AN:

I haven't actually finished the third chapter as of the posting of this second chapter. It's giving me a lot of difficulty, though I more or less know what I'm going to do. It could be another week or two before the next part goes up. I consider what I'm trying to do with this fic to be… tricky. And I don't want to screw it up, because I'm already about 18k words in with a lot of time and polishing (believe it or not) thrown in. Reviews and critique are welcome, especially on this next part, and I'm very willing to share my rough drafts if anyone is willing to help with proofreading and editing. Contact me via PM or Telegram (listed on my profile bio) if you think you could help, and I'll be grateful.

Speaking of which, thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Chapter 2

Wolf had hardly said a word all morning as they shoveled bland, nonperishable space-travel breakfast into their mouths at the table. He informed Fox that they were set to fly as soon as breakfast was done, and once Fox confirmed that much, the older canid sat in contemplative silence, sipping on a cup of coffee and taking slow bites of his steaming so-called food, his good eye closed and the other eye powered off for most of the time they sat.

Fox finished his breakfast first, and from there, he waited. Once Wolf had finished eating, both pilots stood up. Fox followed Wolf to the hangar, and Wolf retrieved something from his cockpit.

"Got yours?" he said.

It was Wolf's comm device. Fox nodded, and Wolf hopped right back into his cockpit, with Fox following suit. Fox pressed the fob he'd used to board in the first place, and shot Wolf a cheeky grin as the hangar door began to swing open, which earned him an eye roll.

They descended through the planet's atmosphere and drew closer to the surface, with Wolf leading the way. Fox waited for a sudden move, an announcement of his betrayal, or any other precursor to a dogfight, but Wolf, though still somewhat sparse with his words, was surprisingly cordial. The only significant development was the appearance of Wolf's rough map of the planet on Fox's heads-up display.

"Gravity's about what you're used to in Corneria," Wolf said. "A little bit harsher, but it shouldn't make a big difference to your ship." They descended a bit more, and Fox heard Wolf chuckle over the comm channel. "I wish I could see your face when the ground comes into view."

Fox quickly figured out why. He'd seen Wolf's pictures, but there was something to be said for actually witnessing sixty-foot-tall mushrooms growing alongside the trees, with vines interweaving between all manner of plants. There had to be hundreds of different colors and shapes of them, and that was just from the view near to the temple, which Wolf didn't dare to approach just yet.

"Lucky for us, the building itself is sort of in a clearing. Get ready to play the angles. There are two of us, so that's twice the shield punishment we can take without lasting damage. Remember, the turrets are dense on the rooftop, so don't fly directly over the building no matter what," Wolf said.

"I'll take one side and you take the other?" Fox suggested. "Charge in together and split apart after we've fired?"

"You read my mind," Wolf replied, as if Fox's course of action wasn't the only obvious thing to do. "I guess I'll let you choose which corner we start in."

The temple was a huge one-story stone building with a great, thick stone entrance. The ground along the base of it seemed to obscure a line of large hieroglyphs, suggesting that there might be a basement. Fox really hoped that wasn't the case; the great complex seemed large enough for a foot mission without that extra ground to cover.

Their aerial maneuvering was easy to coordinate, because it was obvious what they had to do. They'd dive in just to the point that a few of the hundreds of turrets were within firing range. They'd fire their own lasers sparingly, take a few out without damaging the temple too much, and then they'd pull back. Wolf took the right and Fox took the left, dividing the shots that began to concentrate on them as they drew closer.

A few shots from the turrets did hit Fox's shields each time, but it was like Wolf said. The antiquated projectiles weren't going to do too much to an Arwing… and judging by Wolf's shield bar, they did even less to a Wolfen. Or maybe Wolf was just giving this a little more effort than Fox, treating it as a chance to upstage his longtime adversary. His aim, at least, did seem presently to be slightly better than Fox's.

"Any idea why someone would put so many of these things on a rooftop for an old place like this?" Fox asked.

"Seen the wildlife yet?" Wolf replied. "That stone's not going to do shit to stop it over the course of a few centuries. My understanding is that a whole culture is preserved in that place. Whoever built it wanted to be damn sure it didn't get sacked."

Fox thought back to the hideous, fungus-covered creatures he'd seen in Wolf's database. None of them looked like a threat to this kind of place, but he supposed Wolf had seen them up close, and Fox hadn't just yet.

