and John sat next to him on the sofa. Jack placed his hands on John's shoulders and looked at him searchingly, feeling the bone and solid muscle beneath his hands, and his brain still tried to deny the evidence of his other senses. "But... how
..." He shook his head and smiled. "Never mind, it doesn't matter right now. You really are here? I'm not dreaming again?"
The 'again' tore at John's heart, and he covered impending tears with a shaky grin. "If you are, it's one helluva dream, because I'm having it with you. As to how - well, that's a long story." I have to tell him sometime, might as well get it over with now. "And I haven't got a lot of time to tell it." At his father's puzzled look, John continued, "I'm not here to stay, Dad. I've only got a few hours."
"Why?"
"Well, that's part of the long story, and it's one I'd like D.K. to hear, too. Can you get him over here?"
"Actually, he might be on his way here now. He said something about stopping by this afternoon. I'll see if I can catch him at work. You know, you're being pretty mysterious, son."
"I know, Dad, and I don't mean to be. It's just that there's a lot to tell, and I know there's going to be a lot of questions, and if I don't have to go through it all twice, it'll save some time. And time is what I don't have a lot of right now. You'll understand when you hear the whole story. Bear with me on this, okay?"
"All right." Jack crossed the room to the phone, and John took a tour of the living room, fixing things in his mind so he would never forget them again. His memories of home were starting to get hazy, and he never wanted to lose them.
On the mantlepiece over the fireplace were a collection of assorted photos in frames. Some were older, some more recent. In one side of a book-style frame was a photo of John's mother Nora. On the other side was a photo from a few years ago of John, D.K. and Jack, taken by John's uncle shortly before the two younger men had started to work for IASA. He picked up the frame, running a gentle fingertip around the contours of his mother's face. So long ago .....
"She was beautiful, wasn't she?"
John looked over his shoulder to see his father looking at his wife's picture. "Yeah, she was," John agreed. He hesitated for a moment, then asked, "I always wanted to know - why didn't you ever remarry, Dad? I know you could have if you'd wanted to. Why didn't you want to?"
Jack was silent for a long moment, then said, "John, if you're lucky in this life, you find one person to really connect with. Sometimes you know right away, sometimes it sneaks up on you, but however it happens, you know it's forever. That person is the other half of you, and if you lose that person, you can never really be whole again. It makes life a little lonely sometimes, but I wouldn't change it. That's the way it was with your mother and me. From the minute we met, we knew we were two halves of the same whole. I thought for a while you found that with Alexandra, and I know how much it hurt you when she left, but maybe that just wasn't meant to be."
"Maybe not." John had put up a good front until he saw Alex off at the airport that last day, wishing her well and kissing her goodbye. Then several hours later Jack and D.K. had gone looking for him, hitting nearly every bar in town before finding him, drunker than he'd ever been and trying to pick a fight with a biker who had nearly six inches and fifty pounds on him. When Jack stepped between them, John took a swing at him. Jack took him out with one punch, D.K. apologized to the biker, and they took John home to sleep it off. John had the hangover from hell and a bruise on his jaw the next day, and didn't speak to either of them for nearly a week. But he finally got over his anger, and while he never forgot Alex, the pain receded and disappeared after a time. "Is it okay if I take these pictures with me?"
"Of course. I don't need a picture to remember her - or you." John slid the small frame into the inside pocket of his vest. "D.K.'s not at the office, I left him a message to call if he comes back. Like I said, though, he's probably on his way here...."
There was a sound of crunching gravel from outside, then the slam of a car door, and Jack grinned. "Speak of the devil, and look who shows up. Right on time, too."
A moment later, the door opened, and a familiar voice called, "Hey, Colonel, did you know you left the front door .... " The voice faded as John turned around to face his friend. D.K. stood stock still for a moment, color draining from his face in shock. He had no voice at all for a moment, then he finally breathed, "Holy God...."
