Title: Back to the Uncharted Territories
Author: Paradox761
Email: Paradox761@mail.com
Website: members.tripod.com/~Paradox761
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns Buffy; SFC, Jim Henson Productions, and Rockne S. O’Bannon own Farscape; and Universal Pictures owns Back to the Future. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don’t sue. I don’t have any money anyway.
Summary: Sequel to “A Sympathetic Ear”, John Crichton finally makes it home only to discover that the life he left behind is no longer there. His father, DK, and Xander Harris are all dead. Then he meets an extraordinary man in a bar, a time traveler, with an extraordinary proposition. Will John risk it all to go back in time to save his father’s life? And what happens when the consequences are much worse than he ever could have imagined?
Author’s note: Takes place directly after the third season of Farscape, after that it’s an AU. Also, for the sake of this story, Farscape takes place in the near future (2017), and some of the modifications made to the DeLorean in the second movie, namely Mr. Fusion, came from further into the future then when the movie took place (2015). Also, some dialogue has been lifted directly from the Buffy episode “Grave”, no plagiarism intended.
Dedication: To Jordan and Jessica, my angels. May they rest in peace.
Special thanks to A. Grandt, greywizard, Wayne, Rob Clark, Danielle, Goblin, Calen, DaBear, Obi, Gareth, Troy, David, and Lafe for the feedback and support.
(Farscape/BtVS/BttF, Xander/Chiana, John/Aeryn)
Rated R for language and violence
Guest Cast:
Guy Pearce as Dr. Julian Martin Brown, PhD.
James Remar as Lakas

Hours later the pair still sat in the bar, at a table in the corner. They drew a few odd stares, but neither of them really noticed. John was sloshed, and Jules was getting nicely toasted too. John was laughing, practically falling out of his chair as he spoke.

“So then…D’Argo says, ‘Chiana and I are having fantastic sex’,” John said in a deep voice, the best imitation of the Luxan he could muster. He broke down laughing, pounding his fist against the table and making his glass shake. Jules gave a polite chuckle, even though he really didn’t see why it was all that funny. John looked up after a few seconds, his laughter dying down. “I guess you had to be there.”

“I guess so,” Jules said, giving him a smile. “Seems you’ve had quite a few adventures Mr. Crichton, and made some good friends.”

“The best,” John said. He raised his glass. “To Pilot,” he said. He had been toasting his friends one at a time all night. In no particular order, just as he thought of them. He was up to Pilot.

“To Pilot,” Jules echoed, raising his glass as well and tapping it gently against John’s.

They swallowed down their drinks, and John turned back to Jules. “You think maybe it’s time for you to tell your story yet?”

Jules seemed to think for a moment. “Let me ask you something John. If you could travel backward through time, to a moment where you might have done something differently, or a moment where your presence could have changed what happened. What would you do?”

John thought for a moment before he answered. “I don’t know that there’s anything I could have done differently, with Aeryn. Sometimes it just doesn’t matter how much you love someone, or how hard you try. It’s just not going to work.” He paused. “I guess I’d save my father. I still feel partially responsible for that. His death was just so senseless.”

Jules nodded. “I think I might be able to help you John. Perhaps it is time to tell you my story,” he said. “But not tonight. I daresay you probably wouldn’t remember it in the morning, and I’d have to do it all over again.”

John smiled. “You’re probably right.”

“I tell you what,” Jules said, pulling a pen out of his jacket pocket. He grabbed a matchbook off the table and flipped it open, writing on the inside cover. “Meet me at this address, tomorrow morning. And I’ll tell you everything.”

*

John was standing in a large kitchen, in front of an island with a coffee maker sitting on it. He was pouring himself a cup of coffee. This was his parent’s house, in Sydney. That was the first clue that what he was experiencing wasn’t reality. The second was the Sebacean/Scarren hybrid sitting at the kitchen table with an ice pack on his head, looking like he had just gone ten rounds with a Luxan. John poured a second cup and carried them both to the table. Sitting down, he pushed the other cup to the man sitting across from him.

