I guess I'm back from the dead. So yeah, sorry to all (two?) of you reading this. I lost the spiral I wrote this chapter in and was too stubborn to rewrite it. I should hopefully be finishing this story soon. I rewrote the summary. It still sucks.

So about this chapter, I have no idea how to write dogfight scenes, so I kind of didn't. Sorry. There were also quite a few facts from each of the shows I was having trouble with, so sorry canon, allow me to kick you while you're down a few more times. Anyway, onto the chapter. I apologize for any errors and hope you enjoy.

"Time to get up, Kid."

"Ugh, why?" I whined into my pillow. It was nice being back in my room so I could respond to Zero without having to worry about anyone listening. It didn't make dealing with him any more fun though.

It had been a week since I had first been stuck with him, and I was feeling increasingly exhausted as time went on. I couldn't get enough sleep, but it never made me feel any less tired. My dreams were filled with what could have only been Zero's memories, but when I would wake up, I would forget all of it. It would slip away like it was just a normal dream.

I decided against telling the ghost about it. It wasn't like he could do anything anyway. I could only guess something about two minds trying to occupy one body just didn't work well. I just had to fight through my exhaustion, and of course, that wasn't helping my attempts to pass as okay.

I had learned to hold my tongue against Zero's constant barrage of comments when other people were around. I still got strange looks on occasion when I would be unable to hold back glaring at him, though, and people were starting to get suspicious.

I was positive Kei and the doctor both thought there was something wrong with me. Zero had told me about the way the doctor's eyes would follow me anytime my back was turned, and Kei would shadow me whenever she thought she could get away with it. I couldn't read Harlock, but I imagined he had some ideas about the state of my mental health as well.

Zero's voice intruded back into my thoughts. "Come on, Sunshine. You said you wanted to be woken up at this time. Don't make me drag you out of bed."

He would do it too, the asshole, and he would be grinning the whole time. He got a real kick out of the whole physical contact thing.

I grumbled unintelligibly at him as I dragged myself out of bed.

"You know, I've been thinking-"

"Have you?" I drawled.

"Nice one, Kid." He smirked, unaffected. "Anyway, you know what I miss most from being alive? Well, besides human interaction."

"I don't care."

"Drinking," he responded anyway. "No, getting drunk. Do you think if you got drunk that I would too?"

I scowled. "I'm not going to get drunk."

He sighed. "What kind of pirate are you?"

I refused to answer him.

"Are you ever happy?" he asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.

"I thought you were supposed to be a military captain," I snapped. "You don't act much like one, you know."

His expression sobered into a small frown. "Well, that's because I'm not. I haven't been for a long time."

"Oh, yeah," I mumbled, turning away from him to get ready.

That was how a majority of our conversations went. They usually started with an argument or him trying to mess with me and ended with one of us feeling awkward for bringing up the pain of the other's past. Generally, I was the one feeling guilty at the end, and he would break the uncomfortable silence that followed.

I had given up on the idea that he was some sort of trick or anything else that actually made sense. The memories I saw were just too vivid, and there was no option when it came to believing that they had happened. They just had. Some part of me knew it. The question wasn't whether he was an actual ghost or a trick. It was whether he was an actual ghost or I was just insane. The latter was seeming more and more likely and, disturbingly, more appealing.

"You know," he cut into my thoughts, his tone back to its normal, playful self. "I think I like Sunshine more than Kid. It suits you better. Would you prefer I called you that?"

"Go to hell," I called over my shoulder as I pulled on my gloves.

"Jeez, Kid, remind me not to try to clear the tension in the room for you again." There was a precious moment of silence before he spoke again. "I'm sorry, but I just can't take you seriously in that outfit. Why do you wear that?"

I stared down at the black and green uniform as I turned around to face him. "Kei told me to wear it because it's better suited for fighting or something. What do you mean? It looks fine," I insisted.

"Kei?" he grinned. "I'm pretty sure she just wanted to dress you up to match her – like her little baby brother."

I felt the tips of my ears heat up. "Is it your goal in life to torture me?" I growled.

"Obviously not. I'm not 'in life.'"

"I hate you," I said for what must have been the hundredth time that week.

"It's not my fault you make it so easy to mess with you," he returned with a shrug.

I was beginning to feel rather ticked off at the sound of his voice. "Can't you just stay quiet for five minutes?"

"Give me a break, Kid. I haven't had anyone to talk to for years. It kind of screwed with my head a bit. You're just going to have to be the unfortunate soul that listens to me. Maybe I'm just here to teach you patience. Heaven knows you-"

I'd had enough. I needed to shut him up somehow, but the wonderful cocktail of anger and exhaustion that fueled my actions just made things worse for me. On a list of stupid things I'd done, this was impressively high up.

