Act 1

Jim comes home from another expedition onboard the RLS Lucky Star. The interstellar fleet have disolved that Jeremy Walkup have gathered, and everything have gone back to how things were before. Well, except that Seymour is still dead and that Jeremy now lives without a father.

On the doorstep of the Dopplers he is greeted by Sarah and handed a mysterious note that can only be from one person: John Silver. Jim runs to his room so that his mother will not see the content of the letter. Jim opens the letter eagerly and reads.

Ahoy, Jimbo.

I have got some good news. I have been hired by a count's daughter, named Adelaine Adessa Wilfried, as a guide. I bet you know what that means: that I have ended my career as a pirate. I am now a honest man, lad.

Now to some other news. I was in a bit of an accident the other day, and my mechanical arm got a bit damaged. I need you to come and take a look at it. And maybe you can also meet Adelaine.

With regards

Silver

Jim gets exited, he haven't met with Silver for a long time. It have been since the boy have been saved from Daniel Crow. Since then Jim have only got one letter from the cyborg, where Silver have told him that everything is good and that Silver have something going on. So this is it! Silver have become an honest man.

In the end of the letter there are coordinates to where Silver is staying. Jim almost throws himself at his backpack to start stuffing it with things that he surely is going to need, like tools, clothes and some money. He is going to have a few weeks of freetime from the interstellar fleet, as he usually gets between expeditions. Surely it will take about a week to get there, then he can spend a week with Silver and at last travel back home in another week, just in time for the next expedition.

"Are you leaving already?" Sarah asks when she sees her son get out of his room with his backpack over his shoulder. "You have just arrived."

"Yeah, I need to get out and see a friend." It isn't a lie, really. But Jim don't sant to tell his mother that he is still seeing the pirate that took them out on that little adventure when her second inn burned down.


When Jim gets to his destination after a week of traveling in his homemade longboat, which he have transformed back from a homemade submarine, he sees that the damage on Silver's arm isn't a small one. It have completely fallen off. But that isn't what Jim notices at first. It is the pink and red walls, the silk from the roof, the select furniture and the big brutes that he sees first.

"What is this place?" Jim asks as he gets closer to Silver. "It looks like a dollhouse."

"Don't say that in front of our hostess," Silver warns with a chuckle. "She seems to like these things."

"What have happened to you?" Jim points to Silver's arm, which lies besides the old cyborg on a table. Silver himself sits on a chair by the table, holding his organic hand over the stump that is left from his cybernetic one.

"Ah, a little accident. We experienced some turbulance, and a big box got loose. My arm got between the box and a wall as the ship careened."

"And your arm snapped? Was it really that heavy, that box?"

"It turns out Adelaine contained a bunch of clothes in that box, mostly furrs. And believe me, Jimbo, those can get really heavy when stacked in such a big box."

As Jim takes a seat at Silver's side, the side where Silver have his metal stump, the boy gives the cyborg a look that says that he doesn't quite believe it to be a reasnoble explanation. "Furrs cut your arm off?" Jim asks and eyes his friend with suspicion.

"That's at least what she said it was in the box."

Jim shakes his head, as he thinks that it sounds unbelivable, but in the end he drops it. Instead he turns his attention to Silver's broken arm. "Where is this Adelaine, by the way," the boy wonders as he doesn't see any count's daughter in the room, or any girl at all for that matter.

"She have some errants to take care of, she said. She is to come back any minute."

And after ten minutes of fiddeling and inspecting with the arm Jim looks up as someone enters the room. The one that comes in looks as much as a doll to the boy that he has to take a second look to really see if she is a real person. The pink dress, with the glittering stones that flickers the light in different directions, only strenghtens the first expression.

When she sees Jim she halts, and gives him a good look over. "My name is Adelaine Adessa Wilfried," she presents herself and comes closer to offer her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet the famous James Hawkins. Mr. Silver have talked a lot about you."

