Disclaimer: Gatchaman/G-Force is not my creation in any way shape and/or form. Neither is "Waiting on Joe" by Steve Azar. My only profit is reader response.

A/N: This takes place after Joe "dies" at Cross Karakorum. I have never seen that episode, so I am going off of what I have read. Please forgive me being wrong.  Also, I always felt that even though Ken and Joe (in every version) fought like they couldn't stand each other, they did love each other. I just kinda thought they might feel this way after 'almost certain' death.

I waited as long as I could, you know. It was either wait on you or end the war. I didn't want to. I didn't want to leave you. But, we were so close to killing Berg Katse and ending all the fighting that I just couldn't pass it up. You tried to convince me to leave. Hell, you would have yelled at me if I had waited on you and that bastard had gotten away. I would have never lived it down.

But then, you would still be here.

G-Force has been put back on duty. We are basically a clean up crew now. Taking the little areas still loyal to Sosai X and eradicating them. You would have loved it. The team has been cleared to use as many Bird Missiles that the God Phoenix can hold and use them whenever we wish. But, nobody really wants to shoot them. It was your job.

I wanted you to be with us when we caught Katse. I gave him a kick in the nuts just for your family. I knew you would appreciate it. I rather enjoyed it myself. To get to him though, we had to find out where he was. And somehow, you got captured. But you fought your way out and let us know where the entrance was, but you were hurt so badly. I could spare no one to be with you, not even myself though my heart was in spasms as I did so. I did leave you with my birdrang. Lot of good it did.

I should have never left you.

But, like I said, we are just cleaning up. Same pay as combat duty even though the major threat is gone. And much more time for ourselves. There has been a few cross-country races you could have been in. I went to one and watched a few. It wasn't the same without you insulting my intelligence and talking your car lingo with the other racers. I kinda miss your insults and our fights now. Crazy, huh?

I went back to Cross Karakorum after we caught Katse. I waited on you to show up and deck me for leaving you.

You never came. I figured you were just taking your time. Or had already left or something. I never would have guessed….

We're supposed to start work down on the river today.

And for Joe and me, it's some pretty good pay.

Now, I was countin' on him

To be at the dock by ten.

A week's pay says he's still at home,

'Cause the boy's in his own time zone

It wasn't like I had never had to wait on you before. But you usually let me know that you were going to be late, if only to piss me off. And then sometimes proceeding to tell my why you were late. Jun almost killed you for being too descriptive. I just wanted to beat your head in. Running around with one-nighters is, was, hazardous to your health. But you always got there in time to make something explode. Going to a mission or taking on all comers in a battle, your speed was amazing. And in your car, when you wanted to go fast, I swear you could go into your own Firebird.

But on your own time, you were a sloth. One of the slowest sumbitches I ever had the pleasure of knowing. It wasn't that you were lazy, well, ok maybe you were, but you had to do everything in your own time. Joe, you were a stop and smell the roses kind of guy. Or well, it being you, a stop and smell the whiskey kind of guy.

I'm a waitin' on Joe, whaddya know.

Time flies fast and he is slower than a.....

I told him over and over: "Now don't you be late."

Ah, but like always,

I'm just sittin' on go,

And waitin' on Joe.

Yeah.

That's why I leave a whiskey shot on your grave rather than flowers. Not that there isn't flowers here. Jun comes up here a lot and leaves them. Jinpei left a silver bullet up here somewhere. For your protection he says. That kid still watches way to many horror flicks. Jun doesn't have the heart to stop him right now. Neither do I for that matter. You aren't around to sneak around corners and scare him when he's watching them. I think he sits there through each and every movie, and show, and hell, he's even reading horror books now, just waiting for you to sneak up behind him.

Hell, what do I think I'm waiting on? You? I'm here at your grave, where your body isn't buried. We couldn't find it when we went back. I swear if any of those damn guards took it while I was beating their master's ass, I'll. . . do something. I can't stay mad, or anything really. The only emotion I have is this deep-seated depression. You were the passion. Without you, there is none.

I have to go soon. Ryu is picking me up and I don't want him to find me here. He probably figures I'm here, but will never mention it aloud. He comes here too. The big guy hasn't forgotten you. He hates to fly without you really, but he has to. Your car is still in the nose of the Phoenix. We will not remove it unless we have to. It's the only piece of you left in that damn machine. It keeps going and going and doesn't realize that it should be broken and falling apart cause you are not there.

Kinda like I am.

Towboat's a leavin' 'cause it don't care.

What's not on board and who's not there.

Once that whistle blows,

Down the mighty river it rolls.

Man if I could be more like that,

I'd get on with my life and never look back.

I wish there was someway you could come back. But my brain knows differently. On recent missions, we have had strange saving graces. Sometimes a shuriken will be found buried in the body of a dead enemy and I look for you. I am beginning to wonder if I am crazy. Then I remember all the blood . . . all of if yours. And then my brain realizes that you can't be back. My heart still seems to have hope though. It isn't just me though. Jun, Jinpei, and Ryu all feel the same way, just mostly me I guess.

