A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Reviews are always appreciated! I can't get better without your input! 3 God bless!

Disclaimer: I own Nick Morgan, the R.L.S. Galaxy, the R.L.S. Rogue, the R.L.S. Phoenix, Princess Alanna, Ishmael, Capt. Trelawney, and the R.L.S. Helios. Anything that you recognize from the film belongs to Disney, and anything you're not quite sure about… just figure it's mine. ;)

Jim leaned in to look at the screen. Something had caught his eye… at the top of the screen was a blinking word.

Destination?

Jim looked at the map. There were two highlighted spots that the computer wanted them to choose from. One was behind them—clearly the Galaxy, from its sheer size—and the other was in front, buried just within the border of the storm cloud looming ahead. "No…" he said. "I don't think it's going to…"

"What's wrong?" she asked, watching his face as he turned the discovery over in his head again and again, trying to make some sense of it.

"See that?" he asked, pointing to (but not touching) the screen where it indicated the second ship. Nick nodded. "That's not supposed to be there. There's not supposed to be any ships in this direction at all, much less in the storm cloud, and even less ones that aren't moving at all. See the Galaxy?" he moved his hand to the lower part of the screen, indentifying their ship. It was moving in little blinking steps, inching closer to the center of the radar screen, where they sat. "It's moving along—slowly, but moving. This one's not. Which it should be, even if it were a pirate ship, a merchant ship… anything. Either that crew got into trouble with the storm—which means it's worse than we expected—or something was wrong with them before the storm got there."

Nick looked intrigued and only mildly concerned by this whole thing… it was terribly exciting to go joyriding, find a rogue ship, and spot a gigantic solar storm, all in one day. "Can we go check it out??" she pleaded.

Jim looked at her oddly. "No! We can't just go barreling into that kind of storm, and pull up alongside an unknown, unauthorized ship!"

"Sure we can! It's not moving! We can outrun it if anything goes wrong!"

"Just 'cause it's not moving doesn't mean it can't!"

"If it could move then it wouldn't be sitting in the storm! Obviously it's been abandoned—it's just a ghost ship!"

Jim opened his mouth to argue—and paused. She had a point… "Fine. We'll head over to the edge of the storm, and see what we can see. If that damn thing sucks us in, I'm blaming you."

"Whatever. You could steer this tugboat through the middle of that storm and back out again."

He flushed faintly and tried to think of a way to answer that. "I might be able to steer it," he said at last, "but that doesn't mean it'll hold up."

Nick shrugged lopsidedly and looked out into space, slightly embarrassed by her profession of confidence in him. Jim noticed but said nothing, and switched the screen on the console so that he could relay a message back to the Galaxy.

Found something of interest. Will take longer to return. Do not attempt to contact, as messages may be intercepted. Will contact when returning.

When the message was successfully transmitted, he threw open the throttle and headed toward the storm. They sat in silence as they approached the huge purple cloud, the solar winds roiling and whipping through the astral dust. This wasn't like the storm back in port… this one held no rain. It was a dry storm, all wind and dust and lightning encased within. They were common occurrences, but normally much smaller and moving much more predictably. This one was huge and moving quickly, and clearly doing so in unanticipated directions. Nick felt a little tingle run down her spine. This was going to be exciting.

The winds at the edge of the storm pushed out toward them, making the engines work harder to breach the wall of clouds. But within the massive tempest the winds turned in on themselves, swirling and agitating, cyclones forming and dissolving as the gale raged. It was no more severe than the winds at the outskirts, but more contained—the storm battled itself. Suddenly Nick understood the concern in Jim's voice when he realized this storm was heading for the Galaxy. It would certainly do a number on the ship, and probably many of the hands. Somehow this was one situation in which greater size would work against them—the wind might not move the galleon around very much, but it would certainly shred the sails and batter the crew senseless. But in their tiny craft, the wind merely picked them up and moved them where it wished, leaving them aboard and the sail mostly intact. Jim leaned forward intently, trying to steer against the winds and continue moving toward the little spot on the map. It wasn't too far into the storm… it should be around here somewhere… there! Right there behind that cloudbank. Jim and Nick both turned to each other and pointed, in unison. Then they smiled awkwardly and nodded, returning to the physical and verbal silence from before.

