Fox finally began to feel how tired he really was when he was shown to his private quarters aboard the Lyra, an escort cruiser refitted for transporting dignitaries and important military personnel. Though still able to fend off minor pirate attacks on her own, the Lyra contained all the amenities a homecoming hero would need. Spacious accommodations, a plush carpet, a large bed, and a fully functional kitchen made Fox feel more like a general than a mercenary. But he ignored it all. Instead of dropping onto the net and looking up the latest or plopping down onto the couch to flip mindlessly through the system broadcasts on the television, he grabbed a beer, dropped onto a chair near the wall, and commanded that it show him the starscape outside. The holographic emitters in the wall flickered to life and displayed the current view from the ship's port side. They were in orbit around Sauria, preparing to head to the orbital gate for the short hop back to Corneria. It was splendidly quiet.

Fox recalled how he had been brought aboard the ship. It had been with thankfully little fanfare, all those greeting him professional soldiers in the crisp uniforms of the newly formed Lylat Systems Corps. They didn't fawn over him or Falco. They had simply saluted, shown him to his quarters, and prepared to quietly shuttle him home. There was no great fleet assembled to pick him up, no triumphs prepared. Fox was grateful. Peppy had to have known he'd need rest when he got back.

Fox was still hoping that his return to the Lylat system would be kept a secret. He had hoped that in the intervening months he had been gone, his memory would have faded from the public mindset. For some reason he just felt empty, like he had nothing more to give to Lylat. There was nothing left to strive for except a soft bed and maybe getting drunk on weekends. Peppy would make sure he was taken care of, of course. Maybe he could go to Aquas and get a small place near Slippy. Next to the ocean, maybe. Weren't all the burnouts and retired rich guys supposed to go live at the beach? Slippy probably had a dozen kids by now. He'd have to go and visit if nothing else.

He finally remembered he was still holding his beer, but suddenly it didn't look very appetizing anymore. He did, after all, still have his dignity. Maybe he should just have a cocktail or something.

Or, he could just sit here and stare at the wall all day. That seemed like fun.

The door slid open an indeterminate amount of time later.

"Hello Falco."

Lombardi stopped in his tracks. Fox hadn't even turned his head to the door.

"You look kinda crappy, Fox. Aren't you even going to take a shower?"

"Huh?" Fox looked down and realized he was still wearing the flight suit from the crash. He was covered in dirt, bruises, and scabs from healing cuts. He really was a mess. Somehow that struck him as funny, and he chuckled, a dark and hollow sound in the dimly lit quarters.

"Eh... I'll get cleaned up when I get dropped off wherever Peppy wants to put me."

"Dropped off?" Falco asked with a hint of real concern. He closed the door and stepped further inside.

"Dropped off?" he repeated. "What do you mean dropped off? You think we're just gonna forget about everything you did and dump you, Fox? Do you seriously think Peppy would do that to you?"

"Why not?" Fox said, juggling the lone beer can. "I don't have anything else to do around here." He tossed the can at Falco. "Go grab something good, will ya?"

"Sure," Falco replied, and was in the kitchen for barely a minute before he came back with two fizzy, dark brown bottles.

"Finest buzz you'll find in Lylat," he declared. Fox didn't seem to mind that description and took an offered bottle. He took a swift swig after popping off the cap and winced.

"Ouch, Falco... they serve this in the military now?"

"Only to the important people," the avian said with a smug spread of his wings, gulping down a mouthful and whooping.

"No matter things keep going to hell when Corneria fights by itself," Fox mused. "Makes me glad I'm not going back."

There was the sudden sound of Falco almost spitting out another gulp. Fox stared in silence as Falco struggled to swallow.

"Not... not going back?" Falco exclaimed when he was finished, incredulous. Fox eyed him with a somewhat venomous gaze, his ears folding back onto his head. His stare seemed to be questioning Falco's intelligence and his lineage all at once.

"Didn't you hear me back on the shuttle, Falco? I'm done with being a celebrity. Corneria... all of Lylat... they have new heroes to look out for."

Silence.

