violacea | (fic) chasing starlight (5/5)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

The next morning, Bob woke to the sound of the room's computer beeping insistently. The empty bottle fell off the edge of the bed as Bob pushed himself to a standing position. When he made it to the computer, he found a message waiting for him from Lindsey. "Could you meet us upstairs in Gerard's rooms?" was all she asked. Bob frowned. But, he pulled on a clean set of clothing - somehow provided by whatever magical elves had made up the room for him - and wandered through the corridors until he found the lift that led to Gerard's rooms.

When he emerged from the lift, he saw Gerard sitting at the art table, hair falling into his eyes as he drew something in large, black strokes. Lindsey sat on the couch, bare feet propped up on a pillow as she studied a palm unit. She looked up as Bob crossed the room. "Thanks for coming," she said. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah, sorta." He stopped and watched Lindsey as she grabbed a communicator off the table next to her and turned it on. "Breakfast for three, please," she said into it. "With more coffee," she added, glancing at Gerard, who was staring mournfully at an empty cup.

Gerard looked up and noticed Bob. "Hey! How was your night?" He hopped off of his stool and walked over to the sitting area, waving Bob to join him. "I thought you'd come up with Mikey last night. You know, since he was with you when we called him."

Bob's pulse skipped a beat. "How'd you know that?"

"We have a new security system that lets us know where any particular communicator is on the premises at any given point in time." Lindsey waved her communicator in the air before setting it back down. "Only Gerard, Ray and I know about it yet, because we're still testing it. But it seems to work pretty well."

Bob raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so if it's a big secret, why are you telling me?"

Lindsey's mouth curved into a half-grin. "Our long-range communications are currently being fixed. One of the techs found the problem, and they've been working all night on it. We've started to get some delayed messages from outside. A couple of them were from Clandestine." She gave Bob a mocking salute. "I had to be sure about you, you know. After everything that's happened ..."

Bob shrugged, a pleased smile tugging at his lips. "I understand."

"And," Gerard added, "now, you're apparently one of the few people we know we can trust. Because you weren't here when everything went to hell, and we have no idea who was involved. Or how many people were involved."

"When they discovered the sabotage," Lindsey said, "they found the ID codes of the tech who disabled the system. Unfortunately, that tech left the planet just before we shut the port down, so we have no way of finding out who he was working with."

"Where's Mikey now?" Bob asked, looking around the room.

"Sleeping," Gerard answered. "We were up pretty late last night."

"You should still be sleeping," Lindsey reminded him.

"Can't sleep. I think too much."

Their breakfast arrived, and Bob allowed himself to enjoy the kind of meat and pastries he rarely could afford himself. Gerard and Lindsey talked about people and events that Bob had no idea about - business things, he assumed. He tuned out until he heard Lindsey say, "... and LaCaron was acting so sickeningly happy about Mikey's return last night. I wanted to punch him in the face."

"It's not like he wants Mikey dead or something," Gerard said, his mouth full. "And he's got the upper hand right now, unfortunately. So he has no reason to be anything other than professional."

"That wasn't professional. That was insulting."

"Yeah, I know." Gerard shrugged. "But Ray's smacked me enough times for being an asshole to him, I can't do anything about it."

"What are you guys talking about?" When both of them looked at Bob, startled, he put a hand up. "Sorry, none of my business ..."

"It's okay." Gerard sat back in his chair and sighed. "It's a long, boring story, especially if you don't care about legal stuff. But, the one business mistake my grandmother ever made was to not rewrite her will when Mikey came of age. She remembered to do it when I got old enough, but apparently it just never happened again. So, when she died, everything she left me - including this stupid corporation - " Gerard made a face, "- was mine, straight out, no problem. But, Mikey's half, the will still said that was to be administered by her personal solicitor. That's Mr. LaCaron, one of the guys who was in here last night, do you remember?"

Bob nodded. "Standing over there, next to Mikey?" He gestured at the art table.

"That's him. We spent a long time after Elena died looking for another will, because it just didn't seem like her. It should have at least said he was in charge only until Mikey was old enough to take care of it himself, but it didn't. So, in legal terms, LaCaron could do whatever he wanted with Mikey's half of the inheritance."

