Aftershock

Crais stood uncomfortably in Moya’s docking bay, watching a reunion that was turning out as badly as he had feared it would. Rygel had hung back as well, both of them hoping for the best but anticipating the worst. Crais winced, taking in the unguarded joy on the human’s face at seeing Aeryn Sun for the first time in half a cycle. She walked across the docking bay and stopped in front of him, back ramrod straight, and looked him squarely in the eye.

“Hello, John,” she said, her expression carefully neutral, and then she walked on past Crichton with slow, measured steps, not turning right or left, and certainly not looking behind.

Crichton, the other one, looked bewildered, and stunned. Actually, Crais thought, it was probably a triumph of her will that she managed to speak to him at all, but he wouldn’t see it that way.

No, here he came, eyes full of questions, concern for Aeryn crowding out the hurt, for the moment.

“What’s wrong?” Crichton asked, still looking in the direction where Aeryn had disappeared.

Best get this over with quickly. He had no wish to hurt the human, but there was no easy way to tell it. "The uh – " Crais paused awkwardly and held out the flight bag that contained the pitiful remains of the life of one John Crichton. He continued self-consciously, “the other…Crichton is dead.”

This Crichton, the one he barely knew, the one who certainly didn’t trust him, took the bag vaguely and let it drop to the floor. The man looked overwhelmed, and Crais had no idea what to do.

Trust Rygel to demonstrate an incredible level of selfishness, racing off after some female Hynerian visitor he had sniffed out. But, Rygel’s zooming off in the same direction that Aeryn had gone finally seemed to shake Crichton out of his stupor. He turned around again to face Crais.

“What,” he began, then swallowed hard and started again. “What happened to him? How did he die? Was it the retrieval squad?”

Crais had been practicing the short version, knowing that if he were in the human’s place, he would need to know the basics, right away. Details could come later. He cleared his throat nervously. “Radiation poisoning. He was exposed to Partanium while building a weapon to destroy a Scarran dreadnaught.”

Crichton looked stunned once more. Crais thought he was imagining his own painful death.

“He saved us all,” Crais assured the human.

“Well, hell, he didn’t manage to save himself, did he?” Crichton got out, looking at the bag sitting at his feet. He made no move to pick it up.

“No. No, he didn’t” Crais said, and grimaced. He put his own flight bag on the floor at his feet. No point in holding it for what was shaping up to be a slow-motion conversation.

After a moment, Crichton looked up again. “Aeryn?”

“She was unhurt.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Crais looked at him steadily. No, that’s not what you asked, he thought. But he wasn’t sure how much Crichton really wanted to know, or how he would react if he were told the truth. He only knew it was a measure of the man’s state of mind that he had asked at all. “She is…obviously…distressed.”

“Obviously,” the human muttered. He stared off into the distance again, and then turned back to Crais. “Is this about Him?”

Inwardly, Crais sighed. Typical Crichton, determined to make this difficult on both of them. Even the other one had never outgrown that habit. “We were all very distressed by his passing,” he said, a slight emphasis on the ‘all.’ “It was a noble sacrifice.” Come on, Crichton, take that and let it go.

But the evasions only seemed to push Crichton past discretion. “Were they lovers?” he demanded. “Is that clear enough for you?”

That was not a question Crais was prepared to answer. “I think it’s best if you ask her—“

“She just walked by me like I wasn’t even there. In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s a train wreck—“ Crichton’s voice was rising in both pitch and volume.

Crais sighed. The human’s anger was clearly triggered by worry, but….“Bullying me will not get you any more information about their personal lives. You will need to ask Aeryn about that when she’s ready to talk.”

The human looked away, and looked back, resignation fighting with pain on his face. Crais realized that the man had made the assumption that the woman he loved had betrayed him, and of course he was right. From a certain point of view, anyway.

Crais’ feet were itching to get moving, to get away, but he felt a certain obligation to get this Crichton enough information to let him function. Odd as it would have seemed to the man in front of him, the other Crichton had left him the task. He continued to wait as the human once again looked down the corridor where Aeryn had disappeared, his mind clearly running in starburst, but not really taking much of this in.