“I will never understand your insistence on numbing yourself with alcohol, when you know what the consequences will be,” he said, accepting the cup gratefully.

“What can I say Harvey, I guess it’s a human thing. Besides, I wasn’t drinking last night to numb myself. It might have started out that way, but I actually had fun. Talking about my friends like that, it felt good to just remember them, without thinking about how I lost them. I think it was the first time I actually laughed since I’ve gotten back to Earth.”

“Regardless, the consequences remain the same,” Harvey said, wincing as he took a sip of coffee.

“Oh, quit your bitching. Hangovers don’t last forever. Jules is probably in just as much pain as we are.”

“Speaking of the good Dr. Brown,” Harvey started, putting his cup down and taking the ice pack off his head. “Don’t you find it unusual how easily he believed you?”

“The thought did cross my mind. Why, what are you thinking?”

“Well, either he’s a lunatic, or he has a reason to believe you, knowledge that you are telling the truth. Knowledge of the existence of aliens.”

“And how would he know that?”

“Perhaps he works for your government. Perhaps he even works for the IASA. It seems awfully coincidental, that you would run into him in a bar. Maybe he followed you there.”

“I think you’re becoming paranoid.”

“It’s possible that your ship was detected when you landed. All I’m saying John is that he could be dangerous, you should be careful.”

“Either way, I need to know what he knows, and why he thinks he can help me. Besides, I think I can trust him. Call it a hunch.”

Harvey rolled his eyes. “You and your hunches,” he sighed. “One day they’re going to get us both killed.”

John smiled. “They’ve kept me alive so far.”

*

John opened his eyes and immediately closed them again as they were assaulted with the sunlight streaming in through the motel window. His head was throbbing two beats faster than his heart, and his mouth felt like it was filled with cotton balls. Opening his eyes again a little more slowly this time, he looked around the dingy motel room. Maybe Harvey’s right, he thought to himself. Maybe it’s time to stop this. John sat up slowly, swinging his legs out over the side of the bed. He grabbed the bottle of aspirin that sat on the nightstand and dumped two in his hand, swallowing them dry. He set the bottle back down next to an open matchbook with an address scrawled on the inside cover. He picked it up and looked at it closer, thinking to himself.

What if Harvey’s right? What if Jules is from the IASA, and he’s just trying to get the wormhole tech in his head. Of course, they would have no way of knowing that he possessed such knowledge. His ship. Maybe they want his ship. They know that he stashed it, and they know that he wouldn’t tell them where if they just captured him. But how would they know that? Maybe Harvey wasn’t the only one being paranoid.

John got dressed quickly, slipping on a pair of sunglasses to ease the pain of the sunlight drilling through his eyes and into his brain like a…well, like a drill. He picked up his leather jacket from the chair and slipped it on, uncovering his gun belt, which sat on the chair underneath it. He looked down at it for a moment before picking it up and drawing the blaster. Winonna. She had been good to him over the years, gotten him out of more jams than he could count. Sometimes in a place like the Uncharted Territories, the only thing you can trust is the blaster on your hip. And she was the only friend he had left now.

“What do you think, girl?” he asked the weapon aloud. Of course, no answer was forthcoming. But John nodded as though he heard one. “That’s what I thought,” he said. He checked the charge on the weapon and tucked it into his belt at the small of his back, under his jacket. “Better safe than sorry.”

*

John checked the address again as he stood on the street, looking at what looked to be an abandoned garage of some kind. But the numbers matched. He was trying to find a clean spot on the front window to look through when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“John.” John turned and saw Jules walking down the sidewalk toward him. “I’m glad you could make it,” he said, holding out his hand. He was wearing a different, but similarly styled suit from yesterday. John shook his hand.

“Sure,” he said.