"It's bullshit," Lindsey said bluntly. "And, since the board of directors is the ultimate authority around here, we can't do anything about it - they like LaCaron, and they think Mikey's even more useless than his brother." She sneered. "Mikey's hired his own solicitor to fight the will. There's an independent arbitration team that works for Barker, they've agreed to come take a look at things if both sides agree to it."

"LaCaron's been fighting, obviously," Gerard said. "As it stands, he controls a pretty big fortune, with no real restrictions on what he can do with it. Meanwhile, Mikey's got nothing of his own. I've been giving him money, but it sucks that he's supposed to have just as much as I do. So, lately I've been doing pretty well, making friends ... or, well, at least making a couple of the board members think I'm not a complete idiot, anyway." He rolled his eyes. "Long story short, enough board members think independent arbitration would be a fair thing that they might actually be able to force LaCaron to agree."

Bob blinked. Gerard started to speak again, but Bob held his hand up, silencing him. He scanned his brain for a memory that had just flown past. "So," he said, "Mikey and this LaCaron guy aren't exactly on any kind of good terms?"

"That's putting it mildly," Lindsey answered. "Mikey refuses to even speak directly to him. He makes his solicitor do all the talking."

Bob leaned forward. "Did Mikey tell you guys about the things he started to remember yesterday?"

"A little. I think I ended up talking more than I listened," Gerard admitted.

"He told me a few," Bob said. His nerves started rattling underneath his skin; he bounced his knees to release some energy. "He talked about meeting that solicitor guy - LaCaron - in his rooms."

Both Gerard and Lindsey stared at him. "Are you sure that's what he said? He remembered that?" Lindsey asked.

"Yeah. He specifically said he remembered meeting him in his - Mikey's - private rooms."

Lindsey stood up. She was across the room before Bob could rise to his feet, punching buttons on the computer console built into the far wall. "What are you doing?" Gerard asked, joining her.

"Finding LaCaron's communicator."

A moment later, she cursed and started running towards the lift. Bob and Gerard started after her. "What?" Bob asked.

"He's in Mikey's rooms."

There was no conversation after that. Bob simply followed Lindsey's lead through corridors and rooms, his mind purposefully blank.

The doors to Mikey's rooms didn't respond to Lindsey's codes. Gerard pushed her aside. "Let me try."

"My codes have the same clearance as yours," she said. "They should override any locks in the whole place." While Gerard frantically punched buttons, Lindsey pulled out her pulse gun and programmed the settings. "Get out of the way, Gerard."

When Gerard didn't stop, Bob pulled him aside, hard enough that Gerard stumbled into him. Bob held onto him and pulled them both a safe distance away as Lindsey aimed at the console. A moment later, the wall lit up with sparks bright and hot enough to sting the skin on Bob's arms and face. Gerard must have felt the same jolt, but he didn't show it; he wrenched himself out of Bob's grasp and ran for the door. Lindsey was attempting to push the sliding doors apart. Bob moved in to help her. It took a long, heart-stopping minute before the doors slid open just far enough to allow Gerard to squeeze through. Lindsey followed. The space was technically too small for Bob to fit through, but he gave one door a gigantic shove, and created enough of a gap that he could slide through sideways.

Inside, he found chaos. Mikey lay unconscious on his bed, a trio of syringes abandoned next to him. Lindsey held her pulse gun trained on a man - the solicitor, LaCaron, Bob recognized - crouched over Gerard, who was on his knees, groaning. A moment later, Gerard collapsed and went still. "Stand and put your hands up," Lindsey said, her voice cold.

"If you don't put that gun down," LaCaron replied, "I'll use this on him." Bob saw he held another syringe in his hand.

"You do, and you die." Lindsey reached up to change the setting on her gun without taking her eyes off LaCaron. Bob saw the pulse gun flash to the green setting - the highest discharge possible.

"So will he. And so will you, because they'll execute you in a heartbeat." LaCaron noticed Bob lurking in the background and waved the syringe. "And if you move any closer, I'll do it."

"What do you plan to do?" Lindsey asked. "You'll never make it out of here."

"What do you think is going to happen, when both Way brothers turn up dead, and it's my word against yours and a stranger's? I can tell the board your friend back there engineered the whole thing. I wouldn't even have to make you look guilty - they're all looking for a good excuse to get rid of you anyway. You fail to do your job and keep them alive, and you're gone. Literally and figuratively."