"I'll take your word on it," he said.

The operation went smoothly. Fox's shields were still comfortably above three quarters, and Wolf's had only the smallest sliver gone, when they began to close in on the last corner.

Something showed up on Fox's radar out of the blue. Something huge. Flashbacks from the Lylat Wars caused him to tense up, perform an immediate right turn, and flee the temple. This was the part where another of Andross's bioweapons showed up to take a situation from bad to worse.

Birds. But definitely not birds. They were large, shrieked like hellions, flew tight-knit like a swarm of locusts, and were coated in a pasty substance that Fox assumed to be another symbiotic fungus. They were headed right for the ships at higher speeds than Fox had seen from living organisms before, and showed no signs of changing course.

Fox veered out of their path, but Wolf didn't even seem to notice. He continued cruising around, circling back to meet Fox in the air for another charge. Fox expected a somersault or a quick dive at any moment, but Wolf wasn't even starting to change course with two seconds left.

"Wolf! Land right now!" Fox called. He realized he'd have to call out justification before Wolf would listen to a word he said. "If one of those gets in your-"

To Fox's surprise, Wolf didn't need to hear the rest. He was already just about on the ground by the time Fox had begun his next sentence, even as the turrets chipped away a little over a quarter of his shield.

"It'd better be important," Wolf grumbled. "Not sure what you're going on about here. My radar shows nothing."

Fox did an immediate u-turn and fired up his lasers, frying the bulk of the flock. Birdlike corpses rained from the sky and the flock thinned out. Several landed on the landed Wolfen as dozens of the flying atrocities rained from the sky. Fox u-turned right before he got dangerously close to the remainder of the flock, and when he'd put distance between them and turned back around, the remnant was on its way out of the vicinity.

Fox breathed a sigh of relief. It was over almost as quickly as it had started.

"That could've been bad," Wolf admitted. He sounded a little shaken up, though it wasn't easy to tell from the comm. Perhaps he was having difficulty reconciling the obligation to thank Fox with his enduring refusal ever to do so.

"You… landed." Fox still couldn't believe it. "Even before you saw why?"

Fox cruised from up high, spotting Wolf's ship in a precarious position right beneath the firing zone of the remaining turrets.

"You said land," Wolf replied. "If I'd known what you were talking about, I might have said you're full of shit and done my own thing, but I don't take blind chances." He chuckled. "Think my radar might need a tune-up, though. Been a while since I had a chance to get it checked."

"Yeah… Wolf, you landed in a bad spot. If you try to take off right now, you'll get blasted to hell by a storm of obsolete bullets," Fox warned.

"I noticed," Wolf said. "Hard to find a more embarrassing story than that for the mechanical crew. I think I have to sit the rest of this one out. Hate to say it, but I'm not planning to add one more wreck to my repair bill."

"I'm on it."

The remainder was cake; only a small corner remained, and Fox could remain out of range easily by taking advantage of the slope of the temple's roof. When he'd finished, Wolf fired up his Wolfen and soared out of the corner he'd hidden in.

"Blackened," Wolf said, remarking on the top of the temple. "But intact. The roof hasn't caved in. Consider me impressed with the architects."

Taking a slow victory lap of sorts around the structure, just to be sure that nothing would fire at them, Fox noticed what seemed to be an entrance. It looked more like an indent in the wall in the shape of a door, and it had no handle.

"Any idea how we get in?" Fox asked.

"We'll worry about that one later," Wolf said. "We're not parking our ships on the ground unless there's another emergency."

"Why not?"

"Sinkholes, for one. But mostly, the wildlife."

The answer seemed preposterous. The birds were only a threat to ships while the ships were running, and only because their corpses might clog something. Fox waited for Wolf to indicate that he'd been joking.

"How? What the hell do-"

"Follow me," Wolf said. "Not sure you got the size of these things from the pictures."

So Fox listened, just as Wolf had, without a complaint or a protest. Wolf led him through the jungle-like turf, soaring only about twenty feet above the tops of the plants and fungi that lined the skies.

It was a sea of colors. Some fungi were purple, others were yellow with specks of black, and some were blue. Their placing seemed random, and they passed by in a blur at low altitudes. Fox almost wondered if flying so low amidst the changing colors might give him a seizure.

"There," Wolf said. "Die, fucker!"

