Title: Long For Spaces
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Promises
Summary: Aeryn's back and John has to go.
Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching taped episodes of her favorite shows :(



"John."

John Crichton had to close his eyes, had to lower his head and grasp firmly to the edge of the Farscape One's cockpit. If he didn't all the different directions pulling inside him might well tear him apart.

Moya thrummed around him soothingly, her sounds healthier as of late thanks to Sikozu's tending. She had been relentless in seeking out the small problems on Moya and fixing them... John could understand and appreciate that, the single-minded focus on a task to forget your life.

Crichton took a long breath, willing courage to support him, something to guide him... whatever she said, he couldn't back out of what he wanted to do. More than he'd needed anything in a very long time he needed this.

But the small and desperate tone in Aeryn's voice made it very difficult to turn her away regardless of what he needed.

Crichton released his grip on the module, standing up straight but not turning to face her quite yet... he wasn't sure he could look at her and not forget everything he'd planned.

Aeryn's footsteps carried her a few feet closer, her terrified voice that much clearer when she spoke. "Pilot told me... you're leaving?"

Crichton bit his lip faintly, closing his eyes again and turning, opening to set sight upon Aeryn Sun. He still couldn't shake the conflicting feelings upon the sight of her. Every time he saw her he felt joy because it was her, but something else screamed in rage and grief because she was not the Aeryn he'd known. This Aeryn always had a look in her eyes like she could so easily be broken, primed to crack but for the saving grace of the pseudo-lover she'd come running back to.

Crichton couldn't be that for her. Anything else she could have asked, he could have given her... friendship, partnership, confidence, an ally... any of those things that were real he could have provided for her, but he couldn't pretend for her. He couldn't be the John Crichton she'd lost even though she seemed to have decided during their separation that he was good enough.

Being 'good enough' wasn't enough for him.

Crichton forced himself to meet her gaze and not look away as he nodded, answering gently, "That's right."

Aeryn's face twisted, her mouth tightening and a sadness bordering on panic edging into her blue-gray eyes. She took one step closer, stopped, then croaked, "If I've done something..."

Crichton made a noncommittal noise just to stop her. He didn't know what to say, had nothing to say really, but he didn't want to hear her say his decision was her fault. The first moment his plan of action had occurred to him he'd always understood it was about him... not her.

Maybe that was the problem, it had never been about him before. It had always been about Aeryn, everything spinning around Aeryn as the focal point, so of course she would think this was her, too. It had been so long since Crichton had done something for himself free of his friends that it was unrecognizable.

Crichton frowned, brow furrowed, then he turned back to the module and hefted a bag of clothing into the cockpit and fit it behind his seat.

Aeryn watched, face becoming more distraught as she watched him pack.

Crichton sighed, glancing over his still shoulder at her and assuring her, "It's not you."

Aeryn flinched, like the twitch of a cornered animal, and she asked in a halting voice, "Then why?"

Crichton turned to face her, eyes dropped to the floor as he tried to make this easy for both of them.

"I just need... I need some space, some time."

Aeryn withdrew from the familiar words, she'd spoken them to him when she'd been hiding... running. When she couldn't deal with the life she'd made for herself, the tests it had put upon her. When even the sight of John had been too much.

She grew dejected, downtrodden in a way the old Aeryn would never allow herself to fall and stated wearily, "This is about me."

"No... maybe a little, but not all about you."

Aeryn looked like she was about to break, "Then explain it to me."

Crichton looked away... not because he sought to evade the question but because it killed him to see her so fragile,so in need of him exactly when he didn't have anything of himself to give.

1812 sat attached to the Farscape One's outer hull on the nose of the ship. He swiveled his eye stalks at Crichton and chirped with grinding gears in what almost sounded to Crichton like an appeal. Crichton absently reached out and pet the DRD like one would a dog.

Aeryn watched him curiously, still with that deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes, but she waited for him to speak. That was good... he needed time, it was part of why he had to do this.

"I just... can't deal with this right now, any of this. Scorpius being here, what I've been through when Moya was lost, the Peacekeepers, the Commandant... you coming back. I just need time to process, I need to figure some things out."

"You can do that here," Aeryn pressed, standing stock still. Whereas once her stance might have carried danger and strength, now it was brittle and precarious.

Crichton shook his head, "Aeryn... I feel like... like my life's been turned inside out all over again. I have to take a step back... I need to get away. I thought of everyone on Moya that you'd understand that."

Aeryn swallowed a lump in her throat, pressing her lips together tightly. "Take me with you."

Crichton turned away, facing the module once again and steadying himself on it's strong frame. 'Don't ask me to, Aeryn, please' he pleaded within his own thoughts. Take him with her? How many times had he longed to hear just that, to be able to whisk her away someplace where the Peacekeepers and everyone else didn't know them? Why did she have to ask him now, of all times?

