NaNo 2007: Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Meeting of Methos and Crichton

Joe's Bar turns out to be kind of nice, with live performers on a small stage in the corner. Joe himself usually plays at least one set a night of the blues, and from what John can tell he's pretty good. John hasn't heard much music since the last time he was on Earth; he's never been sure if the dearth of music in the Uncharted Territories is the result of the crowd he hangs out with, the things he does, or just a general lack of music outside of entertainment venues. Maybe in the Uncharted Territories people just don't listen to music outside of bars, although that seems odd to him. Anyway, even the worst of the music isn't bad enough to make him wince, even listening to it for the whole night, although it isn't really his kind of music.

John really wishes he'd been to more of this type of bars in the Uncharted Territories; somehow he doubts that, even if this bar was on another planet, it would be the sort of place where he would be tricked into marrying a princess. Or the type of place where the girls would be drugged and then almost killed to make some sort of designer drug. Or any of a number of other things that had happened to them in a bar.

Then again… he thinks, feeling the Buzz of a new Immortal approaching. His eye was already twitching from Mac's presence in the bar, although fortunately the Buzz seems to fade into the background after a few minutes (the same does most emphatically not go for the eye twitch. He's hoping he ca learn to control it, somehow, or that it's just because he's new at this whole Immortal thing and will go away after a while, because it was annoying enough the first time it had happened, with the beacon, and having it happen every time he's near a Immortal, for the rest of his possibly very long existence would go beyond annoying to…what was beyond annoying? Aggravating, perhaps, but even that doesn't do it justice when he suspects it would (or will) eventually make him want to kill someone or something, or at the very least cause a lot of property damage.

He doesn't know why he keeps subconsciously expecting Immortals to look different from everybody else, because he looks normal (except, perhaps, for the clothes he'd had before the shopping trip today, but that's all fixed now), and Mac looks normal, and even Morgan had looked normal before she'd unexpectedly become a foot shorter (Now? Not so much); but he does, and so he's somewhat surprised when the Immortal who walks in the door looks completely normal, except perhaps for the way his eyes immediately sweep the room, pausing shortly on Mac and for longer on him. John notices that reaction because he's watching the newcomer just as closely, and because he knows that after the years of expecting danger from any person he's in the room with who isn't someone he trusts, he does the same thing when he enters a bar. Mac, for all he seems blithe and almost dismissive of the threat that any Immortal poses him, and especially that of any mortal, does the same thing when he enters a room, even one devoid of any Immortals, sizing up all of the possible threats. Unless they have military, and combat, experience, nobody else ever notices it. John knows he'd picked the habit up in part from Aeryn. Without a doubt Mac and this immortal picked up their automatic caution the hard way, through years, centuries, of being in potential danger at any turn. He wonders if they're as paranoid as he is, these days, or less, or more. And if they'd started out that way. If he lives for four hundred years how paranoid will he be?

If he lives for four hundred years will he have found a way home in all that time, or will home (which seems an ephemeral concept to immortals, who, at least on Earth, have to pack up and move and take up new lives entirely every few decades, even if they take the utmost of care "aging" themselves) not be there by the time he finds his way back? Will Aeryn and D'Argo and whoever the baby grows up to be leave Moya before he returns? Will he even want to return, by the time he finally gets the chance to, or will his current dream fall by the wayside like his dream to return to Earth had? It scares him to think that his goals could change that much, but he knows it's possible; how many times in his life have his goals changed? How many times have they changed to something he hadn't expected to want? He hadn't wanted to be an astronaut when he was a kid, not after the way his dad had always missed everything in his life, but at some point it had become his goal. It would have been absurd to have wanted to return to Earth before he had even left, to have wanted to win Aeryn's heart before he'd met her, to have so many of the goals he's had in the past few years before he'd flown Farscape.

It scares him to think about living for so long, to think about outliving everybody in his family (although perhaps not everybody he loves, or even everybody he loves at this moment; of all the things he'd thought to ask, the lifespans of everybody else is not one of them. What point, when he'd be dead before any of them unless some accident befell them?). He'd been the short lived one, the weak one, the one with his senses dulled to nearly nothing, the one from a backwards planet before its First Contact who'd been baffled by the esoteric technology of a door. Now he's the one who, if he's at all lucky, will outlive everybody. Who will live to see them all die, like all too many of his friends and allies before them (he isn't entirely certain he can classify the other John, or Crais, as friends, but he's sure they were at the very least allies at the end). Lucky? Surviving whatever Challenges he's forced to fight wouldn't be lucky, it would be a curse. But he has a mission, at least for the moment, and he's far too used to doing whatever it takes to remain alive to just drop his sword at the next Challenge, or even to not do his best in the training Mac's giving him.

The newly arrived immortal seems to be considering turning around and leaving right away, like he's afraid John's going to suddenly Challenge him in the middle of one of Joe's sets, in front of all these people, but Mac waves at him and calls him over to his table; obviously they're friends, or at least on friendly-ish terms. John still isn't certain if it's even possible to be actual friends with another immortal, given that they're "supposed" to try to whack each other's heads off. But then again, he considers Rygel a friend even though Sparky tried to sell him to the Peacekeepers, and probably more that he neither knows about nor wants to know about. Maybe it is possible to be friends with somebody you know you can never entirely trust. And then there's Harvey, of course…

"I resemble that remark," Harvey says in black and white, looking like one of the Three Stooges, and promptly slips on a black and white banana peel. "What have I ever done that wasn't in your best interests?"

John glares at him. "Don't tell me you've forgotten about killing Aeryn already," he growls.

Mac and the newly arrived Immortal are having some sort of a discussion that has the stranger looking exasperated; he watches it from the corner of his eye as he gets drinks for the customers, who seem to have all decided to get refills at once. Gradually, the Immortal relaxes, or at least untenses a little bit, and heads over to the bar.

"Beer," he says in an accent that might be from some long-dead civilization, or a result of spending so much time traveling the world that his accent was a hodge-podge of other accents. It sounds British, though, or something in that area; John isn't one of those people who can pinpoint a person's nationality by their accent.

"Any preference?" John asks.

"No," the Immortal replies, so John fills a glass with Budweiser, wondering if the Immortal will try to strike up a conversation with him. He doesn't care one way or another, except for the fact that, as one of Mac's friends, he's likely to see this Immortal again.

He hands the beer to the Immortal and notices something on his wrist. "Hey, you have the same tattoo Joe does."

"Yeah," the Immortal says. "So?"

"We can get tattoos?" John asks. "I mean, with the healing…"

"I had to do it myself," the Immortal replies. "Wouldn't want the tattoo artist to see it healing. Removal's a lot easier than it is for mortals, though, but more painful."

John thinks about it and winces. With Immortals' ability to heal immediately without scarring, the fastest and easiest but far from least painful method of tattoo removal is doubtless just cutting off the skin the tattoo's on. I could do that if I had to, he thinks. To save myself? To save Aeryn or D'Argo or the baby? Yeah, I could do that. Someday, I might have to. Next time it might be me deliberately injuring myself to get free and save everybody, not Zhaan. I hope it never comes to that, but given my luck it will.

The Immortal goes back to Mac's table, and bar traffic increases once again.

NaNo 2007: Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Prejudices

On this planet, shuttles and transport pods- any spacegoing vehicles- aren't allowed to land anywhere other than at the spaceport, supposedly to control customs and prevent contraband and smuggling, but in reality a thinly-veiled, pathetic attempt at preventing any military actions by the Peacekeepers stationed here. This planet is nominally part of Peacekeeper Territory, but its residents grumble and resist. In another year or so, it will probably either all come to a head with an attempt to force the Peacekeepers to leave- only an attempt, judging by what Aeryn can see and previous Peacekeeper records for quashing rebellions- or it will fade out with the exception of the usual small pockets of ineffective rebellion.

