TITLE: "NO HIDING PLACE"

AUTHOR: Alison M. DOBELL

FANDOM: "Farscape"

PAIRING: JOHN/STARK

RATING: PG-13

STATUS: New.

ARCHIVE: Yes. Just let me know where.

FEEDBACK: Welcomed

The usual disclaimers apply. No infringement of copyright is intended.

"NO HIDING PLACE"
A "Farscape" slash story
Written by Alison M. DOBELL
* * * * *

Aeryn, D'Argo and Chiana were frantic. Between them they got Zhaan and Crichton to the apothecary but nothing they did would rouse them. Zhaan's breathing was so shallow it was almost impossible to detect. Crichton had gone almost as white as Chiana. Aeryn felt close to panic. Anger the only sword she knew to stave off the icicles closing in on her heart. "What the frell did they think they were doing?"

Chiana had tears in her eyes, upset enough without Aeryn going into PK mode. D'Argo saw the look on her face and hurried to stave off any confrontation. "We have to find out what happened but first we need to find out why they will not respond to us."

"Obviously," Aeryn scathed.

D'Argo had to bite back his own anger and remind himself that Aeryn was upset. All three looked up in surprise at the arrival of Rygel. "And no, Rygel, they are still breathing so you can't go through their possessions."

He glared at Aeryn, offended. "Pilot told me what happened. I came to see if I could help if you really want to know." He looked at Chiana and D'Argo. "Any reaction at all?"

They both shook their heads sadly. Aeryn looked ready to shoot someone. Anyone would do. Rygel eased his thronesled closer and looked first at Zhaan then at Crichton. "Has anyone checked their body temperatures?"

D'Argo frowned. "No. Why?"

Rygel looked thoughtful, his gaze settling on Zhaan. "When you don't know what's wrong the first thing you do is gather as much information as you can." He looked at Aeryn. "However *irrelevant* it may seem at the time."

"And then what?" Asked D'Argo.

"Then you look to see if there is anything unusual. Anything that may give you a clue as to what is going on."

Chiana tilted her head at him. "Hey, that's pretty good thinking, you know?"

"We should have Moya keep them continually monitored." Rygel continued.

"That is already being done." Said Aeryn, slightly calmer now. "Any other suggestions?"

Rygel sighed sadly. "No. Just try to keep them comfortable I suppose."

"Comfortable?" Said Aeryn in disbelief. "They're frelling unconscious, Rygel!"

"I *know* that but you don't want them to go into shock do you?"

Chiana looked concerned. "Shock?"

"Yes. If they lose too much body temperature they could go into shock and then lapse into a coma."

The Luxan frowned. "A coma? What is that?"

"A non-responsive state. Like being asleep and being unable to wake up."

"Like the state they are in now?" Said Aeryn sarcastically.

Rygel sighed, suddenly looking old. It was odd, he had not changed. Rygel was still Rygel. Yet she had the sudden impression of the weight of many years upon his small shoulders. She regretted her snappy words to him but knew she could not take them back. "How will we know if their vital signs are incorrect?"

"Compare them to Zhaan's records." Suggested D'Argo.

Everybody nodded. Made sense. Chiana took a step closer to Zhaan, not sure how they should start when the Delvian moved slightly. They froze. Four pairs of anxious eyes willing this to be no mirage. She surfaced slowly, her breathing deepening to give her oxygen and strength. Her eyes flickered open and took in the concern on their faces. She ached with the aftershock of what she and Crichton had been through.

"Zhaan, what happened?"

Zhaan looked at Aeryn then across at Crichton. He was still unconscious but the colour seemed to be returning to his face. Aeryn hoped it was not just wishful thinking. "We found Stark. Or at least, what happened to him."

Everybody looked shocked. Rygel recovered first, his eyebrow ridge dropping into a frown. "What do you mean *what happened to him*?"

D'Argo helped the Delvian priestess to sit up. Every fibre ached but she was beginning to get her breath back. Sitting definitely made breathing much easier. "We invoked Unity but went deeper, deeper than we had ever been before." She looked at Aeryn. "We found something, a box. Stark is trapped inside it."

The shock on Aeryn's face was palpable. "What? How is that possible?"

