Crichton wandered through the giant leviathan's corridors following where his feet led. He didn't have a destination in mind but felt an overwhelming compulsion to stay in motion.

Convincing Zhaan to let him leave the lab had not been easy. The woman gave new meaning to the expression 'argue until you're blue in the face'. Zhaan had explained the finer points of his toxic reaction in excruciating detail, trying to communicate the gravity of his situation to him, but in the end there was no good reason for her to keep him under lock and key in the lab. The Peacekeeper drug would wear off and he would start 'dreaming' again. Frankly, as far as he was concerned the verdict was still out on the nature of this reality, but his condition appeared stable enough. At least his physical condition.

Crichton stopped and sagged against a bulkhead, his body apparently not accustomed to exertion. The warmth of the wall against his back was momentarily disconcerting but strangely familiar. He straightened up and scanned the hall, realizing that he hadn't kept track of where he was going. Hell, he couldn't even guess which tier he was on. He could always call Pilot, but he wasn't ready to be found yet and asking directions would be an affront to his masculinity.

After a quick glance in each direction, Crichton picked a corridor and set off again, this time keeping a closer watch on his surroundings. The ship was enormous, but still limited. Eventually he would run into something—or someone—he recognized. In the very least he might find a level-riser that would get him to more familiar territory.

"Familiar territory," he scoffed. The thought struck him as immensely humorous. When he first came through the wormhole, the curving architecture that characterized nearly every surface on Moya had seemed so alien. Now he almost found the curve of her mottled tan walls soothing, even comfortable. When had Moya come to feel like… home? 'This isn't real,' he reminded himself. Or was it? Part of him wanted to believe Aeryn—a large part of him, actually—but he was getting sick of people redefining reality for him. First Earth, now Moya. His mind couldn't take the acrobatics.

"And how am I supposed to prove this isn't a dream?" he asked aloud, addressing the walls of the corridor. "Sure, I'm a scientist, but hell, reality is usually a given," he continued, raising his voice. He had already tried the old standby of pinching himself, but all he had to show for it was an ugly bruise. He'd even considered an idea he had once heard on television: read an unfamiliar tongue-twister aloud as fast as possible. It was an elegant solution—he would fail in a dream because he couldn't make up the words fast enough—except Moya was fresh out of English verse books containing tongue-twisters. Which left him what? His gut feeling? How could he trust his gut when all he felt was nausea? Seized by a sudden need to keep moving, he broke into a jog. Perhaps he could outrun his train of thought.

After what felt like an eternity of running, he found himself in front of the maintenance bay and skidded to a halt, panting. Hesitating briefly, he stepped around the thick wedge-shaped door, spotting his module behind Aeryn's Prowler. Even from a distance he could see sooty char marks from his last not-so-successful attempt at upgrading the Farscape's biomechanoid technology.

"Hey, girl. Did you miss me?" he asked, patting his module on the nose as he inspected the damage. The burns were mostly cosmetic, but he couldn't be sure how badly he had fried the hetch drive without a much closer look. Sighing, he rummaged a handful of rags from a nearby workbench and tossed them onto the bench next to his module. Grabbing the can of cleaning solution, he selected one of the rags and poured the cleaner over it. Scrubbing the char from the Farscape's hull would be appropriately numbing work, just what the doctor ordered. Anything that kept his mind from wandering to places he wasn't quite ready to face. He swept his gaze critically over the hull of his module and started scouring a particularly charred section beneath the cockpit.

"Why anyone would lavish such attention on a lost cause is beyond me."

Crichton turned to find Aeryn Sun standing behind him, her arms crossed. A faint smile lit up her face, taking the bite out of her words. He couldn't help smiling back despite his dark mood. His instinct was to tell her to get lost. Instead, he tossed her a rag, which she caught with her trademark lightning-fast reflexes.

"Help out or shut up," he muttered, trying to sound annoyed but failing.

She applied cleanser to the rag and began working on a section adjacent to where he was scrubbing. Her hands moved quickly and efficiently over the fuselage, the stains melting away in the wake of her elbow grease. She might tease him about his module, but she did understand his attachment to it and perhaps even respected it.