"I mean there has to be somebody that they're talking about besides us, right?" Fox asked, sounding a little desperate as he leaned towards Falco. "What about that Bowman guy? Andross' own damn grandson. Why the hell did we even let him on our team? I hate Andross," Fox reminded himself. It was an interesting thought, now that time had removed him from any semblance of camaraderie with the guy. He must have been a bad egg. Eventually he'd show his true colors. Andross never really died. Sometimes Fox even had nightmares, ones he hadn't had in years.

He turned back to Falco.

"Well? What about him?"

Falco shook his head.

"Lucy? Wasn't she gonna be some famous astrophysicist after the Anglars were finished?"

Another shake. Fox seemed to get a wild, earnest look in his eyes and leaned further forward.

"Slippy? Bill? Wolf? You?"

Falco sighed and took another long drink.

"People are still asking where you went, man."

"Well damn it, Falco!" Fox snapped, tossing the drink against the wall where it shattered loudly, disrupting the image of the peaceful starscape. McCloud stood up and began pacing. Falco simply sat and watched the tirade, occasionally taking sips from his bottle.

"Do these people even have lives? Huh? I left! I was gone! I was off seeing everything that I cared about fly off into the void without even a goodbye! What right do these people have to expect me to just waltz back in and be their hero all over again? How many years of my life did I give turning down some very lucrative opportunities to save somebody else's tail? How long's it been since Andross? Twelve, thirteen years?"

"Fourteen, counting after you left."

"Fourteen years, Falco! I could have spaced that hellspawn Dash, but last I heard from him he was off going to be Venom's best thing since sliced bread! Why? Because I chose to come back and fight the Anglars. I decided to get off my butt, alone, while Lylat was against the wall. I'm the one who crawled around in dirt and sand and mud for weeks on Sauria to put Andross down after that monster came back from the freaking dead! I put us back together again and again and again, all to help keep this place together! And what do I have to show for it?"

He tugged on his flight suit.

"A piece of crap suit, a dead ship, an Arwing that's floating around in the center of the galaxy for all I know, and the one damn person who could make it all right is gone because I was trying to be everybody's hero!"

He threw his arms in the air and kicked the chair, making the recliner function activate spontaneously. He grabbed his head in his hands and squeezed, bending over until his heads were between his knees, and then rising up again, taking a deep, solemn breath.

"I'm done, Falco," he said with a terrible sort of finality. "I'm going to retire. I'm done with flying, with fighting, with being the last line of defense. Let them stand on their own two feet. I gave them everything. To hell with their fawning... with their begging. Peppy's got a good head on his shoulders. I mean, heck... it's been over a year since I left. If the place is still sane, he must be doing something right."

Falco didn't say anything for a while. He and Fox stared off into space, lost in their own thoughts. Fox was acting weird, that much was certain. His announcement to retire was even understandable given the circumstances. Most people didn't know it, but Falco was a pretty easy-going guy. He could take a lot of things in life, and Fox's outburst was not too surprising. He could handle it. He had come for Fox, not to bring back Lylat's hero. He had come as a friend, not some ambassador calling Fox out for one last hurrah. But still...

He rubbed his chin with his wing.

"Uh... Peppy might want you to do a couple things first. Small things, you know. There won't even be cameras."

"Puh," Fox said, eyes half closed, swaying slightly as he stared at the far wall with such intensity he seemed to be looking for a flea in a field. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean... you have to at least tell people you're back. Maybe even... maybe even meet with Dash again. Pass the torch to the Systems Corps. I hate to say it, man, this sounds weird comin' from me, I know, but..."

He raised his bottle in a gesture of appeal.

"You can't just run off and expect to cut your ties so easy. S'why I kept comin' back, I knew you guys still needed me. You gotta tell them they're ready before you pass on the reins. And I'll be there, Fox. I promise, this time."

He smiled a genuine smile.

"You keep flying and keep your formation tight..."

Fox waited a moment before finishing the old Academy day adage.

"And you always remember to turn out the light. To hell with you, Falco," he said, trying to sound angry and not succeeding. "You've really gone soft."