“Have you had breakfast yet? There’s a little diner around the corner that’s nice, it would be a good place to talk.”

“Okay,” John answered after a moment.

Jules lead the way down the street and John followed. If he were IASA he wouldn’t be taking me to a public place, John thought. Unless he’s just keeping up the ruse to find out what I know. John kept an open mind, but he also kept on his toes.

They arrived at the diner after a few minutes and Jules grabbed a both in the back, far from the other customers. A waitress came over and took their orders. Jules ordered a big breakfast with eggs, bacon and toast, with a tall glass of milk. John just ordered coffee. He looked at Jules oddly after the waitress walked away. He couldn’t even think about food without getting nauseous. But Jules looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like he was ready to take on the world.

“Does your head still hurt?” Jules asked when he noticed John’s look.

“Like someone’s been using it for soccer practice,” John answered. “What about you? You had just as much as I did last night, but you look fine.”

“Never felt better,” Jules said with a smile. “The wonders of modern medicine.”

“So is that how you’re going to help me? Give me a cure for the common hangover?”

Jules chuckled. “Not exactly. Though if you want it, I’m sure I can arrange it.”

John shook his head, which he immediately regretted. “What exactly do you want?” he asked, his impatience showing.

“I don’t want anything,” Jules answered. “Quite the opposite. I want to do something for you. I want to give you a tremendous gift. Something that I find you uniquely qualified both to use responsibly, and to appreciate. But before I tell you what it is, I have to tell you a story. The story of my life.

“I was born on October 19, 1887, in Hill Valley, California.”

“1887?” John asked, unconvinced. “So that would make you what, 130 years old?”

“Actually I’m 24,” Jules answered. “You see, my father was a time traveler. He built his first time machine in 1985. He used it to travel into the past, into the future. To study technology that wouldn’t be invented until well after his death. He also used it to change things, for his friends. And in many cases, to change things back. To fix things, after mistakes were made. One of those mistakes got my father stranded back in 1885. That’s where he met my mother. She was a schoolteacher. He saved her life, and changed history in the process. When my father’s dearest friend discovered that he was to die in a gunfight, he went back to save him. And he did. The hard part was coming back home. The time machine had been damaged, and they had quite a bit of trouble getting it up to the requisite speed for the time circuits to activate. My father had to stay behind, to save my mother’s life again. And the time machine was destroyed, leaving him stranded. But he didn’t mind, he was with the woman he loved. He was happy. They were married the next year, and the year after that, I was born. Two years later, my brother was born. My father worked to build another time machine, but with the limited technology of the time, it took him over ten years to complete it. After that, we moved to the present. At least what my father considered his present, 1985. There, my brother Verne and I continued our lives, and our education.

When I turned eighteen, my father gave me a tremendous gift. He said that he wanted me to have the opportunity that he had never had when he was my age. The opportunity to explore, and decide what I wanted to do with my life, and where I wanted to do it. And when I wanted to do it. He created a temporal duplicate of the first time machine he had ever built, and he gave it to me. I was a scientist, a chip off the old block. The chance to explore time and space at my leisure, to witness things other scientists and historians only dreamed about, to study with the greatest minds of the past and the future. It was amazing.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last six years. Kicking about time and space. I’ve studied under Socrates, Aristotle, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Zefram Cochran…” he trailed off. “And several others that you’ve never heard of. But I’ve grown tired of jaunting about through time, it’s time for me to settle down. I have chosen to settle here, in 2017. The technology is far enough along to remain interesting, without becoming commonplace. The people are open-minded, and ready for new things. It’s a veritable golden age in the evolution of human society. But the question has arose, what to do with the time machine? It’s too dangerous to let it fall into the wrong hands, too valuable to be left in a garage someplace collecting dust. That’s when I decided that I should give it to someone. Someone deserving. Someone with an understanding of science, and technology. Someone responsible, capable, and honorable. John Crichton, I believe that you are such a man.”

