The Best of All Possible Worlds

Time

- 's up -

Time

- flies -

Time

- bandits -

Time

- wounds all heels -

Time

- rosemary and -

Time is

- infinite. Relative.

-o-

The first time – the first time anyone notices - it's the Qualta blade and Chiana spends thirty arns straight turning over the ship. She'd spend longer but Aeryn corners her in Pilot's den and promises they'll look together, but only if Chiana sleeps for at least six arns first.

Nine arns later, Chiana and Rygel are screaming at each other; John's the only one either will trust to look through each other's rooms and John's at the Commerce planet.

Aeryn's ready to knock them both unconscious and D'Argo is teething and, honestly, the Qualta blade has probably just fallen under something.

The second time – and this time they're paying attention – it's the stores on tier three. Pilot feels them disappear and that's worrying enough thatRygel only spends a quarter arn demanding apologies for the impugning of his honour.

They spend three days running scans and nothing is showing; it's like the stores, the blade, never even existed. When John tries to comfort Chiana, she asks him why and she doesn't remember the blade at all.

He has less than an arn to deal with that before it happens again.

The third time it's Pilot. Moya rolls and shudders out her shock and fear, spinning them from starburst and dumping them closer to a dying sun than anyone really wants to think about.

There are scars and welts all over her hull and they're old, and no one but John and Aeryn seems surprised.

They don't have long to be surprised though, because then it's the fourth time and it's D'Argo and John will do anything, anything at all, to take the sickness out of Aeryn's eyes; to feel something more than desperation as she grips his arm.

Anything.

-o-

"Is this it?"

Aeryn sounds unimpressed, he can't really be sure if she is. Once the shock passed she retreated inside the Peacekeeper shell and she did it with a speed he still isn't sure whether he finds admirable or scary. It's a little from column A, a little from column B.

But he's gone somewhere too; he knows he has. If he hadn't, he would still be in a crumpled, staring silence on the floor of the hangar bay.

He wouldn't have been able to pilot the module or find the wormhole - the weapon knowledge is gone but the rest, Mama Crichton's blue-eyed boy's still got it where it counts.

If he didn't,he wouldn't have them standing here on the expanse of possibility, frozen in its sea.

So they're both gone and he figures, if they're lucky, they've at least gone in the same direction.

Aeryn's staring at him; he shrugs, finds a response and waves an arm around their monochrome vista. "Few throw cushions, a rug. Martha Stewart the place right up."

She ignores the colloquialisms as the inconsequentiality they are. "It isn't cold."

"It isn't ice, it just looks like it."

Her head tilts with something close to curiosity, closer to strategy. "Why?"

"It is an adequate metaphor."

Einstein, still the natty dresser, is staring at them through black eyes from the top of the glacier. John's covering Aeryn's hand with his own before her pistol has cleared more than a dench of holster.

John finds a smile. "Long time, no see." Then he remembers where he is. "Relatively speaking."

"I have been waiting for you."

There's something there, more than the words. John's hand is creeping closer to his own pistol. He stills but can't keep the accusation from his tone. "You know what's happening."

A barely perceptible nod and then, "Time."

He shakes his head. "We are not playing this game."

Einstein's is unmoved. "Time."

"No. Our son and Pilot are-"

"Time."

Aeryn's hand is on his back and he takes a breath. Another. Okay.

"- is fleeting."

"Time"

" - after time"

"Time"

He grits his teeth. "To. Go."

"Time."

"- will tell."

A barest hint of a pause before, "Time … and"

"- tide."

"Time and"

"- chance reveal all secrets."

Einstein's stare is unblinking and John guesses it's time to read the part of the idiot child again as something clarifies in his mind. "Time, space and chance."

Aeryn's eyes flicker to him, then back to the figure on glacier. "What?"

"Edward Nelson. Uncertainty principle. God plays dice with the universe and sometimes he weights them."

Einstein nods; John runs a hand over his eyes, drops it back to his side. "Okay, so someone tossed a dice. Or a pebble." He's already more scared than he's ever been in his life, but his next thought drops him one level of hell farther."Was it me?"

"Yes. And no."

He swallows the terror of implication down. "That's … not helpful, man."