Wolf's lasers fired up, abruptly forcing Fox to remember that this wasn't just another mission with Falco; he was supposed to be wary of Wolf rather than sitting back and enjoying the air time.

He'd have been a sitting duck if Wolf had fired up the brakes of his Wolfen and shot Fox as he pulled ahead. After taking the punishment, it'd be a dogfight, with both of them at about half shields, and Fox would be stuck on this strange, inhospitable world if he chose to back out. He could only fight Wolf with all the intensity he could muster, and hope that it didn't kill either of them.

That scenario played out in his head, and Fox slammed on his own brakes, but he wasn't the target after all. Instead, Wolf fired down at a great hulking brute, which was easily the size of one of their ships. It resembled a feral rhinoceros, only its body was square, its legs were awkwardly long and thick, and its horn was cruelly curved like a scythe.

Fox thanked his lucky stars. He wasn't nearly as afraid of that creature as he was of a dogfight with Wolf. Ending an air battle with both of them intact was more than he felt he could handle.

"Dead now," Wolf said of the corpse among charred soil. "And good riddance. But you saw it?"

"Yeah."

Wolf sighed.

"Then you know why your Arwing won't be safe on land. It's shitty, but we're going to have to park my home ship. Either of our fighters would be crushed by one of these things, and I'm not even sure that there isn't worse out here," Wolf said. Fox imagined the crunch of his Arwing beneath that terrible beast. "We'll make it a short walk to the temple and hope for the best while we're not in the sky. We'll worry about finding our way in when we have to."

"Back to home base, then?"

Wolf pulled up as if to answer, and Fox followed him all the way back to the ship.

Dinner was space slop. Again. Just like what he'd had with Falco for almost two consecutive weeks. Not too different from breakfast. It never expired, but it sure as hell got old.

Wolf ate along with Fox, silent as he'd been during breakfast, though he kept his eyes open and fixed them often on Fox. He never said a thing, never seemed unnerved by being caught stealing glances, and usually broke eye contact only to take another bite of his bland food without at all acknowledging Fox.

Fox wasn't enjoying himself. He fished for something to look at, and found that to his left, there was an old picture on the wall of two young wolves. One looked to be in his early teens and had an easy, likable smile on his face, accentuated by cheerful blue eyes. The other was unmistakably Wolf, probably about ten years old. He grinned just as earnestly as the other did, but there was menace in his face. A contentious glint in the child's two purple eyes told Fox that his rival had been trouble for most of his life.

"Well, how sad. I figured you were just going to stare at me forever," Wolf said.

"Don't flatter yourself," Fox replied. "I figured you weren't going to be so quiet. Or boring."

Wolf shrugged.

"And I figured you wouldn't want to hear any more than you had to," Wolf replied. "But if I'm boring you that much, I can entertain you with a history lesson. You know why they call me Lord O'Donnell?"

Fox snorted, amused at the egotistical name that Wolf had gone by over at the pirate hideaway.

"Duh. You ran Sargasso," Fox said.

"That's the usual assumption. I used a different name in earlier years, though. Sargasso called me Boss for a while, before the Lylat Wars," Wolf corrected. "Back when I wasn't so firmly on the wrong side of the law, before I did some shitty things with some shitty motives. And before I inherited a title. The older guy in that picture is my cousin. He was Lord O'Donnell before the Cornerian title, which none of my crimes can legally strip away, fell to me. He was the only family I ever got along with. You might have met him. He served with your buddy Bill in the husky unit."

"What was his name?" Fox asked.

Wolf snorted.

"Doesn't matter what's on his tombstone," Wolf replied.

Shit. This was why Fox was afraid to ask Wolf these personal questions, and a big part of why he didn't start their conversations. Wolf's past was shady, and he'd lived a rough life. Asking about virtually anything could lead to some bitter memories and unsavory answers, and none of that made for a good recruitment incentive.

"I'm sorry," Fox said.

Wolf continued as if Fox hadn't spoken.

"What matters is that the last thing I ever heard from him was how disappointed he was in me. How he once considered me his brother since he never had one, and how my shitty choices changed his mind," Wolf said. He crossed his arms at his chest and shut his eye. "Andross's forces killed him in the skies. You know, after we faced off at Fichina, I thought about changing sides. Thought about talking to my cousin, telling him he was right, asking if he'd put in a good word for me."