What this all means to Aeryn is that she has to land at the spaceport and, since there are better things to spend her currency pledges on than transportation- like food cubes- take D'Argo, who's thoroughly enjoying the new experiences involved in leaving Moya to go onto a planet, onto the public transportation system. Aeryn hadn't enjoyed the public transportation the last time she was down on this planet, and she doesn't like it now, even though D'Argo thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, to use one of John's phrases. It's run down and old and smells like somebody had been sick and it had never gotten cleaned up, just gotten absorbed into the floor and seats. There are so many people using this particular section of it that there's no room for most of them to sit, but they're so- afraid, repulsed, wary, she doesn't know which- of Sebaceans, who they believe are all Peacekeepers, that they give her and D'Argo a wide berth. As if Peacekeeper pregnant females and children would be allowed out of the base, she thinks. And even if they were, Peacekeepers keep to themselves when they can. Wouldn't want to become irreversibly contaminated, after all.

Aeryn doesn't have John's optimism and positive outlook on everything, especially people. He would probably think that they could make friends, or at least allies, with these people with a little bit of effort and persistence, but she's more cynical. Even if she made friendly overtures, it wouldn't change anything. The Peacekeepers would still be here, this would still be a Peacekeeper planet, and even if she changed a few people's minds it wouldn't change events from unfolding as they will. It won't stop the inevitable clashes between this planet's people and the Peacekeepers.

Aeryn's glad for the space, with D'Argo and her stomach as large as it is, even if she'd have preferred for one of them to have offered her a seat, but she doesn't trust these people, first because she doesn't know them, second because they aren't willing to even pretend to accept her and D'Argo, and lastly because she doesn't trust anybody outside of the Moyans and ex-Moyans who John claims are like an extended family: "You don't get a choice about who they are, and you might not like them most of the time, but on some level you gotta love 'em." And she especially doesn't trust outsiders when D'Argo is involved. It had taken her a while to get the hang of this whole family thing, but she's thrown herself into it wholeheartedly and she doesn't know what she'd do if anything happened to D'Argo. She doesn't know what she'd do if she knew John was gone forever- dead, because she can't imagine him not doing everything in his power to return if he was still alive and in any condition. John had died, once, and she'd been wrecked emotionally, even though there was another John still living. How much worse would it be if she knew every version of John was gone from the universe? He'll come back to me if he's alive, she thinks. But I don't know he's alive, not for sure; he went down that wormhole in just what he was wearing, and Prowler pilots are liquefied in wormholes. He might not be alive to come back. I have to keep these children safe, for his sake as well as because they're my children too, because they're the only part of him that I know for sure is still alive and in Known Space. Besides the child he'll have with Princess Katralla in more than fifty cycles. She keeps a tight hold on D'Argo's hand, not letting him run off everywhere he wants to run off to, and trying to keep him from pointing at people and commenting on their appearance, especially since he usually tries to combine them into running after people to grab them (usually in some painful way) and say something he doesn't realize is insulting or comment on something that he isn't supposed to talk about.

The trip from the spaceport out to the Peacekeeper station here isn't very far, because the Peacekeepers had built close to the spaceport with the knowledge that everybody from off of the planet would have to go through it, including every single Peacekeeper stationed here, but with everything considered it feels like it takes forever. She can't control D'Argo very well in her condition and in his current state of excitement, and it's made worse that everybody's staring at them, which D'Argo takes as encouragement. If John was here, they'd still be staring, but he and D'Argo would be pointing out a window at the sights, equally excited, and not at the people on the transportation with them. Whenever he'd been as excited about D'Argo's activities as D'Argo himself she'd teased him that they were the same age mentally. Of course, if John hadn't disappeared, he'd have been up on Moya with D'Argo instead of the three of them being down here together. For the most part, they'd always been separated when near a planet. Only in the long spaces between stars could the three of them all be together at once.

The public transportation reaches their stop, and Aeryn and D'Argo get off. As she'd halfway expected, the stop is completely deserted and they're the only people to get off here. Most of the planet's residents don't want to live anywhere near the Peacekeepers, much less close enough to use the same public transportation station, so there's something of a no man's land around the Peacekeeper station. And Peacekeepers being Peacekeepers, and having the regulations they have, they don't often leave the station, and even then they usually use their own transportation. And the public opinion of the Peacekeepers around here being as negative as it is, there likely aren't very many Peacekeepers, even the rebellious ones, who are willing to break the rules and venture out onto a planet that hates them for who they were born as. This desertedness of the public transportation station makes it feel a bit eerie; it was designed for a constant flow of hundreds at the very least, and she and D'Argo are the only people in the whole place. It is much cleaner than the spaceport's public transportation station, though; one janitor could probably keep this place clean even if they came in only once a month, but the constant tide of people at the spaceport makes it impossible for even an army of janitors to keep up with its cleanliness.

The streets are nearly as deserted as the public transportation station had been, and she can relax a little and not keep D'Argo as close as she had been, not that she allows herself to relax entirely or even to her own usual planetside levels of vigilance. This would be a very good place for an ambush, if a radical group wanted to attack individual Peacekeepers near the Peacekeeper station. If this wasn't a Peacekeeper planet, and was instead one with more freedoms, the Peacekeeper station would likely be picketed or protested in some other way by an angry mob, but in the past Peacekeepers have dealt very harshly with those who protest their rule, so on most Peacekeeper controlled worlds the protests are confined to anonymous grumblings and the occasional small, bold group that is inevitably held up as an example of what happens to you when you go against the Peacekeepers. There are fewer of those on worlds which have been held by the Peacekeepers for more than a few years, but she's only ever been on worlds newly added to Peacekeeper territory and Peacekeeper command carriers, out of everything in Peacekeeper territory, so she doesn't know if that's because the people are happier there or if it's because they've given up on trying to free their worlds.

Legally, any person can enter the Peacekeeper station, or at least the public parts of it, and do all of the usual things one does with a government: make grievances, ask for protection or amnesty, pay taxes…Aeryn doesn't actually know what people do with governments; she'd only ever dealt with the Peacekeepers from inside, and on Moya she rarely has to deal with any government. Most people don't go to the Peacekeeper station for any of that, anyway, even if they aren't completely terrified of and living in hate of the Peacekeepers, and it isn't what she's here for. She enters through the public door and goes up to front desk and the man who's currently the public face of the Peacekeepers on this planet, who looks like he's bored out of his mind. He's probably lucky to have two people walk through the door in a day.

"I need to see your medtech," she says.

He scrutinizes her, and she knows what he sees: Sebacean, with a pulse pistol on her, but not in a Peacekeeper uniform (in fact, her clothes are slightly shabby; she makes a note to buy new ones), pregnant, and with a child who's obviously hers in tow. "I'm sorry, ma'am, the medtechs are for Peacekeepers only, but I can tell you where to find a hospital." He's actually polite, even though he probably doesn't want to be, but then he's supposed to present a positive side of the Peacekeepers. Likely, too, he isn't one of the best soldiers in the Peacekeepers, to have such a low position.

"I don't want to go to a hospital, I want to see a medtech like I did three days ago," she says, and pulls out her ident chip. When the Treaty had been signed, all of the Moyans had been given limited special rights as a form of reparation. No amount of special rights can ever truly make up for everything that had been done to them over the years, but they've come in useful a handful of times. They've always been cautious about using their rights; they might have the rights, and they might not be wanted any more, but they've always thought that it's better to be safe than be sorry. If they stay off of everybody's radar, they're relatively safe. Nobody major is after them, and they can take care of most of the minor enemies without much difficulty. This time, however, she doesn't have a choice about using the special rights unless she wants to have someone who hates her help her give birth. Not that the Peacekeepers are necessarily much better, considering the reception she'd gotten on the command carrier she'd grown up on, but at least here there's a chance, even if not a good one. And she doubts anyone here would dare mess with someone with special rights which came straight from High Command; there would be an inquisition that would end badly for every Peacekeeper on this planet. She can't say that for certain about the citizens on this planet, not with the way public opinion is at this time.

