Coming Back to Life

So that was how it was, was it? Crichton could still feel the curling tendrils of terror that had seized him as he’d watched Moya Starburst away from the Farscape I, leaving him staring into an endless void of stars. The disbelief and fury still gnawed at him, even though so much time had passed. After all they’d been through together he had never expected them to turn on him like that.

He’d been so damned tired of the constant sideways comments, the outright insults, the put-downs that they’d all tossed around so casually—as though he was the village idiot, or some brainless slug. No matter what he did, what he learned, or how he hauled ass to save theirs, nothing seemed to matter. The non-stop condescension and bickering had finally worn thin, and he’d lost it. He knew he’d lost it, and quite thoroughly, but he’d never expected—! Gee, a guy was entitled to a meltdown, right? That was no reason to abandon him in the middle of nowhere, right?

Ye gods, they’d pissed him off though! And now he was free of the endless bickering, the arguments, the beatings, the constant need to be on guard for the next blow that might come from anywhere, even from those he thought he could trust. In time he might weary of the simple life he’d found on this green planet, but for now, there was a certain pleasure in solitude. It was amazing to think it might actually be possible to find peace in this god-forsaken expanse of space they called The Uncharted Territories.

*****

Crichton was gone. Left far behind, who knows where, in as desperate a situation as anyone could imagine. Aeryn couldn’t quite quell the unexpected flare of panic as the realization had set in.

He was gone, and in the absence he’d left behind there was an emptiness that Aeryn found disturbing. Conflicting emotions warred within her for supremacy—after all, he was the reason for her current state of exile, her homelessness, her unhappiness. If not for him, she wouldn’t be here. But now, after all this time, she wasn’t sure how she felt about that anymore.

Now she battled conflicting emotions. Being separated from her comrades and the life she had known had left her in the company of Crichton. He looked Sebacean, and despite his often strange behavior, she sometimes forgot that he was only human.

She had begun her new life at Crichton’s behest, and he had accompanied her every step of the way during the time since she’d chosen life over death. Once she had told him that she’d never been alone, but now she was beginning to realize that without Crichton’s presence, she truly was alone.

She was startled to discover the unpleasant sensation that his absence left behind, curling into her belly when she should have been sleeping. As much as she hated to admit it, she…missed…him.

The solitude settled into her more deeply as the days passed. They were on a reverse trajectory of Moya’s unexpected Starburst, and already they had been greeted with failure enough times to grow discouraged. But Aeryn knew that they couldn’t give up on him. She sensed that the others felt the same, even Rygel, although she realized that the more time passed, the smaller the chances of finding their lost crewmate, and the less likely the others would be to continue the search. That was a thought she couldn’t face.

Their last conversation before he’d taken off in Farscape 1 still echoed:

"I’m going for a drive, I’m hitting the strip, I’m going cruising!

"Oh, God, that is it! You are so damn smart! There is no time for any stupid human anything! And I’m sick of it, Aeryn, I’m sick of Napoleon the fourteenth, I’m sick of blue, I’m sick of tentacle-boy, and guess what? I’m sick of you. I’m sick of this whole turd-burp end of the universe…"

At first she’d been bemused by his tirade; normally D’Argo or Rygel were the only ones who stormed around like undisciplined children. She’d gotten so used to Crichton absorbing everything with his typical good nature, that she didn’t think him capable of losing his temper in such spectacular fashion. Later, as his words had become increasingly more hostile, she had been taken aback. It was decidedly disconcerting to discover that he was "sick" of his crewmates—that he felt they had made him ill such that he needed to physically leave the giant Leviathan—because he wanted to "hit the strip?" She didn’t quite understand what had happened, but his claim to illness certainly made sense after witnessing his erratic, unfamiliar behavior.

Or, as D’Argo believed, each of them was actively responsible for causing Crichton’s behavior—that he’d been angry with them for how they treated him. Aeryn wasn’t ready to accept that. Crichton made his own choices—none of them pushed him out the airlock. But if it was true…if they bore the responsibility for causing his apparent unhappiness…she didn’t want to face that.

But then, as his absence dragged on, her mind flew back over the time that had passed since it had all begun...

So there it was—four small words that had changed her life. Four words that haunted her whenever she had the time to think about it, and she made sure she didn’t think about it most of the time. Her life hadn’t changed that much (or at least that was what she tried to tell herself)—survival was still the key issue, as it had always been. The only difference was that now she had choices—there was no one to tell her where to fight and when to die. She simply did the best she could to get through each day.

