A RAFT OF TROUBLE

This is an AU based on the first-season episode entitled "The Raft."

            "Sorry, Dr. Smith," Will had just said as he rescued the accused older man from Robinson's and West's potentially violent intentions.

            The ship's two authority figures immediately began commenting on what Will had confessed to them, regarding his having been the one who had used up the rocket fuel, ignoring their previously intended victim, just as they did in our universe.

            But in this alternate universe, unlike in ours, Smith was affronted, both at having been falsely accused, and at having been summarily dismissed without so much as an apology from the men.

            "Now just one moment!" he protested, hands on his hips. "You drag me away from my own work, accuse me of something I didn't do, threaten me with bodily harm, but when you find out that Will was the guilty party, you let him off with no punishment at all?? When you threatened to 'beat it out of me'!" This was still early enough in the journey that he had not yet had time to grow particularly fond of the boy.

            Robinson and West turned to look at him, their former anger partially restored. "Surely you don't expect us to raise a fist to a child?" Robinson demanded.

            "Not specifically, in fact, you should not threaten either of us with such extreme violence, but you should dole out some punishment, if you were going to do so had I been guilty!" 

            The two men regarded Smith, coldly irked. Will looked uncomfortable, his eyes darting between them and Smith, until he admitted quietly, "Dad? Don? He's right."

            Robinson and West exchanged reluctant glances, and then sat down casually in vivid demonstration that their anger had subsided. "It wouldn't change anything," West remarked. "So, what's the point?"

            "The point is that you treat me in a glaringly biased manner, and I resent it." Smith stamped his foot like a petulant child.

            The two men were unmoved by his declaration of resentment. But Will was not. Slowly, hesitantly, he walked over to where Robinson sat, shared a deeply poignant look with him, and gingerly bent himself over the latter's knee.

            "Will...," Robinson said as he frowned.

            "He's right, Dad," Will said quietly, visibly steeling himself for the expected blows.

            Feeling cornered by Will's concurrence with Smith, Robinson delivered one half-hearted swat, and then another, and winced each time as Will gave an involuntary muffled cry. After two swats, Robinson lifted Will to his feet, saying, "I don't want to do this. Son, you were trying to help, and I know that."

            "Irrelevant," stated Smith. "How do you know that I wouldn't have had a noble motive, had I been the guilty party? Besides," he went on, glaring accusingly at West, "you were the one more directly threatening me!"

            Will sighed, hung his head, and reluctantly approached West where he sat.

            "Now wait a minute, Will...," West protested.

            Will shook his head and met West's eyes meaningfully, as he had Robinson's. "No. He's right, Don." He draped himself over the other lap and tensed expectantly.

            West regarded Robinson uneasily. Robinson looked back at him helplessly. "You heard Will, Don. With both of them in agreement...." He shrugged unhappily. "And they're not really wrong, even if we don't like it."

            West sighed heavily and grimly proceeded.

            Will tried to stifle his cries, but was not entirely successful, which clearly disquieted both West and Robinson.

            After five swats, West insistently lifted the boy off of him, stood up, stuck a threatening finger in Smith's face, and declared, "Just wait until the next time that you're guilty of anything! Anything at all!" He stalked away from the older man, before he could do something that he, or more likely the others, might regret.

            Smith appeared vaguely alarmed at that, particularly after he saw the same expression on Robinson's face. Then a tight-lipped Robinson also left the room. Smith tried, "Will...??"

            "Leave me alone, Dr. Smith." The boy shuffled away from him.

            Will hadn't even known that a wide-eyed Penny had watched the entire business from just inside of her quarters. She pulled him inside as he walked toward his own room.

            "Will? Which one hits harder? Daddy or Don?" She regarded him playfully, but with peaked interest.

            The boy shook his head. "They both win that contest."

            "Wow. Why did you agree with Dr. Smith?"

            "Because he was right, Penny. They did treat him unfairly in the way that they favored me."

            "I don't think I'd have had the courage to do what you did!"

            Will shrugged.

            "Here, sit down and tell me about it! I couldn't hear everything."

            Sardonically, Will replied, "If you don't mind, I'll stand."

            Penny gasped slightly. "That bad???"

            "What do you think?!" But Will proceeded to fill in the gaps for her, unenthusiastically and in monotone. Penny listened and watched him, morbidly fascinated.

            Then, Judy entered. "What's all the commotion?"

            Will sighed, and let Penny tell it this time. In growing alarm, Judy observed how Will just leaned his back against Penny's closet door.

            Presently, Judy demanded of Will, "You can't sit down, can you??"

            "Not really." He seemed a bit sheepish.

            "This is outrageous! I'm going to talk to the men!"

            "Judy, please, just let it go," Will requested tiredly. But she was gone before he finished his sentence.

            "Dad?! Don?! How could you?!" she demanded.

            Hoping that she wasn't talking about what they suspected that she was talking about, John inquired evenly, "What do you mean?"

            "How could you let Dr. Smith talk you into hurting Will?!"          

            Blandly, he responded, "We didn't let Smith talk us into it. Will talked us into it."

            "What's the difference??"

            "Big difference," replied Don. "Will insisted that Smith was right, and then he...well...submitted himself into position." he finished somewhat awkwardly with a wry expression.