"Not God, buddy, just me," John said softly, coming toward him.
"Oh, man .... " The bag DK was carrying hit the floor, and he nearly followed it . John leaped forward and got an arm around him just as his knees began to buckle. John and Jack maneuvered D.K. onto the sofa with John telling him, "Whoa, take it easy, man, don't pass out on me now!"
D.K. just stared at his friend as if he were seeing a ghost. But you could put your hand through a ghost - at least that was the way it always was in the movies. This 'ghost' felt pretty damn solid. It couldn't be, but it was, it had to be .... "John? You're.... but .... I thought .... how .... "
"C'mon, D.K.," John said, torn between laughter and tears, "you graduated top of your class at M.I.T. I know you can do better than that. Take a deep breath and calm down. I'm not going to disappear."
D.K. did as he was told, then tried again. "But the module - it disappeared - where'd it go? Where'd you go? And how did you get back here?"
"Well, like I told Dad, it's a long story, and since we're short on time, you're going to get the Reader's Digest condensed version." John sat in the chair next to the sofa, Jack settled in next to D.K., and the tale of the odyssey to 'somewhere else' began. John summarized as much as he could, but the telling still took more time than he would have liked. "So I borrowed the prowler, came back through the wormhole, and here I am. I'll fill you in on some details in a little bit, but I have a huge favor to ask first."
"Anything, you name it," Jack said.
"Could we get something to eat? I'm starving! You would not believe what passes for food out there. I've been dreaming of a pizza with everything on it for weeks now."
"You got it, bro! One garbage pizza, coming up!" D.K. could be counted on to know every fast food takeout franchise in the area, and have all the phone numbers catalogued in his head. "Found a new place last week that has killer pepperoni and the best sweet Italian sausage in the world. And the waitress - oh, yeah....." John and Jack exchanged amused looks behind D.K.'s back as he headed for the phone.
"I wonder what he'll think of the pizza if the waitress turns him down for a date," John said, grinning.
"You were wondering that, too? Well, I guess we'll find out just how good it is - or isn't. "
"Okay, it'll be here in about half an hour, " D.K. said, settling back in on the sofa. "So what was this about being short on time? You got a plane to catch or something?"
"Yeah, in a way, I do. I have to get back to Moya - that's the ship I've been on - in a couple hours. I hope I'll be able to come back soon, since I have a roadmap now, but right now, my staying is a really bad idea."
"You still haven't really said why, son. My God, you've been where no one from this world has ever gone. I can see why you'd want to go back, but why so soon?"
"First, you know the military mindset better than anyone. If IASA knows I'm here they'll pull me in, and I'll spend the next six months in debriefing. After that, I'll spend the rest of my life as a glorified lab rat. Not to mention what they'll do to the ship I came in. That at least has to go back before I can come home to stay. The longer I stay, the higher the chances are of them finding out.
"And," John paused a moment, trying to figure out a gentle way to say it, and not finding one, "I've got a maniac after me who wants me dead in the worst way - literally. As long as Captain Crais is out there, my shipmates are in danger."
"Why is this ... Crais after you?"
"I killed his brother. Our ships collided when I came out of the wormhole. It was an accident, and I did everything I could to prevent it, but Crais' brother is dead, and he won't or can't believe that I didn't mean to do it. He's truly crazy, Dad - I've tried to reason with him, and all that got me was getting the shit kicked out of me. So I have to find another way to stop him. And it's not something I'm looking forward to, believe me. I have to go back to stop him, then I can come home. You're the one who taught me about responsibility, Dad. I know you understand that."
Jack nodded, a soft smile on his face. "Yes, I do, and it looks like I taught you well."
"Well, I'm not happy about it, but I understand why you have to go back, " D.K. said. "I'm just glad you're back, even if it's just for a little while. Now I can stop .... " He fell silent, becoming suddenly fascinated by the pattern in the throw rug under the coffee table.