It was a strange, bewildering existence. I’m new to all this escaped-prisoner crap! All the skills she’d spent a lifetime honing were now being subverted against her own kind and in protection of fugitives! In protection of herself… No matter how hard she tried to hold on to her identity, she was forced to admit that she no longer had one. So what was she?

Peacekeeper? Not anymore...she was a disgrace to everyone who had ever known her and a cause for their punishment. She had shamed herself and her race through her actions, so…she had no right to call herself a Peacekeeper. But she was a soldier—it was all she really knew how to do, and she was very good. It was all she had left to her now, and she clung to it with a ferocity that she never knew she possessed.

But every day she was forced to learn something new, to do something new and unfamiliar. She no longer had the luxury of a fully-staffed command carrier with personnel to carry out each and every task. There was only the six of them, and Moya, who needed extra care during her pregnancy. Aeryn could no longer hold herself aloof from tasks outside her field of expertise or manual labor…they all had to pitch in.

Crichton’s presence, as exasperating as it often was, had somehow made it all easier to adjust. He had encouraged her, she realized now. In his way, he had given her the reinforcement she hadn’t known she’d needed to learn how to take it all in. She realized it now, in his absence, how much he had done—how much she’d needed to hear those things. For all that he had seemed such a savage at first, he had been there for her when she’d needed him—and not just when her life was in danger, but when she was frustrated and angry—when she’d lashed out at him, and he had borne it with grace—Aeryn was beginning to understand that quality, and appreciate it.

From the first, there had been that flicker between them of...empathy, of wordless communication...

"Yes, Officer Sun? You know something about this…alien?"

She spoke heedlessly. "Only that I have spent time with him, and I believe him when he says that what happened to your brother was an accident. I don’t believe that he is brave enough or intelligent enough to attack one of our Prowlers intentionally."

Crais continued as though he hadn’t heard, "because, as you know, Peacekeeper High Command has very clear parameters regarding contact with unclassified alien life forms. You may have very well exceeded those parameters, Officer Sun. That makes you irreversibly contaminated."

So her fate had been decided, or so she’d thought. Until Crichton had shown her the way out, and in one pivotal moment, their fortunes had been irreversibly joined. Crichton had seen to that, when he’d insisted that D’Argo take her with them when they had escaped. If not for him, she would be dead right now, or worse, sentenced to radiation-induced Living Death. Despite her duty and her breeding, she knew now with every fiber of her being that choosing life over certain death was the right choice. But the anguish of leaving everything behind—the life she knew and loved, the people who trusted her—all of that, for the life of a fugitive, would be with her for a long time.

She’d never imagined there was anything more for her than the hard life of a soldier. It was all she’d ever known and all she’d ever wanted. Experience had taught her differently. Crichton had taught her differently. He had shown her that there was a pride to be had in the learning of new skills. She’d been raised to believe in strength and power, but Crichton had taught her that there was honor in compassion.

"She’s not a traitor," she remembered Crichton say to the PK Tech, Gilina. "Not by a long shot. Crais never gave her a chance. Not like the one we’re giving you."

There was still a small sense of bitterness remaining when she recalled Gilina. She couldn’t forget the sight of stumbling upon the young Sebacean and Crichton wrapped in a tender embrace…the stab of jealousy had startled her. And then Crichton had come chasing after her for some stupid reason:

She swung the component down to the floor and turned to him angrily. "I’m sure you could see how heavy these things are. There’s least another ten in there. Do not come down this corridor without one." She swung it back up over her head and continued back down the narrow corridor.

"Me." She could see the stunned expression spread over his face. Oh, frell!

So there, she’d said it, and had instantly wished she could have taken it back. She couldn’t let Crichton know why she had spoken in his defense to Crais—that she had ever had any interest in the savage human. But now that he was gone, there was no denying it. She had come to depend on him, and indeed, she trusted him. He had taken a stand for her, risked his own safety for her, more than once, and she owed him her life. He had truly become her comrade, a kind of brother-in-arms—but her feelings were far from sisterly.

She remembered acutely the choking fear that had gripped her aboard their Flax-trapped transport pod, when he was dead and she couldn’t revive him. She couldn’t imagine going forward even one more day without Crichton there! He was the closest thing she had to a friend in this strange new life, and she knew during those awful moments as the microts ticked by, that she couldn’t lose him. Her relief had been overwhelming when he’d finally gasped back to life.