"I hear I have you to thank for saving my life," he said, breaking the comfortable silence. "Again," he added.

She bowed her head slightly, but continued to work. "For what good it will do. The printeka does nothing to reverse your condition."

"But it buys me time, Aeryn." It surprised him how modest the ex-Peacekeeper was about her non-military accomplishments. "It was good thinking." He stopped the movement of her hands with his, carefully removing the rag from her grip and taking her hands in his. He wanted to make sure he had her full attention. "Thank you," he said, meeting her eyes.

After a beat she replied, "You're welcome." She let her hands fall but did not move her gaze from his.

"Crichton, are you… all right?"

He regarded the Sebacean woman carefully. She held herself tensely, as if she was uncertain. "Zhaan says my condition is stable enough."

"I know. I talked to her. But you seem… preoccupied. Earlier, you were wandering around the ship…"

"Wait a minute, you were following me?" he interrupted, annoyed both that she had intruded on his private wandering and that he had not detected her presence. "I don't need a babysitter, Aeryn."

"I wasn't… babysitting, whatever that is," she replied, snatching the rag from his hand and scouring the hull with added vigor. "I was worried about you," she continued, her voice softer. "We all are."

"I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine."

"Are you?" she asked, pinning him again with her clear blue gaze. "Is that why you were running all over Moya? Because you're fine?"

"Look, I don't want to talk about it right now," he replied, returning his attention to a problematic char mark.

"No, you want to run away from it."

He faced her again. "I am not running away from it. I'm just handling it in my own way, Aeryn."

"Yes, by running away," she remarked. "You can't outrun it, John."

"So suddenly you're the expert?"

"On suppressing feelings? I suppose that I am." She scrubbed a new burn absently. "I know that it never works completely. A certain human showed me that sooner or later you have to sort your feelings through."

"Later is fine with me."

"Fine," she said, her sharp tone suggesting otherwise. She applied more cleanser to her rag and continued working.

"Fine," he replied, only partially relieved to find an out to the conversation. He felt badly about shutting her out, especially since he had forced her to talk on so many other occasions when she would have sooner breathed vacuum than discuss her feelings. He peered at her from the corner of his eyes, watching the rhythmic movements of her muscular arms as they attacked each soot mark. She was probably right that he needed to talk, but how could he explain what he was going through when he didn't understand it himself? It was disconcerting to have the tables turned on him like this.

A hint of a smile played across her lips, and he realized he had been caught looking. He reached over and grabbed the cleanser from the workbench at her side, smiling as a peace offering as he invaded her space. "I'm sorry I'm being such a grouch, Aeryn. I've just got a lot on my mind right now."

"Do you still think you're dreaming?" she asked.

Crichton laughed out loud. She must have overheard him ranting in the corridor earlier. "You don't give up easily, do you?"

"Of course not. Do you still think you're dreaming?" she repeated.

He set the can of cleanser down and rubbed his hands on his stiff black pants to dry them. "I don't know what I think anymore," he replied finally. "There I was, zipping across the Uncharted Territories, bazillions of light years away from Earth aboard a very pregnant living ship and sharing space with a bunch of aliens—and it didn't even seem strange to me anymore." He turned from Aeryn and faced his module, running a hand over the cool metal. "Then I woke up in a hospital on Earth and they told me I had never left, that everything I remember was just an incredibly vivid and psychedelic near-death experience. There was no evidence I'd ever left the Earth's orbit—my module was untouched, there were no microbes in my brain, and I didn't even have the scars I had earned from getting beaten up every other day on this side of the galaxy. Still, when my dad told me that Moya and everything that happened was just a dream, I thought, 'No way, I could never come up with the stuff I've seen out there.' I don't know what scares me more—the idea that this isn't all in my head, or the possibility that it is." He turned and met her eyes again. "Are you just a figment of my imagination? Are my feelings real even if you aren't?"

"I am real," she replied, her voice almost a whisper. "As real as you are."

"Are you?" he asked, a hint of desperation creeping into his tone. The cleaning solvent was starting to make him feel dizzy. "Are you as real as this rag?"

Aeryn examined the rag with a puzzled look, but said nothing.