When Crichton finally turned back to Crais, his face was lined with sorrow. “You said he died of radiation poisoning. Was it bad?”

Regret touched Crais’ eyes, and he could tell by the surprised look on the man’s face that Crichton saw it. “Bad enough,” he said. He considered telling Crichton that his dead twin had refused treatment in order to fly the mission which saved them, but that served no purpose at this point. “Once we realized it was hopeless, the Bannik stayed with him and took the pain.”

A faint smile touched Crichton’s face. "That's good," he said, and then he looked around in puzzlement as a new thought apparently struck him. He started counting on his fingers. “You, Rygel, Aeryn….I’m dead – where’s Stark? Is he dead too?”

Crais took a deep breath. “Uh, no,” he said. “Stark…how to say this….Stark came to believe that Zhaan’s spirit was calling to him. He believes she has something to tell him. He left us at the last planet we visited to search for her.” And please, he thought, don’t ask me about Valldon. “He intends to find us once again when he has completed his quest.”

Crichton scratched the back of his head. “Well, that sounds like Stark…..” After a moment, as if continuing his reckoning of long lost crewmates, he said, “I guess Talyn must be okay, or Moya would’ve told us?”

Trust the human to hit a sore spot. Crais tried to hide his annoyance. “He was damaged by the retrieval squad, but he is on the mend.”

That seemed to be enough, and Crichton’s mind was off and running somewhere else. “When did he die?” he asked. “Has it been very long? Did you have….did you have a funeral or a wake or something?”

“Two weekens, a little more,” Crais told him. “We buried him in space.” Aeryn had insisted on sending his body into Dam-Ba-Da’s unstable sun to make sure there was no possibility, however small, that anyone coming to investigate the disappearance of the Scarran dreadnaught might find his remains. “Perhaps now that we’re all back together, you might have a wake. He missed you all, you know.”

Crichton scrubbed his face with his hand and abruptly laughed, a short, sharp bark. “Doubt he missed me any more than I did him,” was all he said.

Crais wondered how long it would be before the shock started to wear off and Crichton began treating him with his usual wariness. Being witness to the man’s pain was wearing, and Crais had a suspicion that he would pay for it later.

At that moment, D’Argo’s voice came from Crichton’s comm badge. “Crichton. Crichton, are you there?”

It was enough to finally spur the human to action. “Yeah, D, I’m here.” Before D’Argo could respond, Crichton added, “Uh, things are pretty frelled here, meet me in the center chamber, I’ll fill you in.”

The strained note in Crichton’s voice was clearly audible by his friend, because D’Argo asked, “John? Are you all right?”

“In a microt, D’Argo,” Crichton said in a voice that nearly snapped. The Luxan grumbled acknowledgement, and Crichton turned back to Crais. The pain shown in his eyes again, and he said, softly, “Thanks for bringing her back, man.”

Crais blinked. Crichton, the one he didn’t know very well at all, had surprised him once again. He shouldn’t have. The dead one would have said the same thing. With a faint smile, the ex-Peacekeeper inclined his head towards his one-time quarry. “I could do nothing less.”

Edgy now, Crichton bent down to pick up his dead twin’s flight bag. He hefted it briefly, as if gauging the small residue of a life. “I’ve gotta go. We’ve got some fugitives on board.” He shrugged. “It’s always something.”

Crais watched Crichton walk out of the docking bay and into Moya’s corridors, heading no doubt to meet D’Argo. He couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the man, but he knew he’d better not let it show in future encounters. As the reality of the situation set in, Crichton would resent anything he perceived as pity, especially if Aeryn remained distant from him, as she almost certainly would for some time.

Crais sighed once again, and picked up his own flight bag. “Pilot,” he called. “Crichton says you have some difficulty on board. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Thank you for offering,” Pilot said. “I believe Joolushko needs some help with a Boolite in the medical lab.”