I felt the bones in my hand snap as a dull, metal thud reverberated through the room. If my fist had hit his jaw instead of phasing through him, I imagined I could have broken it. He moved to the side and stared at me as I stood frozen in place, my fist sitting in the dent I'd made in the wall. I was sure the moment I moved it, the pain would kick in.

"Keep your mouth shut. Don't you say a word," I hissed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him placing a hand over his mouth to try and hold back his obvious snickering.

There was a knock at my door. "Daiba, what was that? Are you okay?"

Shit.

"Your big sister is here," Zero said.

I glared at him as I answered Kei. "I'm fine. I just… fell… into the wall… with my hand."

That had to be the stupidest sounding excuse ever given. Zero gave a snort beside me.

I grit my teeth as I continued. "I think I broke my hand."

"Oh," Kei said. She sounded like she was trying to hide the disbelief in her voice. It would have been nice if she'd succeed. "Can I take a look at it?"

"Yeah, hang on."

As it turned out, I was right about moving my hand, and it lit up in a fire of pain as I pulled it from the bend in the wall. I walked to the door, clenching the mangled hand to my chest and muttering a few choice words to Zero.

"I'm not going to apologize for this one, Kid," he said with another shrug, but the expression beneath his smile betrayed his words.

Kei gave me a quick once-over as the door slid open before her eyes rested on my hand. I winced as she drew it out from me and inspected it. She sighed tiredly. "Honestly, Daiba, how did you manage this?"

"It's that bad?" I asked.

"Well, no, not really, but…" She broke off, shaking her head. "Just go to the infirmary, and get Dr. Zero to look at it. I'm not sure if there's a break, but you definitely fractured it."

Just what I needed, another trip to the infirmary.

Bored, I stared at the cast on my hand as my chin rested in the palm of the other. The cast allowed me to move my fingers, but they were each thickly wrapped, making my movements clunky. The doctor told me I could have it taken off in four days, but that meant four days of not holding a gun, which meant four days of being exceedingly bored.

I sat at my post in the main control room to give myself the illusion of having something to do. My boredom had me focusing on how much I wanted a nap, but I refused to let my exhaustion get the better of me. Staring around the room, I made a game of counting patterns in anything that caught my eye. Zero was being conspicuously quiet, and when I looked over to where he was leaning against the wall, I realized his thoughts were lost somewhere along with his distant eyes. I had drifted off into my own thoughts when Harlock's voice cut through my daydreaming.

"What's the name of that song?" he asked from where he sat in his captain's chair.

It took me a moment to realize I had been humming. I tried to think of what song it had been, but I couldn't recall a thing about it. "I'm not sure," I said.

"Do you know where you heard it?"

"No, I guess not." The questions were weird, especially coming from Harlock, but I was too sleepy to think or care too much.

"You look tired, Daiba," Harlock said. "You should get some rest so you can be prepared if something happens."

I thought about telling him I was fine, but at that moment, sleep sounded better than pride. "Alright, Captain," I yawned, standing up. I could feel Zero falling into place behind me as I walked toward the door.

When I reached it, he began to speak. "That song doesn't have a name. Well, maybe it did, but no one knows what it was," he said in a whisper as though there were a chance Harlock could hear him if he spoke too loud.

I knew better than to attempt a response, so he continued for me. "Harlock probably thought it was odd to hear you humming it because you shouldn't know it."

I forced myself to continue walking in silence in case there was someone around a corner. I remembered where I'd heard it. It was the song Zero had been whistling when I'd woken up in the infirmary.

"My wife made up that song as a lullaby. I used to whistle it in the control room on occasion like you were humming it just then. It didn't happen often, though. I'd guess only Harlock, the first mate, and Miime would recognize it. Unless you've heard it from one of them…" He let the thought hang. "I'm pretty curious to know what's going through Harlock's head at the moment."

He offered me a smile as I stepped through the door of my room, but I scowled at him. "Why didn't you tell me that? Why didn't you stop me?" I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. Now what did Harlock think? What could he? There weren't many logical explanations for that.

"I'm sorry." Zero frowned. "I didn't realize you were doing it."

With a sigh, I rubbed my now-aching head as I fell back on the bed.

"He's right though, Kid," Zero continued. "You do look tired. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, guess I'm just a bit stressed about the hell today has turned out to be," I mumbled as I threw my arm across my eyes.

"If you say so."

I was getting really tired of people sounding skeptical.

