"Where are they going, mom?" Will asked.

"Some men need to drink and talk it out," Maureen replied watching the men leave the Jupiter 2 with tinge of worry in her eyes among grief and sympathy. "A tavern."

The Jupiter 2 shrunk behind the men as they strolled through the lightly crowded street. Their hearts were heavy with guilt, bitterness, and self-blame among the main central wound that couldn't be seen but be felt. The kind of wound only human related beings could understand. Robot wheeled after them with his helm pressed low following after the men. Robot's memory tapes were weighted down by a force that was unbeknownst to him. It was a force that didn't have a name in robots but it had a name in the English vocabulary. It was sorrow.

The men walked into the doorway of a bar and Robot went the other way past the door. John summoned out what was left of their space station budget and placed several of the jewels on to the counter to last them for many drinks. With few words exchanged toward the tall grayed goateed bartender, drinks slid on to the table and the men caught them on to the handles then began to drink from it. The bartender whistled counting to himself how many jewels had been discarded on the table for him with his back to the reminiscing men.

"You know, it would be pretty classic of Smith to come running in on us," Don said. "Right when we are about ready to get drunk."

"He was reliable on that regard," John laughed. "Ruining a happy moment."

"And unhappy ones when he was forced to," Don said. "Coming out, through that door," he pointed toward the door across from them. "Turning out that he didn't really die but Bronius made it seem that way."

"Remember that one time we thought he was gone forever?" John asked.

"Which one," Don said. "There are many instances."

"The one where the Dragonians tried to kill his mind," John said. "How we all thought he wasn't going to come running for the Jupiter 2?"

"Five long minutes," Don snickered. "For a moment there, I was about ready to believe he had decided to stay."

"I still can't believe he is really gone," John said. "We don't have to wait for him. Can't wait for him. Shouldn't wait for him."

"Yet. . ." Don said. "It feels like he is still around." he twirled his finger in the air. "He is taking his sweet. . . sweet. . ." his voice began to crack. " sweet slow time making his way to the Jupiter 2."

Don took a sip from the cup then lowered it down to the table.

"How does it feel to be the only United States Space Corps Officer aboard, Major?" John asked.

Don looked on toward the professor with a raised brow.

"Yes," John said. "I like to hear it from you."

Don's gaze lowered to the center of the glass.

"Back on Priplanus, I used to think it would be the greatest day of my life and the best day of this mission," Don said. "As of now. . . I don't feel so great. All in all it's the worst day of this mission. Nothing is ever going to be as great as it used to be. That's what I feel from here." he put the glass down then folded his arms on the table. "I don't feel so high and mighty as I thought I would."

John put a hand on Don's shoulder.

"If he were still here," John said. "He would make you feel on a high and mighty throne."

Don snickered with a shake of his head.

"You're right," Don said. "He would."

From behind, a loud thud drew their attention on to a fallen man. The newcomer staggered up to his feet using a nearby chair then threw himself against the wall with a pant then winced and took his back off the wall starting to reach his hand out toward it but stopped mid way reaching it back to being in front of him.

A strange watch made his wrist glow silver with moving shadows radiating from around him then the darkness outlining his figure dissipated so that he blended in to the scenery. He lowered his head with a relief then began to try to slide off the wrist watch. They turned their attention off the newcomer back on to their glasses.

"Dad!" Will came toward the duo. "DAD! DAD! DAD!"

"What is it, son?" John toward Will's direction.

"There is a officer searching for you," as soon as the door slammed behind Penny the tall man bolted past her knocking down several chairs and stampeded over several short people toward the narrow long hallway to the bathroom. "Claims you did something very wrong."

Don took another sip from his glass.

"What?" John asked. "We just got here."

"That's what I said," Penny said. "Doesn't make any sense."

"I got a feeling that man has something to do with it," Don got off his seat then followed the path that the younger man had gone.

Don entered the men's room and saw the wound before his eyes. He saw a long fine blue nerve from the left side of his back that stood out as a sore thumb. He moved right across from the man then went toward the stall and unzipped as the man lowered the uniform then turned around toward the sink then quickly rolled one of the items and water jetted out. It was a strange wound to see in his time within space.