Lindsey's grip on the gun didn't waver; Bob couldn't see her face, but he saw her back straighten minutely. He looked over at LaCaron and Gerard - Gerard still lay on his side, but his head was turned just enough that Bob could see his open eye staring out. Curious, Bob shifted slightly, and the movement drew Gerard's eye up to him. LaCaron continued to stare at the gun pointed in his face. Bob raised his eyebrows slightly. Gerard stared for a minute, then closed his eyes. Bob didn't know what that meant, but he had to try something. "So," he said, his voice sounding too loud in the room, "don't you think someone will have heard the gun?"

LaCaron snorted. "These are the family quarters. Anyone who might have been close enough to hear is already in this room."

"What do you get, then?" Bob asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gerard blinking, his chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. "You kill everybody, make them think I did it, then what?"

"Legally, I'm the next in line to run the Way corporation until one of these two has a child." LaCaron held the syringe close to Gerard's neck. "Do you know how long it's been since a Lane corporation changed family hands?"

Suddenly, everyone was moving. Gerard pushed up from the floor and rolled backward into LaCaron, knocking him off-balance. The syringe he held went skidding across the floor. Lindsey rushed forward, but LaCaron recovered his balance in enough time to grab the barrel of her pulse gun. He pulled Lindsey down onto the floor. She kicked him in the side as she went down, causing him to tumble along with her. They struggled over the gun. Gerard tried to enter the fray, but he was knocked backwards immediately. Meanwhile, Bob retrieved the syringe and dove over to where LaCaron had managed to pin Lindsey to the floor. Bob held the syringe to LaCaron's throat. "You move again," he growled, "and I get to see what this does to you."

LaCaron froze for a moment. It was enough time for Lindsey to regain control of the gun and jab it between his ribs. "Get him off of me, will you?" she panted. Bob grabbed him around the middle and hauled him up. Lindsey stood up and, while jamming the gun barrel up against LaCaron's jaw, pulled a communicator out of her pocket. "Guards to family quarters. Now." She glanced at the bed. "And medical. Hurry."

When she flipped it closed, Bob looked at her. "Can I?" he asked.

She studied his face for a moment, then nodded. "Whatever you do, don't kill him. I've got plans for him."

Without any further warning, Bob drove the man's head into the nearest wall. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Lindsey didn't react, except to roll him onto his stomach and grab a pair of pants from the floor and tie his wrists together. "Thank the Lady that Mikey's a slob," she muttered.

At his name, Bob immediately whirled towards the bed. Gerard leaned over his brother, listening to his chest. "He's breathing," Gerard said, voice breaking, "but just barely. I don't know what he did, I don't know what's in these things ..."

Bob rushed over and looked at the syringes. One was empty, another was partially empty. Mikey's skin was white, too white, and when Bob put his fingers to his throat, his pulse was weak. "Fuck." Bob whispered.

"Medical's coming," Lindsey said, coming up behind them and gently pulling Gerard up to a sitting position. "They'll fix it. They'll fix it," she repeated, her voice more pleading then sure.

At that moment, a crowd of people rushed through the door, and Bob found himself shoved backward into a corner of the room.. He watched as a team of men and women dressed in white lifted Mikey onto a gurney and rolled him away. Gerard accompanied him, while another medical tech bagged the syringes on the bed. Lindsey was giving orders to the guards who took control of LaCaron, while one lone white-suited woman checked his vital signs. Bob watched until everyone else had left the room, and then he slid to the floor. He put his head between his knees and sat there until he stopped shaking.

Bob got the story in pieces over the next few days. From Ray, he learned that a thorough sweep of LaCaron's computers showed that he'd been in contact with some key members of the Cyrus board of directors. "He wiped the actual communcations," Ray said, "but just being able to tell our board that he'd talked to them gave us enough."

"Cyrus would get Porzia," Lindsey explained later, as they sat in her office, "and LaCaron would get a Lane corporation. He didn't intend to kill Gerard - not before we busted in on him - he just wanted to undermine him enough that the board would vote to remove him as CEO. It's unprecedented, but technically, it could happen." She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just glad it didn't get that far."