Zhaan shook her head. "I do not know. I see you know of its' existence."

Aeryn nodded, dazed. She looked at Crichton. His colour definitely looked better but he still had not moved. She reached out to touch his hand. "It happened when he first met Stark. John was being tortured in the Aurora Chair. Stark shared a cell with him, tried to help him, comfort him between sessions in the chair. He knew Scorpius would continue until he broke him so he created a box in his mind, a place so deep in his subconscious that Scorpius would never find it. Told John it would give him a place to hide, a place free of torture."

D'Argo was looking baffled. "I do not understand. If this *place* is somewhere in John's subconscious then how can Stark be trapped in it?"

"Stark is an energy being, D'Argo, he no longer has a true physical form on this plane though he can take on one for limited periods of time." Explained the Delvian Pa'u.

He shook his head. "No Zhaan, I did not mean that. I meant. How can Stark be trapped in it? There is only he and John, so who put him in the box?"

They looked at each other in silence. It was a good question. Rygel cleared his throat, looking at Zhaan. "If he can be put into the box, it should be possible to take him *out* of the box."

There was a sad smile on Zhaan's face. "Dear Rygel, that may not be possible."

"Why not?"

"We don't know *how* he got trapped inside. Until we know that we have no key to open it."

A look of enlightenment dawned on Aeryn's face. "I may be able to help. I have the key."

Everyone looked at her. The astonishment on their faces plain to all, all except Zhaan. Aeryn's words did not surprise her.

"When we were together I remember Stark telling us about the box and that I had a key. I didn't understand what he meant. Perhaps he was just speaking figuratively."

Zhaan shook her head. "No, my dear, he was not." Her look had brightened considerably. "This is good news."

Just then Crichton started to stir. Chiana crouched by his bed and stroked his hair. He stirred as if in pain, opening his eyes slowly.

"Hey, old man, how you feeling?"

"Like I'm a hundred years old."

He tried to sit but it was too much so he lay back and shut his eyes for a microt. Zhaan went over to him and stood next to Aeryn. When he opened his eyes again he was flanked by three angels. He tried to smile. "Hey, any of you happen to have an asprin on you?"

They exchanged baffled looks. He groaned and shut his eyes again. "I have a headache the size of Texas."

Zhaan nodded. "I will get you something."

She went over to her preparations and looked for something to ease the pain. Aeryn hunkered down next to Crichton's bed, Chiana on the other side. "You had us worried."

His eyes opened again, this time they stayed open, focussed on her beautiful face. "Us?"

She smiled. "Us." A pause. "And me."

He smiled back. D'Argo stepped up beside Aeryn and looked down at him. "Are you alright?"

"Ask me later, Big D, right now it's hard to be sure of anything with this ten piece band inside my head."

He nodded. Rygel watched Zhaan bring a bright green fluid over to Crichton and noticed the look on the human's face as D'Argo sat him up so he could drink it. He knew from experience what it tasted like. "This box." He asked. "What is it, how is it formed, and how the yotz do we get Stark out of it?"

Crichton chuckled. "Okay, first it's kind of like a hiding place, second I have no idea how it is formed, and third - I'm open to suggestions."

* * * * *

Reality was something that was beginning to lose all meaning for him. Seeing John and Zhaan had first given him hope then wrapped him in panic. They could not reach him. He could not reach them. His strength was failing, his light diminishing. He would fade and die far from the touch of those he loved. Beyond the reach of his own people. With no opportunity to travel beyond. Sorrow swamped him with negative emotions that threatened to hasten the inevitable but he fought against it. Struggled to find a sliver of hope to cling on to. Anything to deny Crichton's nemesis a hold over him. Scorpius leered at him. Smug, confident, utterly evil.

<You should just give up, Stark. I have already won>

Stark said nothing. Wished he could block out the sight of the half-Scarran but he was not the one in control here and the clone was only too pleased to make sure he knew that.

<Soon Crichton will be trapped, just like you>

<Why?>

Scorpius smiled. Pleased to get a reaction. <Why else? Revenge>

* * * * *

Crichton ate sparingly. He was too strung out to be hungry anyway but Aeryn insisted and Zhaan had agreed with her. They were all in the mess hall discussing what to do next. He nibbled half-heartedly on a food cube. They might be nutricious crackers but they still tasted like dren. He felt much better but still drained. Zhaan had to have been similarly affected but to look at her you would never have known. His head came up as he realised Aeryn was talking.

