Depression was a bitch.

It clawed Smith in ways that were personal.

Ways that brought him down to his knees and go to dark corners of his mind.

Laughter was known to help people getting out of depression, their old rituals played a part, and taking care of themselves to get get them back on the top. Debbie had ran out of the Jupiter before his departure. Smith's stomach felt full in the first few days. Not a desire to eat with a heavy heart and a full stomach. But he had to eat if he were going to pay for the loss. A loss that could have been prevented, and had to happen that way, according to the time merchant. He had to make himself eat, reminding himself that he used to love eating it and just because his stomach felt numb didn't mean that there was something in it. He knew that there was nothing in his stomach so he had to eat much to the disgust inside. He turned to his memories of his time with the Robinsons to get himself back up on to two feet---but there were no laughs. Only tears. Instead of being happy to finally reach Earth, Smith was terribly sad regarding the matter. It was good to cry.

Smith recalled the trial.

"Is it true you wanted to go to Earth for the last several years, Doctor Smith?" Prosecutor Rights asked.

"Yes," Smith replied.

"Were you relieved when they died?" Rights asked.

"No," Smith said.

"Is it true you hated the monkey?" Rights asked.

"Yes," Smith said.

"So if you had the chance, you would have gotten rid of it," Rights said.

"Yes, but--" Smith was cut off.

"Yes or no," Rights repeated. "Doctor Smith." that was said in a mocking tone that made his eyes grow big.

"You shouldn't give him what he wants, Doctor Smith," Smith heard Judy from beside him.

His blue heavy eyes looked toward where he could visualize the eternally pretty blonde from in front of the seat with her kind, considerate blue eyes staring back at him. The aftermath of being burned to death did little to compromise her beauty now tarnished by tattered clothes and burned cheeks. Her once tidy, curled blonde air was discarded on her shoulders. He stared at her with a heartbroken look on his face. Rights voice called for Smith in the background like static to his ears. Judy vanished in the same moment that she had appeared replaced by a empty spot. He returned his attention on to the prosecutor.

"Yes," Smith replied.

"Were you angry. . " Rights started. "That you couldn't get to Earth when the opportunity arose because the Robinsons had to leave immediately for one reason or another?"

Smith closed his eyes, painfully looking back, turning his gaze toward the counter with a sigh then looked up.

"Yes," Smith replied.

"So wouldn't it be fair to say that dying on you pretty much gave you a path to Earth?" Rights asked.

"No! It wasn't easy!" Smith exploded. "I was attacked mercilessly by space pirates, space hijackers, and other kinds of space evil that you cannot possibly understand. I had to make certain decisions to save myself."

"So you allied with them?" Rights asked.

"Yes," Smith said.

"If the Robinsons were there, would they have done the same?" Rights asked.

"No," Smith said.

"So its true that you would still be lost in space had they not die?" Smith didn't reply. "Your honor, permission to treat the eyewitness as hostile."

"Granted," Judge Maybell said.

"Is it true?" Rights asked.

"That what?" Smith snapped. "They would have died with me because we didn't cooperate with them? Yes!"

"So it's true about the notes that Professor Robinson made regarding your behavior when given power?" Rights asked, leaning against the bar separating him from the jury.

"Yes---" Smith was cut off.

"So it's also true that you could be lying about how the Robinsons died," Rights said. "We don't have evidence of what you said had happened that way. You got power sometime on that planet unknowingly to the Robinsons before they could return to the Jupiter 2. And what does power breed?"

"Greed," Smith replied.

"You once held the younger members of the family as animals for a circus," Rights then added. "Is that true?"

"Yes--" Smith said.

"Were you angry that it ended?" Rights asked.

"Yes---" Smith said.

"So the last adventure before the 'sudden loss' you were angry about something else," Rights said.

"I wasn't myself!" Smith insisted. "I was angry over a very small matter."

"Professor Robinson says you were," Rights said. "And what would you say about that?"

"I was being controlled by a highly intelligent entity who wanted off that planet," Smith said.

"Like Mr Nobody?" Rights said.

"That was different," Smith said. "That could have killed Penelope."

"You hurt the children getting to the space pod," Rights said. "is that true?"

"I didn't like it a bit!" Smith insisted.

