by Susan C.
*****
Crichton sat in the darkened cargo hold, trying to make sense of all that had happened in the alien test. Nothing made sense anymore. His greatest hope, going home, had been tainted by his own vision of how they might be received. ‘They.’ When did I start thinking of myself as one of them? When my own species turned against me, if only in my mind? When they became my friends? When?
He cradled his head in his hands. I never thought of myself as being naïve. So much for ‘know thyself’, he thought bitterly. I wonder if they’ll ever be able to trust me again. I not so sure I’ll be able to trust myself. They probably wonder why I’ve been avoiding them. I just can’t look them in the eye. I was so sure I, they, would be welcomed… maybe not. Maybe unconsciously I knew; and that’s why that little…simulation went the way it did. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.
Every day just gets harder. I think this is harder than knowing I’ll never get home. And I’m frelling sick of having my chain jerked! he added, throwing the nearest object at the closest wall.
Aeryn watched silently from the doorway. Crichton had been so dejected since they’d returned to Moya. Almost as though his spirit had been crushed. It broke her heart to see him like this. Wise-cracking, optimistic, fast-thinking Crichton. Of course he’d been upset, melancholy before. She understood completely; despite her protestations to the contrary, their situations were remarkably similar. But this…this was a different Crichton. His pain and shame were palpable. Even Rygel had commented on it.
Well, Aeryn thought, we’ll just have to do something about that.
She walked toward the hunched figure, trying to decide what to say. She chose an all-purpose greeting.
“Hey.”
Crichton’s head turned slightly. “Hey,” he replied softly.
“Hey.”
Crichton smiled feebly. Fast learner, he thought, recalling the time he’d told her about getting someone to talk who needed to but didn’t want to. He sighed and leaned back.
“I don’t know what’s real anymore, Aeryn,” the anguished man began.
She took that as a cue to sit with him. Then she waited.
“I wanted to go home so badly. And it was so real. It was bad enough the way I was treated, but when you guys came down… It was all my fault, Aeryn.” The tears began to well up in Crichton’s eyes and he gave voice to his guilt and fear and pain. “Rygel, D’Argo… the fear and suffering you were put through… it was all my fault.”
“Crichton, we chose to follow you to that wormhole. That was our choice.”
“But you did it because of me, Aeryn.”
“Yes. Because we care; because we were curious. You would have done the same for one of us.”
It didn’t make him feel any better.
“And none of us were harmed.”
“Yes, you were. You believed you were captured, imprisoned. You feared for your lives – at the hands of my people. My people, Aeryn.”
Aeryn nodded. “I was taught that Peacekeepers were the finest, most
enlightened of all the races. And that Durka was the best of us. I was so
thrilled to meet him; he was… he was what every Peacekeeper strove to be.
But he was really an insane, sadistic…coward.” She spit the word out as
though it were spoiled food.
She looked at Crichton. “It would appear that there are good and bad in
both of our species.”
“Well, like you said, even Peacekeepers wouldn’t kill their prisoners to
study them.” He risked a glance at her and quickly looked away again. “You
and D’Argo were right to stop trusting me. Humans can’t be trusted.”
Aeryn was tempted to knock some sense into him; but she drew on the
compassion she had seen him exhibit, the sympathy he had so often shown her.
“No, not all humans can be trusted. But I do trust you. I’m sure D’Argo
does as well. Besides, you were the one who was truly harmed in all of this,
John. It was your memories they violated, your dream of home they twisted.
We know what you endured; we are not blaming you.”
“What about Zhaan, Pilot?”
“All they know is that you were deceived into believing you had reached
Earth and that when we discovered it wasn’t real, we came back.”
“They bought that?” he asked incredulously.
“No, but they accepted it.”
John was humbled that they had done this for him. He looked at her then,
really looked at her. “Thanks, Aeryn.” John shifted, staring out at
nothing again. “I just keep going over and over it in my mind, wondering if
I could have done anything differently.”
“Why?”
He hesitated. “It’s not every day that you choose aliens over your own
species. But it was the right thing to do. So why do I keep reliving it?”
“Because standing up is not easy.”
John looked at Aeryn, wondering if he had understood her correctly. The
frank look on her face confirmed it. A smile threatened to break through
Crichton’s introspection. “I guess you’d know about that,” he told the
Sebaccean who had lost everything when she’d stood up for him.
“Yes, I would,” she replied honestly. “I sometimes find myself wishing for
the life I once had. But I would make the same choice now. Do you wish you
had chosen them instead of me?”
“No,” he replied with equal honesty. “But I sometimes wish I could have had
both.”
Aeryn nodded and rose to leave. It seemed they had more in common all the
time. She paused behind him and touched his shoulder. “As for what was
real…,” she said, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “I was quite real.”
As Aeryn’s footsteps retreated, John Crichton allowed a wide grin to slowly
spread across his face.
Feedback
Back