"Hey, something wrong?"

The tall man shook his head with both hands on the sides of the sink.

"This is a wretched existence of hell and agony,"

Don's eyes lowered toward the man's back curiously.

"So what's up with the back?"

"Don't you touch it!" The taller man smacked Don's hand before it could reach to the back. "My back is delicate."

"I knew someone who used that excuse a lot," Don looked back, the flickers of the doctor's complaints ringing back to wiggle his way out of duties as black and white film, fondly, sadly, yet warmly.

The taller man shook his head, bitterly.

"My pain is real,"

Don lowered his hand.

"Sorry if I insinuated otherwise,"

The taller man's shoulders lowered.

"Oh how I could I have used the excuse," The man stared at the mirror. Don noticed that his eyes were haunted, gripped by grim, fear, desperation, and horror. All he had seen before. Worse of all: Helplessness for the disaster of a beast standing in his way. "Oh, the pain. . . the horrid pain."

"Where do you get colorful shirts like that?"

Don changed the subject, hoping to lighten the mood, finding pity in his situation. He didn't know the story behind the scar but the look on the man's face easily said the entire story. That something deadly was the source of the wound and it was going to change him drastically. That was the face of someone who had seen and fought a monster even survived to tell the tale.

"I got it from a hangar. Madigan street, Madowski street. Right by the accessories station."

Don looked at the man, skeptically, as that street sold necklaces.

"So that is what they are selling. Could use some new shirts."

"You might just like them," The helpless man looked toward the shorter man with a shallow smile that weakened and faded as he began to shake his head. "They are comfortable."

He turned off the water once taking his hands off the sink as Don cleaned his hands then opened the doorway and walked out the hallway letting the door softly close behind him once going through it. Don looked up toward the cieling with a sigh that weighted down his shoulders. That wasn't a man who might even have the slightest of clue behind John's unexpected and troubling situation.

"Right when you leave," Don said. "It is a sign of a darker time for us. Isn't it?" he lowered his gaze toward the sink then shook his head. "Why couldn't it have never happened by her hand in the first place!"

Don punched into the glass.

"Damn!" Don flung his hand back. "Great." came out exasperated. "How am I going to pay for that?" he looked toward his bruised knuckles for a long moment.

Don turned around from the mirror, reluctantly, then made his way out of the bathroom going through his head of how to best repay the bartender. He was lost in thought until he bumped into a alien that caused him to stop in his tracks. He looked up spotting the same man from earlier standing over a large figure then began to walk around him and it shocked him. The tall man was dusting his hands off then tap on a floating touch screen from the wrist watch then bolted toward the back door and flung it open to reveal Robot in the dumps hunched over weeping into a white and blue handkerchief.

"You bubble-headed booby!" A familiar insult, familiar brash of anger, familiar tone of voice directed toward the Robot. "You said you would step aside for them!"

It was a long moment before the Robot responded then his grill glowed.

"Doctor. . . Doctor Smith?" Robot's head bobbed up with the shock in his mechanical voice. "This does not compute." his head whirred. "This does not compute."

Smith bolted on past Robot running on through the wide dumps leaving behind the at-first dumbstruck major behind then the officer got up to his feet.

"Where did he go?" Eglardo asked.

All hands except from Don pointed toward the door then the officer went out the main door running after the Smith-alike as a smile replaced the shock.

//////////////////////////////////////////////

Don walked into the opening of a cave. He looked from side to side as he stepped further in the dark for the familiar tall figure. The familiar dark blue eyes that stood out among the dark. The one that he had become accustomed to seeing instead of the familiar brighter ones that showed fear, disgruntled, contempt, hysterics, life, happiness, resentment, anger, and far more complex feelings that his face went along with.

"Smith?" Don searched from side to side. "Smith?"

"Walk further into the night, let the lantern of light be your guide, but don't allow the light, don't allow it to become consumed by the dark in its fight to remain," Smith said. "A bit of fine poetry that speaks more fitting to this situation."