He put the longboat into a shallow dive, dropping below the level of the hull of the ship. He was counting on the thick dusty clouds to shield them from view, but it also made it more difficult to see the ship. As far as he could see, there was no one walking along the fo'c'sle, nor on the bow… and if there was anyone in the crow's nest, they were not doing a very good job. There was still the possibility of crewmen on the main deck, but it seemed highly unlikely that they would be on the lookout, nor that they would be able to see much. In fact… he rather doubted that anyone on that ship could see much. There were no lanterns lit, no warm glow seeping out through any of the portholes, and not a flicker of movement anywhere. It occurred to Jim suddenly that the crew might have abandoned the ship in the storm, fleeing via longboat. He suddenly realized that this was seeming more and more like the ghost ship Nick had guessed it to be, and a sense of foreboding grew in the pit of his stomach. He dropped his guard a little, more focused on getting to the ship quickly than avoiding being seen.

Nick glanced over at Jim when the longboat began to pick up speed. His face was drawn and his jaw set hard. She looked down—his knuckles were white. A sudden wash of anxiety swept through her, and her stomach felt like she'd swallowed ice. What she had thought was going to be a fascinating adventure had instantly become more ominous. Her hands were tucked under the backs of her knees, clenching the edge of the bench, and she leaned forward nervously. She began to wish she hadn't insisted they explore the ghost ship. "Do you want to go back?" she asked, shouting over the storm. "We don't have to—"

"Yes we do," he interrupted. "We have to finish this."

"No… we can just give up. We can go back!" she cried. He shook his head and sped up, trying to dissuade them both. Too soon, the longboat drew alongside the ship and Jim engaged the vertical thrusters to bring them up to deck level. A quick look around revealed no signs of life, and the deck was actually surprisingly empty altogether. There were no crates, no barrels, no piles of rope. No signs at all that the ship had ever been inhabited. Jim climbed out of the longboat and onto the ship, turning back to give Nick a sharp look.

"Stay here!" he commanded.

"To hell with that!" she replied, climbing out to stand next to him. He stared at her, trying to decide if he could get away with tossing her back in the longboat, but decided she'd climb back out. Then he mentally berated himself for taking seven whole seconds to realize this, and tried a different tactic.

"Is there any way I can get you to stay here?"

"If you're so scared, why don't you stay, and I'll look around?"

"I'm not scared—there's nothing to be scared of! Look! There's no one here!"

"Then why leave me on the longboat?"

"Sorry, old habit," he replied sarcastically. "I'm supposed to protect the girl. Too bad I got stuck with a stubborn one who won't let me."

"But you said there wasn't anything—"

"There's not! Just… just come on. Stay behind me." He turned and walked across the deck, drawing his pistol as he went and flicking the safety off. He held it at the ready by his shoulder, and motioned to her to follow. She gulped and did as she was told, her heart thundering in her ears and a cold fist clenching her stomach. Nick wasn't prone to panic, but something close to it was surging through her veins and making it difficult to focus.

Jim was reacting mechanically, trying to detach himself from the nerves that jangled in his chest. If he could pull himself out of the equation and pretend this was another drill, he might be able to do this calmly. But the little figure that kept in his shadow was distracting him, because he hadn't done a drill where he'd had to protect a civilian that actually mattered to him… it was all just a drill. And the civilian had been a hologram who fizzled out when he died, not a living, breathing young woman… He couldn't think like that. Instead, he refocused himself on the task at hand. They crossed the deck to the stairs that led down into the hold, where the men would have slept among the extra supplies. Jim put a finger to his lips and motioned for Nick to stay behind him. He put his back to the wall and crept down slowly, scanning the room carefully. But the hammocks were all empty, and there was nothing else in the room. He motioned for Nick to follow, and they searched the room for anything that might indicate why the ship had been abandoned. They found nothing, not a shred of any kind of stock, or any sign that the room had ever been used. After a short while they surrendered and left the hold, wandering down the hall to the engine room, which was eerily silent and dimly lit by the red-tone emergency backup lights.

"If the generator's on," whispered Jim, "the ship's only been powered down for an hour at the most. That's strange…"

"So if they left, it was recently… d'you think the engine conked out on them and they ditched the ship in the storm?"

"No… look here." He pointed to the engine's power grid. There were several intimidating knobs and switches, but even Nick could have run the thing—there was a large lever labeled ON/OFF. She flushed with embarrassment to see that it was clearly switched to OFF.

"So someone shut it down," she said quietly. "Why, though?"

"I don't know. Let's just check the stateroom and the galley, and then get out of here. I have a bad feeling." He turned and abruptly headed for the door.

Nick took one last look around, her eyes falling on an odd-looking clock sitting haphazardly on the corner of the engine block, tucked under some machinery. It appeared that whoever was in charge of the engine room had kept time by his own clock, because it looked quite homemade and ran poorly. She shook her head and followed Jim up.