In the days after the attack, several board members had tried to pin some of the blame on Lindsey - or Bob, depending on what story they'd decided was the truth - but any attempts to contradict Lindsey's official report were met with a stone wall from the guard unit. "We trust the Chief," Bob heard one of them say, when questioned by a person Bob didn't recognize. "We don't trust corporate jackasses." And that was that, as the Way compound guard unit was the only legal authority in the main Nariall settlement.

By the time full long-range communication had been restored, no one from either Cyrus or Apex would answer anyone's messages. Bob didn't care too much about the politics, though. All boards of directors and solicitors and corporate assholes could go hang, as far as he was concerned. He really only cared about Mikey.

Either Gerard or Bob stayed at his side at all times. After a day, the doctor gave up trying to get either of them to leave. "Just as long as you eat and sleep enough to stay out of my care yourself," he said, throwing his hands up, "I don't care what you do." Bob would sleep for a few hours at a time, until Lindsey or Ray knocked on his door. He would follow them to the medical lab, and he'd take the chair they made Gerard vacate. He stayed until the cycle was reversed hours later.

Mikey stayed unconscious for several days. Per the doctor, the only thing LaCaron had injected him with was more of the memory loss drug - "It's lucky you got there when you did, though," he said grimly. "Because that other syringe, the one he had in his hand? That would have killed him." He refused to tell them what was in it. "It's better if you don't know." The amount of drug Mikey had received, however, had been nearly enough to do the job itself. "I can't tell you what he'll be like when he wakes," the doctor warned them. "I've never seen anyone get that much drug before."

Bob spent most of his time sitting next to Mikey's bed, working on business accounting that Brian had sent him. "I had to go make your run," Brian complained, when Bob finally got in touch with him. "So you can pay me back by doing some of my desk work." It sounded like a punishment, but Brian didn't mention the fact that he'd taken two more runs in order to give Bob the time to stay on Nariall, and Bob didn't mention that Jamia had told him about it. He just ran the numbers that Brian sent him, and marveled at how well Brian negotiated contracts and juggled finances in order to give all four of them a nice cushion of income. He resolved to dig into his savings and buy Brian a bottle of Sevens to thank him.

He was frowning at a particularly weird contract when he heard a small noise come from the bed next to him. Bob immediately put the palm unit down and stood up. Mikey's eyelids fluttered, and he groaned softly as consciousness came back. "Mikey?" Bob said, waving at one of the passing techs. "Mikey, can you hear me?"

Mikey opened his eyes. He looked unfocused and exhausted. He didn't say anything at first, just stared at Bob until a tech came over to check his vital signs. "Where am I?" he rasped.

"You're in the medical lab. You've been here for a few days."

"What happened?"

"It's a long story," Bob said, smoothing a lock of hair off of Mikey's face. "Just rest, we'll tell you all about it when you feel up to it."

Mikey blinked. "Who are you?"

Bob withdrew his hand. The tech turned Mikey's face to the other side of the bed in order to flash a light in his eyes. When Mikey turned back, Bob had swallowed everything and was able to say calmly, "I'm a friend."

He remembered Gerard, for which Bob, Lindsey, and Ray were all grateful. Dr. Hoppus came up to Gerard's rooms that night to share a bottle of Mirsian wine with them. "It sounds like he's remembering things from his childhood," he said. "The latest memory we can get out of him is from when he was fifteen. Hopefully, he'll keep remembering more as time goes on."

"Hopefully?" Gerard said, frowning.

The doctor shrugged. "Like I said, the amount of drug he was given is unprecedented. Quite frankly, I think you should be celebrating the fact that he woke up at all."

The next day, he remembered Ray. Which, Gerard pointed out, wasn't that much progress. "Ray and I met when we were nineteen. Mikey was sixteen."

Bob went back to see Mikey in the medical lab the next day. He was frowning at another tech who was examining him. "When do I get to leave? I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Bob said, sitting down next to the bed. "Let the people do their jobs."

Mikey turned the frown on him. "I still don't know who you are, so you can't tell me what to do." The voice was that of a petulant teenager.

Bob ignored the twist in his stomach and simply stared at Mikey. Finally, Mikey laid back and was silent while the tech finished her work. When she walked away, Mikey continued to stare at the ceiling. "Gerard says you saved me," he said after a few minutes of silence.

"I wasn't the only one."

"I don't remember." Mikey turned his head. "Gerard says all this stuff happened, that I was kidnapped and you saved me and we flew all over the galaxy, and I don't remember any of it. I can't even believe half of it."

