"Smith, come back! SSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMMMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTHHHHHHHHH!"

Smith looked over the source of Don's voice in alarm lowering the newly gifted book.

"Major?" Smith called.

He had left the ghosts of his family behind. Staying behind would have been more harmful to his mental health. That much was certain to the convict. And the pain of living without them remaining lost in space living from a day to day basis. Being alone for over thirty years with the company of the occasional aliens threatening him and the Jupiter 2 including whoever they happened to be chasing on a typical basis would have been a special kind of hell for Smith. One that didn't feel as satisfying as penacing away for his mistake. That way of life was over. He firmly believed that kind of hellish existence had came to a end. A hellish existence that was less worse than the purposeless and directionless life that he lead. Repetitive, familiar, and comforting in the way that it kept him safe and sound. Instead, there was a negative outlook cast on the familiarity that he was becoming adjusted to. Smith was wrong on the fact that the period of hearing the Robinsons voices randomly was over, so could he be wrong now?

Smith shook his head.

"Smith, come back!"

Don's voice sounded angry and demanding.

"Smith!"

Smith can almost hear Penny silently pleading, "Come back, Doctor Smith." while gazing toward the afternoon sky decorated in clouds that resembled popcorn. What was there to come back to? The ghosts of dead people confused and upset over the abrupt departure of their friend. He couldn't go back out there. He had no choice in the matter. He was supposed to feel home. Smith didn't feel at home. He felt trapped, imprisoned, and sad. It was never supposed to be this way on the long, lonely trip to Earth believing that things were going to be alright. Home was just a system away. In fact, he was home all along during the journey and it had taken now to realize that. A part of home was destroyed, beyond retrieval, just a memory that could be lost. Home was so far away in the heavens.

"Doctor Smith, we are right here!"

He wished the Robinsons were here, they would make everything feel over nine thousand times better.

The occasional visits from Will and Penny at the visitors center with the Robot, The Robot filling him in what Alpha Control was deciding to do with him (even determining how much time he had to spare on Earth), being told that Don opted against visiting him to pursue his career, being told that Judy was doing the same and it was eating all her time, John and Maureen figuring out how to adapt to being on Earth again permanently, being told that Debbie was being studied, and being told about the relationship between the major and the singer blossoming than it had before. A fantasy that Smith had started to sink into but jumped out at the sudden sharp pain at seeing them again. The Robinsons doing all they could to have made sure he had a lesser sentence--

No.

It was a selfish wish and it made him angry at himself.

You survived, they didn't, you ninny, Smith reminded himself throwing himself back into the book.