She puts her hand in the slots to have her fingerprints taken, and the Peacekeeper reads something on his screen, presumably about her special rights because his eyebrows shoot up and he darts a look her way like he's trying to reconcile what he reads there with what he sees in front of him. High Command doesn't exactly hand out special rights like they're candy (not that they hand out candy either), and they entitle her to a lot more than just getting looked at by the medtech.

"Well?" she says expectantly.

"Uh, yes, ma'am!" he says, and seems to want to salute, but she isn't a Peacekeeper officer so he doesn't. "I can show you to the medtech."

"Can I have my ident chip back?" she asks pointedly.

"Oh, uh, y-yeah, yeah sure," he says, and fumbles the ident chip out of its slot and hands it to her. "Here you go."

"Thank you," she says, because she could use a little good will here, even if it's just from him. The Peacekeepers here are likely to look down on her because she isn't a Peacekeeper, and because she has children of her own that she's raising herself, even if none of them know who she actually is. If any of them do know who she is, and her history, there's likely to be outright hostility. She can only hope that the medtech knows nothing about her other than what they see and that she has special rights. The one she'd seen a few days earlier to get the fetus unlocked hadn't had any issues with her, but they doubtless have more than one medtech for all of the Peacekeepers on this planet so it might not be the same one.

This Peacekeeper station seems to be laid out more or less the same as other Peacekeeper installations she's been in; the differences can probably be accounted for by the fact that before she came to this station, she'd never been in one on a planet, and they undoubtedly have to build differently on land and in space. I never would have thought about this kind of thing before I met John, she thinks with amusement. He's changed me so much, and all I've done is taught him how to fight.

The Peacekeeper station, nearly colorless as it is, and with every hallway looking much like the others, holds far less interest to D'Argo than the public transportation had, full of strange and brightly colored beings the like of which he'd never seen before. Peacekeepers might be strangers, but they look much like Aeryn and John. They don't have feathers covering them from head to toe, or tentacles, or tails. Perhaps they should pay a visit to Hyneria, so D'Argo can spend some time with people besides herself and John, and the baby she's about to have, and learn that not everybody who looks different from them is to be avoided, that they have friends who aren't of the same species as they are. Not that she and John are the same species, but that's a distinction too subtle for a three year old to grasp, since he can't see any differences between them besides those brought on by them being different people. So he's less difficult to keep close to her here, or to keep relatively well behaved, which is a relief because she isn't willing to be separated from him. If she's separated from him, there isn't anywhere for him to go, and he's too young to be on his own. Plus it could be dangerous for him here, among Peacekeepers, because they might automatically assume he's a Peacekeeper too, when in reality his upbringing has been much different, her memories of how Peacekeeper children are raised tempered by John's softer upbringing on Earth and her own desire to keep D'Argo from growing up to be as cold towards outsiders as most Peacekeepers are.

His hand feels so small in hers when she thinks of all the hopes and dreams she has pinned on him, when she thinks of the generations of Peacekeeper tradition she's flaunting. When she remembers how the odds have always been stacked against her and John. It will take great strength to stay safe against the typical amount of opposition the Sun-Crichtons face, and she isn't sure she can give it to D'Argo and the baby on her own.

NaNo 2007: Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Explanations

John Crichton and his fingerprints are completely unknown to anything either Duncan or Joe has access to. Since the Watchers have access to a lot of law enforcement databases, this is surprising.

"Either he's not only never been arrested, but he's never gotten a driver's license, or he's somehow been erased," Joe opines.

"He knew he wouldn't show up," Duncan replies. "I thought he was just crazy, but…"

"Just because he's right doesn't mean he isn't crazy," Joe says. "Remember, he was surprised to be on Earth, and he was talking about wormholes."

"Immortals usually aren't insane like that, though; delusions like that have a physical cause, which even if he had it before he died he shouldn't have it now."

"So maybe his hallucinations stopped and that's why he was surprised to find himself on Earth."

"Maybe, but it seems like more than that. If he was hallucinating and then stopped, why does he still treat that gun like it's real? The little ball seems to be important to him, too. He wouldn't let either of them out of arm's reach, even when he went to sleep. And why would anybody go through the trouble of erasing a crazy man? He hasn't even claimed there were any government conspiracies or anything; in fact, it seems like he's trying to avoid having to tell me anything other than generalities."

"I don't know; the whole thing seems fishy to me. You'd better watch your back if he might be involved in the kind of thing that merits erasing identities, though. They might decide to check into your background with a bit more depth than you'd prefer. It doesn't even take that much effort to find out about your involvement with several unsolved police cases, and they might use that as an excuse to dig deeper."

"If they even need an excuse," Duncan points out. "If somebody really did erase Crichton, they might take a close look at anybody he gets close to if he resurfaces."

"Is his ID going to be ready soon?"

"Yeah, the guy I have do IDs for me understands the need for a rush job if you give him enough money. I don't know what he's going to do for a job, though. He says he was a bartender to help pay for college, and after that he didn't do anything that would help him get a job. He refused to elaborate on what he did do once he graduated from college, although apparently he has a Ph.D. in physics."

"Eh, I just had one of my bartenders quit. Send him over an hour before opening and I'll give him a try. It doesn't pay very well, but it'll give him a reference and it's better than nothing."

"You don't have to do this, Joe. Won't you get in trouble again?"

"The Watchers' Council has pretty much stopped trying to keep me from being friends with you, as long as I still Watch you. Trust me, there won't be trouble over this."

"You know them best," Duncan says. "But if there's trouble, tell me, okay? We can find him another job, or he can just stay at my place. That would probably be the best for training, actually, but I don't know him well enough to trust him entirely."

"You only met him yesterday, Mac, most people wouldn't trust him at all at this point," Joe snorts. "Speaking of Crichton, where is he? Did he run off on you already?"

"I've started his training by having him go running to the park and back. It's a straight shot so he won't get lost, and running helps with cardiovascular health."

"I thought immortals couldn't get heart disease."

"We can't, but sword work is really athletic, and I figure it's best to get him used to that level of working his body before he starts swinging around something heavy and starts complaining about it being too much work. He might have taken a head, but I don't think it's sunk in yet that he's going to have to work to stay alive. A lot of people these days don't ever really think about how much effort it takes to sword fight, or think it's just swinging a sword around randomly for a few minutes until somebody gets lucky." Duncan feels the Buzz. "Ah, I believe my student has returned."

Crichton enters the dojo, sweaty and still in his leather ensemble. "I'm going to grab a shower before we start playing with pointy objects, if you don't mind," he says. "This jacket was not made for going jogging in summer in." He disappears up the stairs to the dojo's locker room and showers.

"You made him go running in leather pants?" Joe asks. "And with that jacket? In the summer? Your files never said anything about you being a sadist."

"They're his only clothes, and he has to wear something. And he might have to fight in something just as unsuited for fighting, someday. It would have been better without the jacket, but I wasn't about to send one of my students out without a sword to protect him, even if he doesn't know how to use it yet. If anybody decides they want his head, he probably isn't going to have a choice about using the sword, no matter what his skill level is."

"I suppose you're right," Joe says.

"All those years have to be good for at least some wisdom," Duncan replies.

Joe snorts. "Then why do you still associate with Amanda? He's going to need some new clothes soon, though. It's fine for today, but Joe's really isn't the kind of a bar it's normal to wear leather pants in, even for the bartenders, and I'd prefer to keep it that way."

"I dunno, Joe, you might make more money that way." Joe gives him a dirty look, and he relents. "I'll take him to the mall tomorrow. He can pay me back when he's earned some money."

"I still think you're too willing to trust him."

"What am I supposed to do, Joe, just kick him to the curb to have his head taken off by the first reasonably skilled immortal he runs into? He came to me, even after he thought we were insane kidnappers. I can't just expect him to trust me without trusting him in return. And if he does take the clothes and the sword and run, well, it's not like I'd be strapped for cash anyway. And I doubt he could kill me, even in my sleep."

"I don't make a habit of stealing from people who help me," Crichton says from the top of the stairs. "And I have a strict policy against killing people unless it's them or me."