"Wake me up if anything interesting happens," I ordered through a yawn. I wasn't sure if he answered me. I was being dragged back into the flashes of memories that I would happily forget when I woke up.

Wake-up calls on the Arcadia could be interesting or, to be more accurate, infuriating.

"Hey, Kid, something interesting is happening," Zero said with an apologetic smile as he helped me up off the ground.

It had been a few weeks since a blast to the side of the ship had rocked it enough to throw me out of bed. That didn't make it any more fun, though.

"Thanks for the heads-up," I retorted, but I was still too tired to put any emotion behind it.

Dashing out into the hallway, I somehow managed to avoid crashing into any of the other men rushing to their battle stations until I reached the control room.

"What's going on?"

"It's a Mazone vessel," Kei said, her eyes never leaving her monitor. "And we've got fighter jets circling us."

"I'll get 'em!" Excitement burst in my chest as I turned heel toward the hangar.

Zero appeared beside me as I was grabbing a spacesuit. "You know Harlock called after you to stay put, right?"

"Did he? I didn't hear him."

Zero grinned. "I can't believe he puts up with you, Kid. If you don't get yourself killed, he's probably going to end up killing you."

"Maybe."

Once in my suit, I ran toward a cruiser, partly to hurry to the fight and partly to keep anyone from stopping me. I was usually eager for a fight, but this time I was practically ecstatic at the idea of one. It was as though I hadn't had a good one in ages.

"You may want to turn the com system off," Zero said behind me. He was resting his elbow on the back of the cruiser's seat with his chin in his palm. "Unless you just want to listen to me complain about your flying without retort."

"I'm a good pilot," I muttered, but shut the system off anyway. There was bound to be someone all too happy to complain about me through it, and I didn't need two people doing that at once. With my right hand in a clunky grip on the steering, I started forward.

"So these are the Mazone, huh?" Zero remarked with interest as I sped out of the hangar. There looked to be about six fighter jets. "First robots, then aliens, and now plants. What's next, demons? Hmm, flank left."

"I was going to do that anyway." I wasn't, but it was actually a good idea.

"Down 60 degrees." His tone was starting to sound more like Harlock's when giving orders. "Right 30 degrees." Maybe that was why I was following them. "Shoot the port side. It looks like a blind spot." They seemed to be keeping me alive too. "Atta boy." Maybe he wasn't such a bad captain.

I shot down the fifth pilot when a blast from the side graced my front. "This one's persistent," Zero said with a smirk. I turned and shot at the lone remaining pilot just as they returned fire. "I wouldn't have recommended that." He frowned, watching my front gun get taken out by the enemy's.

"I got hers too." It was true. We were both left with only our side blasters. That left me with a few options. None of them were particularly safe.

The Mazone started to race toward me, and I was about to turn when a strong set of hands closed over mine. "Oh, come on, that's no fun." Zero held a dangerous smirk on his face. "Let's play." With that, he pushed us forward toward the oncoming ship.

"What are you doing? We're going to crash!" I protested.

His eyes narrowed in concentration, a determined smirk crossing his face. "Just an old-fashioned game of chicken. First one to flinch loses."

Just a game? Was that all my life was to him? A game? Maybe he didn't care because he was a fucking ghost, but I didn't want to die. "You don't understand," I yelled. "These Mazone are insane martyrs. It's not going to care if it dies running into us!"

"Funny thing about living things," he returned. "Back someone or something into a corner, and it'll go out kicking and screaming. Even the bravest of martyrs will take the option to keep themselves alive if it's favorable. No one really wants to die, not even if they think they do."

My heart pounded in my ears as our ships sped toward each other. Would he actually try to move if we got too close? It seemed less and less likely with each second. I was going to die. Zero was going to get me killed, and everyone would think I'd died of sheer stupidity.

My breaths became sharp and thin as I tried to shake off the flashes of a memory. They intruded on the present and stabbed into my head. Now really wasn't a good time. But there was nothing I could do as the stars shifted between two different patterns, and two different crafts were hurtling toward me together. Then, just at the exact moment, mere meters away, they each veered off course.

"Gotcha," Zero grinned as he shot their vulnerable side and destroyed the ship in a fiery explosion.

I just sat, frozen, trying to process everything through my tired, frantic mind. I'd had closer calls and come out of scrapes worse, but in all of those, I'd been in control of what was going on around me. Death would have been my own fault and due to my own actions. It was different when my life was completely out of my hands. It felt the same way with killing someone. I would have had no problems killing the man in white, but murdering him without my will choosing to do it made his death feel wrong somehow. I was too weak and tired to try processing anymore, and Zero was being strangely quiet. I didn't care why because I was afraid if I thought about it too much, he'd speak again.