You see, one of these days you are going to come strolling into the Snack J, pissed off because you know no one has tuned up your Cobra since you have been gone. I want to, but I am not that good with cars. There are books I have been getting on the model of car and special books and blueprints of the modifications the ISO has on the Cobra. I figure you would at least want me to work on it till you came back.

There I go again. Still waiting.

Like I was then.

Like I will now.

So if you are coming, could you speed it up a little?

Instead of waitin' on Joe, whaddya know.

Time flies fast and he is slower than a.....

I told him over and over: "Now don't you be late."

Ah, but like always,

I'm just sittin' on go,

And waitin' on Joe.

Waitin' on Joe.

I knew something was wrong the day you were captured. It's not like you had never been late before. But, this time it made my skin crawl. But I put my instincts aside like a stupid man and just figured you were running late again. I figured you would call in soon and piss me off, as per our usual. But you didn't. And during the battle, between fighting the bad guys and being concerned about your life, I was planning on how I was going to verbally abuse your lack of respect this time. Hopefully without getting into a physical battle with you, again. But we seemed to thrive on those didn't we? It was a good thing we loved each other or one of us would have been dead by friendly fire long before Berg Katse could take us out. Did take you out. Damn.

The last time you were late to a mission, you have stopped to pick up breakfast for everyone. You were late, in trouble, and we were battling yet another almost indestructible mech, and yet you remembered to grab a coffee for me. Just the way I liked them. I would say it was bribery to keep you from getting in trouble, until you threw me the beignet. Later, you stopped me before I followed everyone off the Phoenix and asked for your usual yelling match. Rather have it alone than in front of everyone. I realized then, you didn't try to bribe me with my favorite food. You just did it.

Your bad guy persona took a big hit with me that day.

But that last day, when you never showed up, I was ready to explode with regulations and rules the minute you stepped in range. But something was wrong. I just knew it.

And not wrong as in car trouble either. You would have bitched and moaned over the comm link if something happened to your car.

I promise to take care of it.

And he's in a hurry,

'Cause he's runnin' behind.

Now I'm not one to worry,

But I've got a real bad feeling this time.

Oh, oh, oh, whoa.

But they found you had been captured, tortured. Gods, I can't even remember who told me. It was like I knew and was just waiting on confirmation. We found you. You had fought your way our just to get us in the correct entrance. And while you were fighting to get out, every bad guy in there was doing his damn best to stop you. Doing a great job of it too. Succeed.

I don't know how you lasted to talk to us. I just remember telling myself not to look down and see what liquid my knees were squishing in. I really didn't want to know. You had to be moving out of duty. Just to reach us in time so that we didn't get captured and could finish this whole stinking war. Were you in pain at all? Could you feel anything? The surgeons told me it was possible that your body had shut itself off from pain to make it long enough to reach us. That physically you felt nothing. I hope they were right. Cause I know I sure as hell felt something. I think I felt everything you didn't. Every bullet wound went straight into my soul and stayed there. Still there. Hard not to notice them.

Whenever I took someone else's injury to heart and made it my own fault, you were there to argue me out of it. Anything that I thought was my fault, you fought me until I damn near forgot what it was. You never let me take the blame for things that I would never been able to help. Well, you sure as hell aren't here now and you won't take this one from me.

Or won't you?

Please do. I have seen the signs that you are still around. We didn't have a body. Your body. It was gone. I think that you pulled yourself up and moved on. Please come back.

Take away the pain.

'Cause sirens are crying all through this town.

And one old boy said Joe never slowed down.

It was that 12 O'clock train,

So he didn't feel a thing,

Lord, I believe that my brother's all right,

Still I'm prayin' he'll just give me a sign.

Oh shit, Ken. Don't start crying again. Ah hell. Do you have any idea how hard it is to watch this? See you come up here and talk to an empty box in the ground? I am not there. Actually, 'Joe the Cyborg' is standing next to a tree behind you. Watching you for like the millionth time. Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment. I came up here myself when I knew I could walk again, and not get lost. I almost ran into you on the way back to the car. That would have scared the shit out of you for sure. Or broken your heart all over again. I can't really be sure. I am sure that I don't wanna do it again, ya know, break your heart. I ain't human anymore Ken. I'm a walking bomb. Just waiting to go off in the vicinity of the bad guys.

And the worse part is, I would have rather died than come back as a machine. I did die Ken. I held on till I could say my good byes and that was it. I knew it would hurt you all more if my dead body was just lying around for you to find. I had to let you know I died doing my job. The downside is, I died hurting you all.

And I don't want to come back to 'life' as it were, as a machine, knowing that I am not human could really put pressure on any relationships I could ever want to have. And then I could die all over again. A fate that I wouldn't wish on any of you. Me? Hell, once is supposed to be enough, but I can handle it again. But putting you, Jun, Jinpei, and Ryu through it again, hurts more.

Don't wait on me forever, man.

Yeah, I'm a-waitin' on Joe, whaddya know.

Time flies fast and he is slower than a.....

I told him over and over: "Now don't you be late."

Ah, but like always,

I'm just sittin' on go,

And waitin' on Joe.

Waitin' on Joe.