Jim stands up and tales her hand. He also looks into her eyes, as his mother once taught him to for fine people. If he had a hat or something else on his head this would be the time to take it off. But as he looks deep into her eyes he sees an interest in him that feels strangely eerie.

"How are the repairs going?" she asks as she takes a seat together with Jim and Silver.

"It's going well. It might take a day or two to fix it, but it is perfectly doable."

"Are you going to travel home after that, or are you planning to stay in the neighbourhood for a while?"

"I have a week to spare, then I have to move on."

She smiles for the first time. It is a smal, a bit shy smile, and her eyes flutters a bit. If Jim haven't known better he would say that it all seems a little forced. Or maybe not forced, but fake. "Do you have a place to stay?" The though haven't really hit him before, but he guesses that he can hire a room at an inn or a bar. And he tells her as much. "You can stay here, if you want," she offers. "Silver stays here as well."

Jim thinks for a moment. It seems quite nice to just give such an offer, but if it is good for Silver it must be good for him as well. "Well, I guess I can."

Adelaine seems pleased to hear it.


She have never felt such a feeling. It's like a tingeling in her stomach when she sees him. Adelaine thinks that she might be, for the first time, in love. Jim is dashing, beautifull and strapping. And also it seems like he is handy, when it comes to repairing stuff. He did repair Silver's arm in one and a half days.

When she saw him for the first time she defenetly wanted him as her boyfriend. And she alsways gets what she wants.


The week doesn't go as Jim have planned. Adelaine doesn't let him be alone for a second. She asks him a thousand questions about his life, where he comes from, his adventures and his interests. She also brings him gifts, like new tools, a new overall, a new toolbox and protective gloves. The overall and the gloves actually are appreciated, as the overall protects him from smudging his usual clothes - which he hadn't before - and the gloves protects his hands when he works so that he doesn't hurt himself - which he also hadn't before.

The attention from Adelaine is flattering at first, but in the end it is unwanted and tiring. All he wants is to be with Silver, but to enjoy the cyborg's company is impossible with all the attention from Adelaine. And Jim can't really tell her to go away, not politely anyway, when both Jim and Silver lives at her place.

When, finally after three days, she goes of to do something Silver ponds Jim in the ribs with a smile on his lips. "Seems you got an admirerer, Jimbo."

"Tell me about it!" he exclaims in a hushed voice. "But how will I make her stop?"

"I am sure that she will stop when she notice that you aren't interested."

But it turns out that it doesn't work; either she doesn't notice or she doesn't care. After the week is at an end he is so fed up with all the attention that he is glad to leave. But That's not the end of it, as Jim first have thought. In the following week, right before he is to go on the next expedition, she comes visiting him at the Dopplers house unannounced. But it turns out to be a short visit, much to Jim's relief.

It takes about he hears from Adelaine again. Jim mostly believe it is thanks to the expedition that he have gone on on the RLS Lucky Star. He is glad to be free from the attention for a while. But that changes when he comes back.

When he comes home he discovers a whole pile of letters from her, and it is not of any kind; it is love letters. In them she declares her love to him, asks him to be her boyfriend and for him to move in with her. He doesn't give any reply to her, as Jim doesn't know what to say. Sarah doesn't know what to say either at the sight.

The letters keeps on coming for two weeks before they finally stop. But then there is a letter from the interstellar fleet, that tells him to appear on the RLS Lucky Star at once. Jim wonders what it might be about, as he isn't to go on the next expedition for another two weeks.


"Ahoy there, Jimbo!"

Jim looks up with a startle as he goes on the harbor, and sees Silver onboard the RLS Lucky Star. In plain view, with people that knows of his past crimes.

"You're here?" Jim asks. "What are you doing here? You want to go to prison or something?"

"Seems like I'm not a criminal anylonger," Silver answers with a honest smile. "Adelaine's father have settled my record and cleared me from any and all crimes. Pretty neat, huh?"

Jim couldn't believe it. Silver isn't considered a pirate anymore? "But why?" Jim stutters, both out of happiness and confusion. "Why would he do such a thing?"