The captain's stateroom was less eerie than the hold and engine room. It was not entirely evacuated, and still held contraptions and maps and globes and starscopes… if she tried really hard, Nick could pretend that the captain had merely gone down to the galley for some coffee. But the desk drawer hung open and papers were strewn on the floor, handicapping her ability to pretend that he was on his way back. Jim peered into several drawers, and checked the maps that remained, calling out to her which star systems were still present.

"Envorian, Zytablani, Magellenic, Coral… Terra and Myamin are missing."

Nick felt a shiver run up her spine. "But if you're leaving in a hurry, those would be the two you would take, right? I mean, we're smack dab between those two…"

"Yeah… but these are merchants. Their port-of-call list is sitting right here. They just left Rittinor and were heading to Velamoor—that's in Envor, and the map's right here. Don't you think they would have headed there to try to talk their way out of trouble with whoever was expecting the delivery?"

Nick nodded and bit her lip. Something was nagging at the back of her mind, making her pulse elevate every minute that they lingered. Something was not right, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "Let's get out of here, please?" she asked quietly.

Jim left the desk and went back to the door. "One last stop and we're gone. I promise." He led the way back out onto the deck, and went down the steps to the galley with his pistol in two hands, held beside his cheek. Nick followed behind at a small distance, feeling the tension building in her as the bad feeling worsened. Suddenly Jim froze, and the gun dropped to his side as he looked around the galley.

The men had been caught unawares, that much was clear. From the way the bodies were positioned, it appeared that the ship had been taken entirely by surprise, and the ambushed crewmen had been herded into the galley and executed. Bodies lay along the edges of the room, piled atop each other, with blood and gore spattered on the walls. Jim's stomach churned as he surveyed the room, unable to tear his eyes away from the massacre.

"Wh…what…" breathed Nick behind him. He spun around to face her, and saw her two steps above him, eyes wide and one hand pressed to her mouth. She looked like she was going to cry or throw up… or both. He went up one step and blocked her view with his shoulder, putting his hands on her upper arms. Nick blinked once, then looked up at him for a second before dropping her eyes to the floor. She leaned into him slightly, and he feared for a moment that she was going to faint. But she steadied, and he gently turned her around and nudged her up the stairs.

"We have to go," he rasped. She nodded and took the stairs slowly, walking as though in a trance. "I'll be right up." He watched her go, waiting until she was on deck to enter the galley. He stepped over the wreckage of a broken bench, and tried not to disturb any of the dead men. As he walked, he spotted the sad creature that must have been the captain, dead alongside his men. When he reached the middle of the room he paused, trying to hear past the thundering of his heart… he thought he'd heard it before in the engine room, but he'd dismissed it as a faulty mechanism. Now he was hearing it again in the galley…

There! There it was… a clicking sound. He shut his eyes and zeroed in on it, turning toward the source. He took a step forward, and another, and followed the sound as it got fractionally louder. When he reached the stove, he peered into the huge cooking pot sitting on the burner. It was empty, save for a little mechanical device no bigger than the palm of his hand, which looked at first glance to be a sorry excuse for a clock. But the hands were moving backwards…

Adrenaline surged through him as he pivoted on the spot and raced back through the galley, hurdling the broken bench and taking the stairs two at a time. He nearly collided with Nick, grabbing her hand and dragging her along with him as he raced across the deck.

"Jim! What are you—"

"Hurry!" he shouted. He reached the side of the ship and swung her around in front of him, picking her up at the waist and depositing her in the longboat. Then he followed, jumping in beside her and jamming the accelerator lever down as far as it would go. They took off as fast as the longboat could manage, but the engine had grown cold sitting there, and he couldn't get it to shift into the next gear…

Behind them, the R.L.S. Helios exploded in a fiery cloud, raining burning wood, shards of glass, and sailcloth scraps down on the longboat as it shot through the dark sky.

---*---*---*---

Nick trudged back up from the longboat hold and retrieved Ishmael and the tiny bathtub from Alanna, thanking her briefly and stowing them in her room before finding her way to the kitchens. Without a word to Silver, she filled two buckets with hot water and walked back up to her room. Then she locked the door and took a bath, scrubbing hard to rid herself of the grime and the memory. To her dismay only one was solved with the bath, and even that was painful—there were tiny scratches all over her arms and torso and every inch of her skin hurt, along with a sharp pain in her skull from a piece of debris cracking her over the head during the explosion. It had started bleeding while she washed her hair, but thankfully was no longer doing so. She stowed her clothes in her knapsack, wondering if she'd ever be able to wear them again—the shirt was almost black from the explosion, and there was a splash of blood on the pants that she knew wasn't hers. She pulled out her last good set, the ones Alanna had given her to replace the ink-stained ones. She dried and dressed and lugged the water out to the deck to be dumped, and then went back to the room. When she entered Ishmael was lying in his usual spot under her hammock, his tail thumping the ground. He sat up and looked at her with a crooked doggy grin, which she rewarded with a sad half-smile. She crawled under the hammock and sat beside him with her back against the wall, scratching behind his ears. Then she rocked forward and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his fur. She had no idea how long she sat there like that, with her eyes shut tight, her head throbbing slightly, and the images of the murdered men flooding her mind. 'I should never have told him to go… I should never have argued… if we had turned around like he said, we wouldn't have found those men, and we wouldn't have almost died, and…'