"Without a flashlight. . ." Don said.

"Further," Smith said.

"That's not nice of you," Don said. "Get me a flashlight!"

"I did not arrange for her to be here to be killed by your rage, Major," Smith said.

"I would kill her when I see her," Don cracked her knuckles. "I change my mind." he walked on past the spider in the pitch black. "Let me beat her to a pulp!"

Smith's eyes widened then maser beamed over toward his side.

"Spare me your complaints and come into the dark before it becomes you," Smith stopped Don with a firm hand on his shoulder. "You are more appealing being a creature of the light. That is who you are."

"Okay, alright!" Don put his hands on his hips glaring into the dark once the man had let go of shoulder and retreated into the darkness. "Stop talking like a vampire and be straight with me."

"Not if you stop breathing," Smith chuckled in the black.

"Hey!" Don's attention snapped toward the direction that Smith had to be.

"Frankly, my dear Major," Smith shook his head in disappointment. "You have forgotten who you're talking to."

"It is relatively easy to do," Don said. "How close do I need to be for the mind bridge?"

"Close," Smith said. "Walk forward, please. I will tell you when to stop."

"Alright. . . ." Don said.

"Before we do this," Smith said. "You commented about the lack of mental combat."

"You're going to teach me?" Don asked, baffled, pausing in his tracks searching in the dark for Smith with a squint.

"No. Worse." Don heard Smith's laughter be carried in the cavern. "I will link you with a creature similar to a human but that is it. It's a must-to-learn course back on Earth."

"Course it is. . . So that is the person who has been raiding the hydroponic garden!" Don said. "I have been thinking it was you."

"Thoroughly amusing! She is in the barbarian age in terms of development and quite malnourished at the moment," Smith continued. "She is dreaming and willing to fight any who dares enters her paradise."

Don stopped in his tracks.

"Smith, don'-"

Don's surroundings changed from a pitch black cavern into a lush paradise of greenery full of tall trees, rocks coated in vines, and lush blueberry patches decorating the area. He stopped along a river watching large fish soar on by before his eyes with their colorful characteristics. A part of him wondered what the fish was from, Smith, or his destined fight.

He wagered his bet on the alien native. It had to be. Color radiated off the gracefully moving small creature. The fish was so lifelike, so consistent, so familiar from the one that he had seen in the water during one of his own hunting trips with John to restock on the meat. Not often did they have to restock on the meat after the older Smith had fallen quite suddenly. The time frame from after Smith's death and his sudden return was measurable in how long they had piles of meat and fruit to their disposal.

They hadn't needed to restock in a long time. Every time he did look at it, the meat didn't go away any the faster. It had briefly gone down its original levels when the younger Smith stayed with them but after replenishing their meat supply, it was back to its previous level. Don shook the thought off with a shake of his head then wandered down the path sensing the other was somewhere off in the forest. The sad feeling was replaced by a unique feeling.

He felt weightless strolling through the area. However when Don stopped and gazed at himself, all he could see was his large hands and his green matching suit. He viewed himself as a human and therefore acted like one. The major momentarily wondered to himself what the doctor viewed himself. With little thought the image that had been drawn and the doctor's comments about the alien spider, he could fill in the rest quite easily.

"You can NOT!"

Don turned in the source of the shout that belonged to the younger doctor's voice seething rage.

The doctor was no where to be seen not even in the shadows could Don make him out.

Don resumed his way into the path to the forest until he came to a tall clearing.

He spotted a dark figure along the treeline picking out colorful berries off the branches. The humanoid figure turned in his direction and locked eyes with him. She had thin arms with long braided hair set on her left shoulder and her body was decorated in colorful paint. Barbarian? She looked nothing like a barbarian. A culture that was full thriving and had exiled one of its own into the wilderness.

The figure was about his height from afar but as she got close and closer toward him, it became quite apparent that she was four foot at the size of a child. Her figure and facial features indicated that her age was that of his age. She dropped the basket to the ground and picked up a spear then charged toward Don.