Duncan startles; he hadn't known Crichton was there until he spoke. "I didn't mean-" he starts, but Crichton waves him off.

"I know you didn't," he says. "I've been on the other end of it, not sure of the stranger's motivations, if they're going to try to kill you in some strange and inventive new way, if they're going to try to steal the ship, if they're eventually turn on you even though you haven't done anything to them, and especially not on purpose. A little paranoia is healthy. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the newcomer isn't a bounty hunter willing to sell you to the highest bidder. Though for what it's worth, I'm not."

"I doubt anybody would pay much for me in any case."

"No, probably not. But I was speaking from personal experience."

"Are there still bounty hunters after you?" Duncan asks, hoping he isn't about to hit one of the many conversational landmines that make Crichton clam up. He'll willingly talk about anything that doesn't involve his past, although he does seem to have a complete lack of knowledge about anything from the past eight years with the exception of the really big things like 9/11. It's bizarre, like he's been living somewhere since 1999 and only heard about current events when people told him about them, and they never even mentioned pop culture. His past he won't say anything about except in the most maddening generalities.

This time he doesn't have a problem with the subject. "Nope, everybody stopped coming after us about three years ago, around the time my son was born. Which was really good, because on the run is not the best environment to raise children in, especially when some good friends of mine died because we were being chased."

"You adopted?" Joe asks, and Duncan groans internally. This is one of the subjects Crichton will neither budge on nor talk about in depth.

"No," Crichton says shortly. "I already told MacLeod this. D'Argo's my son biologically, as is the baby Aeryn's supposed to have tomorrow, as is Katralla's daughter. I don't fit your pattern in anything other than actually being immortal- or, technically, the quickening and healing parts and probably the living until I'm beheaded part, but I haven't lived long enough to know about that one for sure."

"So what makes you different from any other Immortal?" Duncan asks. "And if Aeryn is supposed to have the baby tomorrow, why aren't you with her?"

"I didn't have a choice. On any of it. Story of my life," Crichton says. "You really want to know? You'll just think I'm crazy when I tell you. Of course, since you probably think I'm crazy now, that really isn't much of an issue, now is it?"

"We want to know," Joe says. "Even if it sounds crazy. I mean, it sounds crazy that the two of you are immortal unless you see the proof, and Immortals aren't prone to actual insanity, even if some of them do spend time in mental institutions." Duncan grimaces at the bad memories of Immortals who had sent time in mental institutions.

"Okay, then, gather around and I'll tell you the story of the past eight years of my life," Crichton says, and plops down on a weight lifting bench. Duncan and Joe sit down on an adjacent bench. "To start with, my dad was an astronaut. Walked on the moon, the whole nine yards. So I followed in his footsteps, with a more scientific bent. My friend DK and I had a theory, and I was testing it in space in my module when a wormhole opened in front of me and I popped out the other end in the middle of a battle between some ships. Long story short, I ended up on Moya, a living ship, on the run from the Peacekeepers, which is one of the major militaries in Known Space. For the most part, they're not nice people, especially since it barely took them a year to decide they wanted to know everything I knew about wormholes, that some other people known as the Ancients put in my head, at any cost. Stuff happened, the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans started a war, I got married, Aeryn had D'Argo, I built a wormhole weapon to convince them to stop the war. Then the Ancients removed all of the wormhole knowledge from my mind, and I think they made me immortal, because that's the only explanation I can think of. Like I said, I know I'm related by blood to my kids and my parents."

"So if you were in space like you claim you were, why are you here now?" Duncan asks. "And I never heard about any shuttles or modules disappearing."

"That is an excellent question, but not one without an answer," Crichton replies. "I was on Moya, having just returned from a shopping trip, when a, a, miniwormhole opened in front of me. As far as I know, miniwormholes aren't supposed to exist, not that I'm an expert anymore, and especially not inside of ships. But I guess they do. So I got sucked down the miniwormhole, and since wormholes can go to alternate realities, I ended up in a reality I never existed in."

"Do you have any proof?" Joe asks. "I'm sure you understand, this is difficult for us to accept without proof."

"Well, I know you think my gun is a toy, but it works. But that isn't really proof, after all it might just be some sort of new technology. How about…" he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the metal ball. "This?"

"A metal ball? I don't see what's so special about it," Duncan says.

"This, my friend, is no ordinary metal ball," Crichton says. "Well, I mean, it is pretty ordinary in some parts of the universe, but not on Earth, which is the point. Anyway…" He squeezes the ball, and out of it comes light, but light in the form of an image. "This is actually fairly cheap technology; you can get ones that are more expensive, reliable, all that good stuff. But hey, I got it for free, and beggars can't be choosers, right?" He flicks through a few bad still images. "It took me a while to figure out how to work it properly, but what do you really expect? It took me ten microns- minutes- to figure out how to open a door on Moya when I first got there, and I almost shot myself the first time I used a pulse pistol." He finally stops on a picture of a dark-haired woman holding a baby. "Aeryn and D'Argo a few monens- months- after he was born."

"There are humans in space?" Duncan asks skeptically. Sure, it's impressive technology, but it might just be the latest being developed somewhere on Earth. He'd been amazed the first time he'd seen electric lights, too, but they were made on Earth. Advanced technology is proof of nothing.

"Not human, Sebacean. They look just like us on the outside, but they have a Sebatic nerve and go into heat delirium if it gets too hot. Probably some other things, but that's what I know about. But if you want aliens who look like aliens, I have pictures of some other people on here." He flips through the pictures. "I've got a lot of baby pictures, so bear with me." Finally he reaches pictures with more than just the woman- Aeryn- and the baby in them. The first one's a squat green alien in a hovering chair, almost the same size as the by now familiar baby he's holding. The alien has what can only be a smug expression on his face. "That's Rygel," Crichton says, pointing to the alien, as if there could be any doubt after fifty pictures of D'Argo. "Rygel the sixteenth, Dominar of the Hynerian Empire and over 600 billion loyal subjects. He's smug because, well, he's always smug. But in this case, it's because he carried D'Argo for most of the first trimester- long story- and he's one of his godfathers, along with Pilot."

"Pilot?" Joe asks. "He doesn't have another name?"

"He does, but it's impossible for anybody who isn't one of his species to pronounce." Crichton switches to another picture, a hard-shelled alien with a big head and claws holding the ubiquitous baby. "Pilot's, you know, the pilot. He flies Moya, keeps her healthy, that sort of thing."

"I thought Moya was the ship," Duncan says.

"She is."

"So then what do you mean he keeps her healthy?"

"She's a Leviathan, a living ship. She can get injured, be scared, have children, all the usual things."

"Do you have any pictures of her?"

"No, she's really too big to get a good picture of unless you're far away. I do have pictures of the module and Aeryn's Prowler somewhere in here, and the transport pods, but they're not quite as impressive. They're just for short trips, like going down to planets; Moya's meant to be lived on, to contain everything her passengers need from a kitchen to an infirmary to sleeping quarters. But first, everybody else: Chiana, D'Argo's godmother; Jothee, the son of the D'Argo we named our son after, and Noranti. We were paranoid enough that we didn't let anybody else near him, and I'm still not sure we should have let Grandma get that close, even if she was part of the crew for a while." The next picture has Crichton in it, a candid shot of him kissing Aeryn somewhat awkwardly over D'Argo between them, a planet in space visible through the large window behind them, surrounded by stars Duncan's mind tries to recognize the centuries-familiar patterns of constellations in and fails. "Have you seen enough to convince you?" Crichton asks. "Because I have plenty more pictures, but if you aren't convinced by now the rest of them probably won't convince you, and I really should learn this whole swordfighting thing as soon as possible, if you haven't changed your mind about teaching me."

"Yeah, uh, I think I believe you," Duncan says, his accent thicker with shock.

"Just tell us more about it later," Joe adds. "I suspect there's a lot more to it than you told us."

