Ineradicable
by AstroGirl

"I'm sorry, John," says the alien in his father's voice. "It's too deeply entrenched. I can't remove it without serious risk of irreparable damage to your brain." He lowers his hand from Crichton's forehead, a slow, defeated gesture.

Do it anyway, Crichton almost says, but no, the stakes are too high for him to leave the game now. Besides, he's had to go and find something to live for, hasn't he? Aeryn might not love him for his mind, but he's pretty sure he'd be no good to her without it. So instead he says, "Shit. Well, what are we gonna do, then?"

Jack looks thoughtful for a moment, every eerily familiar movement of his face threatening to release a wave of homesickness in Crichton's heart. "I'm going to unlock the knowledge anyway."

"Whoa, whoa, Jack... Are you sure that's a good idea? What with the..." He makes a spiraling gesture towards his temple. "...still in there?"

Jack shrugs. "I don't see that we have a great deal of choice. The clone doesn't have any way of communicating whatever it might find out, and you seem to have it under good control. I'd say it's worth the risk."

"Yeah, but if you're wrong..."

"If I'm wrong..." The alien smiles. "Then you can blame whatever happens to the galaxy on me."

"Don't think I won't." Crichton draws in a deep breath. "What the frell. Do it."

Jack nods and raises his hand again. Crichton closes his eyes. He doesn't feel anything different...

And then he does. But he isn't sure if the feeling of glee in the back of his brain belongs to him or not. Well, at least he's pretty sure the rattlers in his stomach are all his.

---

This is it. This is what he exists for, the purpose for which he was created. Wormhole knowledge. It pours out of the locked-off portion of Crichton's brain, opening now like a flower in the spring. Crichton himself can't feel it yet, slowly spreading through his subconscious, but Harvey can. Unfolding equations, blossoming intuitions, ideas interwoven in patterns at once complex and simple. Beautiful. Harvey closes his metaphorical eyes and parts his nonexistent lips as it washes over him and through him. Yes, this is...

...no longer why he exists. The realization hits him like cold water. He has nothing to do with this knowledge, nowhere to take it. He certainly has no desire to give it to Scorpius, even if he had the means. It is beautiful, yes. The portion of his psyche that comes from Crichton and the part inherited from Scorpius both agree on that. But it is no longer a goal in itself. It is useful to him, after all, only if it serves to keep Crichton alive, and, by extension, himself. He has the uncomfortable feeling that it might, in fact, lead to precisely the opposite outcome. Wormholes are dangerous. Crichton's obsession with them is even more dangerous. And his trust in this alien is not only dangerous, but foolhardy in the extreme.

He was supposed to cease to exist once he had found the knowledge that's just been unlocked before him. That could still happen, but he is no longer bound to passively accept it. Harvey retreats deep into Crichton's mind, letting John believe it's because he's afraid and weak after the Ancient's aborted attempt to remove him.

He needs time to re-evaluate.

---

"Listen to the woman, John," says the little voice in the back of Crichton's head as Furlow retreats across the sand. "Don't be a hero. It isn't worth it. Walk away."

He looks up to see the hallucinatory embodiment of the voice standing astride the displacement engine, flashes of radiation lighting up his ghastly white face with an even ghastlier blue. There's no costume this time, no goofy smile. The pooka looks deadly serious.

Hmm. "Deadly" might be a bad choice of words.

"John..."

"What, not a peep out of you since Jack failed to fumigate my brain, and you're showing up now? Bad timing, Harve. I really don't need the distraction."

"You don't need to do this at all! Be reasonable, John..."

"Reasonable? Me? Dude, you live in my brain. You of all people ought to know better than to expect me to be reasonable." There is sweat beading on his forehead, threatening to run into his eyes. He wipes at it and carefully studies the engine. It seems to be flashing faster. "Besides, this thing's good for blowin' up Scarrans. Keeping them from getting wormhole tech. I'd think you would approve."

"That was Scorpius's goal. My own priorities have... shifted. I am now much more concerned with keeping you -- keeping us -- alive. And this is no way to go about doing that!"

"Yeah, you don't like the idea of the building you're squatting in going under the wrecking ball. But you know what? This ain't your decision to make." He draws in a deep breath and starts counting.

"John, no!"

One, two, three...

Shit.

Funny. He's the one who's just received the lethal hit of radiation, but it's the neural clone who looks sick.

---

He is trapped. Trapped in Crichton's brain, trapped in a dying body. Desperately, he seeks a means of survival. If they left now, found a diagnosan... Anti-radiation drugs might at least buy them some time, time to think of... of something. But he doesn't know what.

Scorpius would know, of course. Scorpius would have had a plan by now, to save their lives and defeat the Scarrans. He would have had a plan, and a backup plan, and an alternative backup plan. He would have had the strength of will to override Crichton's desires. He would have the capacity to think clearly even with radiation damage gnawing away at his brain.

Harvey has only fear and a feeling of powerlessness. But he doesn't want to die, not when he's only just begun to live. There has to be a way...

---

John Crichton is dying, and he's okay with that. It's not a bad way to go, really. No pain, a loved one by his side. And, if he still believes Aeryn is worth living for, he also thinks she'll understand that some things are worth dying for. Hell, he's going out a hero. His own kind of hero. Dad would be proud.

Yeah, he's done good things. He's lived a good life. His only regret is not having managed to get rid of the neural clone, but at least he's taking the bastard with him. Harvey won't be bothering him ever again, soon enough.

All in all, he feels pretty good.

---

Harvey can feel the calm and the peace that have settled over Crichton's mind -- whether due more to John's own sense of satisfaction or to the influence of the Stykera he doesn't know -- but he does not, cannot, share them. For him, there is only a desperate, choking panic. All around him, the lights are going out, neurons sputtering and dying. The walls of the comfortable dwelling place he has built in the basement of Crichton's psyche tremble and fall. And he is afraid.

It's almost over. And then... what? Crichton isn't sure whether he believes in souls, but if they do exist, he's quite certain that Harvey does not have one.

Fortunately for Harvey, Crichton is wrong.

---

Stark has removed his physical self from the room to give them privacy, but the connection has been made, and he can feel Crichton's soul as the threads that bind it to this realm weaken and, finally, fail. He gently catches the human's departing spirit, allows it to flow through him as he soothes it, says his final goodbye, and releases it to find its destination.

His mind is always a little unsettled just after crossing someone over, as the fragments and echoes of the departed soul jostle about to find their place inside him. Crichton's memories are stickier than most, his echoes stronger, and in the resulting chaos, it takes Stark a moment to realize that there is something else here. Something that isn't Crichton.

Something that isn't leaving.

---

It turns out the cliché is true, after all. Go towards the light, isn't that what they say? And Crichton went, the quitter. But not him, not Harvey, not even though it had called him, too. (And he can't quite decide whether that fact surprises him or not.)

He was designed to infiltrate a brain, to latch onto neurons, to cling to thoughts. He grabs and clings now, holding on quite literally for dear life as John Crichton fades into the metaphysical distance, leaving him behind. Well, it appears his survival instincts are strong, after all. Scorpius would have been proud. Bemused, perhaps, but proud.

He grins, takes a deep, calming breath, and sets out to look around the interior of his new home. Goodness, there are all sorts of interesting things in here. There's even a little bit of Crichton to keep him company! Now all he needs to do is to keep this Banik from doing anything suicidally crazy...

Hmm. Suddenly, he feels less optimistic. Oh, well. For the moment, he's alive. And that, after all, is really the only thing that counts.