"So you see, when you go in again I'm coming with you. Stark said I was the key. I can help."

He put down his half eaten cracker. "No, no, no! You just don't get it do you, Aeryn?"

Everybody stopped talking and stared at him. "Stark is already trapped, Aeryn." His voice softened, the pain self evident. "I don't want to lose you too."

Zhaan put a hand on his shoulder. "John. Stark may not have much time. If Aeryn can help we need to try this again."

He swallowed hard. His heart aching. It was not fair. Why was this happening to him? To them? A sudden thought hit him and once in his head nothing could shift it. "Scorpius!"

D'Argo was alarmed. "What? What does he have to do with this?"

"I don't know but it's the sort of sick thing that would have his fingerprints all over it."

"Normally I would be inclined to agree with you John," Said Zhaan. "But the chip is gone. There is no more Scorpius."

"That we *know* about," Said Rygel darkly.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked D'Argo.

"Just this. If it feels like Scorpius, if it acts like Scorpius, then even if you can't see or touch it, it is probably Scorpius."

D'Argo snorted. "I have never heard such frelling nonsense. You heard Zhaan. John no longer has the neural chip in his head."

"No, he doesn't. But who knows what other little traps that monster put in there."

Horror stole over Zhaan's face. "By the Goddess, you may be right Rygel."

Crichton looked at her. "Oh God, please tell me he hasn't put another chip in my head, Zhaan?"

Zhaan placed a hand on his cheek. "I cannot tell you that, John. We accepted that there was the neural chip of Scorpius's clone inside your head. Because that was what we were told."

He nodded slowly, his thoughts painful. "Because that's what Scorpius wanted us to think."

"Exactly."

Aeryn took a breath to steady herself. "Then I say we waste no more time. We do this again, and this time, we do not fail!"

* * * * *

He was losing it, he knew he was. Memory had always been his strength, his succour in times of need, times of trial. It had always been the one gift his people had that could not be taken away from them. The images he had shown Crichton, shared with him, were more precious to him that any physical treasure. They were inviolate and enduring. Now his memories, like his thoughts, were being torn from him. Insubstantial as he was in this physical realm he did exist, have a solid form within his own reality, his own level of vibration. When those vibrations resonated in harmony they were solid to each other, able to enjoy the benefits of holding a form that could be shared. Descending and even ascending to share other realities at other vibratory rates he could manage for a time but then he would need to be replenished, his energy renewed on his own plane. This he could not now do. Cut off from that source as he was, he could only diminish. His loss, his agony, his utter isolation, doing more to fragment him that the insidious
confines of the box. Yet he would not curse his gift, only the thief who had stolen it.

Almost his heart misgave him, faltering against his insubstantial flesh like his hands flapping against the invious walls of his prison. His mind crying out to his love, bleeding forth in the rhymes of his being that pulsated now with an agony that clung yet no longer exerted any power to affect him. The pain was dull, a distraction no more. His mind attempting to hold on to his last thoughts of Crichton. His beloved. To cradle the images and emotions he had shared with him that he might have his lover's name upon his lips, his kiss within his heart, his arms forever entwined in his before all was lost to the encroaching darkness. Had he breath left he would have sighed. And that sigh would have been a prayer, an invocation to a higher God to watch over Crichton, to keep him safe and free from the madness that had ensnared him and now beckoned with its' unlovely host.

He relived through sheer strength of will, through love unyielding, every touch shared, every word thought or spoken between them. Each was held for a fraction of a microt and savoured then blessed. A last gift before the final parting. Then even his sorrow was taken from him. Emotions, feelings, sensations, all strangers to him now. Light and dark had become one to eyes that could no longer hold an image. The beat of his heart was uneven. The spaces between each fluctuation had become an aberration, an arrhythmic anomaly that could not recover. A last echo of the lifeforce. The remnant of his light bleeding through the deepening dark like a golden bloodstain seeping out through an open wound. He weighed nothing now. Less that the measure of a single breath.

* * * * *
END