"That is the understatement of the century," Crichton says, and turns the ball off. "In comparison with those first five years, raising D'Argo has been a breeze, which is saying a lot, especially since he hasn't exactly been a little angel and we've had more than a few unrelated minor crises. Of course, these days anything short of likely death is only a minor emergency to me."

"Speaking of likely death," Duncan says, and picks up his sword. "Come on, we're going to train outside, because you never know what conditions you might have to fight in, so it's better to prepare for the worst. You won't always have the advantage of even footing. I know a place."

"I've got some work to do, so I'll see you both later," Joe says, pushing himself to his feet and leaning on his cane.

NaNo 2007: Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Single Motherhood

When Aeryn had had the medtech to take the fetus out of stasis while John had gone to buy food and various other items they needed, she hadn't even imagined that before a day had passed John would disappear through a wormhole, especially not one on the ship. It's been three years since wormholes were even a remote possibility, three years since the Ancient Einstein removed even the subconscious knowledge of them from John's mind and everybody stopped chasing them.

When she was pregnant with D'argo John had been there, and she hadn't had another child to look after, but this time John isn't here. Nobody's here but her and Pilot and D'argo, and because Pilot can't move from his Den she's the only one who can chase after D'argo. It could have been worse, of course, if it hadn't been a geometric pregnancy or if Pilot wasn't able to keep an eye on him with the DRDs and keep in contact through the comm. badges, but it's bad enough. They're all still feeling John's loss, and Aeryn's work is doubled with his absence.

It had always been the plan to stay in orbit around the commerce planet until it was time for her to give birth; they didn't have Chiana with them this time to turn it if it's facing the wrong way like D'argo had been at first. Now it's nearly a necessity, because although she could probably give birth without assistance if she really had to, she'd really prefer not to. Fortunately they haven't been wanted by anybody since the Treaty was signed three years ago. If this had happened while people- Peacekeepers, Scarrans, bounty hunters- were still chasing after them they might have had to run at any moment. Aeryn's glad they (John will be back eventually) don't have to raise their children in that kind of a life, although the life they lead still isn't as safe as it might be if they were some other people, if they settled down on some planet somewhere. Their names still carry some weight, even if the bounties on their heads have been cancelled. There are still people who hold grudges against them for one reason or another, and although they would be welcomed on any planet in the Hynerian Empire it just wouldn't suit them. Moya is home, where they met and fell in love and had adventures, and if Aeryn decides it's too difficult to raise their children on her and goes to live on Hyneria John won't know where to find them when he returns.

Over the past few years they've done a lot of what John calls "childproofing" of Moya. She'd never realized how dangerous the ship could be until they had a hyperactive toddler getting into everything. They had to block off all of the vents too small for adults to go through, because once D'argo goes into one nobody can get him out, and only the DRDs can follow. For a child without the best balance and a tendency to get a bit too close to the edge, Pilot's Den is even more dangerous than it is to most people. Still, it seems like every day D'argo finds something else that needs to be childproofed through trial and error and constant exploration of Moya. He's already learned how to escape from the impromptu "corral" John had created from scraps they found on Moya, and at least for now his toys (also mostly made by them from things they found on Moya) hold less interest to him than running around Moya.

His only playmates besides his parents have been the DRDs, and Aeryn and John had worried about that, but given their luck with passengers they weren't about to let any of them near their son. Lately D'argo has seemingly made friends with 1812, so it's often easy to find them without asking Pilot by following the sounds of that song John taught 1812. It was bad enough when it was just John telling it to make music, but three year olds have an even greater willingness to hear the same thing over and over and over, even when everybody else in the vicinity has a headache from hearing it so often. Or maybe it isn't because D'argo is three. Maybe it's because he's John's son, and takes after his father.

Aeryn doesn't think D'argo really understands that John is gone. They're orbiting a planet, and usually when they're near a planet one of them will go down to the planet for a day or so to pick up supplies while the other one stays with D'argo. So D'argo might think John's on the planet. He saw John disappear, but he doesn't have the strongest grasp on logic yet. The universe is still magic to him. But if Aeryn abandons him too, when she goes down to the planet to give birth in a medical facility, he'll know that something is wrong. There's always one of them on Moya with him, without exception; Moya contains too many dangers for him without supervision, and he needs someone to be with him in a way that Pilot can't be.

There really isn't a choice about it; she can't leave D'argo here unattended. But she wishes she didn't have to take him with her, not to this planet; it's pretty strongly anti-Peacekeeper, and most of the residents don't know that not every Sebacean is a Peacekeeper. She was treated fairly badly on the planet, but she's used to it. Peacekeepers are far from universally loved, especially in the uncharted territories, and their reputation spills over onto every Sebacean…or Human who looks Sebacean, as in John's case. But D'argo has never been exposed to such enmity in his short life. She wishes he never had to be, but there's no choice, and there are enough Sebacean haters that he's going to encounter it sooner or later if he ever leaves Moya even temporarily.

She packs them both overnight bags and flies them down to the planet in a transport pod.

NaNo 2007: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Inconsistencies

Duncan feels the buzz of an Immortal and looks up.

"Immortal?" Joe asks.

"I think it's the new Immortal I found today," Duncan replies.

"So soon? Mac, he didn't even believe he died. Or that he could really be on Earth."

The new Immortal walks into the dojo. "Told you so," Duncan tells Joe. "I had a feeling about him." He goes to meet the new Immortal.

The telltale odor of ozone lingers around the new Immortal, and Duncan raises his eyebrows. "You took a head?"

"I was attacked," the new Immortal says. "When she came back to life, I decided there might be something to what you said. And the lightning show and seeing her memories were too bizarre to be anything but real."

"Seeing her memories? I've never heard of that happening."

The new Immortal shrugs. "Wouldn't be the first time strange things have happened to me. It's pretty much par for the course by now."

"The 'lightning show' is called the quickening. Some Immortals hunt other Immortals to take their quickening, because of the Game."

"The Game? What's that?"

"It's said that at the end of it, when there's only one Immortal left alive, that Immortal will have ultimate power and knowledge."

"So is that what she meant when she said there can be only one?"

"Some Immortals use it as justification for headhunting."

"I've had enough people trying to kill me for one lifetime," the new Immortal says. Maybe he was in a war. Or maybe he really is a wanted man. "I don't suppose there's any way to opt out?"

"We can't fight on holy ground, but unless you want to spend the rest of your life there it isn't a permanent solution."

"So what, I'm supposed to just learn how to swordfight?"

"If you want to survive."

"I just want to get home," the new mortal says.

"So go home," Duncan says. "If you can find someone to teach you to fight there."

"I wish I could." His expression darkens. "I don't even know how anymore." He pauses. "But that makes me sound either crazy or homeless. I suppose I am homeless for now. But anyway, I'm John Crichton." He holds out his hand to shake.

"Duncan MacLeod," Duncan replies, shrugging off the strangeness and shaking his hand. "Of the clan MacLeod."

"Nice to meet you, Duncan," Crichton says. "I don't suppose you're willing to teach a new Immortal how to use a sword?"

"Anytime," Duncan replies. "And a few more things besides."

"There's more to this Immortality thing?" Crichton asks.

"That's just the things you need to know to survive," Duncan says. "There are other things you need to know."

"Like what?" Crichton asks.

"Every Immortal is a foundling, and we can't have children."

"But…" Crichton starts, and then stops suddenly. "Ah. Never mind."

"What?" Duncan asks.

"I don't fit your pattern, but that's because of some things you wouldn't believe if I told you. So just ignore it."

"Every Immortal fits the pattern. If you think you don’t, you're wrong." He tries to imagine what it would be like to suddenly find out that the children he'd thought were his, actually aren't. He already knows the pain of suddenly learning he's adopted. "Sorry." The word really doesn't convey it all.

"Believe what you want," Crichton says, "But I look a lot like my dad, and we had a paternity test done on my son."

"But that's impossible."

"Impossible is not in our vocabulary," Crichton says, obviously quoting something. "I think this is all because a while back some…people…did some things to me. I thought I knew about all of them, but apparently I was wrong." Whoever these people are, he obviously doesn't like them. He spits out the word as if he doesn't think it should apply to them.

