Title: The Stranger
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Summary: Crichton's back on Earth but it's not the happy homecoming everyone thought it would be.
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 :(



"Have you thought any more about trying to get him to see someone?"

Jack Crichton stared out the window, at first refusing to acknowledge the voice that sought answers from him. He just didn't know anymore; he didn't know what to do or what was RIGHT to do. There had been few times in his life that he'd felt so helpless as a father.

Jack Crichton's Florida home was quiet in the late hours, even the wall clock's ticking a deafening repetition that was on the brink of sending the colonel into a fit. He just wanted everything to stop, for everything to be quiet, and maybe then something would happen. Maybe by some miracle the problem would fix itself.

"Sir..." DK pressed in a voice speaking in both gentle but pressing tones. He stood near Jack's shoulder, a hovering presence that would not let him just do nothing. DK demanded action, that something be tried, and of course he would. Why wouldn't he? He had a vested interest in this too, he had just as much right to care.

But human beings weren't fixed as easily as that, especially when it wasn't clear what exactly was wrong with them.

Jack could feel a thousand years weigh on his soul as he shook his head, "I don't want to push him, DK. I don't know what that will do to him."

DK frowned, looking twice his age with concern, and nodded fractionally, "I know, sir, but... can we really just let him alone? He's not right, Colonel, you know that..."

Jack looked sharply over at the man he'd practically seen grow from a young boy, "I know my son," the aged Crichton snapped, "I don't need to be told there's something wrong."

DK closed his mouth quickly, chastised by the man who'd been like a second father to him, then hesitantly continued, "He needs help."

Jack sighed wearily, "He doesn't want it, DK."

"Maybe it shouldn't be his decision... for his own good."

Jack's heart ached at the notion, because secretly it had been his. From the first moment his lost son stumbled mysteriously on to his doorstep, bedraggled and exhausted, Jack had been plagued by the inclination to take John to see someone. First a doctor, then a psychiatrist.

John would have neither. That rainy afternoon Jack's son showed up, after five years being dead, he'd railed against any attempts to get him to seek professional help. Jack had only stopped trying when he became genuinely concerned that John was just going to leave... walk out of the house and never come back because he'd wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

It went against his instincts as a parent, but he honored his son's wishes. He stood back and watched him hurt, watched him as he behaved and spoke so differently from the John Crichton the elder man had lost. He'd stood back and done nothing as he came to understand his boy had returned a stranger.

"Let me try to talk to him..." DK offered, his voice showing the hint of desperation in the young man's plea. DK wanted to help so badly, he wanted to find a way to make things better. He wanted the same John back that Jack did, but Jack was beginning to understand that that John no longer existed. DK would get that too some day, but he wasn't ready for that now. He was searching for the colleague and best friend who'd been like a brother to him.

"He won't listen to you, son. I've tried. He doesn't want help. I don't know what he wants anymore."

"But we can't just..."

"We'll have to." Jack looked solemnly at his son's friend. "This has to be on John's terms, he's made that clear."

"Forgive me, Colonel, but there's been nothing clear about any of this."

Jack felt the same way. John had staggered home shrouded in mystery, and that veil still hung over the ex-astronaut. If nothing else, the darkness had become even blacker and tucked more snugly around John the longer he was back home. They didn't know what happened to him, where he'd been, where he'd come from, how he got back... nothing. When asked, John would adopt the recently common behavior of staring into the distance with an almost listless gaze as though he'd not heard a word anyone else said.

Aside from the few times Jack and DK had managed to strike nerves here and there, wires they didn't even know were laying in wait to be tripped, but when they inadvertently did so sending John into a rage. A spitting vat of harsh words and cold glares, tensed postures and a propensity to grab at his right thigh.

Mannerisms that were not John's, had never been his, but now that came to him naturally with a wicked mastery. He was almost a different person in John Crichton's skin.

He'd been somewhere and lost himself, and Jack and DK were left with a person they didn't know.

DK began to slowly pace in frustration while Jack looked back out the window. They'd both tried so hard to find him, to bring him back. After attempts to get him real help had failed, they'd done what they could only think to do. Remind him of the John Crichton he used to be, immerse him in things that had brought out the fun-loving, gentle southern boy in him that used to be who he was without exception. They'd invited Alex down to see him, hoping she'd snap him out of it... he'd just touched her face with a look of detachment and told her how innocently naive she was and told her he was sorry and envious she was like that. They'd tried taking him on a vacation up north to do some ice-fishing like the three of them had done a number of times before... John refused to go near the frozen lake.

Jack's eyes locked on the figure in the front yard, the huddled frame of a weary and worn man with his neck craned so he could stare upward at the stars. That had been the only thing that had not changed, that John did before disappearing that he still did now. He watched the stars, sought untold answers from them. But even then, Jack was certain the questions were not those of childhood fantasy. John had found cause to ask different things of the distant lights, and Jack would not even begin to guess what those queries were.

He didn't know this man well enough to even hazard to speculate.

DK stopped his restless moving and joined Jack once again at the window, seeing John just as Jack did.

"We have to do something, Colonel. We have to."

Jack shook his head sadly, "There's nothing we can do... John doesn't want to be found."

And until he did, neither father nor best friend would be able to forge any bridges to reach him. Not until John was ready to explain the things he'd seen, the strange names he cried in his sleep, until John could bring all of himself home and not just his body would there be any chance of helping him.

His flesh had been found, but everything more of John Crichton was still lost in some nameless place while he watched the stars at night and whispered heartaches unknown to all but him.



END