She started to charge forward but fell down to her feet. With effort, she managed to adapt and began Don waited for the last possible moment then stepped aside, took the spear, and flung his fist out knocking her aside. She had difficulty getting up to her feet then with a flail of her leg this caused the major to fall down to his side.

The native leaped up to her feet with her fists swinging back and forth. He got up to his feet then shot a punch which missed her head by a hair and she shot him down to the ground followed by a swing that knocked his legs down.

The native reached out.

"That is enough,"

The brightness was replaced by the pitch black and Don was still standing to his feet.

"You helped me stand, didn't you?" Don asked.

"No. That was all you. You should have seen yourself becoming acquainted to your legs," Smith cackled. "It was hysterical."

"I am unskilled in mental combat!" Don pointed out. "You know that! I told you."

"You are skilled in fighting people physically. This person was skilled in hunting and foraging. Her mind, however, unexpectedly showed some signs of having to have engaged in ritual combat." Smith replied. "I thought she hadn't the experience."

"Wrong beta run," Don said.

"I admit," Smith held his hands up in resignation. "it was awful."

"At least, I got a decent black eye from a worthwhile fight," Don pointed toward his bruised eye with a smirk. "With help."

"Your mind moved as if it were a person rather than a animal," Smith said. "You could have been a bull, a rhino, a elephant, a bear, a goose, a swan, but the most damaging creature of all you decided to be was yourself."

"So she was a test run to see what I would decide to appear as," Don lowered his hand.

"Exactly," Smith said.

"How did you find her?" Don asked.

"She was in a area where bats tend to nest in while I was hunting for a creature that would be a excellent stand in for your primary target before bringing you to her," Smith said. "I will remove her to a section of the cavern that has more desirable aims of target such as. . . you wouldn't want to know what else lurks here."

"You have made friends with several of them," Don assumed.

"Who needs friends when you have allies and knowledge of the territorial?" Smith asked.

"People who need help to wage wars on planets or above them." Don said. "Speaking of which, since this isn't going to happen for you, I have to tell you something and its really important that you hear it,"

"Go on,"

Don started talking. He started from the beginning then worked his way down as Smith eyed at him skeptically with disbelief that decorated his facial features then a baffled expression replaced it. His baffled expression replaced by uncertainty, horror, and shock. He turned away from the major as Don continued the story. Then the major concluded with a sigh.

"And that's it. . ."

Smith sighed, almost at a loss, not knowing what to say.

"I. . . " Smith started. "That is not my destiny, Major. Never was. Never will be. My destiny isn't noble. I wish it was. How I wish it was . . ."

"That's what I thought but experience tells me you can make your destiny. We all can," Don said. "It is only set in stone if we don't try to make our lives better."

Don traveled through the dark in the silence that Smith's absent reply left, his eyes struggling to adjust in the pitch black, only making out shapes peeking out of the ground and the cieling above his head. He heard the sound of water drops landing to the ground. A voice distantly came behind him so he stopped in the dark. The voice came close and closer to him until he recognized the source of it. It must have been what he had been asked to do: to stop when instructed.

"Major, what was the place you fought her in?" Smith asked.

"In a desert," A lie. A pure fabricated lie. It was in the Jupiter 2. That was their last face to face confrontation.

"What weapons did you fight with?"

"None,"

"No boulders?"

"There were boulders, some bare trees, some dead grass, and hills. We fought at the bottom of the hill,"

"Ah,"

"Are you designing the meet up?" Don raised a brow while facing the direction of Smith's voice.

"Completed," Smith said. "Close your eyes and inhale. I won't be there when you find yourself there. I will be outside monitoring your mental well being including hers."

Don did as instructed then closed his eyes.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

As he exhaled, the darkness melted away replaced by the familiar scenery. Bronius was seated on a boulder looking around quite lost for answers. The outfit that she had liked to be on had been stripped from her flesh only leaving her in a dark gray tank top with four bands and long dark pants with a purple stripe on each side. Bronius smiled with a tilt of her head and her shiny white teeth glistened in the sun.

"So we meet again," Bronius said.

Don stepped forward.

"I have been waiting a long. . . long. . long time to say this,"

Bronius snorted.