"The rift left by your wormhole weapon has been exploited, I have not been able to ascertain by who. The rift has been healed, but changes have been made. Events are restructuring to-"

"Familiar outcomes. I remember. And? It wasn't my weapon." The thought of it being called that makes his skin crawl and, sure, disowning it here makes no difference here or anyplace else, but he's going to do it every damn time.

Einstein's regard is serene and empty, black eyes on white skin, no more welcoming than the white glacier on black oblivion that is the construct.

Except, it's not oblivion. It's exactly the opposite. It's everything that could be. Should be. A potential so infinite by definition that it breaks his mind just a little bit to look at it.

"We could find a reality where this hasn't happened."

"For a time. But the ripples are already spreading, soon they will break against each other and consensus will be reached."

"And my son?" Aeryn's chin lifts like she's meeting a punch, but Einstein says nothing.

But there's a way out. There has to be. There always is. A fragment of memory breaks the surface and John grips it tight just to stay afloat. "We just have to fix the biggest change, right? What is it? We -"

Wait.

His eyes narrow as the impossibility strikes in from left field. "How do we even know that something's changed? We should be like the others. We should be forgetting."

A small smile fissures the pale face and John has a dark suspicion Einstein's been waiting for the question. "I have been maintaining your personal realities so you would retain your memories. Regrettably, my ability to do so is finite.

"I have also attempted to ascertain which key events have been altered, but I have no reference against which to judge their importance."

There's more than one; someone's really making an effort. "We can judge, just get us there."

Aeryn nods and drops her hand over her pistol.

Einstein seems to pause, grapple with the shape of the words and then finally form them. "There are no guarantees."

"There never are." John is surprised to find himself smiling, maybe there's even traces of amusement in there somewhere.

Fear has been flipped, become hope. Hope's enough.

-o-

No other planet – and he's been to a lot of planets, so he's feeling fairly qualified to generalise – smells exactly like Earth.

Some come pretty close, but he'd know Earth with his eyes shut and his fingers in his ears. But given they're standing on rain-slicked tarmac in the middle of a 7-11's parking lot, there's not a lot more identification he needs.

It's dark o'clock and a streetlight is guttering above them; no cars in the lot and just the silhouette of one lone figure in the store. The road to the left is quiet too, engines muffled by the lingering heat. Garbage, left sweating and stinking by the sun, is piled high against rusted fencing.

"When are we?"

Aeryn's words are clipped with distaste. He can't say he blames her.

"I got no idea, but I can tell you we're in Cape Canaveral. Wait here."

She nods and steps back into the shadows of the wall, leather blending with the darkness to leave only the glinting light on the zipper of her greatcoat to mark her position.

There's a weathered paper dispenser. He has no money but it doesn't matter, he can see the date.

Huh.

He jogs back, finds the patch of shadow holding his wife by the glint of metal and the scent of Tannon; leans against the wall at her side. "Ninety-seven. Couple of days before me and my module hung a louie when we should'a banged right."

"Do you think someone is attempting to interfere with the launch?" There's a quiet intent there;if someone is interfering, John wouldn't like to be them when Aeryn finds them.

"Could be. Helluva change."

Something must be in his voice because Aeryn's expression turns from lethality to tentative on the dime.

"Would-"

"No." He bumps his shoulder against hers because it's the closest contact she'll allow either of them right now.

Her tone is neutral and her gaze is fixed on the rushing lights of the cars on the road across the way. "You don't know what I was going to ask."

"Would I try and stop it if I could, right?"

"No." Her gaze darts to him and then back. "Yes."

"So, no. No trades, Aeryn. Remember?"

"You heard me." Her smile is sharp and quick, and gone.

He pushes away from the wall. "We're on Atlantic. DK was renting on Ridgewood, I think. We can use his place as base, see what's happening."

"He won't be there?"

"I don't think he left the lab a week before the launch, let alone two days."

The walk is fraught, both of them dressed out of a sci-fi movie and it's not even close to Halloween, butthecondo is there and the key is where DK always stashed it.

And he thinks he's ready for the hit when they walk through the door, but he isn't because the fractal posters on the walls are like home and the smell of old coffee is achingly familiar.

The strewn debris of a busy life that drove him to distraction when they shared an apartment is just a field of memory he can't afford to get lost in.

It would be so easy to just leave a note. It wouldn't have to be obvious. A date. A time. A place not to be. DK and Laura would live.