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening and closing, and the sound of boots shuffling in. She didn't lift her head, but she did open her eyes a little, and loosen her grip around Ishmael. Jim was back from briefing the captain on their spontaneous reconnaissance mission, and she didn't want to know how that had gone.

"Can you sew?" asked a voice from above, cutting into her thoughts.

Nick raised her head and looked up at him in surprise. He was sitting on the bed facing her, still wearing the shirt from earlier that day… but his hair was damp. He must have showered down in the hold after his meeting. "Yeah… why?"

"Good." He peeled off his shirt and she saw that it was pockmarked with burns and little snags. She hoped he didn't want her to fix the whole thing. Then she noticed that his bare chest was covered in little bruises and burns… and that he was bare-chested… He laid the shirt on the bed beside him and tossed her a little white box just larger than her two hands—the sewing kit, she assumed. She crawled out from under the hammock and stood, walking toward the bed to retrieve the shirt. "The doctor is too busy taking care of Slopes—the idiot got his finger shut in a door." Jim rolled his eyes and turned to the left, pulling his leg up onto the bed bent at the knee. In turning, he presented her with his right upper arm, with a strip of fabric tied around it that was slowly turning crimson as the blood soaked through it. Nick took an involuntary step back.

"Oh-ho-ho no… I didn't say I would sew you!"

"Well either you do it or I do it myself, and I'm not left-handed!" he said shortly, trying not to bark at her. She set her jaw and took another step forward, prodding the bandage gently with her finger. Then she delicately untied the knot in the grubby rag, glad for once that her hands were small. It was much less difficult to be gentle. She took his elbow and he held his arm out away from his body as she unwrapped the cloth… and she certainly didn't take note of the fact that the same amount of cloth would have wrapped her own bicep twice as many times. When she was done, she pushed his am back down and wiped a little more blood from the wound.

"I don't think I should do this," she warned him, opening the white medical kit and pulling out a little bottle of cleanser, then set the box on the bed beside him. Her head was still pounding from earlier, and she began to wonder if there might be a bump. She poured some of the cleanser into her hands, rubbing them together to clean them, then poured a bit more of it onto a bit of gauze and swabbed the cut.

He inhaled through his nose and his arm twitched a fraction. "That stings!"

"You had to know it was going to. This is one of those it-gets-worse-before-it-gets-better things," she replied evenly, pushing out of her mind the fact that his arm—his bicep—felt like a rock under her fingertips, even through the gauze. She felt a little flush of warmth spread over her face, and she hoped against all hope that her face was not turning red. "What hit you?" she asked to distract herself, "Was this wood, or glass, or metal…?"

"Glass, I think. It's a pretty clean slice…" he said. Nick leaned in closer to inspect the cut for shards of glass or splinters. He turned his head to see what she was doing and felt his chest grow a little tighter as he realized how close she was. Her face was inches away… he could see every freckle across her nose and cheeks, and he could smell the soap from her hair. He watched her face as she frowned at the cut, ignoring the sharp twinges from her poking at it. He hadn't noticed before that her eyes were a deep navy blue, and that her eyelashes were so dark… he turned away quickly, suddenly realizing that he was not supposed to be looking at her like that.

Nick caught the flash of motion out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up, and saw him looking away. "Sorry… did that hurt?" she asked quietly.

"No… it's fine. Keep going." Nick inwardly scolded herself for asking a stupid question—had she honestly expected him to admit pain? He hadn't complained yet, and even his flinching when she cleaned the cut had been mild. She straightened up and wiped at the cut again with the clean gauze, then leaned over the medical kit to find a needle and thread.

"What are you doing?" asked Jim, turning to look. Unfortunately he lifted his arm to avoid hitting her on the head, and turned as she was straightening up again. She smacked the top of her head on his elbow, a few inches behind her hairline, narrowly missing her temple. He jumped back with surprise and Nick made indeterminate sound… either pain or frustration. "I'm sorry!" he said quickly… and rather loudly.