And then despair had once more descended with the realization that she had saved his life only so they would face certain death together, huddled in the freezing transport pod, with less than a half-arn of oxygen left. She tried very hard not to remember what had happened between them in the delirious microts that preceded D’Argo’s rescue. She’d never known she could feel that way, to be swept away so thoroughly that she’d forgotten about dying. But now those precious microts replayed in her mind; the memory of their inexplicable embrace haunted her, and…just thinking about it left her with an uncomfortable sense of weakness that was an affront to the soldier—to the Sebacean—in her.

She would not—could not—admit that it had been anything more than—as the human put it—the heat of the moment. An accident. Too much pure oxygen. A reaction to stress and the nearness of death. Admitting to anything more was far too dangerous. She—and the human?—her birth and training automatically recoiled at the very idea, but somehow, there was also a lightness in the memory of that brief experience that warmed her and fueled her need to find their lost ship-mate.

*****

The anger and resentment had not yet left Crichton; if anything they seemed to burn more deeply with every passing planetary rotation. But something new had begun to emerge from amid the quagmire of churning emotion that he was steeped in: Disappointment. Sadness. Regret.

Amidst the outrage that still consumed him, he was beginning to realize what he had lost—comrades, a way home. That had all vanished when Moya took off without him. But there was something that cut deeper. Aeryn.

He tried not to think about her, because somehow his heart still rebelled against the idea that Aeryn had left him behind. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe it—he had trusted her! And after all they had been through, all the times that they’d depended upon each other for their survival—all of that meant nothing? She could just walk away from that and leave him behind? He could understand how the others might have done that, but from the beginning, he and Aeryn had been in the same boat—they shared the same dilemma—how to fit into a strange new world filled with pitfalls and hostilities.

He thought that they’d developed a camaraderie that transcended the petty arguments and annoyances that typified day to day existence on Moya. He thought there had been an understanding between them, an empathy, something that had been growing between them for months...he tasted the bitterness of betrayal in the realization that she’d been just as eager to ditch him as the rest of them. That all that they’d been through together had meant absolutely nothing. And that realization hurt.

He would be better off without them, without the fights and the attacks both from within and without. He knew that now. It looked like this green planet was as close to Earth as he was going to get, so he might as well enjoy it. Forget about Moya, and D’Argo, Zhaan, Rygel and Pilot. Forget about Aeryn. Forget about what life might have been like among the stars. Forget about going home.

He’d been left behind and abandoned to die. Now, all he had left was himself. Maybe here, on Acquara, he would finally find what he’d been looking for since he shot out of that wormhole. A little peace.

The group dynamic was slowly returning. After his return to Moya, there was still some interpersonal weirdness that left them all somewhat awkward around one another. Crichton had made his apologies freely, in full appreciation of their efforts to find and recover him. He still couldn’t quite believe what they’d done for him—that he’d spent those months unable to rid himself of bitterness and anger—that he had misjudged them—all of them—and they had surprised him beyond belief.

Actually it was D’Argo and Rygel who had startled him the most. He hadn’t realized when he and D’Argo had drawn their truce, what a powerful comrade he had acquired in the gruff, outspoken Luxan. Pilot had informed him of the Luxan’s persistence in the search, and of how he had propelled it forward, even when it seemed doubtful that they would ever find him. Crichton found himself undeniably touched by D’Argo’s loyalty. It’s a good thing we’re on the same side, he reflected ruefully. He knew now that D’Argo’s threat to kill Crais was no empty one—the same person who could relentlessly pursue a lost comrade would surely not back down from a hated adversary.

And Rygel! Their experiences on Acquara had left Crichton with a fledgling sense of admiration for the small creature who he’d always believed was as unpleasant as they come. But Rygel had demonstrated a nobility of spirit towards the Acquarans that still impressed Crichton. The human had been astounded to hear genuine conviction in Rygel’s assertions of the terrible injustices committed against the Acquaran people. Crichton wondered how much of Rygel’s more unpleasant personality traits were a product of being imprisoned for so many cycles. The Hynerian royal had spent longer in prison than two average human life spans! That would make anyone a little cranky. Rygel had positively glowed beneath the Acquarans lavish attention. Shockingly he had demonstrated a generosity that neither Crichton nor D’Argo had imagined the little guy possessed. Of course he had soaked up the Acquarans’ attention with gusto, but amazingly it seemed to bring out the charm in him, rather than accentuate his otherwise pompous nature. Suddenly his claim to be ruler of more than six hundred billion subjects seemed a bit more plausible.