And how many realities would he be destroying.

Sometimes, it sucks to be him.

Aeryn checks the perimeter, every room, every window and every door. And then her path begins to wander as she looks over the life of a man she didn't have the chance to know.

She picks up a plain framed photograph from a coffee-cup covered side table and studies the three grinning science geeks, arms around each other's shoulders, smiling and squinting against the flash.

"You all look very young."

John doesn't look; he knows the photo. "We were. That was the year DK and me finished college. Alex, she was still a Sophomore."

She's silent and knows she's thinking the same as he did. Will reach the same conclusion.

"He's a good friend."

"Yeah," he nods, "he was."

And John hopes to the patron saint of lost astronauts that he'll never see him again.

Petty theft turns up some jeans and a t-shirt John can wear, a quick recon around the neighbouring patios and Aeryn has a summer dress.

While she's changing he uses the telephone to call his father and his sister, hanging up as soon as he hears their voices and trying not to flinch.

"What?" Aeryn stands leaning against the doorframe; a hard-faced vision in floral print and leather. Somehow, she makes it work.

"Family's okay, so that wouldn't cause a launch delay."

She nods and checks the level of Chakan oil in her pistol. "Where now?"

"I guess the base. If I'm still there and DK's still there, there's no problem with the theory. Could be the module's out of whack."

"And our chances of getting in and out of this security intensive base undetected?"

He summons a grin because some things are a matter of tradition, now. "It'll be a cake walk."

-o-

Inside the storage closet there's a heavy miasma of bleach and dried mould and, frankly, he could have done without learning about Karl the Janitor's passion for tropical fish.

Not that he has anything against tropical fish. Not figuratively, anyway. Literally, though, the magazines had taken up most of his field of view for the last couple of arns and there's only so long a man can stare at a fish before he begins to wonder how it'd look fried.

His leg keeps cramping and every time Aeryn shifts position he's pretty sure her elbow digs a little further into his kidney. He's also pretty sure she knows it.

Her eye is at the crack in the door, their only source of light – so thin now he can barely make out her shape. Her voice is a murmur. "He's still moving around out there."

Aware of how far sound carries around the echoing halls he keeps his voice a low hiss. "This is not my fault. He always knocks off at five. How was I meant to know he decided to go for janitor of the year?"

"Because you're out there."

"I'm what?"

He tries to shuffle around so he can see out of the crack in the door and, yes, there he is.

Faded college t-shirt and blue jeans and is he actually stroking the nose of the module?

Okay, he knows he does that sometimes but he hadn't realised quite how disturbing it was to watch.

"Not long now, huh?"

Karl's voice is exactly as he remembers, cracked from one too many cigarettes and warm from one too many shots of Jack.

Crichton Jr sighs. "Maybe, maybe not. Her navigational system keeps crashing and damned if we can figure out why."

"Gremlins", John mouths a second before Karl speaks the word. He grins; a mirror of his younger self.

Karl and his gremlins.

One last pat to the module and Crichton Jr is gone. Karl looks around, made a surreptitious sign against bad luck, and follows after him.

Finally, they have the small hangar to themselves.

Aeryn pushes open the door, steps out when nothing comes of it. "Was any of that familiar?"

"Nope. Welcome to our first Event." He drops the capital into place without thinking about it.

A bench running along the back wall yields the tools he needs to open the module up while Aeryn runs a diagnostic over it.

He finds nothing but her scanner beeps as he's screwing the bolts back in. "John?"

He looked up to see her frowning down at the readout.

"Cronite."

"That's …" He wants to say impossible, but they live six-hundred impossible things before breakfast. Besides, he always feels kinda stupid when he says it in the face of overwhelming evidence.

And the read-out is over-whelming evidence.

"Someone has tampered with navigation and propulsion."

It takes them a little longer to discover that actually, whoever their bad guy is, they've just tampered with the propulsion – microfilament thin wires, Leviathan. The energy signatures they're emitting are throwing the navigation off.

Even if flight had okayed the module, adjusted for the navigation, the propulsion tampering would never had been detected.

She watches as he grabs a rag and tries to wipe away any prints they've left making the repairs. "What would it have done?"

The rag makes a dull sound as it hits the back of the trashcan and then they're making for the door. "Best case? Stopped her from clearing orbit. Worst, blown her out the sky."