"Ahh... grab another couple of these buzzers and we'll see how soft I am, Fox! Besides, with all the stuff that's been going down? You're probably gonna want to be drunk when you hear it."

And so, for a few hours at least, Fox could forget his grief, and lose himself in the timeless pleasure of a friend to talk to, and a drink so stiff he'd never be able to remember a word he said when he woke up.

--

Peppy Hare knew that not everybody was going to be happy, especially Fox McCloud. But as much as he wanted to just see the guy again, to just look at his face, he knew that there was business to take care of.

Fox's return had been a surprise to him as much as anyone else. The last year had been crazy for all of Lylat, starting with Krystal's disappearance. Nobody had been expecting it, nobody had wanted it. It had come out of nowhere. The defeat of the Anglars three years prior had still been fresh on everyone's mind, and with Krystal back on the team the assumption that she and Fox would finally live the good life was shared by virtually the entire population of Lylat (all save Panther, who had been apoplectic that Krystal had once again gone back to McCloud). But then came the strange times. Krystal and Fox both had begun withdrawing from the public eye, and even from the team. But each had done so in their own way, and it was not in order to be closer to one another.

Krystal had simply begun to focus on one thing or another. She slowly seemed to forget that she was with the others. She had buried herself in research, in books, in training. She had become more distant, almost indifferent, to Fox and the rest of the crew. She was still cordial, she still helped out around the ship, and had even gone with them on the few jobs they had been able to scrounge together in the wake of the war. But she had seemed to see her staff and the honing of her telepathic abilities as more important than anything else, leaving poor Fox out in the cold. McCloud had suffered in silence. He was still nominally the leader of the team, but more and more he had become depressed and introverted, determined to stick by Krystal's side, even as their relationship deteriorated. Even Peppy had seen it when he visited them. The poor guy had barely even tried to hold on to her, thinking that it was just a phase in their rocky relationship. He had rebuffed most questions about his welfare, leaving the others distressed and confused, and worried. Star Fox broke up again soon after the troubles started, and Krystal and Fox simply drifted out of the mainstream.

Then they had disappeared entirely. Krystal was without preamble. One day, Fox staggered into Falco's apartment, drunk and disorderly as the military called it. He babbled about how Krystal made him swear not to follow him and left without even saying goodbye. He had been broken up for weeks, but slowly built his strength up enough where he decided to follow the first lead he came across and find her again, eventually leaving the Lylat system entirely for parts unknown, making everyone wonder if he was looking for death out in the great void. Lylat had no major colonies besides a couple of research outposts, and nobody had known where Fox had been so determined to go. Peppy had tried to stop it. He had tried consoling the boy (for Peppy, though never admitting it, saw Fox as a son), cajoling him, forcing him to remain and build another life. But Fox would have none of it.

At last, Fox was able to run off without anyone knowing. For a whole week, the team members left behind had panicked. And then Slippy came forward. Fox had come to him, asked for supplies and money to get out of the system and hopefully sustain him in the big dark unknown, and made him promise not to tell a soul.

Slippy, with tears in his eyes, had said Fox didn't want Falco to know because he knew he'd think it cowardly. And he hadn't wanted Peppy to know because the hare would have been ashamed of him.

Peppy shook his head, drooping ears wagging about. Ashamed? As if! The mere thought that Fox could do anything to shame him was reprehensible. He must have been more broken up than any of them could have imagined.

And now, standing in front of a cold, impassive airlock in the belly of the command carrier Macbeth's Revenge thirteen months after Fox's disappearance, he was waiting for the sight of a man he still sometimes saw as the young, dashing, heroic boy he had seen at the start of the Lylat Wars. Those were the good old days, Peppy mused, back when the enemy was clear and the conflicts easier to fight. When Andross was around, all it took was good aim and good flying. So pure and honest a war that had been, as odd as it was to say so. They were good and noble, Andross monstrous and megalomaniacal. Nothing a good blaster couldn't handle.

But conflicts of the heart? Those had to be wrestled with in ways only the individual fighting knew how. It had nearly torn Fox away from him, and as the airlock hissed and began to open, and the honor guard stood to attention, Peppy swore that he would do all in his power to make sure Fox would get all the help he needed.