The kid dropped the last few feet from the cruiser to the ground, landing shakily on his feet. He was being oddly quiet, and I knew I'd screwed up. I needed to stop getting carried away. There was no way I would have allowed him to die, but he didn't know that.

I decided to give up the act. It was stupid of me anyway to think that I could get him to be a normal, happy kid. From what I'd learned, it wasn't Harlock's fault that Daiba's father had been killed, but I wasn't happy with him for taking the kid on-board. He was too young, and allowing him to fight was just making his hatred fester and grow. It wasn't any way to grow up, no matter what Harlock thought.

I could tell the kid was trying to hide how much he was bothered by what had happened. He kept his chin up as he pulled off his space suit and walked toward the hangar exit. When he reached the door, I placed a hand atop his head. "Sorry, Daiba, I promise I won't do that again."

He let out a quiet breath. "What are you doing?"

I let my hand fall. There was just no pleasing this kid. "Nothing."

When the door slid open, Harlock stood towering over the kid. The faintest hint of interest gleamed in his eye, but Daiba didn't seem to notice. He ducked his head under his captain's gaze.

"Daiba, it's one thing if you want to get yourself killed, but if you continue with stunts like that you could get someone else hurt."

I blinked. I'd heard those words before. Harlock must have had some sort of idea. Though his tone was even this time, I could remember him shouting the exact same thing at me before. The circumstances had been similar.

Daiba winced as I'd seen him do many times before like some sort of nervous habit.

Harlock continued as he had with me, though much calmer and not really meaning what he said. "You had better start thinking straight or you'll be off my ship."

And then I said…

"I knew what I was doing! I won didn't I?" Daiba barked.

Yes, that. I said exactly that. "Daiba," I called as curiosity began to eat away at me.

Harlock's eyes narrowed. "Daiba is there-?"

The kid must have panicked. He managed to push past his captain and through the door, darting down the hall toward his room. Harlock stared at his back with a look of stern confusion as I tried to avoid being dragged along by running through the wall after him.

I phased through the wall to the kid's room to find him leaning back against the locked door. His eyes flashed a variety of emotions with anger being primary.

Maybe I should have stayed quiet. He jolted as I spoke. "I'm not sure that was the best course of action th-"

"Shut up!" he yelled, eyes filled with desperation and hate. "Damn fucking ghost. Why do I have to be stuck with you? And why do I have to see that damn hole in your head all the time? Why do I have to be reminded all the time that you…" He broke off, shaking his head. It seemed that all his strength left him, and he slid down the door to sit and hug his knees.

"Sorry, Daiba," I sighed, trying to keep my expression even. "You know if I still had my hat…" I couldn't hold back a pained smile. "I wonder what happened to it. I kept it in my room, but…"

I noticed him flinch again, but he spoke up before I could ask. "He knows, doesn't he?"

"Harlock? I'm sure he has an idea, but I doubt he thinks I'm haunting you." I needed a better word for that.

"So, what does he think?"

I gave a short laugh. "I've never claimed to know the answer to that, and I'm not going to now." His gaze dragged up to me, though he didn't say anything. The deep bags beneath his eyes stood out against his pale skin. "You look dead," I commented. I hadn't even intended to make the awful joke and pretended I didn't notice it. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

"Yeah, just tired." He was a terrible liar, but I decided not to press him. We lapsed back into silence, my gaze moving ahead to stare at nothing when he spoke up again. "Hey, Zero."

"Hmm?" I kept my eyes forward.

"How did you die? I mean I know you were shot, but…how?"

He'd finally asked. I had figured he would eventually, but I still wasn't prepared to answer. I was a coward. I didn't want to. My death had been useless. I hadn't gone out in any way that I could have felt proud of. Maybe I had felt some accomplishment at first, but time wore me down to see how foolish it had been.

"Are you sure you want to know?" I sighed, sinking down to sit next to him.

He considered his answer for a moment, but relented with a shrug. "Yeah."

I took a deep, pointless breath in and out. "Alright, do you remember how our psychopath said only two people had ever resisted his mind control, Harlock being one of them?"

"You were the other?"

"No, not exactly. I never really agreed with that statement. You see, I didn't actually disobey the orders I was given."

Oh, I'm terrible.

"Fun" fact: In my original draft, the burn scar on Zero's face reached up to his eye, so I could give him an eye patch. Then I decided that was stupid, but I kept the scar because I'm terrible.