Wolf had to be joking.

"And then you went in and battled me again on Venom after you knew what happened to your cousin, huh?" Fox spat. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Wolf hung his head low.

"I've said a little too much. I told you. I made terrible choices," he said. He gave a sigh and opened his mouth in a snarl, glaring at Fox. His voice lowered, but gained intensity, and his eye made half of his face eerily similar of the young, ambitious boy in the picture. "You know, if you weren't you, and your father hadn't been the one and only James McCloud, I would've been Corneria's ace. I would've been the end of Andross, and I wouldn't have needed a mouthy bird, a hick rabbit, or a klutz frog along the way. You ruined me, pup."

Wolf had done what Fox had warned him not to do-mentioned James McCloud. This was dangerous territory, but Fox tried to calm himself. Just to play devil's advocate, he tried to imagine himself coming from Wolf's point of view.

Fox imagined a world where he'd been pushed to choose the wrong side. Something remotely plausible. He imagined that Corneria had chosen Team Star Wolf to turn the tide of the war instead of Team Star Fox, and considered how eager he'd be to prove his team to be the true best. Then he imagined being shot down by Wolf at Fichina, failing at his first job, and how dead inside he'd feel from it.

He couldn't imagine letting that stop him. He might have done similarly to Wolf if that had been the full extent of the situation.

But at the same time, he certainly couldn't imagine being on the opposite side of the war from his remaining family-especially someone who, as Wolf admitted, was actually a pretty good guy. Being the best wasn't worth that.

"Like hell. You ruined yourself," Fox retorted. "You could've been the fourth member of the original team Star Fox if you'd just asked my dad."

Wolf snorted. The fur of his bare chest fluffed out haughtily.

"A wanted petty criminal comes up and asks to join your father's team, and you think he'd just say okay? You think he was some kind of all-redeeming saint, don't you? You think-"

Dagger eyes stopped Wolf mid-sentence. If there hadn't been a table between them, Fox would've tackled Wolf right there and pounded his face in. He was not going to listen to insults toward his father from the son of a bitch who, at the very least, watched James McCloud die.

"I'm sorry," Wolf said. It sounded sincere. "You don't deserve my bitterness. What we did today… I was shaky about doing it alone. You helped me a lot more than I expected. When that flock came in, you warned me right away without time to even think about it. If you were as resentful as I am, the warning wouldn't have come in time. I owe you."

Fox's anger softened, but didn't subside. He could feel how difficult it was for Wolf to let go of his pride, and felt compelled to say something in return.

"And I'm sorry for what happened with your teammates," Fox said. "I put my nose where it didn't belong, and you paid the price."

"Feels shitty," Wolf said.

"Yeah."

"You alright?"

Fox thought about it. Adrenalin was still in his system, and his face still showed the disgust he felt toward his old foe.

"No."

"Me neither. Not the best way to be."

Wolf got up and retreated to his room, leaving his half-finished dinner on its plate. He returned moments later, to Fox's surprise, with a piece of black cloth that he chose to hurl at Fox's face.

"Hey! What gives?" Fox complained, removing the strange black object that covered his eyes. It had a hint of Wolf's scent, but mostly reeked of some terrible… cleaning compound?

Fox noticed tags and a small hole at the rear-smaller than the hole most pants had for a tail.

"It's a swimsuit," Wolf said. "You ever swim?"

Fox chuckled.

"I haven't had lessons or done it as a team sport, but I can swim. Will I need to? Is there water in the temple, or what?"

"Fox," Wolf said. It came to Fox as a surprise that he'd chosen not to call him pup. "I want to get to know you better. You've been nice to me where-" Wolf hesitated, swallowing and clearing his throat. "Where others weren't. But we still have our history, and I need to know whether or not that's going to cause problems when we work together. I have to spend more time with you, to figure out whether you're giving me your real face here, or you're just fucking with me to add to your team. Tomorrow, at five AM by the Cornerian clock, I'll be at the pool. I'd like you to meet me there."

"You have a pool on your ship?"

Wolf's reply was emphatic.

"A lap swimming pool. This is home."

He'd heard that enough times to warrant asking.

"What's the deal with you and this ship?" Fox asked. "Was this all Sargasso could spare for you to run around in? How has this ancient thing not fallen apart yet?"