John took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. There was a rather long moment of silence as Jules waited for his reaction. The waitress came and delivered their orders with a smile, only to disappear into the kitchen again. John took a sip of his coffee. Still, the silence stretched on. Finally, he looked up and spoke.

“Exactly how stupid do you think I am?” Jules opened his mouth to answer but John cut him off. “I mean, really? How stupid? Because the IASA must think I’m a world-class bonehead to buy that bucket of dren.”

“The IASA?”

“The story was good though, I have to admit. What with your parents falling in love, and your father giving you a time machine on your birthday. Very human, and well acted. I mean, kudos, you get my Oscar nod. Just enough details to seem genuine, and adding a made-up name to that list of the people you’ve studied under. That was a real nice touch.”

“I assure you John, everything I’ve told you is true. What reason would I have to lie to you?”

John held up his hand, which still had notes scribbled on it. “Some how you guys figured out that the direct approach wouldn’t work, that I’d tell you to go pound sand. So you dreamed up this cockamamie story. Let me guess, you need my ship to power the time machine. Or maybe you’re just looking for a straight out trade. Well sorry pal, no dice. Tell your bosses to sit on it and rotate!”

“Oh, for god’s sake John will you just think for a second! If the IASA had tracked your decent then they would know where your ship was. They wouldn’t need to set up an elaborate ruse. If they wanted you they would just take you, this isn’t the CIA we’re talking about. They’re not exactly known for covert operations and subterfuge.”

“The wormhole tech, in my brain.”

“And how would they know about that? Have you told anyone besides me since you got here?” John didn’t answer, he didn’t have to. “Is it so hard to believe? In the past three years you’ve seen alien civilizations, living ships, wormholes. Is time travel such a stretch? You’re a scientist, you know the possibilities.” John looked thoughtful, but not quite convinced. Jules reached into his vest pocket and pulled out his pocket watch. He opened it and held it out in front of him, facing up. He pressed a button on the side of the watch and an image appeared, a three-dimensional hologram. “This is my family. That’s my father, my mother, me, my brother, and my Uncle Marty. He’s a family friend.” Jules clicked the button again and the picture changed. “Here’s me with Professor Einstein.” Click. “Me with Dr. Hawking.” Click. “Me with Dr. Cochran.” Click. “Me and my brother.” He clicked through a few more pictures before he reached a display of numbers.

“What’s that?”

“That’s my body clock. Traveling almost constantly through time, it’s necessary to remembering how old I am.” The display read 24 years, 4 months, 16 days, 7 hours, 18 minutes. “Another unfortunate side effect, I have a hard time judging time. Even if I’m in one place and time for months, I can never remember what time it is, or what day it is. It can be annoying, especially to the people around me, but there are worse side effects.”

“Like what?”

Jules seemed reluctant to answer, but he didn’t want to lie to John. “Traveling through time so frequently, I’ve found that it gives me a certain…supernatural scent. One that attracts a certain breed of undesirables.”

“Demons,” John commented.

Jules looked surprised. “You know about them?”

John nodded. “A little. The friend that I was here in LA looking for, he used to fight them.”

“Brave man.”

“Yes, he was.” He paused. “Okay, let’s say that I believe you. Why would you just give your time machine away to someone? Why me?”

“I told you why you. As to why I would give it up. Well, that’s a little more complicated.” Jules paused. “I haven’t stayed in one place and time more than six months in the last six years. I just can’t. When I’ve been someplace too long, I start getting edgy. I’m like…a kid in a candy store. With an infinite number of delicious varieties of candy. No matter how good whatever candy I’ve chosen is, I can’t enjoy it, because I’m always wondering what else is out there. Having unlimited possibilities has made me…unable to be satisfied with anything. I just can’t let grass grow under my feet.” He paused. “I’m tired, John. It’s been a fantastic trip, but I want to go home. The only problem is that I don’t have one. I just have to stop and make one, but I need to take away the crutch. And I need to do it soon before I change my mind.”