-o-

The hallways they're running down are etched in his memory, but it's not finding their way out that's the problem.

It's keeping his face from being visible on the cameras. It's not running into DK, or his father. Or himself.

Not being shot by over-enthusiastic guards is a far fourth and he always finds it a little worrying when that happens.

They're out of options when he throws himself against a door he vaguely recalls leads into a locker room; sees the fire exit at the back before he registers who's in there.

They stare at each other for a heartbeat before Aeryn swings and knocks him out.

The other him.

"Well, hell."

"It's fine, I have this." Aeryn crouches and blows some powder in Crichton Jr's face; John catches the faintest bitter trace of it as it circles on the A/C.

"Hey! Hey-hey, no. That's Granny's mojo powder. What the hell are you doing with that?"

She shrugs, dusts her hands off and stands. "It was useful the last time we went down a wormhole. He shouldn't remember anything."

"No, but he tells them he got knocked out and they'll run tests, find traces of something in his blood – they'll ground him. Me."

"He won't tell them anything." She regards him with a suggestion of amusement for a moment. "You wouldn't."

Crichton shakes his head; follows her out the door. "Okay, true. But, seriously, we have got to stop drugging me."

They're illuminated in the glare of a spotlight for a blinding second before the harsh yellow gives way to white and black and they're standing on a lonely, shrinking iceberg in the middle of nothing.

Einstein nods and says, "The event has been restored."

"But?"

"The ultimate outcome is unchanged."

"Tell me how Leviathan parts got into my module a week ahead of schedule."

"I do not know."

John's about ready to pry what Einstein does know out of him one way or another, but Aeryn sits on a roughly hewn block of ice and commands both their attention.

"Whoever they are, they could have disabled your module a hundred different ways. Even if they wanted to use something more than your Earth technology, they had other options than Leviathan."

He understands. "Right, or maybe they didn't. Peacekeepers. Pilots. Hell, Leviathans. All got access. Peacekeepers might want to frell us over, but they don't have the Tech. A Leviathan sneaking into IASA might just get noticed even with a really big hat. Hell, a Pilot isn't exactly inconspicuous."

Einstein's voice is measured, quiet. "There are two further events and my time here grows short."

"You could'a just said 'hustle'. Where are-"

Then it's too late and John's wishing they'd been able to change back to their usual duds because jeans, t-shirt and pretty floral dress aren't even a little bit inconspicuous on a Leviathan full of Peacekeepers.

-o-

He's frozen but Aeryn's moment of hesitation is non-existent, she pulls him into the closest side hatch and swipes her hand down fast to lock the door behind them.

Eight heartbeats later and no one's trying to batter down the door.

They can breathe again.

Her fingers find the zipper and toggles of her coat and dances down them with efficient speed to do it up.

Then she holds her hand out. "Your pants."

"I am not running around half naked in front of the Peacekeepers."

"There will be no running around half naked in front of anyone if I can find you a uniform, which I cannot do while looking like this."

She gestures down at her shapely and irrefutably uncovered legs. Normally something he would encourage, but it's not quite the proper dress code.

He shucks off the jeans and hands them over, can't quite damp down the simple pleasure of watching her dress. "If I'm caught while you're out looking around, you're paying for the therapy."

"Yours or theirs?" She slips out the door.

Maybe he shouldn't have encouraged her to watch daytime TV.

They've taken refuge in a small anteroom and from the sounds outside it's near Command. Panels of bright lights on metal machines flicker on and off in a myriad of colours as they interface with the organic technology of the ship.

It's disorientating and the constant pounding of marching feet outside the door has him searching for anything he can use as a weapon; this Event isn't shaping up any better than the last one.

And he knows without doubt this Leviathan is Moya. The sound she makes is as distinct as the scent of Earth and he's confident he could pick her out of any line up going.

Aeryn's gone long enough he's thinking contingency plans and then the door slides back; he turns from his fairly poor ambush position at the side. She's carrying a red uniform and wearing her Prowler flight suit, helmet tucked under her arm.

He changes as quickly as he can and then stashes the t-shirt and jeans behind a service panel. "When are we?"

"I saw Velorek." Her voice is tightly controlled and he just nods, a show of concern will not be welcome. Not now. Took a few years, but he's learning.