"It's pretty unbelievable," Bob agreed. "But it all happened. I was there."

"Huh." Mikey looked back at the ceiling. "Thanks, I guess."

"You're welcome, I guess."

Mikey closed his eyes. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't ever know what to say."

"It's okay." Bob stood up. He reached over to ruffle Mikey's hair, but froze when Mikey turned panicked eyes on him. "It's okay," he repeated, withdrawing his hand. "I'm going to go. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right."

"Thanks," Mikey whispered. He squeezed his eyes closed. Bob looked down to see that his hands were fisted into tight balls, holding the bedsheets in a death grip.

Bob only looked at him for a moment. Then, he walked out.

Lindsey sat in Bob's cockpit as he prepared for takeoff. "You're sure you can't stay for a little while longer?"

"I've let my boss do my job long enough." He keyed the sequences that would get him back to Cobra into the computer. "And I really need to get Victoria's ship back to her."

"He'll remember you eventually, you know." When Bob turned to glare at her, Lindsey just spread her palms wide. "He woke up this morning thinking that he was still dating Pete. He's getting there."

"I know." Bob turned back around so she wouldn't see him sigh. "He's going to be fine. He's home with his family, and he's getting good care. I don't need to sit around in everyone's way."

"Bullshit." Bob scowled at the computer, but Lindsey stood up and walked over to him. He could feel her presence at his back. "I bet I'll see you again."

"Maybe. Gerard wanted to give me a whole lot of crap, money and stuff." He made a face. "I talked him down to just giving Brian the contract to run cargo for most of the Way planets. So I may fly in here sometime."

"That's not what I mean." She smiled when he turned to face her. The expression was gentler than any he'd seen on her yet. "Take care of yourself, Bryar."

When she was gone, the cockpit felt strangely empty. Bob programmed music to play loudly throughout the ship as he took off. It almost covered the silence.

When Bob arrived on Janpur, he was surprised to find Brian, Frank, and Jamia all waiting for him. Brian waved a palm unit in the air as soon as he saw Bob. "Porzia! The Way corporation is giving us the motherfucking Porzia run!" he crowed. "Holy shit, I'm going to need to hire more pilots."

Bob didn't respond. Jamia took one look at him and crossed the room; she wrapped her arms around his middle and laid her head on his shoulder. Bob returned the embrace, kissing her lightly on the top of her head. "I'm okay."

"Sure you are," she said.

"Come on," Frank said, jerking a thumb at the door to the back room of the office, which was home to their makeshift lounge. "There are at least four bottles of alcohol back there with your name on them."

"That's the best thing I've heard in days." Bob allowed Jamia to lead him halfway across the room, but he stopped at Brian's chair, as he was standing up to join them. "Hey, got something for you."

Brian raised his eyebrows. They climbed even further when Bob pulled a bottle of Sevens out of his bag. "What the fuck ..."

"Got it from Gabe. It's for putting up with us being idiots all the time."

"Huh." Brian grinned. "Better idiots than assholes, really." He punched Bob lightly in the arm, then held up the bottle to inspect it. "I think your return deserves a toast, don't you?"

"Yeah, maybe." When Brian looked at him, Bob shrugged. "You know, I'm going to get really drunk tonight, and then I'm going to try to forget the last couple of weeks ever happened."

"Well, then, let's go get you wasted."

Bob eventually passed out on the floor. He didn't even mind waking up with a splitting headache, or finding video of him snoring like an engine installed on every monitor in his ship, because he slept for the first time in what seemed like forever without dreaming about Mikey.

Weeks passed. Bob's life returned to its normal routine; he picked up cargo, he shipped it somewhere else, he got paid. Occasionally, he met up with Frank and Jamia to drink and exchange stories about the stupidest clients they'd run up against. Brian hired a new ship - Bob hadn't yet met the trio who few the ship, but according to Frank, they were tiny ridiculous children who were too young to shave, much less fly a ship, and all had the same name besides. "It's creepy," Frank said, shuddering. "I think they're all robots." Bob, for his part, was reserving judgement until he met the kids.

One day, after Bob had finished a rhenium run from Porzia to a planet in the central corridor of the Beckett lanes, Brian called him back to Janpur. "I need you back here for a project," he said. "I'm sending the Alexes to make Cobra's run."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to send those kids to Gabe?" Bob asked, dubious. "And are they really all named Alex?"