"This was the t-shirt I was wearing when I came through the wormhole. Remember? When you beat me up?" He chuckled involuntarily, an odd giddiness enfolding him. "I wore it out and salvaged it for scrap material."

"So?" she asked, confusion etching deeper into her features.

"I was wearing this shirt yesterday! On Earth!" he answered, waving the rag in front of his face. He took a shaky step towards her. "So is it real or is it Memorex?" he demanded, swaying as he gestured.

"Crichton!" Aeryn shouted as his legs buckled underneath him. She caught him before his knees hit the ground, hoisting him to his feet as she positioned herself under his arm to provide support. "Come on, we have to get you back to Zhaan's lab."

"I'm going back, aren't I?" he asked as the world started to fade around the edges.

She glanced at him as she continued to half-drag him toward the corridor. "Stay with me, Crichton," she urged.

"You're real? You promise? This is real?" He wanted to trust her. He wanted to believe her.

She stopped and met his gaze. "I'm not a part of your imagination. I wish I could tell you that you're going home, but I can't."

"Then make sure it's only a short visit, okay?" he managed before losing consciousness.

Crichton inhaled a deep breath, tasting the sea breeze before exhaling slowly. Two more breaths in the same manner, in time with the pounding surf, then he attempted the combination Aeryn had taught him. Round kick, reverse side kick, elbow strike, back fist, and finally an axe kick to finish off the imaginary opponent if he or she were still standing. The reverse kick always gave him trouble— Aeryn had once commented that he had the balance of a troffer beast, which apparently was a grave insult— and he could never execute the sequence with the speed and agility of the formidable Officer Sun. What she lacked in bulk she made up for in technique, battle smarts, and determination. He hoped to never have to face her in a physical fight again.

He hadn't performed the workout he had learned from Aeryn since he first woke up on Earth. For three months he had tried to distance himself from his memories of Moya, hoping to dispel them and move on with his life. Besides, it hadn't seemed necessary to stay in fighting form. He had never needed to hone his self-defense skills prior to his trip through the wormhole. But if his life was indeed on that side of the universe, better to stay battle-ready. Sure, he wasn't exercising his body—his real body—but perhaps the workout would serve to keep his mind sharp. In any case, the familiarity of what had once been his daily exercise routine comforted him.

Crichton switched sides, finding his left approach as clumsy as his right-side attempts. Working out in the sand didn't help either. It was softer than Aeryn's Peacekeeper mats when he fell, but the sand grains shifted frequently under his bare toes, providing only minimal support when he pivoted or rotated. He cleared a small area of loose sand with his foot, finding a more packed surface underneath. He planted his feet in a deep stance then executed the troublesome reverse kick in excruciating slow motion, his muscles protesting as he held the kick extended. A few tourists gawked at him as they passed, but he ignored them. He withdrew the kick and rotated back to his original position, changing his stance to attempt the same technique on the other side.

He was going to miss the beach when—and if—the others found a way to reverse the effect of the toxin he had accidentally ingested. As fugitives, they had not had many opportunities to kick back and relax. He would also miss eating familiar, non-square foods. He longed to bring a few things back with him to Moya—a stash of chocolate, blue jeans, extra tapes and batteries, pen and paper, and photographs of his family and DK. But it wasn't real. This Earth didn't exist any more than the reconstructed version of Australia he had crash-landed into several months ago. Somewhere the real Jack Crichton and DK still mourned him.

Perhaps he should feel surprised or upset by his revelation, but he realized that his complacency had merely been self-protection. Ignorance was bliss, after all, especially when it allowed him to be home, even for a short time. What would three months on 'Earth' have been like knowing it wasn't real? What would it be like if it took Zhaan and the others considerable time to find an antidote? His last three months in dreamland had only translated to a few days aboard Moya.

The thought made him shudder. Perhaps it was better not to know. Crichton unleashed a kick at full speed and followed it with another on the opposite side. After five solid repetitions on each side, he attempted the combination again with some improvement. He could probably use it against an opponent who had recently chugged a six-pack.

"Jeez, remind me not to piss you off," DK remarked, approaching Crichton's practice area. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Once upon a delusion, Bro," Crichton replied, stretching his quad muscle as he turned to face his friend.