And then there was Zhaan. Pilot had discreetly informed him that hers had been the lone voice of dissension once the search had dragged on without success. Somehow that didn’t bother him as much as he thought it might—not in comparison to what he’d been thinking during the months he believed that he’d been abandoned.

The balance that hung between them was once more tipped in Zhaan’s favor.

At first Crichton had been perhaps far more trusting of the Delvian priest than he should have been. When they had initially met, he had immediately recognized steel under all the serenity, but more often than not Zhaan had contributed a clear head and rational thinking to the group dynamic. She was the one person Crichton believed he could depend on to strive for compromise.

Which was why he had been so horribly shocked at the events that had transpired surrounding their ill-fated ‘deal’ with Namtar. He supposed that he should have seen it coming, judging by her post-Maldis reaction, but he could not have predicted the depravity of her actions when she joined with D’Argo and Rygel to hack off Pilot’s arm in exchange for maps to their homeworlds.

He was torn between so many conflicting feelings when it came to Zhaan—she had been the first to treat him with any kind of fairness. She had violated her own ethics and raised her own demons to save his life when he was in Maldis’ thrall. He owed her a debt of gratitude for that, no matter that her actions were not for his sake alone, but in protection of them all…but then she had to go and help wrest Pilot’s arm away. It’s only one of his arms, and hell—he’s got four! Even though Pilot claimed he could live with it, John found it difficult to forgive her for participating in such selfish cruelty.

But then when Zhaan had needed help on the New Moon of Delvia, it was Crichton she had turned to. Why? Amazingly she claimed she trusted him! She had shared her true crime with him and depended on his faith in her to help her make a crucial decision—she needed him to be her moral compass when her own failed. After Tahleen had ripped away Zhaan’s ability to control the madness, he had repaid his debt to her by joining with her in Unity and saving her from insanity.

But then when he’d been inadvertently left behind, she came back to look for him...so he owed her again.

So that left Aeryn. Unfortunately the one person he’d missed the most all those months on Acquara was now the one person he saw the least. His return to Moya had resulted in rampant awkwardness between them. He had apologized to her separately from the others and tried to let her know that he hadn’t meant what he’d said before he’d blasted off Moya.

Needless to say, things hadn’t improved much since then. They talked...barely. It was like the beginning all over again. Only this time, instead of being wary strangers, there was something different between them—they had to get to know each other all over again, but with all the baggage of their shared and individual experiences complicating the process…

Aeryn had simply withdrawn from him; all the camaraderie that they’d spent months building between them had been dealt a deadly blow by his long absence. They all had to get used to each other again. It was both frustrating and saddening, but Crichton understood that it was unhappy reality. None of them could simply go back to the way they had been overnight—it would take time. He just wished he could have his friend back. He wished he didn’t feel like he had irrevocably hurt her—that he could take it all—the unkind words, the months of absence—all of it, back.

*****

Crichton stood at the viewport, with one arm wrapped across his chest, looking out at the green planet below. Absently he rubbed his chin, while his eyes grew distant. The human was beginning to realize how much his shipmates had sacrificed for him in their months-long search. Their haste to recover him meant that they’d neglected many necessities, like obtaining long-term fresh food supplies. In fact, they’d been rationing what they had left in food cubes by the time they’d reached Acquara. Kato-Re, the Grondeer of the Hynerian-descended community had been generous, but what his people had given them would soon be gone. This small emerald sphere was a desperately needed supply stop.

"Crichton?" The transparent aqua and lavender image of a huge crustacean-like, multi-limbed creature appeared in the viewer.

"Yo, Pilot!" John answered as he swung away from the viewport and toward the holographic image.

"The transport pod is ready for departure. Aeryn Sun awaits you in the main cargo bay."

"Thanks, Pilot. Tell her I’ll be right there." He leaned over the console, bowing his head for a moment to gather himself, to prepare himself for the next several awkward arns with the Sebacean female. He turned to leave, and then pulled up short.

"Uh, Pilot?

"Yes, Crichton?"

"How is Moya today?" He was genuinely concerned, but there was also a small curl of paranoia, that what had happened before might happen again. This would be his first time leaving the ship since they’d left Acquara.

"Moya is doing very well today," Pilot answered crisply.

"And her baby?"

"Her fetus is also well. Do not worry, Crichton. We will be here when you and Officer Sun return."

Crichton shook his head ruefully; Pilot read him like a book! "Thanks, Pilot. See ya when we get back."

*****