"Is that TRUE!" Rights repeated.

"Yes!" Smith said. "I wanted to get away from them. Far as I COULD from THEM. I was fighting against the entity as much as I could--"

"But you were stronger than it?" Rights asked.

"No," Smith said, shamefully lowering his head. "I was weak."

Rights shook his head making a tsk sound.

"If you were so weak, then why did you coax Mrs Robinson while being in character with a lie that you fixed her heart condition using a device that stalled her heart from stop beating after using cryostasis but actually made her heart stop beating thirty minutes after coming out of stasis?" came the fully loaded question that earned Smith raising his head up. "Where this device came from is never elaborated or mentioned. In fact, it's as though you got rid of it after the episode had ended."

Smith looked on toward the prosecutor, staring, blinking repeatedly while leaning forward.

"Pardon me?" Smith's voice came out as a squeak.

"You tried to kill her?" Rights asked. "Don't you remember that?"

"No," Smith said. "I would never do that to the madame."

Rights rolled a eye then turned around and walked back toward the table.

"Then why does this say that you put her into cryostasis?" Rights asked. "You were in control according to Professor Robinson's entry," the prosecutor gestured toward the journal in his hands. Smith's eyes began to sting, his mind running with a thousand thoughts, and he felt trapped. "You were written as apologizing but the professor wisely exiled you from the ship." The light flickered back on in Smith's eyes as his fingers rolled up against his palms.

"I DID NO SUCH THING! That is unnecessary slander to MY name!" Smith argued. "I DID NOT. I DID NOT! I DID NOT!"

"Why should we believe you, Doctor Smith?" Rights asked, staring through the older man into his soul.

Smith broke apart at the seams as pieces of their last adventure came together while covering his face and trembling.

Maureen was laid on the floor not breathing. Don keeping him back as John was attempting to resuscitate her, Penny's hair a mess as though she had been electrocuted, The Robot keeping Will back with his arms, and Judy looking at him unsure as though something had happened. He walked back out of the Jupiter in a fit of shock and confusion and hurt after being exiled verbally by the professor. The same kind of hurt on the children's faces. It hurt even more being told what had happened that day. It had to be repressed memory regarding the act. The journal was paraded in front of the jury as Smith's heart sank even more. He leaned forward feeling a fresh batch of tears heading down his cheeks. He can feel the judging hard, cold stares on him. The prosecutor held up the thick journal that had dark ink spilling through its pages.

The journal was not halfway full.

That simple fact made him weep even more on the stand.

The prosecutor walked away, "I rest my case, your honor," leaving the battered and bruised emotional man on the stand.

Once composed and well together when he took the stand, that he was not anymore. The evidence was clear regarding his character. The prosecutor found a story then went with it basing it off their perception of his prior actions. The story was that this entire emotional breakdown was a charade. A fraud. A fake. Crocodile tears. The train of thought could easily be established in the first few pages from Professor Robinson's journal. They didn't bother to read Will's journals except for Smith's attorney who didn't use it to his advantage. From there, it continued to go downhill. It was all monotone with a thick cloud of grief blocking his vision of all the faces that were there. The testimony of various people regarding his presence at Alpha Control, his suspicious demeanor in his office, escaping to the Jupiter 2 with the Robot, and retired former General Squires.

The faces of everyone in the room were blanketed by the darkness.

To think it all came back from taking the stand.

"What is your verdict?" Maybell asked.

"We, the jury, find the defendant guilty," the foreman replied.

There was a mix of chaos from behind Smith and the sound of the gravel striking the wooden object repeatedly.

"I will have silence in my courtroom!" Maybell said.

Smith had no tears to share as he had shed them all.

"Doctor Smith, I am appalled from what I have heard and read through this trial. The Robinsons took you in, treated you as family, and you had the nerve to stab them in the back just to make it to Earth. That is unacceptable in this courtroom," Maybell said. "This is unacceptable as a free human being and as a space castaway. You intentionally brought them into the realm of danger time and time again. Was it worth killing them? If it was. . . It won't be starting today." Maybell leaned into the chair. "You are stripped of rank. Starting this minute, you are sentenced to life in prison without parole."

Smith flinched as the wooden hammer hit its resting place.

The heavy sound echoed in a way that felt final and hollow to his ears.