"So we're pre-Pilot transplant."

"I'm not sure if there will be one. I overheard he and Crais talking; Moya's Pilot is co-operating."

He cants his head, trying to see the angle of play. "That makes no sense, I wasn't even here yet."

"Not everything has to be about you."

"No, but you have to admit most things are."

Maybe he could have put that better but Aeryn's mouth twitches at the side so he calls it a win.

Her gaze rises to the ceiling and then crosses to the doorway. "If Pilot – our Pilot – isn't there, Zhaan, D'Argo and Rygel's chances of escape are very limited. It was only because Pilot was being trained and the bonding wasn't complete they managed it at all.

"So who benefits? They take me out of the race and make sure the others can't escape. Who wins there?"

"It makes no sense. If you weren't here, the wormhole technology wouldn't exist."

"Paradox. Unless … unless the propulsion change wasn't to stop the module breaking orbit." His mind spins on the probabilities, the possibilities. "What if it was meant to give me a different destination? Keeping Pilot, stopping the escape. That's just making sure. If I never met you guys …"

Aeryn's head ducks and her tone is dry and biting. "It's possible this is all about you."

"Hey, I'm not celebrating here."

"We need to talk to Pilot. This Pilot."

Both pairs of eyes travel to a DRD as it roll across the floor towards its service tunnel. "DRD kidnapping, she'll hear us."

The DRD isn't hard to catch and it stills when they put it on the flat top of the bank of flashing equipment. The stalks carrying its visual receptors wave back and forth before it finally focuses on them.

"Hello, Pilot." Aeryn's voice is soft and smooth and confident and John feels the stress tremor under it along his nerves; waiting to fracture along the fault line.

"We would very much appreciate a private talk. With you and Moya. It concerns the health of you both, and your futures."

One eyestalk twitches and the DRD spins once.

"We don't speak DRD. Can you isolate a communication shell?"

The DRD chirps and turns once more, then trundles towards the end of the table. John's diving catch keeps it from injury and it leads them out of the hatchway, down a tier and then another.

John feels like he's in the Gammak base again, with a target on his forehead and a large sign reading "shoot me, I like it."

No one gives them a second glance.

In a disused storage area, somewhere around tier four, an old shell is waiting; covered in a fine layer of what smells like cronite.

It takes two attempts to flicker into life, and then Pilot is glaring out at them through narrowed eyes. "Who, what are you?"

"I'm Commander John Crichton, this is –"

"Officer Aeryn Sun. She is in our database, a Prowler pilot with Icarion Company. You are not listed at all. Nor is your species. I should report your presence."

John pushes closer, smiles. "But you haven't, because this isn't the weirdest thing to happen to you this weeken, right?"

"I- We-"

He seizes on the hesitance. "Someone told you that the Peacekeepers would experiment on Moya and you should let them, or you'd die."

Pilot draws herself up. "My death is of no consequence compared to the safety of this Leviathan."

"Okay, sorry. But they told you something that convinced you it was a good idea."

"Yes. And you intend to tell me they were incorrect, but you are wrong."

"How do you know?"

"Because the Builders know what is best for their creations. Theywant what's best. Moya trusts them implicitly, as do I."

"Builders." Aeryn's lips tighten.

"They'd have the tech to…" he lets it trail away.

She nods, gives a superfluous "Yes."

Johns never had to argue against the word of Gods before. He's pretty sure.

He goes for broke; they're on borrowed credit anyway.

"Okay, Pilot. Here's the thing. The Builders are messing around with time - with things that have already happened - to change the future." He glances to Aeryn, waits for the nod of permission and then continues. "Our son won't exist if we can't fix this. Our little boy, you understand?"

"I am sorry, Commander Crichton."

And he believes her, which makes the head shake even harder to take.

Aeryn's voice breaks across his desperate search for a new way to get through. "If we told you what you could do to make sure events progressed as they should, with no danger to Moya, would you consider it?"

"We can't tell her, Aeryn. She's-"

"She hates them. She hates what they've done to Moya, and herself. She wants them both free. We can make that happen, Pilot. Will you trust us?"

And there it is - that first hint of yielding - in the lift of the eyes and the slump of the arms, but the denial is still there. "We regret, we cannot."

"Right, because why should you. Aeryn, what do we know?"