"What people?"

"Nobody you know," Crichton says with a humorless laugh. "Don't worry about it, seriously."

Crichton clearly doesn't have the tightest grasp on reality, but he seems to be functional enough. He's even taken his first head already, which is more than most new Immortals manage to do before their permanent deaths. A lot of immortals go crazy at least once in their lives, if they live long enough for all of the implications of being Immortal to sink in.

"You can crash on my couch," Duncan offers. "Until you get somewhere to live and a job. And an ID?"

"It would have to be fake," Crichton says.

"I was born in 1492. Do you think they had social security or drivers' licenses back then? I can get you a legitimate ID of somebody else."

Timmortal 2

The book comes out with a splash of publicity. For months, it's all anybody can talk about: Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, had been the quasi-legendary Batman and had put all three of the children in his care in harm's way, which had eventually led to the deaths of two of them. The book, acting upon very few pieces of evidence, calls into question everything from his sexual tastes to his lifestyle.

Quietly, Tim Drake, under his current alias of Joseph Tucker, takes a leave of absence. Nobody sees him for four months. His phone goes unanswered, as does his email, not that he gets many of either; he's always been remarkably good at blending in to the point of not getting noticed when he wants to. These days, he wants to most of the time.

The publisher has read the book, of course; everybody has, because it's rare for a superhero to be unmasked, and rarer still for any shred of evidence that the Batman really had existed to be presented. So he knows what a goldmine the memoir presented to him by the estate of Tim Drake can be, if managed properly: an alternate, directly opposing view of Bruce Wayne/Batman, from somebody who was there and knew all the details, and what's more, who had been a superhero. It would be better if he was still alive, or if the estate had been a little less cutthroat in their negotiations, but you can't have everything, right? The memoir is rushed into print.

The memoir has a somewhat strange writing style- mostly emotionless and logical, coupled with details casual in their intimacy. And though the memoir has an overall positive tone towards Wayne, it doesn't flinch from describing painful events. I never wanted to be Batman, but he decided to make me his successor in the worst possible way, says one chapter. I only wish I'd been allowed to say goodbye to Steph, says another. I'm almost glad they died at the same time, because neither of them had to see what their deaths did to me. The memoir ends on those words. Aside from his date of death, there is no information available on Tim Drake after Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson died.

NaNo 2007: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: It Was Earth All Along

John's been pretty thoroughly lost from the moment he stepped out of the car. He's never been in Seacouver before, and has never found any reason to memorize a map of it, so the street signs mean nothing to him. Besides, he has nowhere to go even if he knew where he is and where anything in Seacouver is. Even acting on the (large) assumption that his mind isn't just being frelled with, and that he really is in a previously unrealized reality, he doesn't know anybody in Seacouver or even in this reality. He doesn't have any money valid on Earth, although he does have a few kretmas left over from his shopping expedition. He doesn't have any identification, and his social security number probably isn't his in this reality. So he just wanders around randomly. As time passes he starts to doubt his "mindfrell" theory more and more; unless their strategy is to wait until he gets bored and goes to find them, he can't see any reason for them to just let him go like this. Of course, if he's trapped inside of his own mind (or somebody else's mind, or a computer) he probably can't escape anyway, but it still seems strange. As a veteran of God knows how many mindfrells (for all he knows, he's been mindfrelled into forgetting some of the times he's been mindfrelled. Believing that might make him paranoid, but it might also make him right), he can tell when something's off.

All the newspapers he's seen have had the correct date (or a correct-ish date, since he hasn't been back on Earth in so long he barely even keeps track of the year anymore, and most of the newspapers he sees are on the ground and probably several days old), and events he's never heard of adorning their pages. Again, this is nothing conclusive (really, nothing can conclusively tell him this isn't a mindfrell, because if it's good enough it could theoretically include anything), but it adds onto that small scrap of doubt in his mind.

"Your eye's twitching again," Harvey notes unhelpfully inside his mind. He's dressed like he's homeless and sitting against the wall of a building with a cardboard sign reading "Figment of his imagination" and a Styrofoam cup with money in it in his hand.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be dead?" John asks.

"That's what I thought, too."

A woman steps out in front of him in the alley and pulls a sword out of seemingly nowhere.

"What the frell do you think you're doing?" John asks as she approaches him.

"Morgan Dekker," she says. "I'm after your head." And then she swings the sword right at him like she means business.

Aeryn has been trying to teach John how to defend himself for the past eight years, so he manages to duck under the sword, but if he hadn't…he'd be a foot shorter. And it isn't exactly easy to stay alive when getting attacked with a sword; after all, they're made to kill, and he gets the impression she's actually good with one. "Why?" he asks urgently. He's only been in this reality for a few hours, certainly not enough time to piss her off enough to come after him with a sword.

"There can be only one," she says, like it's actually justification for attacking somebody with a sword. He's run into enough strange thought processes in the Uncharted Territories and Tormented Space, but he'd never thought he'd hear one so incomprehensible on Earth.

The next time she swings her sword, it connects shallowly with his hand (meaning he still has a hand, although he'll probably need stitches) on the backswing. "Frell!" he yelps and clutches his hand as blood drips onto the ground. How many times is he going to bleed today? Maybe only once more, if she actually manages to decapitate him. Something about actually getting sliced open by a three foot hunk of steel makes him realize this woman's serious; if she can she'll take his head off. He draws Winona and shoots her, like he's shot so many people over the years.

"This is against the rules," she says before she dies, her sword clattering to the ground of the alley beside her.

"Why the frell would she attack me like that? And with a sword?" John asks rhetorically. "It makes no sense."

"Perhaps she holds the same beliefs as the men in the car," Harvey hypothesizes. "Members of the same cult, for lack of a better term."

"Yeah, but if it's a cult why are they trying so hard to force me to join it? And how did she know to come after me? I mean, surely they don't just grab random people off of the street, tell them they're immortal, and then send people after them with swords, because I think the police would notice that."

"Perhaps…" Harvey pauses. "Perhaps they aren't a cult after all. Perhaps they're telling the truth."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"Look at your hand, John."

John looks down at his hand, which come to think of it feels pretty strange; was there poison on the blade or something? But no, his hand feels weird because there is frelling lightning on the wound. He watches it in shock, because what can he do about spontaneous hand lightning, anyway?

The lightning stops quickly, leaving behind a completely uninjured hand. John turns his hand over in shock- he had been injured, right? He'd needed stitches? But now he doesn't and isn't. "This isn't possible."

"I think maybe they were correct," Harvey says.

"But I can't be immortal! The other John Crichton was mortal enough, and we were exactly the same."

"Perhaps your immortality is a recent development, or at least more recent than his death. The Ancients, perhaps?"

"But I only saw Einstein, and he wouldn't make me immortal even if he could. And especially not when he took the wormhole information from my mind."

"Perhaps he had some reason you don't know of. Or perhaps he was unable to remove the information without making you immortal. He doesn't even necessarily know that you are now immortal."

"But if they're so terrified about people knowing about wormholes, why even let me live, much less live forever? Jack told me that I could figure it out in a few decades even without the wormhole knowledge."

"Perhaps you have proved yourself to them, despite using the wormhole weapon."

"That seems unlikely."

Their conversation is interrupted as the woman comes back from the dead with a gasp.

"Weren't you dead?" John asks rhetorically. "Are you going to stop trying to kill me?"

"You should have taken my head while you had the chance," she sneers, picking up her sword and swinging it again.

"Apparently not," John says to himself, and shoots her again. She falls to the ground without comment this time. He goes over and picks up her sword. If he needs to decapitate her to make her stay dead, he doesn't really have a problem with that. Her death is just a drop in the ocean of deaths he's been the cause of. It's nothing when compared to some of the things he's done since leaving Earth for the first time.

"You need to strike between the vertebrae," Harvey says, dressed up as a scientist and pointing to a chart of a human skeleton in the same position the woman is in. "And put your back into it!"