"Honest to god. It's the strangest fucking thing." Brian shrugged one shoulder. "And they'll be fine. If they can't come out of Cobra in some kind of professional manner, they don't deserve to have the job. Come on back, I've got something here you have to see."

When Bob flew into his usual bay on Janpur, he noticed a small ship docked in the bay next door, the spot usually reserved for Frank and Jamia. It didn't belong to anyone he knew, at least anyone he could think of off the top of his head. "Huh," Bob said, then promptly forgot about it as he walked to the building that housed Brian's offices. The main room was strangely empty for being the middle of the work day - usually, Brian would be sitting at his desk, ignoring the window that looked out over the ship bays in favor of yelling at someone on the phone who hadn't offered to pay him enough money for their services. "Must be lunch time," he mused aloud, pulling his palm unit out. He absently started to key in his mileage stats from the last trip. "Hope he brings me back something, because I'm starving."

"I was told there were sandwiches in the back room," a voice said from the doorway on the other side of the room, startling Bob enough that he dropped his palm unit. "Or, more accurately, he said 'go help your own damned self, I'm not a butler.'"

Bob whirled around. Mikey stood across the room, looking far more human than he had the last time Bob had seen him. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Mikey shrugged. "Looking for you. I remembered a lot of things after you left, but unfortunately, the transmission frequencies of your ship weren't any of them, so I couldn't call you."

"How are ... I mean ..." Bob rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again, Mikey was still there. "You remembered everything?"

"Yeah. Took a week or so, but it all came back. Even the stuff that happened while I was drugged." Mikely leaned against the door frame and frowned. "You left. You left without saying anything."

Bob sank down into Brian's chair. "You weren't exactly in a position to notice. Or care."

"Fuck off."

Mikey's glare made Bob want to sink lower in his seat. He stayed upright, though, and didn't look away. "You weren't. I just thought it'd be easier for you if you just had to deal with your family. I was in the way."

"Seriously, fuck off."

"What? What do you want from me, Mikey?"

"Was it just a rescue mission, then? Save the poor bastard, get him home, then sail off to be a hero to someone else? Is that what you do?" Mikey's face twisted into an unpleasant expression, and he turned his head away from Bob. "I was so fucking scared back there, Bob. On Genara. Like, I was pretty sure I was going to die. And then you were suddenly there, and I just trusted you because I didn't know what else to do. I don't know what happened, but somewhere in the middle of the whole stupid mess, I started to feel like I belonged somewhere, and that's what got me through. I ... I was somebody when I was with you, even if I didn't know who the hell I was. But then I got home, and I got my memory back ... and you know what? I still liked the person I was when I was with you better than the one I remembered." Mikey heaved a large sigh, his slight frame shaking with the motion "I should thank you. I know I need to thank you, because you did a whole lot of things you didn't have to do to get me home in one piece. But, I just want ... I thought ..."

"What?" Bob reminded himself to breathe.

Mikey continued to look away for a few seconds, before slowly turning and meeting Bob's eyes. "You know what you said ... that night? How you didn't want me to do anything I'd regret when I could remember things?" Mikey closed his eyes and took a deep breath before looking back at Bob. "I don't regret a damned thing. I just want to know if you do."

"Fuck, Mikey." Bob leaned forward in his chair and hung his head for a moment. He listened to the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears for a moment before sitting back up and looking at Mikey again. "You can't mean what I think you mean."

"Why not?"

"Because ..." Bob pinched the bridge of his nose. "Because you're from a goddamned Lane family. You are really fucking out of my league." As soon as he said it, Bob snapped his mouth closed and mentally cursed himself.

"Are you kidding me?" In an instant, Mikey had crossed the room. He leaned on the arms of the chair Bob sat in, boxing him in. Bob could feel Mikey's breath on his face, and his skin prickled. "I didn't know there were fucking leagues. Tell me, what am I supposed to want? Bored rich guys who have never had to work a day in their lives?" Suddenly, Mikey stepped back. "Of course, that's exactly who I am. I'm not that interesting, just a rich kid dumb enough to get himself kidnapped."