Aeryn closes her eyes. "Moya will conceive a boy. He will be called Talyn and he will be the bravest, strongest soul it is my honour to meet. But his birth will be difficult because the Peacekeepers have made him a hybrid. Half Leviathan, half gunship." Her eyes open at the horrified gasp, seek out Pilot's gaze and hold it. "And she will love him more than her own life.

"But if you listen to the Builders, she will die. Her son will die. In all other attempts to create hybrids, the Leviathans died because they were under a control collar. Our Moya is free."

Pilot swallows. "Free. How?"

"In our reality, you refused to let Moya be used this way. You were killed and replaced with an inexperienced Pilot who was artificially bonded. Moya became a prisoner transport with a skeleton crew. The prisoners escaped and destroyed the collar"

"This makes no sense. Why would the Builders change things and ensure Moya's death?" Pilot's eyes widen with anger and no little denial; John hopes they're not about to be visited by a firing squad.

"Because something incredibly powerful is going to appear in the galaxy in the next few cycles and they want to control it."

"What is it?"

John shakes his head as Aeryn looks to him; answers for her. "We can't tell you that."

"We must consider this."

"Pilot we have all the time in the universe and none at all. If you don't help us, our son won't exist. We won't exist, not like this. Moya will die."

Pilots can sneer better than anyone he knows, when they want to. "And naturally, Moya is your first priority."

They used to make his sincerity into a joke but he calls on it now, tries to inject every piece of respect and love he has for the living ship into his answer. "She's our friend. Aeryn will name her child. We owe her more than you can imagine."

Aeryn takes one step closer to the shell, desperation showing its ragged edges before she can hide it away. "Please, let me talk to her."

"She cannot-"

"She can, Pilot."

The video flickers out to static and there's a crashing against the door and then there's only darkness with a sliver of glacier.

"We have to go back." Aeryn's grip on his arm is painful and he doesn't care.

From only a few feet away now, Einstein's voice is quieter and it echoes in the emptiness. "I have the ability to send you once more, after that I may not be able to retrieve you. You can go back, or you can go on. You can not do both."

The air feels thin and John's wondering whether it's even worth breathing. "What is the final event?"

"I do not know, I see only the shape of its ripples."

Silence holds between them and, then, he breathes in. He breathes out. And, somehow, that's still enough. "Moya will do the right thing, she's never let us down."

Aeryn's nods quickly; closes her eyes so she won't have to see the choice she's making. "The last event."

-o-

The floor shifts under him and he falls against the hull wall, reaching out to steady Aeryn.

"Moya again."

This time there are no troops or techs, only the sound of her distress and bodies of Peacekeepers on the floor. And, somewhere along the corridor towards Command, frustrated cursing in a jarringly familiar deep rumble.

And it turns out DK's condo wasn't the worst trip down memory lane in the world. Somewhere up there are D'Argo and Zhann; living ghosts.

They don't need to whisper, but he understands why Aeryn does it. "D'Argo? The escape?"

"Yeah. I wasn't around for this part. I'm somewhere out there." They watch the battle through the view port and then, there it is. A flash of blue light, a Prowler spinning into an explosion and then a spaceman from Earth sitting dead in the water and waiting for achance to call the toss.

"He made it."

"If he – I'm - here and they're escaping something else has been tampered with. What's left?"

Aeryn's fingernails tap the hull lightly. "The docking web may not be operational. Or I may not get caught in Moya's star-" The tapping ceases. "Starburst, is it functional?"

"We'll ask. So you're talking a three-way safety net? Me, Moya and you?"

"If I were them I would have had a few more fail-safes. Stopped the control collar from being removed, stopped the docking web from working at all. Maybe even taken out the starburst. And I'd be here. I'd be watching, ready to pick you up.

"Too many maybes. Okay." He nods. "Okay. Pilot!"

The shell flickers to life and a harassed Pilot stares at them with a mixture of anger and trepidation. "What?"

"Good to see you, man."

Briefly, confusion wins out. "I have no idea who you are."

"It really doesn't matter, we're here to help you. Is the docking web working?"

"No, it's been disabled."

"Aeryn?"

He swings around to face her - too late, she's already running for the engineering Tier.