            "Shame on you both! What if it had been Penny?? Or me???"

            For a fraction of a second, Don bore an ambiguous, peculiar look, but then quickly banished it from his features. John continued to look somber.

            "That would have made it even worse," John admitted grimly.

            Judy continued righteously, "Well then let's hope that neither she nor I is ever guilty of anything that you accuse Smith of!" Judy was truly outraged, for she omitted the honorific "Dr." from the older man's name, something that she never ordinarily did.

            "Dr. Smith's got himself all tangled up...," Will said breathlessly into the radio a few days later.

            "That's for sure!" responded John Robinson, almost zestfully. "And keep him tangled!"

            Within moments, Robinson and West arrived, shot the bush monster, and then approached Smith with a pair of very unsavory grins.

            Smith automatically backed away from them. "What?!" he asked in alarm.

            "Remember, when we punished Will for doing what we had accused you of?" Robinson demanded.

            "Yessss...." He was still backing away, but rapidly running out of room.

            West reminded him, "And we said just wait until the next time that you're guilty of anything! Anything at all!"

            Smith was brought to a halt by the thick wall of greenery behind him. "But what did I do???!" he requested desperately.

            "You stole the space raft!" West's fist rose to punctuate his remark. He seemed almost gleeful.

            "Oh no!!!" Smith cried, even as Robinson's fist rose as well. The older man instantly covered his face protectively with his two hands, and pleaded through them, "Oh please don't hurt me!!!"

            "Wait!" cried Will.

            Robinson and West both eyed him uneasily at that.

            He plunged onward, "You should only hurt him as much as you hurt me."

            "Will...!" West began in frustration.

            "Now just a minute...!" Robinson spoke simultaneously.

            "It's only fair," the boy insisted.

            Both men dropped their fists in clear disappointment.

            Smith's hands fell away as well. "But, Will...," he said uncertainly.

            "That's the best I can do for you," Will told him. "You'd better not change their minds back to fists; you'll be sorry."

            Realizing that the boy was right, now Smith really pressed back hard against the plants, which brought a smile from Robinson and a smirk from West, who said, "You can't protect your backside any more than you could have protected your face."

            "Into position," instructed Robinson, seating himself on a rock. "Let's go."

            "Oh no, please, no!!!"

            So, West grabbed Smith and hauled him to Robinson, and bent him into place.

            Robinson raised a hand to him, but hesitated, and commented, "You know, you're too old for this."

            Smith turned his head to look up at him, and desperately said, "But if so, then I'm definitely too old for what I'm sure is far worse!!!"

            West looked briefly puzzled, and then said, "Oh, you're referring to fists. But that doesn't follow, that you would be too old for that."

            Nearly in tears, Smith insisted, "Yes, it does! I'm frail and fragile!"

            West grinned humorlessly and shook his head. Robinson had not deigned to enter the conversation, even though Smith had addressed him. He was intent on his task.

            When Will saw and heard his father deliver to Smith his first whack, the boy couldn't help but gasp. The blow was much harder that the ones that Robinson had dealt to him.

            Smith screamed shrilly, and then yelled, "Nooooo!!! You'll break my back!!!"

            "I'm not hitting your back! You can't be injured that way, with what I'm doing!" Robinson delivered another crack.

            This time, Smith responded only with a wordless scream.

            After a total of five hard wallops, Robinson eased Smith up off of him, and gave up his seat on the rock to West, and the two of them maneuvered the victim back into position on this new lap.

            Smith accused hoarsely, "You only hit Will twice, Professor!! You hit me five times!!!"

            Not about to be sidetracked again, Robinson answered tersely, "My prerogative."

            Zestfully, West pitched into his portion of Smith's punishment, giving Will the definite impression that West was putting all of his pent-up and delayed vengeance and rage against Smith into this punishment, as if fearing to never get another chance. This gave Will such a major case of gasping that he covered his own lips to silence himself. After five severe cracks, during which his victim screamed without restraint, West eased Smith off and allowed him to collapse weeping on the ground.

            With a very satisfied expression, West sidled over to where Robinson and young Will were standing.

            Out of deference for the two men's obvious desire not to be challenged again in front of the older man, Will lowered his voice to a whisper, saying to them, "That was harsh!"

            Borrowing Robinson's previous phrasing, West replied coldly, "Our prerogative."

            Oblivious, Smith continued writhing and crying on the ground.

            Will whispered in awe, "You both hit him much harder than you hit me! I realize and appreciate now how much more careful you both were with me!"

            Robinson and West both gave Will slight smiles at that.

            By now, Smith had risen laboriously, and he eyed the men in extreme trepidation. "You hurt me horribly!" he accused.

            "You got off light," West corrected him in a no-nonsense tone. "Because you didn't get this!" He made a fist in demonstration. "And nothing rules that out for next time!" he added.

            Smith subsided meekly. He tried rubbing his backside, but then winced and screeched, as even that gentle approach was hurtful, rather than soothing. He lowered his head submissively, and said non-confrontationally, "William, they hit me ever so much harder than they hit you."

            "I know." Will squirmed uneasily.

            "And your point is?" Robinson challenged.

            "Nothing. Nothing!" Smith replied timidly.

            Robinson and West both looked satisfied with that. They took their two formerly-missing shipmates home.