John takes aim and tries to pretend he's just using an axe to chop wood. But the sword feels a lot different than any axe he's ever used, in length and weight and balance; and it feels like it's been used frequently for years upon years, maybe even centuries if the men in the car had been telling the truth and she really is immortal. If he really is immortal. He swings the sword down and it goes through her neck like- well, not like a knife through butter. The sword's sharp enough, but he's never done this before and apparently necks are full of all sorts of things that are harder to cut through than skin, so he has to make more effort than he'd subconsciously been expecting to need to make the sword go all the way through. On the whole, he prefers Winona. By a lot.

There's less blood than he'd expected, as her head rolls away from her body. It might be because she was immortal, or because she was already dead (temporarily) when he took her head off, or because he'd made assumptions without any medical training, but there's only about as much blood as there had been when she'd cut his hand.

"Ding, dong, the witch is dead," he says, resting the tip of the sword on the ground. Then the corpse starts to spark with what looks like a much more powerful version of the lightning on his hand. "Frell, I thought she was supposed to die without her head!"

The lightning keeps building for a couple of seconds, and then it leaves the corpse to strike out at everything else- the walls, the windows (which explode), the trash cans, John…

The lightning hurts; it's lightning, after all, for all it didn't come from the sky, and the human body isn't made for getting struck by lightning, even if it happens sometimes. But he doesn't think normal, from the skies lightning feels like this, either. It's somehow invigorating, like he's being infused with everything Morgan Dekker had been, everything she had seen and had done and had known. Around him, the alley's getting trashed, but he's riding high on a painful lightning bolt that is Morgan Dekker.

The lightning stops, and his rigid muscles relax.

"John, I think you should see this," Harvey says, and they're sitting on the roof of his car and watching a movie of the memories he apparently got from Morgan. He doesn't think he'd ever have had access to them without Harvey's help.

John's silent for a few minutes, watching the movie. "I think this might be real," he says finally.
" I hate every ape I see
From chimpan-a to chimpan-zee
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me

Oh my God, I was wrong
It was Earth all along

You've finally made a monkey

Yes, you've finally made a monkey out of me," Harvey sings, dressed in a tattered version of John's IASA suit.

"This isn't Planet of the Apes," John says. "Especially not musical Planet of the Apes."

"But the song is so fitting."

John ignores that. "Anyway, if this is all real, I think we need to pay a visit to Mac."

He pulls the business card out of the pocket he'd put it in. "I just hope I can find it."

NaNo 2007: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Men in the Car

Earth…he’d thought he’d never see it again. But apparently he’s back on it, and since these men don’t recognize him, after the media circus when Moya came through the wormhole, this must be an unrealized reality. If this is an unrealized reality, what happened to his reality? What happened to Moya and Aeryn and D’argo and the baby? Do they even exist anymore? And if he’s here, without a ship of his own, is it even possible to get back to Moya or even off of Earth? Unless this Earth has more space travel than his own had had before he’d returned (he has no doubt that renewed funding is being put into the space program on his Earth, after confirmation of life on other planets), he knows that even for somebody with valid ID the path to becoming an astronaut is long and difficult. And he doesn’t have an ID other than the Peacekeeper ident chip High Command had given him during the negotiations after the war, because it’s kind of ridiculous to carry identification for a planet that can’t be reached in less than sixty cycles. And even if he got into space again, he no longer has the knowledge Jack the Ancient planted in his head about wormholes. He could fly around randomly, hoping to get lucky, but even regions with a relatively large number of wormholes don’t have too many total. And with current Earth-based propulsion he’d have to be in just the right place at the right time or else he wouldn’t be able to reach the wormhole before it closed.

"But that’s not the interesting part," Harvey says.

"Harvey? I thought you were dead," John says in his mindscape.

"And they think you were," Harvey replies. "And yet they dragged you into their car and drove off into the sunset. That implies that either they wanted to use your corpse for some purpose- unlikely, given their calmness at you being alive- or that they had some reason to believe you would return from the dead."

"What do you mean, where I died?" He's back on Earth, in a car full of crazy people who think he's undead, and Harvey's back. There is just no way this isn't somebody frelling with his mind again. Because he isn't crazy, and this is just too surreal to be actually happening as anything other than a hallucination or a mindfrell.

"You're immortal," the man in the passenger seat tells him with a Scottish accent, twisting around to look him in the eye. "You can't die unless you're decapitated."

"You just told me I died in an alley," John replies. "Now you're telling me I'm immortal. If you're going to try to frell with my head you should at least take the trouble to make it internally consistent."

"I'd use myself as an example, but I don't want to mess up Joe's car," the one with the ponytail says. "Bloodstains are difficult to get out of the upholstery, you know?"

"Speaking from experience, Mac?" the other one, Joe presumably, asks with apparent amusement.

"Of course I'm speaking from experience; I've been killed in cars before. Usually when I'm with Amanda," he mutters.

"Look, I don't care what your story is. I don't have the wormhole information anymore, in case you've been out of the loop for the past three years, so you won't get anything out of frelling with my mind. And Aeryn will be coming to get me soon, so if you don't quit frelling with me and run you'll end up dead."

They exchange glances and Joe pulls over. "If he doesn't want to hear it, he doesn't want to hear it," he tells Mac. "You aren't responsible."

"But I feel responsible," Mac says, then turns to John. "You can go if you want to, but here's my card. If you decide you believe me feel free to drop by or give me a call. And…you might want to clean the blood off of your face."

Belatedly, John remembers the blood and the dizziness before he'd, apparently, passed out. But he feels fine now, which he wouldn't have thought possible. Maybe he'd just needed a nap. Or maybe the mindfrell is making him think he's just fine, or had been what made him collapse/think he collapsed. It doesn't really matter, because if he was immortal then the other John Crichton wouldn't have died. Unless they really weren't exactly the same. That debate's old, though, old and irrelevant, especially considering this isn't real. He wipes his face off the best he can and accepts the card Mac's holding out, because who knows? It might be good for something. Then he exits the car.

The trick he used on the false Earth the Ancients concocted won't work here; he's never been to Seacouver, so obviously this is all made up, extrapolated somehow from his memories but not directly taken from them. If he goes into the women's restroom it'll look like a women's restroom. He doesn't have any idea how to get out of this construct or mindfrell or whatever it is (although technically the difference is only in the intentions of its creators). Stark hasn't popped up to tell him how to win, nobody showed up out of nowhere to free him when he figured it out, nothing. He heads in a random direction, because there's a slim possibility that it might be real (he doesn't think it's possible for there to be such small wormholes, or for them to form within ships or on the surface of planets, but then again he doesn't have the Ancients' knowledge any more), and if it is he'd prefer to get as far away from the crazy people as possible.

Eventually, John realizes his eye has stopped twitching. It had been twitching like it had only once before, when the locator beacon was on Moya, but now it had stopped, which is good, because that's really annoying. Somehow he doubts that anybody on Earth would have a locator beacon in their car, and if he's being mindfrelled he shouldn't be able to move away from any beacons there might be, right? So it's more than a little odd that his eye had been twitching like that, unless there's some other cause of it.

NaNo 2007: Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1: The Disappearance of John Crichton

"John, did you get anything besides food cubes on the planet?" Aeryn asks, entering their bedroom with D'argo balanced on her hip, and stops short at what she sees: a blue light, all too familiar. She'd thought she would never see another wormhole in her life, and yet here one is, forming around her husband in their bedroom. I thought wormholes were bigger than this. And why is it forming inside of Moya? I hope it doesn't cause any problems…

But she can already see that it will; it's sucking John in. Even though he's holding onto the bed as tightly as he can, his fingers are slipping. She braces herself in the doorway; even without the knowledge of wormholes that he used to have, John is still far more likely to be able to navigate the wormhole than she is, and she knows he'll find a way back if it's even remotely possible. Frell, he's done enough supposedly impossible things over the cycles that she wouldn't put it past him to come back even if it was impossible. He can find his way back; she can't. And somebody has to stay and take care of D'argo and the baby which had just been released from stasis. Even if she isn't as good of a parent as John is, she's learned enough these past three cycles to have some degree of confidence in her ability to at least not mess up too badly.

