[#297] Unexpected Generosity (The Fantastic Journey)

[badly_knitted]

Theme Prompt: #297 – Unexpected Kindness
Title: Unexpected Generosity
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: No.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Jonathan hadn’t made a very good impression on anyone since arriving on this island, and yet Varian and his friends are still willing to show him kindness he doesn’t deserve.

Evicted from the Arusians’ settlement, with nothing but what he’d brought with him! It was a horrifying situation to be in, but it was no more than he deserved after the way he’d treated the aliens. They’d welcomed him among them, and he’d repaid their kindness by driving them from their own home, taking everything that had been theirs and making it his. Really, he couldn’t blame them; this was his own fault.

Still, Jonathan Willaway was at a loss over what he should do next. In retrospect, he’d made rather a mess of things; he wasn’t usually given to regrets, but at present, aside from a few personal items in a bag, and the clothes he was wearing, regrets seemed to be the only thing he had left that he could call his own. He had no home, no friends, nowhere to go except away from where he’d been living for the past few months, and no hopes.

He didn’t even have a good excuse for how he’d behaved towards his former hosts, just that they weren’t human, and it seemed he had previously unknown xenophobic tendencies. It was easy enough to say he couldn’t have known, because he’d never met any aliens before, but it didn’t excuse him. He was supposed to be a man of science; he should be above such prejudices! It was shameful to realise he wasn’t. There was nothing he could do about that now, however. He’d made his bed and would now have to lie in it. Hah! There was unlikely to be anything resembling a bed in the near future, he thought as he plodded disconsolately onwards, not sure where he was going except… somewhere.

Eventually, tired of walking, and not enjoying his own company very much, he stopped to rest, sitting on a fallen tree, and found he simply didn’t have the will to get up and keep going, not when he had nowhere to go. So there he sat, for several hours, alone and ashamed, brooding over how quickly his fortunes had changed, and not for the better.

Indeed, he was sunk so deeply in his own gloomy thoughts that he didn’t notice when the small band of travellers passed by on their way out of the zone that was once more under Arusian control. But apparently, they noticed him, because almost before he registered that he was no longer quite as alone as he had been, there they all were, standing in front of him.

Really, he should have known they would be coming this way, since the Arusians were bound to have given them directions to the nearest gateway between zones. Even so, he would have expected them to keep going, either not noticing his presence, or deliberately ignoring him, because… After what he’d tried to do, abducting Liana and threatening to kill her as well as her friends unless she stayed with him, he couldn’t imagine any of them caring what happened to him, and yet… Well, there they were, two men, one woman, and a boy, all just looking at him, making him feel somewhat awkward, perhaps even embarrassed.

Greeting them with false cheer, he half expected them to gloat over his fall from grace, tell him he was getting no more than he deserved, which was the truth, however unpalatable it might be, but they didn’t. There were no words of recrimination, no anger, no resentment, nothing but a few questions about what he intended to do next, not that he had much in the way of a plan, and then…

In a thoroughly unexpected development, Varian, their leader, over a few mild protests from his travelling companions, generously invited him to travel with them… Jonathan was astounded; why in the world would he do that? Perhaps because Varian was a better, kinder, more compassionate man than Jonathan had ever been, which was humbling in itself. But also, perhaps, because Varian came from the future, he already knew of Jonathan from the history books.

Varian knew things about him that Jonathan didn’t know about himself, things about his future, things that were as encouraging as they were intriguing, things Jonathan wouldn’t mind hearing more about, even if that smacked a little of vanity. But in the end, the reasons were irrelevant. It was enough for Jonathan to know that he wouldn’t just be abandoned to an unknown fate, that maybe he wasn’t as alone as he’d previously thought, that he could have the human company he craved. All he had to do was agree to travel with them. That was one of the easiest decisions Jonathan had ever made.

These four people, and a cat of all things, were trying to find their way back to their own times, and while Jonathan wasn’t especially eager to return to the sixties after everything he’d already seen here on the island, it would be good not to be alone.

Perhaps as they travelled, he’d find a zone where he’d be welcome, somewhere he could work on new ideas and innovations. Or perhaps the novelty of the island would eventually fade, and he’d be ready to go home to his own time and test out his new ideas there; it hardly seemed important. What mattered was that these four people were willing to take him with them despite his earlier, less than admirable behaviour, even though the only thing they had in common was that they were similarly displaced from their own times.

There was no way of knowing what lay ahead of them, and Jonathan doubted the journey would be easy. They all seemed as poorly equipped as he was for a long trek across potentially hostile terrain, but together they would stand a better chance than any of them would alone. And perhaps in time, as they all got to know one another, he would be able to repay these strangers for the unexpected kindness they were showing him. At the very least, he could try.


The End

 

Comments

[merricatb]

This was excellent! I really liked Jonathan's reflection on his faults, especially ones he didn't realize he had.

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! Jonathan has to do a fair bit of soul searching in the few episodes that were made. He can be a bit arrogant, but he's a good man. He wouldn't have killed anyone, he was bluffing. Crashing on the island upset his equilibrium rather badly, I think. Thankfully, Varian is a good judge of character.