"Apperently Adelaine insisted on it." Silver chuckles a little more when he observes Jim get onboard the RLS Lucky Star. "I guess she wants to impress on a certain someone." The cyborg pokes Jim in the ribs with a sly smile on his face.

Jim's eyes darkens. "Oh my god - when will she end?"

Silver gets confused. "What?" Jim proceeds to explain about the last few weeks love letters. "Oh, so it was you she write so ferociously to," Silver says and scratches his cheek. "Maybe this love mess is starting to get to much."

"You think?" Jim can't believe it. Even though it is a nice gesture to free Silver from all his crimes Adelaine does it for completely wrong reasons.

"Then maybe it is a bad thing for you to know that she is the financier of this trip," Silver reveals.

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, together with her father, Gregory." Silver continues to tell Jim the reason the boy have been summoned. It is that Adelaine, and her father, have financed the ship to go get a lost jewel of great power.

"You got to be kidding me!" the boy sighs, more to himself than anything else. He then suddenly looks to the side as something catches his eyes. At once he takes a step closer to Silver's big frame and hides, as a pinkwearing Adelaine comes around the corner. Jim glances up at Silver with a strict look upon his face. "Don't you dare give me away," the boy whispers in a hushed voice. "Adelaine is coming up behind you."

Silver turns as him is clutching to his back. "Oh, hello there, Adelaine," the cyborg greets. "Barely heard that you were approaching."

"Hello, Mr. Silver," Adelaine says. "Do you know if Mr. Hawkins have arrived yet?"

"No, he have not come yet, but he is to come any minute now."

"Good. Report to me as soon as he is onboard." With that she walks away same way she have come from.

"Whiew," Jim sighs and comes out from behind Silver. "Can barely believe that it worked."

"You do know that I have to tell her that you are here sooner or later, don't you?" Silver asks as he looks down on the boy.

"Yeah. I only want to push it up as long as possible."


Act 2

The travel gets as unpleasent as Jim have first expected. Adelaine just wont leave him alone. Everywhere he goes she follows. Everything he does she observes. All he says she takes in. She have even gotten a pink overall and red gloves, so that she can help him with his work. She does so by moving things for him, holding things for him and easy stuff like that.

When it comes to her father, Gregory, he is more withdrawn and reserved. But he treats Jim with warmth, as if the boy is one in the family. I sure holds that Gregory doesn't have any expectations when it comes to me and his daughter, Jim thinks, just as he brings himself to laugh at something the older man have said.

Jeremy doesn't help anything at all, as he seems to enjoy the whole show. "How does it feel to have a girlfriend," he teases Jim one day. "Is it like you have imagined?"

"Oh, shut up," is the only answer Jeremy gets.

The trip goes on in a snailphase as Jim tries to endure Adelaine's company. He tries to tell her time and time again that he isn't interested, but it doesn't work as she keeps coming at him. And between her endevours and Gregory's expectingly gaze Jim wishes he have stayed at home.

He goes one day to Silver to ask for advice, when the boy have shaken Adelaine off. "I don't really know what to do in such a situation, Jimbo," the cyborg says. "The only thing I can see to get her to stop is to speak up with force."

"But I don't want to hurt her feelings," Jim objects.

"It might be the only way. Onesided love might not be any love at all."

But even how much Jim gatheres himself, he can't possibly say as it is in a way Adelaine understands. He is too afraid to hurt her feelings, as she have given him so many fine gifts and have made so that Silver is free from his crimes. She have done so much in a try to earn his love that it seems cruel to turn her down. So Jim have to endure Adelaine's attention, even when he senses that it can only end badly.


Their travels leads them to two twin suns that slowly dances around each other in a circular, monotone movement. In the middle of this ringdance, inbetween the two stars, shines something so wonderfully strong that some in the crew believes it to be another, much smaller sun.

"It isn't a sun," Gregory speaks when the crewmembers says this aloud. "It is the lost treasure of Cupid. Legend says that it have the power to make anyone fall in love with the holder."