"That's not true. Come on ..." Bob stood up and circled around Mikey. Mikey turned with him, watching him warily. "You're really fucking amazing, okay? No rich kid I've ever met would have ever been as brave as you were. You're a great guy with a great family and the ability to do anything in the galaxy that you'd ever want to do, and what am I? I'm a pilot who spent three of the last five days hauling nasty-smelling containers of mineral across a spaceport that didn't even have any transport carts. That's my life. How the hell do you think our lives would ever fit together?"

"I'd work with you." At Mikey's statement, Bob stopped. Mikey raised his chin defiantly. "You could use someone to fly with you. I know you're one of the only people around who flies solo, Brian told me. And I'm not afraid to work. Just because I haven't had to do it doesn't mean I can't."

Bob stared at Mikey for a long time, long enough that Mikey started to shift from one foot to the other, his defiant expression mingling slightly with nervousness. Finally, Bob put his hands in his hair. "You're crazy, you know that? Certifiable."

"Yeah, probably. It's a family trait." The corners of Mikey's mouth tugged upwards. "Ask Lindsey to tell you the story of Gerard and the Cedaran civil war sometime."

"The Cedaran ..." Bob shook his head. "Never mind, stop distracting me. Let me get this straight. You came here to tell me that you want to come fly cargo with me?"

"That's not all I'm telling you, dumbass."

Bob made a rude gesture. "Shut up, I'm getting there. You want to live on a grungy ship and do manual labor and eat horrible food, all because you ... because you and I ..."

"Because I'm in love with you. Is that direct enough?"

Bob nodded slowly. "Crazy," he said. "Totally fucking crazy, that's what you are."

Mikey started to say something else, but Bob cut him off by grabbing him and pressing their mouths together. Their teeth collided, causing both of them to make awkward noises, but then Bob tangled his hands in Mikey's hair and slid his tongue into Mikey's mouth. The sound Mikey made at that was maybe the best sound Bob had ever heard.

Bob didn't notice when Brian came back in - didn't notice anything, in fact, until Brian threw an engine bolt at his head. "Ouch, motherfucker," Bob growled, pulling away from Mikey. "That hurt!"

"You know the rules. If Frank and Jamia aren't allowed to make out in my office, neither are you."

"I didn't know there were rules about kissing," Mikey grumbled.

"Brian's got rules about everything. Wait until you have to take your annual shift doing data entry." Bob turned to Brian. "Oh, yeah, by the way, meet your newest employee."

"Yeah, he already told me." Brian waved them off as he sat down at his desk and punched the buttons that brought his computer to life. "I've already got him listed on the roster."

Bob stared at Mikey, who shrugged. "I figured I'd get a head start on things."

"Arrogant jackass." But Bob laced his fingers with Mikey's and grinned at him.

"If you two don't get out of my office in the next five minutes, I'm putting you to work cataloguing the inventory from the Ieros' last run for spare parts."

Bob tugged Mikey out of the room before Brian could say another word. They ended up back on Bob's ship. For a while.

Bob forgot about lunch completely.

In a remote corner of space, the Cyrus family owned a colony that was home to a large factory that made ship engine parts. They enjoyed a steady, loyal workforce; the fact that their employees were loyal because they had no choice in the matter wasn't something anyone involved said too loudly. The factory operated smoothly until one day, when the factory managers started experiencing a strange loss of workers. None of the managers could explain it - one day, a worker reported to their 14-hour shift; the next, they were gone, and no one heard from them again. There was no pattern to the disappearances as far as they could tell. The managers didn't dare report the problem to the family - they valued their own jobs too much.

The people who worked in the colony's spaceport talked amongst each other about a ship that docked every so often - a nondescript cargo ship that they loaded with finished engine parts bound for destinations unknown. Somehow, they said, the disappearances of factory workers always seemed to coincide with this particular ship's schedule. When the factory managers thought to look at the spaceport's records in their search for a pattern, however, this particular ship's registry was nowhere to be found.

Rumor had it that one of the ship's pilots belonged to another Lane family. But rumors came and went, no one believed them too much. Every few weeks, two pilots arrived, and three bodies left. The spaceport manager cheerfully altered the ship's takeoff records in exchange for generous credit to be spent at the Cobra facility. The Cyrus family continued to lose employees, and none of their board members had any idea.

Business continued as usual.

~The End~

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So much love for this! And for you!

(and hush about the commas, I did it for their own good ;) )

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