“Okay Jules,” John said. “You’ve got my attention. So show it to me.”

*

Jules lead John back to the garage where they first met that morning. “I haven’t been in town long enough to settle down,” he said. “I’m still staying in a hotel. But I needed someplace to stash the time machine. I couldn’t just park it on the street, it would be far too conspicuous, and dangerous. So I rented this garage for a song. Apparently, the owner hasn’t had any luck selling it so he’s just going to demolish the building next month. I told him I’d be out by then.”

John just nodded as Jules took out a set of keys as they reached the garage. He opened the door and stepped inside, turning on the light. John followed and closed the door behind him.

“Well, here it is,” Jules said proudly, as he walked through the small office and onto the garage’s main floor. “Beautiful, isn’t she.”

John just stared in shock at what sat before him. It was a car. A DeLorean to be exact. Silver, with white wall tires, and lots of strange looking equipment sticking out from what once was the back windshield, including what looked like a food processor. John looked back and forth between the car and Jules for a few moments before he spoke. Jules was still smiling like a proud papa.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope.”

“Your father built a time machine out of a DeLorean?”

“Why does everyone always find that so hard to believe?” Jules asked rhetorically. “What were you expecting, something a little more H.G Wells?”

“Something a little less GMC,” John responded. Jules chuckled.

“Well, it is street legal. Still has the original automobile engine,” Jules said, walking around the back of the car. “The temporal shift systems are powered by Mr. Fusion here though,” he said, putting his hands on the white device sticking out of the back of the car.

“Mr. Fusion?”

“It’s a mini cold fusion reactor. My father had it installed after his first trip to the future. His original design had an old plutonium reactor in it, and plutonium wasn’t exactly in free supply at the time. He also rigged it for inner-atmospheric flight, and added a few other bells and whistles.”

John did a double take. “A cold fusion reactor!”

“I made a few more modifications after I got it. Replaced the old hover jets with more advanced anti-grav thrusters, had it rigged for space flight, oh and I put in that cool bare foot gas pedal.”

John did another double take. “Space flight! It’s a…I mean, how can it…it can’t…” John trailed off. He closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. “It’s a car! It’s as aerodynamic as a brick. The skin is automotive steel, how can it stand up to atmospheric entry, or micro-impact fractures?”

“Deflector shield,” Jules answered. “Get in, I’ll show you,” he said, opening the driver’s door and getting in himself.

John opened the passenger door and sat down. The inside looked like some kind of futuristic cockpit. There were flat, black panels across the passenger side dashboard, behind the steering wheel, and on the ceiling between the two seats. On the console there were three LED displays and a small control pad. Jules hit some unseen control and the panels lit up. John realized that they were touch screens of some kind.

“These are the basic controls for the time machine,” Jules began. “The Flux Capacitor, which makes time travel possible,” he said, pointing behind him between the seats. “The time circuits,” he said, turning a switch that sat between them. The three LED displays lit up. “And the display. You enter your destination on this keypad. This is where you were, this is where you are, and this is where you’re going.” The center display read October, 17 2017, which was today’s date. The one below it read September 5, 1898.

“1898?” John asked.

“Before I came here I was visiting my mother’s family. Wonderful people, but I can only stay in that time period for so long before I start to miss the amenities of the future. Indoor plumbing for example. Anyway, as you can see, the original steering wheel and pedals are still here. They’ve been modified to control the flight systems as well, but they still control the car on the street the way they always have. These LCARS panels I had installed when I put the rest of the systems in. The onboard computer controls all of those systems, with Mr. Fusion as the power core. It’s not as advanced as the rest of the technology here, but it doesn’t require any special equipment to recharge. Any kind of matter will do. I usually use garbage, because, well, no one ever minds if you take their garbage,” he said with a smile. He tapped a few controls on the panel above him and a display projected on the windshield. “This is the deflector shield control, the inertial dampers.” He moved his hand to the panel in the center, above the time display. “Anti-grav thrusters, impulse engines. The panel in front of you can control all these systems as well, but I so rarely have a copilot, it doesn’t get used very much.”