"Jim's eyes bulges out when he hears this, and eyes Adelaine with suspicion. Is she going to use it on me? he wonders. Then he waves the thought away as well as his suspicion. It is just another stone. It doesn't have such power.

"All halt," captain Cassity orders when they have to a certain distance to the stars. "We can't get closer than this, or we will be teared apart by the gravity of the two suns."

"But what about my jewel?" Adelaine asks and stomps one foot in the floor. "I want it, and I want it now."

"Theoretically," Jeremy buts in. "If a small object, in enough high speed, goes inbetween two suns with about the same gravitational pull it can come thru pretty much unscaved."

That gives Jim an idea. "If I make some adjustments to my homemade longboat I think I can make it quite fast."

"Who will ride it after you are done with it?" Gregory wonders.

Everyone one the crew looks at each other to see if anyone volonteers, but no-one does. It sounds pretty risky for everyone. Jim rolls his eyes, he will live to regret this. "I guess I'll go."

"No," a voice disagrees, and Jim turns to see that it is Silver. "I'll go."

"What, why?" Jim asks. "I said I could go."

"And what if it goes wrong? How will I live with myself if you dies? And especially for something as stupid as Cupid's lost jewel."

"Cupid's jewel isn't stupid!" Adelaine objects. Then she turns to Jim. "In one thing Mr. Silver is right, however; you shouldn't die. You are too precious." As she says the last part her cheeks turns red, and Jim can hear how Jeremy snickers.

"But -" Jim tries, but Silver cuts him off.

"No buts, Jimbo. It's already decided. I'll go."


After a few days the adjustmens are done, and Silver sits in the homemade boat. Hemmets instructions of Jim on how to fly it as Adelaine comes into the hangar. She kisses Silver on the cheek and claps him on the shoulder.

"Thank you for doing this instead of Jim. And that you will try to get me my jewel."

"Gosh, it's nothing, lass," Silver speaks and blushes.

When Jim are done giving instructions he, together with Adelaine, stands back as Silver unties the longboat from the ropes that is holding it up and flies out the hangar thru the open ports that sits in the ship's bowels. The two of them runs up all the stairs, and panting they arrive upon the top deck. There the whole crew stands to look on the fool that will try to get the jewel between the twin stars.

Suddenly Jim realizes what really might happen if something goes is to go wrong. He will loose a second father, and things might lapse into what was before, when Jim was lost and got everything wrong. When he always made Sarah upset and dissapointed.

Jim gets suddenly terrified over loosing Silver. The boy hopes that everything will go correctly.


Silver looks over to the ship, to where Jim is. His beloved boy. His very own cabin boy. John surely hopes that he will live to see that thickheaded lad once again when Silver sees how the ship grows smaller and smaller.

Silver turns ahead, towards the twin stars, and sets the longboat up so that its front points straight towards the jewel. Then he takes a deep breath to prepare himself. A few seconds goes by, where he eyes the scene in front of him. After what seems like an eternety he gives full gas, and starts to fly towards the suns.


Jim and the others looks on as Silver flies towards the stars, accelerating in speed for every second. He goes in a straight line towards the jewel, until he is but s tiny spot on the horizon. For a moment the gathered crew doesn't notice any change in the scene, then the bright shine inbetween the suns starts to move.

"He got it!" one in the crew exclaims, and everyone starts to applause and cheer. It seems like the whole thing have worked. Jim lets out a sigh of relief, but when Silver gets back the boy is in for a shock.

As the light comes closer the longboat gets more distinguishable, and it goes the same for Silver onboard it. The boat have been torn into pieces, and for a moment Jim is afraid that Silver is injured. But luckily he seems fine. Both Jim and Adelaine runs back to the hangar, closely followed by Gregory, captain Cassity and the rest of the crew.