John's hands finally lose their grip entirely. He scrabbles for a new one, but the only thing he manages to grab is the hologlobe they store their pictures on. With that in his hand, he disappears into the wormhole and it closes behind him. In the sudden stillness, D'argo's crying seems even louder than it usually does.

"Officer Sun, Commander Crichton, are you there?" Pilot's voice sounds through her comm. Badge. "We just had some strange sensor readings, but they've cleared up now."

"John's gone, Pilot," Aeryn says, barely able to keep her composure even though she knows that if she starts crying D'argo will be impossible to handle. "There was a wormhole inside of Moya."

"Do you think he'll find a way to make it back to Moya?" Pilot asks, as shocked as Aeryn is.

"I don't know, Pilot," she replies. "I don't know."

Chapter 2: The Rabbit Hole

John tries his hardest to hold onto the bed, but it's like this wormhole- and since when are wormholes this small? Since when do they form within ships?- seems like it wants him. It sucks him in, like gravity, like vacuum when there's a hull breach, and he can't keep his hold of the bed. Frantically, he grabs for something, anything, to keep him from getting sucked down the rabbit hole again. He's done with his adventures with wormholes. He can't get to Earth in them, home is Moya, and nothing good has ever come from traveling through wormholes except for meeting Aeryn. But his frantic grasp doesn't catch anything solid, anything secured to the deck, only something small that was sitting on the bedside table. It all happens too quickly, and he's too upset and frantic, for him to even look at what's in his hand as he tumbles down the rabbit hole again.

This isn't a nice wormhole, although how much of that is because he doesn't have anything other than himself, and especially not his module so he could actually steer; and how much of it is that he doesn't have a ship or a space suit and everything seems to be getting dimmer as he begins to black out, he doesn't know. He hopes the wormhole leads somewhere with air, but he doesn't have even a little bit of choice in the matter.

Battered from the rough passage and more than a little bit surprised that he isn't dead yet, he reaches the end of the wormhole. He barely manages to land on his feet when it dumps him unceremoniously and closes before he can even turn around. He notes that he seems to be on a planet, and in a city even. Or at least between a few buildings. Well, at least there's air, and it's probably a civilization with space travel.

Something drips on his hand, and he looks down. It's blood. He dabs his nose, and his hand comes away even bloodier. Belatedly, he realizes that something is running down his face like tears, but he isn't crying. And even if he was, he couldn't cry from his ears, too.

This isn't good, he thinks as a wave of dizziness runs through him and he staggers. The next wave of dizziness makes him lose his balance and fall, but he's dead before he hits the ground.

Chapter 3: The Preimmortal in the Alley

Duncan feels the slight buzz of a preimmortal as he walks past the entrance to an alley, and spares a second to wonder who it is and what sort of an immortal they'll make. Will they, like most immortals, be easy prey and die before they've lived even one year as an immortal, or will they be one of the lucky/skilled few who live on for years or even centuries? It's all just idle speculation, though; likely he'll never know. Likely he'll never even set eyes upon them, now or in the future. But he has time to speculate, if he wants. Just not here; his ice cream is melting in the bag he's carrying.

He starts to move on, but his motion is arrested by the feel of the sudden spike in the Buzz from preimmortal to immortal. Whoever's in that alley just died for the first time. Sighing, Duncan throws away his bag of groceries. He isn't about to wait around in an alley for however long it takes the new immortal to revive, which could be anywhere from half an hour to several hours; for some unknown reason there's variation in revival times, even when dealing with only one immortal and not the population at large. So he's going to take the new immortal back to the dojo. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a walk because he hadn't taken the T-bird to the grocery store- it's in walking distance, but a bit far to carry a dead body. Oh well, he can pass the new immortal off as drunk if they look old enough to drink legally, even if it's way too early in the day to be drunk. If the new immortal's recognized their reputation's going to be ruined, Duncan thinks with amusement.

Duncan enters the alleyway cautiously. The new immortal died down here, and he doesn't know the cause yet. They might have been killed by a gang or the mob; or they might have died of starvation or disease. Preimmortals are immune to none, and the first two are at least temporarily dangerous for immortals, too.

The new immortal's alone, though, just collapsed on the ground like he'd been walking along and suddenly dropped dead without warning. Duncan leans over and hefts him up. This isn't the most efficient way to carry a dead body, not even the most efficient way to carry a body without anything other than one's own self- he's carried enough bodies, both on battlefields and those of temporarily or permanently deceased immortals, to know them all- but it's the method that looks the most like he's carrying a passed out drunk friend rather than a body.

The new immortal's head lolls back, revealing lines of blood from his eyes and nose and ears: obviously the cause of death, but what could make someone bleed from their eyes, ears, and nose at the same time, to the point of killing them? Duncan isn't a doctor, but he's been around for long enough to see any number of medical conditions, and he's never seen anything like this. No matter what caused it, though, he can't carry this man down the street with this much blood on his face. He doesn't have anything to clean it off with, though; the new immortal's dressed entirely in leather, which is useless for wiping up blood; and he'd look decidedly strange carrying a passed out man dressed in leather without a shirt.

He puts the new immortal back on the ground and thinks. At least to him, this new immortal is his responsibility now, even if he knows that most other people, especially Methos, would see it otherwise. So he can't just leave him here and go get the T-bird, because what if he revives before then, and runs off and gets his head chopped off by the next immortal who sees him? Duncan would feel responsible. But he can't carry the man because of the blood on his face, and he can't call a taxi or take a bus for the same reason. There's only one option open to him. Duncan pulls out his cell phone.

"Joe's Bar," Mike answers the phone.

"Hey, Mike, can I talk to Joe?" Duncan asks.

"Sure, he just finished a set…Joe, phone for you!" Mike hands the phone over to Joe.

"Hello?" Joe says.

"Joe," Duncan says. "Sorry to ask another favor, but can you give me a ride?"

"What happened to the T-bird?" Joe asks.

"It's fine, but it's at the dojo and I don't want to lose this guy."

"This guy? You're going to tell me the details later, right?"

"Sure, Joe. But I need that ride fast."

"Just give me directions and I'll be there."

"Thanks, Joe."

***

Joe pulls up to the entrance to the alley and Duncan drags the new immortal over to the car and dumps him in the back seat.

"Is that a body?" Joe asks.

"New immortal," Duncan explains. "Strangely enough, he doesn't have any identification on him. No driver's license, credit card, anything. Just a little metal ball and a handful of pieces of plastic in a bag and a toy gun."

"Maybe he's a criminal," Joe suggests. "Dressed all in leather, maybe he's a member of a biker gang or something."

"With a coat like that? It isn't made for sitting on a bike, and the whole style just seems different. I'm not ruling out the possibility that he's a criminal, though. Or that he was mugged. The toy's weird, though."

The new immortal revives with a gasp and looks around wildly, hand immediately going to the toy gun with the reflexes, if not the equipment, of someone used to combat and war zones.

"Where am I?" he asks, his hand not moving from the toy although he hasn't drawn it yet. He thinks it's real, at least. He raises a hand to rub his left eye, which is twitching. Duncan wonders if it's a tic he's always had, or if it's an atypical reaction to the Buzz like a few immortals have. "I was on Moya, and then…" he trails off and his face fills with dismay. "Where am I?"

Moya? Duncan thinks. "You're in Seacouver. Hope you don't mind that we took you out of the alley you died in."

He expects the new immortal to react to the statement that he's dead, but unexpectedly he says, "Seacouver? As in Seacouver, Washington? I'm on Earth?"

Oh, great. Another immortal with mental problems. Just what Duncan needs. Because it always turns out so well. Although to some extent all immortals have mental problems, most of them aren't surprised to find out they're on Earth. "Of course you're on Earth, where else would you be?"