This takes place well after "Crash" – Piper has recovered to where she's walking on her own. We still haven't heard back from the rest of the crew, and Stork's going to have to leave the ship in search of supplies. By this point, they've gotten rather far in their physical relationship. Stork has latched on to her emotionally, and dotes on her. Worries about her. It's cute, in a very puppy dog sort of way, I think.

xxxxx

"Piper?"

She groans, waves a hand away. Curls over and seeks sleep.

I give a small 'heh'. "Piper..." I reach out and touch her, wiggling her shoulder a smidge. This time she whines.

"Stork..." she mutters. She scoffs, and carefully raises an eyelid to look at me. Her eyes are red, and she is still very tired. "What?"

I can't help the lopsided grin on my face. She is not a morning bird.

"I'm heading to town," I announced. "Considering I'm not sure where town is, I may be a while, but I'll try to be back before dinner. Alright?"

Her face softens. A smile forms. "Alright." She forces a hand up to touch my face, and I nuzzle into it. "You be careful out there. And stay out of trouble."

I give her an innocent look. "You've met me, right?"

She giggles. "I'd hope so. I wouldn't want to be sleeping with strangers. It'd give me a bad reputation." Her tired eyes give me a wink, and I chuckle.

"You need sleep," I note, and I give her the hand back, blessing her temple with a kiss. She's so warm. And brown, like chocolate. "Don't forget to eat something when you get up. You're still not at full form."

"Yes, Doctor," she replies, her voice husky.

Kazaa, she makes it hard to leave. "Bye, Piper..." I say, forcing my feet to move out of the room.

"Bye..." she calls after me, turning over in bed.

There's still a smile on my face when I get to the hangar bay. As I look around, I applaud myself on what all I've accomplished in these last, several weeks. For one, gotten a regular sleeping pattern back. Ah, how good it is to not have an alarm clock waking you in the morning. Or evening. The simple pleasure of taking a nap any time you want to. No helm to worry about. No rowdy sharpshooters banging on your door for assistance in tomfoolery. No forgetful mechanics asking where such-and-such is hiding. The rat's absence is particularly wonderful – I'm always worried he's scuttling about in my ducts somewhere, causing mischief where he ought not be.

The Condor is beginning to resemble herself again. Broken windows removed, damaged panels repaired as best as I could manage, or else added to the trash heap. The hallways cleared, and every room relieved of its damages and trash. Sadly, a lot of things will need to be replaced. I'll need sheet metal for the ship's hull. Lots of sheet metal. To be honest, I was likely going to run out of the kind of crystals I need for my welding torch, too, before I was done with everything. New windows, and I think some kind of heat source. I have no idea how much replacing everything is going to be. We did our best to convert our money into tradeable goods, but I really don't know how well it will go. I'm hoping 'outdated' translates well into antiques, for one. One man's hunk-of-junk crystal is a Merb's just-what-I-needed tool. Say one thing – we Merbs are resourceful.

I just hope someone else out here is, too.

I open the hatch – she grinds something awful, but that's to be expected with power almost nonexistent – and shudder at the whipping wind from outside. There's a storm coming in, I think. I look back to where I came from, and am grateful we moved somewhere nearer the center of the ship. Lighting is nice, but not freezing to death is nicer.

Most of the clutter around the hangar bay has been replaced to where it belonged, and I had finally checked the rides last night. I'd been putting it off until after Piper was up and walking on her own – something she'd managed almost a week ago, and still, I couldn't bring myself to do it. My ride, I wasn't so worried about, but Piper's...

It was a mess. Scrap metal, at best. I mean, I could put it back together, but the scarring... Well, every time she sat on it, she'd be reminded of the incident. Or else get a new seat. Hell, a new ride would be better. Or at least the parts to make one. I was clever, I could do that. In fact, it was one of the things I really wanted to shop for today – a ride for Piper. That way she wouldn't be stuck here, nor would she need me to fly her around.

For the sake of argument, I could have her fly me around, but... I didn't really want her flying my ride. Not that I didn't trust her, but... Well, it was mine. Which meant it had a lot of things and bobs and traps and the like, and it would be very easily conceivable that in a panick she would just start pushing buttons at random, and I know it would end disastrously.

No, Piper needed her own ride. Something to be hers. Something she could fly without worrying about being killed by pressing the wrong button.

So, knowing for damned certain that she needed a new ride, and having that at the top of the list of things that needed acquiring, I had made up my mind to venture out of the ship today.

But first, a jacket. I went to the hatch that held a lot of survival gear. Of the many things included, NORMAL clothes, not ship suits. Not that I had anything in particular against our ship suits – they did a fair job of armoring one's self against the elements. But I wasn't so sure I wanted to go out with a giant Storm Hawks emblem on my back. So I grabbed a black leather jacket, and a helmet, naturally.

Thus garbed, I got into my ride, feeling a little guilty. I looked back at the hatch, thinking of Piper. I still didn't like leaving her alone. I didn't like leaving the Condor. What if some vultures showed up and picked her clean? Piper...

I sighed. Piper would be a sitting duck. Advanced technology notwithstanding, she simply couldn't stand up against the physical force of a group of men who had morals low enough to scalp dead ships.

I spoke with experience.

A ride for Piper, I told myself. That was the goal for the day. And I had already agreed to the compromise of acquisition. A nice way of lying to myself, but I tried not to think on it.

The grumble of my engine sounded so sweet. The tumbling of mechanics after so long in silence. I moved out of the hangar bay with a sense of determination wrestling with my worry. I'd spent the night debating, however, and it was only by reminding myself 'a ride for Piper' that the determination had won out.

A ride for Piper. I sincerely hoped I could find something.

xxxxx

A little tiny bit of foreshadowing... But only if you look at it from the right angle. And know what I'm talking about (which kind of defeats the purpose of foreshadowing, really).