"You can't believe it, Jimbo!" Silver exclaims as he gets onboard the ship. "It was amazing. I gave full throttle, and for a moment i thought that I was done for as the longboat started to be torn apart by the gravity from the two suns. But when I grabbed the jewel from the bare air and came out on the other side I knew i would make it."

Jim couldn't stop himself; he embraced Silver in a tight hug, even though he could barely reach around the cyborgs stomach. "You're unbelivable," he mumbles into the soft tissue that is Silver's chest.

"Well, thank you, lad," Silver says and hugs the boy back with the jewel in one hand. When they withdraws from each other they both turns to Adelaine. "Here you go, lass," the cyborg says and offers the jewel to her.

She takes it and holds it for a long time. She admires it's color, which turns out to fittingly be pink. When it was between the suns and shimmered their sunlight it sparkled white. She then brings it to her chest, close to her heart and closes her eyes. Jim wonders what she is doing, but doesn't say anything. For a moment she stays like that, then she opens her eyes and expectantly observes Jim.

"James, do you love me?" she asks him with an honest voice.

That's when a light turns on in Jim's mind, and he understands what she was trying to do just a second ago. She have tried to use the power of Cupid's lost treasure on him. She have tried to make him fall in love in her with the help of the jewel. He honestly doesn't feel any change. He sees that she is holding her breath, and expects a yes. But he decides to answer with the truth, even when he senses that it might make her upset.

"No," he answers after a moment of hesitation.

Her mood darkens considerably, and for a moment she just stares. Then her lower lip starts to shake, and her eyes start to water. "I don't get it," she says as tears starts to roll down her cheeks. "Why won't you love me?"

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I just don't."

She isn't happy with the answer at all. Suddenly she throws the jewel onto the floor with all the force she can manage. It only bounces a bit before staying still, totaly unscaved. Then she runs away, crying, and as she dissapears she pushes aside the crew that stands in her way.

"Adelaine, sweetheart!" her father calls after her and is about to run after her. But he is stopped by Jim.

"Let me handle this," the boy says calmly, and feels oddly grown-up for the first time. He runs after her, and dissapears among all the hallways that makes up the stomach of the ship.


It isn't very hard to find her; her sobs pretty much gives her away. Jim finds her in the machine room, on the other side of the ship, crying and quietly wailing. When he sees her he stops at the open doorway, and only observes her. He feels sorry for her. Everything she wanted was to be loved.

After a minute of just silently watching her he finally starts to approach her. First now she notice that he is there, and glares up at him from where she sits, collapsed and sad.

"Go away," she sobs, with tears streaming down from her eyes. "You can't either way stand me."

Jim can't push away the thought that she surely haven't been denied anything in life before, and that is why she have taken this so badly. "That's becouse you tried too hard for me to like you," he answers. "If you are just you, I might turn out to like you as a friend."

"But I don't want us to be friends. I want more."

"You can't have more," he sighs and gets down on his knees beside her. "You can't get everything here in life, and the best thing you can do is to settle for the next best thing."

She gives off a small hick as she keeps on crying, but she seems to understand what he's trying to say. He's about to get up and leave when an odd idea comes over him, and a weak memory comes up to the surface. But not quite.

Jim takes a seat by Adelaine's side, puts an arm around her and lets her cry out on his shoulder. "There, there," he comforts her. "It will be alright."


On the way home Jim doesn't meet up with Adelaine even once; she stays in her private quarters, which only she have acces to. Jim doesn't know if she's crying or does anything else. Maybe she thinks on his words and is figuring out her situation.

When Jim leaves the ship as they finally have come to the harbor at the interstellar fleet it's the first time he sees Adelaine again. She doesn't even glance his way. She looks horrible, as if she haven't sleept that very well.

After a month, maybe after one and a half, Jim gets a letter from her.

Hi there, James

I'm sorry that I didn't say goodbye to you when we parted. It's just that I have thought a lot on what you said. I am also sorry for my behaviour so far.

All I wanted to say is that I really like to have you as a friend. And I hope that you want me as a friend after all that happened.

With love

Adelaine Adessa Wilfried