As the airlock clanked and slid to one side, his old eyes widened. He had been expecting Fox, but the haggard, slumped figure he saw lurch through the opening was a far cry from the bright eyed hero he remembered.

"You look terrible," he blurted out with fatherly concern.

"I know," Fox replied, lackluster. Falco was right behind him, placing a paw on the vulpine's shoulder.

"He got more drunk than an infantryman on shore leave," he confided. Peppy scowled at Lombardi and went to Fox, without regard for the other soldiers watching. He put his hands on Fox's shoulders and made him stand up straight.

"Fox," he breathed. "I can hardly believe my eyes. You know a couple times I thought you'd never come back..."

"It probably would've been better if I didn't." Peppy noticed a slight slur in his voice.

"Don't say things like that," the general replied quickly. "You... I'm glad you're back, Fox. We have a lot to talk about."

"I'm sure."

"But you need rest, first. Falco, he..." Peppy stepped back and finally saw Fox's real condition. His clothes were filthy and his fur mussed.

"Have you even taken a shower?"

"Not in the last couple days, no."

Peppy swore and glanced over his shoulder at the other soldiers in attendance. There was no judgment in their eyes, but Peppy knew he had to keep up some semblance of dignity for the return of Lylat's savior.

"Fox, please, they're watching you. Falco, I thought you said he'd be prepared!"

"I tried!" Lombardi answered haplessly. "He didn't want to do anything. He said he didn't want anything to do with a spaceship." Peppy blinked and stared and sputtered, flabbergasted at the revelation.

"Fox... what happened to you?"

The former hero shrugged.

"Lots of stuff." He looked around at the others. "I wish this was a little more private."

Peppy cleared his throat and gestured for Fox to follow him. "Of... of course, of course. Well, if you're um... tired of spaceships, let's get you on the ground. There's a private shuttle waiting to take you down."

"Down where?"

"Corneria, Fox! You're back! You're home." Peppy took him by the arm when Fox didn't do anything and hustled him past the others, leaving them confused. They started to mill around, but that was fine with Peppy, who only called his aide over.

"Tell the crew they did a fine job and they have the rest of the day off," he barked at the canine, who whipped out a datapad and started scribbling orders.

"Nobody disturbs Fox. Nobody. I want guards, actual soldiers, down at the landing pad. Nobody gets near him, no press, no nothing. Hell, you have permission to shoot anyone with a camera! I want this to go quick and clean."

"Corneria's nice this time of year," Fox muttered to himself. Falco suddenly came up next to him.

"Thought he'd mellowed out by now," he confided to Peppy, who hurried them both down a long corridor towards the hanger.

"Anyone mellows out with the crap you had him drink. I can barely believe we serve it in the military," he growled, glad they were finally somewhat alone. Falco shrugged indifferently.

"Hey pops, he needed it. Don't blame me!"

"S'okay, Peppy," Fox blurted out. "Falco told me what's been going on."

They all stopped like they had collided with a brick wall. Peppy's eyes darted back and forth nervously.

"I... I'm sorry Fox," he said as quickly as he could. "But things didn't quiet down after you left. There are... there are things we still need to take care of, and... and we might need you, Fox. Lylat might need you. The whole system is busy. I've been busy. I'll do what I can, but..." He left the rest of his sentence hang. Fox didn't seem perturbed.

"I know." Peppy was surprised by the lack of anger or enthusiasm.

"You... you do?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. I left you guys with a lot of crap to deal with. But I don't want to think about it. I just wanna breathe air that hasn't been recycled. And that shower sounds... heavenly."

Peppy stared long and hard at Fox. He did indeed look terrible. Dirty, grubby, tired, worn down, and somewhat smelly. But in that instant, the general of Lylat found that he didn't care. Ten months of duty, responsibility, being kept away from Lucy, wrangling with the politics of the Systems Corps, and that whole business with Dash. It didn't matter anymore. Fox was back, he was here, and he needed them.

They could talk later.

"Whatever you need, my boy."