"It has," Wolf replied. "I've had it repaired and upgraded. This was my father's ship. I inherited it shortly after the Lylat Wars. Of course, Corneria wasn't going to give jack shit to their poster villain, so I had to fucking steal it to keep my cousin's wife from selling it off for scrap."

Fox was puzzled. Taking the mementos was one thing, but stealing the whole ship sounded like it couldn't be worth the risk.

"Why does it-"

"Why does it matter?" Wolf asked. He'd guessed correctly. "O'Donnell is an old name. And since my cousin had a daughter rather than a son, it dies with me."

Kind of like the name McCloud, except that Wolf apparently had some actual blue-blooded nobility behind him. Thinking about names, he wondered if maybe he'd made the wrong move in breaking up with Krystal. Maybe some things were more important than flying?

Not a chance. What good is the McCloud name when its bearer sits on the ground? I'll live in the air and die in the air.

"I understand," Fox said, although to an extent, he really didn't.

Wolf nodded. He took another bite, finishing his dinner, and set the plate on the cleaning counter, where it was taken for cleaning by a robotic arm.

"I'll be in my room if you need me," he said. "Otherwise, tomorrow. Five in the morning."

"And flying?" Fox asked.

"Not tomorrow. While we flew today, I left a few probes by the temple door," Wolf said. "We need a full Cornerian day before I can guess at the wildlife patterns. We want to optimize our timing and land for as little time as possible. Tomorrow is a waiting game."

Fox nodded, and Wolf said nothing more. The gray-furred canid shut the door to his room behind him, and Fox looked at the competitive-style square trunks in his hand, wondering what he'd gotten himself into by being too slow to turn down an offer.

"Well, if it isn't everyone's favorite fleabag," Falco greeted. "Talk to me."

"He's gotten better," Fox said.

"Better, huh?" Falco said. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Fox recalled diving down, firing his lasers and taking bullets in a trade with the turrets. Wolf had dived down ahead of him, pulled up just a little faster, placed his lasers just a little better, demonstrated the kind of precision that Fox only zoned into when hundreds of lives were at stake. His shields had barely even been dented by the time the swarm came and threw a monkey wrench into their whole operation.

"As a pilot. Either he's improved in a big way, or I got lucky to beat him twice," Fox replied. "We flew today. I held my own, but he almost made me look bad. Wasn't easy, but he made it look like he could've done the whole thing without me. I'd have considered it a suicide mission for myself alone. I almost laughed when he said he was planning on it before I showed up. After seeing him today, I shouldn't have been laughing."

"So what you're saying is that your longtime rival is a good pilot," Falco said. "Gee. It's too bad we didn't know. We could've asked him to join our team."

Fox rolled his eyes. He should've known better than to expect Falco to take matters seriously.

"I think I'm making progress on that," Fox said. "This whole world is a slice out of hell, so he got ambushed when his radar didn't catch a big swarm of… vicious birds with fungal symbiotes? Jeez. Never thought I'd say those words."

"So you got a heroic rescue in?"

"Yeah. It was weird, though, with it being Wolf and all. I told him I'd help, and he just let me," Fox said. "Didn't talk about his pride being damaged. Didn't try to take care of things himself. Maybe we've established some trust and respect for each other. I'm kind of honored."

Falco gave a chuckle.

"So a crook letting you save his hide counts as an honor nowadays?"

"Calling him a crook might be a little strong. He's done some bad things, but a lot of it was circumstance," Fox said. "He's told me some things from his past. I'm not the only one who lost someone important in the Lylat Wars."

"Yeah? And a lot of the Lylat Wars was his own damn fault," Falco scoffed. "Has he at least given you an apology yet?"

Sort of. Whatever a swimming invite counts as. Fox wondered how he'd explain that one to Falco.

"I don't want to talk about that," Fox said.

It wouldn't help him, and he'd rather wait to resolve things with Wolf anyway. Somehow, Fox felt, it'd be easier after a while of working together. Eventually, he'd get brave and bring up the Lylat Wars years again, and maybe Wolf would shed light on things that Fox had never been ready for. Until then, it was better to just stay cool.

There was a moment of silence between the two pilots. Fox realized that, unlike the prior night, Falco wasn't competing over any particular background noise. By Cornerian time, it was nine at night.

"You up to anything?" Fox asked.

It took the bird a little longer than usual to reply.