"I got a lot of people who are furious with me because of your interference," Bronius got up from the rock then fell to her feet. "He wouldn't be dead if it weren't for that!"

Don yanked her up to her feet.

"Thanks to you, I have been through more pain then I can care to share. It's been a very long time since we crossed paths with you," he knocked her aside so hard that she hit the rock. "Since the day. . . Since the day . . . Since that day you vanished, so did he, so did everything we know about ourselves. Everything we thought we knew," he cracked his knuckles looking down upon the woman. "You did more damage than Smith could do in a day in the first year lost with us. It took you . . what . . ." His voice grew shaky. "a week?"

Don delivered a sharp kick into her abdomen.

"One lousy week of pain!"

Don sent out another kick against Bronius's figure.

"Of entertainment, of sheer will, of heartlessness?"

The young woman groaned turning on to her side.

"We thought we had it hard," Don emphasized. "Until he came in."

He kicked at the back of her head.

"I thought I had a second chance but instead it wasn't that!" He delivered several blows to her back then walked around her. "I can't exactly make amends for someone who is too busy with something real and life changing that we can ALL see is impacting him. We can't help him. We can't stop it! It's the second cruel kind of agony."

He delivered several kicks against her legs.

"Agony I didn't think was POSSIBLE!"

With one single sweep, he kicked into her chest.

"What you did. WHAT YOU DID!" He forced her up to her feet then sucker punched her back. "Was unspeakable to him and to us!"

Surprisingly, unlike how his physical body got tired of exerting itself, he didn't feel any of that. His fury got the best of him without any physical restraints beating her up until she were a pulp and surrounded by her own blood. Finally, all that anger toward her had been released. All the feelings that she had left behind were dropped back on her. With that released, his own restraint came over him as he pitied her.

Don loomed over the figure covered in dirt and laid on her side coughing out her own blood. Which wasn't blood. It wasn't her blood. It couldn't be her blood. Blood was the physical part of having a body but in this case she wasn't using. The blood represented some mental part of her.

The damaged parts of her neurons were spilling on the golden ground becoming a pitch black stain that spread to the rest of her slowly darkening blood.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

His world returned to the void of the cavern feeling a hand lightly pressed on his back and his legs were moving in the direction that he was being guided to.

"Feel better, my dear Major?"

"Just what I needed,"

"No harm no foul,"

"She will recover,"

"Yes, but I can promise you that you will never see her cross your paths,"

"That is what I like to hear,"

"And. . ."

"Yes?"

"Do you feel back to yourself?"

"I do," Don said. "I do, really. You can relax. I am fully over her."

"Good. . . good," Smith pat the middle of his fingers on the major's shoulder. "Resume walking in the dark. I will handle the situation from here."

"What are you going to do with her?" Don asked.

Smith shifted from Don's direction toward the abyss.

"Put her somewhere that she can heal in safety," Smith said, softly.

"Smith. . ." Don started. "Don't. . ."

"Don't what?" Smith blinked staring down at the shorter man.

"Let her heal in peace," Don said.

"She won't heal in peace," Smith reassured. "Her healing will be as undesirable and inconvenient as her presence was to your assignment."

"And where is the native? Let me help her," Don requested. "I know a part of this rock that has some vegetation and plenty of animals to hunt."

"She has the strength to catch small prey for the time being,"" Smith said. "And she would be quickly over powered by the larger ones. With time, we can work together and lead her to her real paradise. More kind than the one she lived in."

"Is she the lone wolf kind of person?" Don asked.

"I don't know," Smith replied, honestly. "However, the professor may not willing to let you become part of her people's mythological gods."

Don laughed, his hands on his hips, then rubbed his forehead rolling his head back and forth in amusement.

"Just how religious is she?" Don asked.

"She was on a meditation mat made of leaves and had candles around her when I found her," Smith replied.

"And where is she now?" Don asked.

"I didn't move her," Smith said.

"So," Don said. "Can you translate thoughts? So I can apologize? Explain to her?"

"No," Smith said. "She speaks a entirely different language."