John seemed speechless. “Incredible,” he finally said.

“Thank you, I did most of the work myself.”

“This thing can really fly?”

“Yes.”

“In space?”

“Yes. She handles quite well actually.”

“And it can travel through time?”

“Perhaps a demonstration is in order,” Jules said, closing his door. “I have an errand to run, might as well kill two birds with one stone. In the glove compartment there you’ll see a box of envelopes. Hand me one, won’t you.”

John opened the glove compartment and took out an envelope, handing it to Jules. Jules reached into his pocket and took out a folded piece of paper and a pen. “Do you remember the letter I got last night from the bartender?” John nodded. Jules took the envelope from John and took another one out of his pocket. He handed that one to John. “It was a letter from myself.”

John read the front of the envelope. It said, ‘From JMB, To JMB’. “I don’t understand.”

“I often leave myself letters in the past, as a way to correct mistakes in the time line. At some point in the original history, we met under different circumstances. As to what those were, I have no way of knowing since the time line has been changed. But whatever the reason, I decided not to approach you then, but in the past, at The Haunt.” Jules handed John the letter. “Read it.”

John took the letter and started reading aloud. “Dear Jules, The man seated to your left is the man you have been looking for. His name is John Crichton, and he’s a scientist. Talk to him, you may be surprised. Signed, Yourself. PS, I’m not kidding.”

“So taking my own advice, I talked to you. And I found that I agree with myself, as I often do.”

“That still doesn’t prove anything.”

“Maybe not,” Jules admitted. “So let me show you something else.” Jules took the pen in his hand and started writing on the envelope that John had handed him. After a moment, he handed the envelope to John. “Look at that.”

The envelope said the same thing as the other one, ‘From JMB, To JMB’. “So, the handwriting is the same.”

“Not just the handwriting, the envelope. It’s exactly the same. The letters are the exact same height and width, the exact same distance from each other, written on exactly the same part of the envelope. Look closer.”

John did, and saw that he was right. They were exactly the same. “That’s impossible.”

“What you are looking at is not two envelopes, but one envelope in two different times. You see, since I changed the time line, whatever incident that occurred that caused me to leave that letter for myself in the future won’t occur, so I have to go back and leave it for myself. Since I did, am, and will leave that envelope for myself, those envelopes are the same. Try it yourself. Make a mark on that envelope, and it will appear on the other,” Jules said, handing John the pen.

John took the pen and set the two envelopes down on the panel in front of him. He started drawing a line on the back of the first envelope, and he watched as it appeared from nowhere on the second. “It’s true.”

“Of course it’s true. Now I have to go back in time a week to give this letter in that envelope to that bartender to give to me, so that I may repeat the same thing all over again. And again, and again in an infinite cycle that did, is, and will happen for all of eternity. This letter has probably been recopied thousands, millions of times.”

“Amazing.”

“So let’s go, close your door.” John did as Jules started the car. He punched a few commands into the panel on the ceiling. “Powering up the anti-grav thrusters, switching controls to flight mode.” Jules put both hands on the steering wheel and pulled back on it. The car lifted off the ground. “You might want to buckle up,” Jules commented. John did. “Activating the deflector shield, powering up the impulse drive.” He pressed one more button, but he didn’t say what it was.

“What does that button do?” John asked.

“It opens the garage door,” Jules answered, matter-of-factly. John rolled his eyes. “Now, time circuits on. Destination entered, October 10, 2017. Once we reach 88 miles per hour, the time circuits will activate and we will travel one week into the past.” Jules stepped on the gas and the DeLorean started to move. “And away we go.”




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