"D.K., stop what?" John coaxed gently after a moment. "Talk to me, buddy."
D.K. looked up at his friend, and the pain in his gaze broke John's heart. "You don't know how many times I went over the data from the flight, trying to see what I did wrong. I knew it had to be something I miscalculated, something I didn't factor in, something I did that...that .... " His voice dissolved into tears, and he buried his face in his hands.
John slid off the chair, knelt next to his friend, and held him tightly, waiting for the wave to recede. After a moment, the tears slowed, then stopped. John loosened his hold and slid his hands up to rest on D.K.'s shoulders. "D.K., look at me." It took a moment, but the smaller man finally looked up. "Listen to what I say now, and I mean really listen. Nothing, repeat, nothing, you could have done would have changed what happened. It was a freak accident, a one in a million shot, and there was no way in hell you could have factored anything in to allow for that. You did not do this to me. Do you understand?"
D.K. swallowed hard and nodded. "Yes."
"All right." John rose and returned to the chair. "And it's not all that bad out there, really - when I'm not getting shot at, or beat up, or having flame spit at me, or something else unpleasant. I wish you could see the view from the terrace. It's like walking in space without a suit to block the view. A flat, open deck, nothing but stars as far as you can see, closed in by a force field I can't even begin to understand. I've been to some amazing places - Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury and the rest of them don't know the half of it. It's like the guy said - it's not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine.
"Take Moya, for instance. I mean, a living ship - that's enough to blow you out of the water right there! And she's pregnant. There's going to be a little Moya ... well, not so little, I guess. That's incredible.
"And my shipmates are pretty amazing, too. I'm not gonna say I understand them most of the time - hell, they could say the same about me, I guess - but they're all good people who've been through a lot.
"Pilot's bonded to Moya, he doesn't really have any life apart from her, and it still turns my stomach when I think about his arm, but he just accepts what happened and keeps on keeping on. He's probably the most 'alien' one of the bunch, but he could give Job a run for his money in the patience department. And sometimes I even envy him a little, his link with Moya. I can see where that would be worth giving up a lot for.
"Rygel - I have to admit I don't much like the little weasel most of the time. I can see why his cousin dumped him off the throne. But if even half of what he says is true, no one deserves the hell he's been through in his life.
"D'Argo's family was destroyed by Peacekeepers - considering how much I look like them, I'm surprised he didn't just space me out the nearest airlock the minute he saw me. He's tough, and he's hotheaded, but he's also one of the most honorable men I think I've ever met. He's accepted me as an ally, if not a friend yet, and I'm proud of that. I wish you two could meet, Dad - I think you'd get along great.
"Zhaan I may never totally figure out - she's been around for over eight hundred years, and I have the feeling she's got more secrets than the CIA. I know a few of them, but it's like turning a sapphire in the light - every time you think you've seen all the facets, another one flashes at you. And the colors haven't always been pretty. I've seen what she can do, good and bad, and sometimes I'm not sure just which scares me worse.
"And Aeryn - she used to be one of Crais' officers, and now she's working with us. She's had her whole world, everything she knows, ripped out from under her, and she's dealing with it a whole lot better than I ever could. She was born and raised to be a soldier, and she's discovering how much more she can be. She's finding out she's smarter than she ever thought she was, and she can kick anyone's ass, including mine. That's a lethal combination in anybody's book." John grinned. "And I've gotta admit, she's not exactly hard on the eyes, either."
D.K. laughed. "Good thing you didn't bring her with you. I'd probably hit on her."
"Got news for you, buddy - you hit on her if she didn't want you do, she'd hit back - hard. You'd be spitting teeth for a week!"
Jack said, "I have to go upstairs for a minute. The pizza should be here soon. Why don't you boys go into the kitchen and I'll be right in."
"Okay, Dad."
D.K. and John went through the swinging door into the kitchen. D.K. got out plates and napkins, and John rummaged in the refrigerator for a moment, coming out with
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