DK crooked his eyebrows in confusion. "You mean Moya?" he asked.

Crichton nodded. He wasn't sure how much to tell his friend. On the one hand, he hated the feeling of being alone—alone in the truth of what was happening to him. But at the same time, how would this DK react to the truth? "I think Aeryn got tired of having to protect me, so she taught me how to fight for myself and last more than thirty seconds with an opponent."

"You haven't talked about Moya in about two months," DK noted, his voice neutral.

"I know. It seems too… weird," he replied as he reached for his towel and water bottle in his workout bag.

"The memories haven't faded at all, have they?" Crichton recognized the look of comprehension spreading across his friend's face.

"Nope. I mean, they still seem like any memory from a few months ago," he said, dousing himself with water before taking a long swig.

"And that routine you were practicing… you remember all the moves she taught you?" DK asked with a note of incredulity.

"I'm a little rusty. I haven't worked out since… you know."

"Wow! That's some dream! I wish I could learn martial arts in a dream."

Crichton took a deep breath, biting his lip before continuing. "DK, what if it… isn't. Wasn't," he corrected.

"Wasn't what? Wasn't a dream?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Come on, John. We've been through this already. What's going on?"

"I had another dream last week."

"Like before? When you scared that poor waitress at the truck stop?"

"Yep. This time I was back for over a day. They told me that I'm dying from a really nasty case of food poisoning, which is why I'm here. According to them, this is the dream, and if I stay here, it'll kill me."

"And you believe them? You believe what these creatures in your nightmares told you? It was a dream! You said so yourself."

"I know it sounds crazy, DK, but I checked it out. It's true."

"Checked it out? What do you mean?"

"I went to the library this morning. I wanted to look up some information about human neuroanatomy and the neurophysiology of sleep. I took an introductory neuro course in college, so I thought maybe I'd be able to wade through a medical text or something. I figured anything I could find might help Zhaan figure out how to fix what's wrong if they are able to bring me back again."

"So, how did that prove anything?"

"DK, the books I flipped through had almost no information in them. When was the last time you read an anatomy book with hardly any structures labeled?"

"Maybe it was just a mistake? Maybe it was the wrong book?"

"I had the same thought, so I flipped through other books. The physics and math books seemed normal enough, but many of lit books were nonsensical. And the German-English dictionary I found was blank except for isolated words from the song 'Oh Christmas Tree'!"

DK pursed his lips, an expression he wore anytime he was faced with a difficult physics problem. Crichton could practically see the gears churning in his friend's head as he tried to find a reasonable explanation for Crichton's observations.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, Bro, but it's not. I'm not. I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure out, but I think I did my best to avoid looking for answers. You think I don't want this to be real?"

DK met Crichton's eyes silently.

"How would you feel if you'd been fooled into thinking you were home after being trapped on the other side of the universe for the past year?"

"I… I don't know." DK looked lost, as if someone had ripped the rug of reality from underneath him. Crichton was more than familiar with that sensation. Perhaps he shouldn't have shared so much with DK. "But it can't be true. There has to be an explanation," DK reasoned.

"You're probably right. I shouldn't have brought it up at all," Crichton said, back-pedaling. "Just don't tell Dad about this conversation, okay? I don't want him to worry about me."

DK seemed to relax a little. "Okay. But maybe you should consider talking to someone, you know, to help you sort through all this?"

"No way, DK. I'm fine, really."

"Okay," DK replied, not sounding convinced.

An uncomfortable pause settled over their conversation. As a distraction, Crichton reached into his workout bag and pulled out two hand targets. "If you're gonna interrupt my workout, Bro, the least you could do is help me out," he said, smiling as he tossed the two square-shaped pads to his friend.

DK caught one of the targets but fumbled the other one, knocking it to the ground. "Okay, but only if you teach me that move you were doing earlier," he replied, dusting the sand off the dropped target.

"You've got to be joking!" Crichton groaned theatrically. "You're the one person in any part of the universe I could still beat in a fight and you want me to teach you my moves? No way!"

"Oh yeah?" DK replied, feigning indignation. "May I remind you who beat up Billy Ballard in the sixth grade?"