Fate screwing them in the fine print again... it had an uncanny knack for that.

Crichton opened his eyes, looking at the worn lettering of 'United States' on his faithful ship and grounding himself on the emblem of his home world (a place where the universe and his place in it had made sense), speaking without turning to face Aeryn, "You asked me once to let you go, if I loved you to not make you stay. I'm asking the same from you."

Aeryn was deathly quiet, causing Crichton to turn and face her. She was watching him, eyes glittering in fright but giving no concession to his request.

Crichton's frown deepened, "You needed time, you needed space. I do, too. I've found you and I know... I know that you're safe. I can take that time now. I need to."

Aeryn's face set in an angry scowl, bitterness thick in her suddenly not so feeble voice, "Revenge, then, is it?"

"What?"

Aeryn was getting agitated quickly, "I did this to you, so you have to do it to me? I can respect that, I deserve it, but don't try to tell me it's anything other than retribution."

Crichton took a step toward her before stopping, effectively silencing her. "Aeryn... when have I ever done ANYTHING just to hurt you?"

Aeryn's fire subsided as she searched his face, unable to find a venomous response.

"Damnit, this is not about getting back at you for what you did to me. I gave you everything I could, god willing I gave you more than I think I had to give because you asked me to. I have sacrificed heaven and hell and everything in between for you... how can you stand here and tell me I'm doing this just to hurt you?"

Aeryn blinked, mouth moving but no words issuing forth.

Crichton glowered, "Is that the kind of person you think I am?"

Aeryn snapped quickly, "No," then thought a moment before answering more softly, "I'm sorry."

Crichton sighed, stepping back, "Don't be, just... let me go. I'll come back when I can deal with this, just not right now. It'll be best this way."

Aeryn weakly tried to argue his departure with, "What if you get into trouble?"

Crichton reached into his belt attachment and withdrew a device, holding it up to her, "Pilot gave it to me... long range homing beacon communicator. If I need you I'll activate it, if you need me contact it and I'll come." He looked up at her, seeking her eyes, "Only an emergency, Aeryn, please. Promise me."

Aeryn dropped her eyes, glanced sideways, then nodded, "I promise."

Crichton replaced the device in his belt and set about packing the last of his sparse items in the space behind the pilot's seat. 1812 whirled and crackled at him, shaking his eye stalks. Crichton smiled and patted the inside of his module. 1812 chirped and rolled over to the open cockpit, using traction suction on its underside to flip into the cockpit's ceiling and crawl along the wall down to the pile of waiting things.

Crichton looked around for one more check to see that he had everything he needed. He had to leave soon before the others were alerted, before they tried to talk him out of it, strong arm him or plain ambush him into staying, and Crichton didn't even want to think about dealing with his new 'bodyguard's' objections to his departure.

Aeryn interrupted carefully, "What if you never come back?"

Crichton turned to face her, feeling the crushing weight of his decision on her face. She was shattered, as though she were losing him forever all over again. Her face told him she felt like she was watching him die, too.

"I'll come back to you, Aeryn, I always do... it's about the only thing that's never changed out here, maybe the only thing I know is true anymore. I'll come back, I promise."

Aeryn nodded slowly, standing motionless a moment, then taking a step back and offering in a carefully controlled voice, "Fly safe."

Crichton nodded, turning to his module and pulling himself up and settling into the cockpit. 1812 beeped over his shoulder animatedly, like a dog anxious to hang his head out the window on a ride with his master. Crichton closed the canopy, looking once more through the amber glass toward the distorted image of Aeryn as she moved toward the hangar bay door. At the opened entrance way she stopping, turning to look back at him.

Crichton met her eyes, locked in a moment of timeless forever for a few microts before Pilot's voice crackled over Crichton's comms. "Commander?"

"Yeah, Pilot?"

"I suggest if you wish to depart you do so soon, the others have been inquiring as to your location."

Crichton nodded, "Thanks, Pilot, for everything."

"Moya and I hope your return to us is short in coming."

Crichton smirked, thinking to himself 'I hope so, too, Pilot', and glancing toward the hangar bay door again only to see that he was alone in the room. Aeryn had locked down the bay for him to depressurize for launch.

Crichton sighed, glancing over his shoulder at 1812, who moved his eye stalks toward John when he looked back at him.

"Let's have a few traveling tunes, what do you say," and while he prepped the module for flight he whistled the first bars of Tchaikovksy's overture.

1812 picked up on his cue, a multitude of varying tones and pitches playing an electronic rendition of the classic that bore him his name.

Crichton angled the Farscape One out of Moya's exterior hangar door and locked her wings into flight position, gliding into space and on the next circuit of the overture picked up whistling along with the tricolored DRD.



END