John turns back and looks very much like Pilot has settled on confusion and panic. He tries to keep his tone soothing, isn't sure how successful he is. "I need you to scan for ships that aren't Peacekeeper."

"There is one, I cannot identify it. It's shielding itself from us but Moya says she senses its presence."

Briefly he debates telling them it's her god; decides against it. "Okay. Starburst working?"

"We cannot starburst while the control collar is –"

"I know, but if the collar was off, would starburst work?"

"Yes, we believe so."

"Great." He grins and lets himself show tooth when he does it. "No problem."

"Do not start ripping anything out of the control panels. The Luxan is damaging vital systems with his efforts and will not work."

He holds up a hand. "It's okay, I know what I'm doing."

And the good news is, he does. D'Argo's roar of triumph as the control collar slips away and the shudder of the docking web being released is a relief he can feel in his bones.

It's short lived.

The Builder's ship sends its opening volley, punishing Moya's hull and sending him off his feet once more.

"Moya is preparing to starburst."

"She can't, I'm not on board yet!"

Pilot pauses, uncertain. "I do not understand."

"The module you have in your docking web, it's vital you get it on board."

"The ship is targeting it."

They watch as the module spins helpless in its space and John wonders whether he'll feel it when he dies and reality ends.

And then a Prowler breaks formation and darts forward, shooting a constant stream of red at the Builder vessel and forcing it away.

Aeryn is at his shoulder, he smiles. "That's you."

"It could be anyone."

"It's you, and it's going to bring you close enough to get dragged in when Moya starbursts."

"You can't know that."

"Reality wants to find a way, and it's finding it." For the first time, he's starting to think they're in with a chance.

And he knows he's not strong enough to resist touching the fire twice; he's going off the reservation.

"Pilot, listen to me carefully-"

Aeryn doesn't try to stop him. They go together.

-o-

"Did it work?"

They're standing toe-to-toe, side-to-side on the three square feet of iceberg which isn't occupied by the module.

Some of Einstein's colour has returned, he thinks. But how would he tell. Really. "Yes, and no."

"You need to stop saying that."

"I believe you restored events enough that your reality will be recognisable to you."

"But you don't know if it will be exactly the same."

"I am …" Einstein searches for the word and, looking into the distance, finds it in the barren sea of time. "… sorry."

"Will we know?" There's a flatness in Aeryn's voice as she forces the tremble away. "Will we still remember?"

"No. I can no longer maintain your position in the timeline."

"I will not forget." She shakes her head, hard, as if it will let her deny the inevitable. He thinks if anyone could, it's Aeryn.

"You will." Einstein's tone is gentle and worse for it.

"Then I won't go."

"You must."

"Aeryn." John reaches for her hand, catches it the second time, when it doesn't jerk away. "If we lost D'Argo, we lost him three realities ago."

"I will not even be able to mourn."

"You remember that time when Chiana died?"

"No."

He nods. "Exactly."

She stares at him for a long moment and he thinks the shimmer of tears failing to fall could convince him to stay here forever. But the choice isn't his. It's probably just as well.

She swallows and nods and climbs into the module and he's glad she's holding together because he's not sure he can.

Einstein turns away and black and white gives way to the brilliance of the blue vortex.

-o-

"Listen, slug. I know you took it because there are Marjol shells all over the floor."

"And I know you would blame anyone for your own inattentiveness. You've misplaced it, that's all."

Aeryn's just about ready to send them both out an airlock when a thin wail rises in the momentary silence.

"You're awake, are you?"

She waves the teether and the boy grabs it with a strength that never ceases to amaze her. Humble her.

Chiana slides around her shoulder and smiles down at the little narl, argument forgotten. Rygel sails from the room with a snigger.

John rolls his eyes and Chiana stops waving at his son long enough to remember to scowl. "He stole the last of the popcrin."

"Popcren," Aeryn corrects.

"Popcorn." John looks up and shakes his head. "Never should'a let that stuff on board."

"It doesn't matter." The low voice sounds more mellow than usual; John decides not to speculate why.

"It's the principle."

"You have principles now?" D'Argo grins and stands as Chiana sashays over.

"I have plenty of principles. Maybe we could go … discuss them."

Crichton looks up sharply. "There'll be no talk of ... principles around Jack, he's too young. Get outta here."

There's laughter and then there's murmuring and then there's quiet, for long enough.