"Robby Finch."

"No, the other time."

"Jerry McCade."

"No, in the cafeteria. Remember?"

"Oh, you mean when you accidentally tripped and knocked him over?"

"That was a calculated lunge," DK corrected. "The pudding cup on his head was just the icing on the cake."

"Dude, you needed stitches after his payback."

"Yeah, but it was worth it."

Crichton rolled his eyes. "You're hopeless. Just hold the targets at chest level, okay? When I'm done we'll go for a beer. Deal?"

"Deal. But only if you're buying."

Crichton grinned and punched one of the targets. It may not be real, but he enjoyed his friend's company nonetheless. If he was going to be dreaming for a while yet, he may as well take the opportunity to enjoy the perks of being home.

Aeryn crumbled a food cube and absently chewed a small fragment of it as she stared out the window at the far end of the mess. The others had fixed plates of fresh foods, preferring to avoid manufactured cubes while their supplies were plenty, but Aeryn didn't want to enjoy her meal. She wasn't particularly hungry, but the shared dinner was important for airing crew issues and maintaining unity. Skipping it in order to sulk was not acceptable, and a part of her didn't want to let the others see how much Crichton's continued absence, now eight solar days long, was affecting her.

Pilot checked in after everyone was seated, as was his custom. "How is Commander Crichton this evening?" he asked.

"I'm afraid his condition is worsening," Zhaan answered quietly. "The insulation around his nerve cells is starting to break down, interrupting the flow of impulses from his brain to his body. If the toxic effects are not contained, it could lead to systemic disruption, and I'm not certain I would be able to repair the damage."

D'Argo's expression darkened. "What kind of damage?"

"Well, it would depend on the area that was affected. The greatest concentration of toxin is in the region of his brain stem, which means his vital functions are vulnerable."

"How long until the damage is irreversible?" Aeryn asked, not quite able to stop herself from inquiring, but not certain that she wanted to know the answer.

"No more than fifty-five arns if his metabolism remains stable," Zhaan replied reluctantly.

An uneasy lull settled over the crew. After several microts, Pilot broke the silence by updating Moya's status, his voice unusually monotonous and his eyes recessed completely in their stalks. Pilot's grief was palpable to her even in the holographic image projected on the receiver. Although Crichton did not share a genetic bond with Pilot as she did, Aeryn knew that Pilot valued the human's friendship. The others saw the four-limbed alien as a servicer, but Crichton considered him a comrade and trusted ally.

When Pilot finished his report, his image winked out, leaving them alone with their food. As she scanned the expressions of her fellow shipmates, Aeryn realized that Crichton's illness was affecting all of them like a gaping hole in their shared experience. The human contributed more than they gave him credit for, not only in performing on-board duties, but also in keeping the crew grounded. Each meal they shared while Crichton continued to waste away in Zhaan's lab served to remind them of what their life would be like if they could not find a way to reverse the effects of the toxin that was holding their friend hostage. The others ate their meal in silence, taking no obvious enjoyment from the fresh food stores.

Nobody except the gluttonous ex-dominar, who let nothing as trivial as a crew member's impending demise diminish his appetite. Aeryn sighed in disgust as she watched the Hynerian gnaw on sinewy meat from an oversized bone. A partially eaten fruit from the edge of his crowded plate caught her attention. She reached across the table and plucked it off of his tray.

"Hey!" Rygel grunted in protest, his mouth still full. "Get your own frelling fruit, Peacekeeper."

"What are you doing with this, Your Eminence?" she asked, holding the sticky purple produce in front of his face.

"Trying to keep from starving to death," he snapped making an attempt to snatch the fruit away. Aeryn retracted her hand with healthy Peacekeeper reflexes.

"This is the fruit that caused Crichton's illness."

"Well, I'm not sick, so what's your problem?" he asked, edging back from the table to remain out of her reach. "Just because everybody else is too afraid to eat them, it doesn't mean they have to go to waste," he reasoned.

"Do you ever think of anything but your stomach, Your Sliminess?" Chiana hissed before Aeryn could retort.

Zhaan's eyes were wide, an expression Aeryn associated with worry in the Delvian female. "Rygel, you didn't eat the last of the fruit did you? I need to save the remainder for samples."