"Spanish? Cherokee? Portuguese? Islamic? French? Latin?" Don jetted out.

"She speaks some weird combination of French, English, and Spanish. Don't ask me how it's possible but it is a real headache that you don't want to be part in. Let her view that dream as a nightmare, shall we?"

"I can go with that," Don said. "And thank you."

"My pleasure, you may tell the professor of Bronius's fate if you like," Smith said.

"That I will," Don smiled at the thought of telling John. "We have both wanted her to pay for what she did."

Don made his way out of the cavern as Smith turned to face the bruised, beaten, and bloodied shell that belonged to Bronius. Her figure was breathing, her eyes were closed, and little of her body was clean as it had been before under the dark. Smith knelt down then picked her figure up within his four arms then traveled toward down the cavern into the pitch black.

Smith came out the other entrance then scanned the scenery, his illusion lowered, under the somewhat darkening sky. He looked both ways then came over toward his improvised campsite quite slowly lacking the speed that he once had in his earlier uses. He placed the woman with care on to the bed then began to fall himself but he used the edge as he support. He grit his teeth with his head lowered toward the ground.

Smith yanked forth a wooden chair that had been personalized to his very needs and sat into it taking a rest.

His mind was becoming a blank slate, little thoughts to wander over, his limbs refusing to move as though his mind knew it wasn't capable of moving this way.

The plan had to work, quickly, just as he had anticipated and became convinced of from his last conversation with Vikari.

If it were capable of healing and changing a body then it could do the change within four hours.

Except some parts of the body can't be that healed even by advanced technology.

The perfect patsy.

//////////////////////////////////////////

Hours passed after the event that had transpired. John had been told at great length regarding Smith's gift and Bronius. The thought of Bronius being left alone with someone in the dark and willing to complete the dirty work with no ones hands on it, including his daughters and his friend, brought certain relief upon him. If she were around the doctor in her weakest moment then it had to be the last sighting of her anyone that anyone would have seen. And it truly was. Whatever intentions Smith had for the crosser, they would never know of it. Bronius was the only person in the galaxy who made John wish she had met a cruel end.

Don and Judy were on a walk under the darkening sky. Their hands were interlocked together enjoying the stroll side by side along a lake in a moment of happiness. The kind of walk that a couple would have silently together would have to themselves on a romantic evening. The couple stopped in their tracks watching swans flying off together from the lake leaving behind puddles of water that feel as the flew off as a wave that became only rain water once being dragged away from the source higher and further enough. The swans had long furry legs but what truly stood out was the long tail that flew behind them.

"What is that music?" Judy said.

"Insects," Don suggested.

"Crickets. . ." Judy said. "No," She looked up with a lift of her brow. "it sounds more instrumental. More human sounding. Muffled, distant, but enjoyable."

"Could be," Don scanned the horizon. The flutes, the drums, and the humming all sounded man made. He knew deep down inside that it wasn't insects but of the civilization that the alien native had been expelled from. "Or it could be some relics from the civilization of before still playing."

"You were gone for a few hours, Don. . ." Judy said. "where did you go this afternoon?"

"I took care of Bronius," Jud tilted her head taken by surprise then covered her mouth as it became clear. "She won't hurt anyone us like she did with us."

"That was the most painful week I have been part of," Judy said, bitterly, sliding her hands down her chin turning her gaze downwards.

"There won't be any more painful weeks ahead of this mission," Don said. "Not on my watch."

Judy turned toward Don, pausing in her tracks, taking his hands.

"Speaking of which," Judy started. "I feel me, again."

"Really?" Don asked.

Judy nodded.

"Really." Judy said.

Judy and Don shared a warm hug that was oversaw by Smith hiding among a tall outcrop of boulders peeking out between them. He watched them walk away hand in hand looking toward each other as the lovely music swelled. Smith tapped on a device beside him and the soft low music flowing beside him came to a stop.

"Sweet young love. . ." Smith smiled to himself.

He watched their distant figures become smaller to his eyes then lowered his gaze off their small figures down toward the device that then vanished before his eyes.