"Got the threesome last night," Falco said. "I was the only one who didn't regret it when we woke up. Made for an awkward morning, but it was one hell of a wild night. I'm so wiped out from it all that I'm taking tonight to sit at home and recover. The morning part, I mean. Never wiped out from sex, unless someday I find a real freak worth keeping around."

Fox snorted, though it still hurt somewhat to hear how quickly Falco actually did it. One night, and Fox had already been replaced. He'd told himself time and time again that there were no strings attached, just like Falco said, but Fox always imagined strings. Then Falco had to remind him right away that anything beyond sex between two desperate pilots was never real.

On the upside, Fox had convinced himself over the months that he was okay with that. The lie was even starting to become true.

"Probably for the best that you rest anyway while you're on land," Fox said, knowing the kind of trouble Falco could find if he had enough time to himself. "And make sure to eat some extra actual food for me. Keep in mind I envy your location a lot more right now after dinner. Any plans for tomorrow?"

"Drink, dance, and get my dick wet."

Predictable. But this was, in a way, what made Falco an ideal teammate. Hedonism and piloting were the bird's whole life, and of the two, piloting was the only thing with any order to it. When he felt lost and needed stability, Falco would always come back to Team Star Fox, and Fox would always welcome him. It had happened a few times before.

"Well, have fun with that," Fox said. "As for me, it turns out Wolf has a pool on his ship. He invited me to join him tomorrow morning for laps. Said he needs to spend more time with me."

Falco made kissing noises into the phone. Fox wished he could slap him.

"Okay, so I could've phrased that a lot better," Fox said. Or perhaps Wolf could've phrased that better, really. Fox was only using recycled words, and somehow now with Falco, they felt a little clumsier than Wolf had made them seem. "But you have to admit he has a point. I mean, we did spend half a decade wanting each other dead. Spending some civil time together is probably not a bad idea."

"Civil time? I bet you're just missing me. Lemme take a guess at how the invite went," Falco said. He lowered his voice to a growl, giving a crude Wolf O'Donnell impression. "Meet me in the pool, and don't bring a suit. If we're going to work together, I'm going to see you naked. Pup."

Fox perked his ears up and heard no sign that Wolf was anywhere near. He lowered his voice anyway.

"Yeah. I'll admit I miss you a lot," Fox said. "Warned you I would. But Wolf isn't on my radar, and he's not my type. Besides, I'd rather not have both my teammates know what I look like naked."

"Yeah, yeah. I'd say I miss you just as bad, but I'm honestly glad to be back in Corneria rather than up in space, where desperate times call for desperate measures," Falco said. It stung. Falco must have picked that up, because his tone became less dismissive. "Uh… no offense meant. I mean, damn it, Fox. I don't mean it like that! I'll just say I'm glad to be home."

"It's alright," Fox lied. "I get it. We probably shouldn't be discussing this stuff. No sense talking about what could've been."

Fox remembered waking up next to the bird and playing the part of big spoon until Falco woke up, realized he was enjoying it just as much as Fox, and shoved him away. Fox tried to push it out of his head; until it happened again, which it wasn't guaranteed to with Wolf around to potentially catch them, it was better not to think about it.

"Or couldn't have been," Falco added.

More hurt.

"Yeah… hey, I really should get to sleep," Fox said. "Wolf wants me to meet him at five in the morning."

"Sheesh," Falco grumbled. "If he's an early riser, he'd better not be loud."

"He's been up earlier than me with pretty good consistency, but I'm pretty sure he's just about silent. I haven't heard him once, except when he's talked to me."

"Better be," Falco scoffed. "But I'll let you go. Night, Fox."

"Night."

They hung up. Fox thought about what they'd said for just a moment. Falco had just gone out of his way to remind Fox that he'd settled for their trysts. He was out in Corneria, playing Casanova and living the war hero's party life like there was no tomorrow. Meanwhile, Fox couldn't deny that he'd developed feelings for Falco, and he'd have to kill them before they became trouble.

He could do it. He'd already killed one relationship over Team Star Fox. This time would be even easier, really; Falco didn't want romance between them like Krystal had.

It wasn't something for tonight, though. He didn't have time to sort through dangerous emotions. Wolf would be up early, and Fox had to match that. His body's sleep schedule was still on Cornerian time, so even though it was only early evening by the planet's time, it was time to sleep.