Aeryn studied Zhaan carefully. "Why do you need further samples? I thought you had isolated the toxin."

Zhaan sighed. "So had I. But I am having difficulty replicating the effect."

"What does that mean?" D'Argo asked, casting his plate aside.

"I don't know how the fruit John ingested caused him to have this reaction. Nobody else who ate the fruit experienced any ill effects, so I assumed that some unique molecule indigenous to his species had acted to catalyze an otherwise harmless compound found naturally in the fruit," Zhaan explained. "But so far nothing that I have isolated in John's system reacts with the fruit in any way."

"Which leaves what?" D'Argo demanded.

"I'm not sure. I am running out of alternatives quickly."

"Are you certain the fruit is responsible?" Aeryn asked, feeling her stomach sink. They didn't have much to work with before, but at least they had a theory. Were they completely in the dark with Crichton's time running out? "Maybe there is some other cause—"

"It has to be the fruit," Zhaan interrupted before Aeryn could complete her thought. "The chemical signature is too similar to be a coincidence. Somehow it transformed cells in John's body to create the toxin that is poisoning him. What I don't understand is how it produced this reaction. I cannot replicate this step in any of my simulations." Zhaan paused and briefly cast her eyes upon her mostly untouched food. "Without understanding that, I have no hope of synthesizing an effective and safe countermeasure." Zhaan sighed again and peeled a section of the fruit from where it still sat in Aeryn's hand.

"Looks so harmless," D'Argo observed.

"Didn't taste half bad, either," Rygel grumbled.

Zhaan squeezed the pouch-like fruit section lightly, causing the violet-colored fluid inside to migrate to the other side. "Crichton called it a 'purple'," she said smiling.

"Yes," Aeryn replied, remembering the conversation. "He said it was similar to an Earth fruit called an 'orange' and decided to call it a 'purple'," she added. With everything that had happened, she had forgotten the discussion.

Zhaan twisted the fruit slightly, rupturing the pouch on a seam. A small dot of purple fluid escaped. "What are you doing to Crichton and why weren't the rest of us affected?" she asked the tiny purple droplet.

"What about the combination of foods he ate?" D'Argo asked. "Perhaps a unique—"

"I tried every combination he ate as well as a few he probably didn't," Zhaan interrupted with obvious frustration.

"And you're certain it's not something indigenous to his own system, like Rygel's reaction to tannot root was?" Aeryn pressed.

"Not as far as I can tell. I have mashed more of these 'purples' into pulp over the last weeken than I care to think about," Zhaan complained, crushing the fruit section in her hand as an illustration. Dark juice dripped down the Delvian's arm, slightly staining her cuff. "So far, all in vain."

Chiana ticked her head sideways, observing the remains of the fruit in Zhaan's hand. Her large black eyes widened slightly as something caught her attention. With a deft motion, she removed one of the spongy green seeds that was wedged in a piece of pulp and held it between her thumb and forefinger. She cocked her head to the other side. "What about the seeds?"

Zhaan quirked her non-existent brow in confusion. "What do you mean, Chiana?"

"Crichton never eats the seeds unless they're too small to pick out," she explained with a small, short laugh.

"I never noticed that," Aeryn commented. She reviewed her memories of the night he lost consciousness but realized that she had not been paying attention to such details. Obviously the young Nebari had.

"He said he didn't need the added 'roughage' in his diet," Chiana continued, repeating the curious human term untranslated. "Does that help?"

Zhaan plucked another seed from the pulpy remains and scrutinized it. "I ate the seeds." Her gaze shifted to the Luxan. "And you, D'Argo?"

"I thought they were tasty."

Aeryn tried to visualize her memory of that dinner, discovering that she hadn't even bothered to inspect the fruit after peeling and sectioning it. "I ate them," she replied as Zhaan eyed her.

"Don't look at me! I never touched the fruit!" Chiana reported.

Zhaan jumped to her feet and headed for the refrigeration unit, her dinner forgotten. She gathered an armload of purples. "I'll be in my lab if anybody needs me," she called, walking briskly from the mess with her light blue dress snapping behind her.