"Shh! Shh it's fine!" she hissed, her eyes closed tightly and her face scrunched up. He'd managed to conk her almost directly on the bump from the explosion. Pain shot through her head immediately, then slowly began to fade again. "It's alright, I'm fine," she said quietly. When she opened her eyes again, she saw him looking at her closely with concern. She stood up the rest of the way and took a step back. "I'm fine," she repeated, "now give me that arm."

He obliged, turning back around and looking down. Nick quickly threaded the needle and swabbed the cut once again, this time with an anesthetic. She held the edges of the slice together with her left hand, and bent down a little to look closer at it before starting to sew it closed.

Jim set his jaw as the needle pushed through the skin. She was being gentle, but there was only so much she could do. After a moment he decided that he was likely to break his jaw if he kept up with that, so instead he began to talk. "I'm sorry about today," he said quietly.

Nick paused in the act of pulling the thread through. "What are you talking about? None of that was your fault! I was the one who insisted we go look around… I made you do it."

"No, you didn't. And it's a good thing we did look around—even the captain said so. He's convinced that was another hit by the pirates who took the Rogue." One stitch finished… "But the ship was too small to trade off, so they cleaned it out and kept going." Two finished… "The fact that they rigged it to explode was a sign that they're paying attention to what the Navy is up to, and they know we found the Rogue." Three… "This was their attempt to cover their tracks. If we'd waited for backup like I said, we would have still been on the ship when it exploded." Nick finished the last stitch and pulled the thread tight. "You made the right call… even if it was an accident. Ow!" he said suddenly, jerking his arm away a little and turning away from her.

Nick jumped when he did, startled by his reaction. "Stop it!" she hissed. "You'll rip the stitches!" She dropped the needle, grabbed his elbow with her left hand, and shoved on the front of his right shoulder with her free hand to keep him from moving too far. He obeyed, and stopped abruptly, but Nick was already in motion. She stopped when she hit his shoulder with her collarbone, and her eyes suddenly grew wide as her face flushed red. Her heart thundered in her ears as she looked at him, her face only inches from his. Every bit of her mind screamed for her to move, to back up, to step away, but she couldn't react… other than to notice that his chest was under her hand… and it was still a very bare chest…

Jim tensed when he felt her hit, and turned his head to look at her. That was his big mistake. Suddenly she was right there, filling his vision, and he wasn't sure if he was going to throw her backwards in a panic, or pull her even closer… though even as the thought crossed his mind he knew he couldn't possibly do that. Even when she was right there, pressed into his shoulder like that, and he was pretty certain he could feel her heart pounding in her chest… when he could smell not only her soap, but the scent of her skin underneath it… when he found his eyes drawn down from hers, down along the line of her nose to the mouth just below it, lips slightly parted in surprise.

She watched him closely, her chest growing tight as his eyes searched her face. Every breath that she took filled her nose with the smell of him, making it slightly harder to remember to draw the next one. She studied his face—every line and curve was familiar to her, but somehow seemed different now. She looked up at his eyes… her stomach twisted almost painfully as she realized that he was looking at her mouth with a very clear purpose. She had grown to respect him as her first mate, and to like him as her friend, but he couldn't… they couldn't…

"You're bleeding," he whispered abruptly, cutting into her thoughts. Suddenly he brought his left hand around and lifted her chin slightly, turning her head to the side. Blood dripped slowly down the side of her face, sliding down from a cut hidden somewhere under her dark hair. "Did you get cut?" Surprise and a little horror crept onto his face. "Is that from when I hit you?"

"You didn't hit me," she retorted, jerking her chin out of his grip. Nick pulled her hand back from his chest, the skin separating stickily—her fingers were already bloody from his wound. She swiped at her cheek with the back of her wrist instead, making a bit more mess than she'd intended. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine, you're bleeding," he said wearily, the adrenaline and tension draining out of him quickly. He reached up to brush her hair back and find the source of the blood, but she jumped back, shaking her head.

"No! No… I'm fine. I'll take care of it in a minute. Let me finish the stitches," she said pushing his arm down and turning to look at her handiwork. "Remind me why you couldn't get someone else to do this?" she asked, an edge of irritation creeping into her voice.

"Because Slopes crushed his finger and the doctor was already working on his hand. He told me to wait… but I thought if you could do it then I wouldn't have to wait…" his voice grew less sure as he reached the end of his explanation.

"And Natalya and Mignonette?"

"I was going to ask one of them if you couldn't do it. Are you okay?" Nick had tied off the thread and looked around for scissors.

"Where is Morph when you need him?" she muttered. Jim handed her a pocketknife and she sliced the thread. "I'm fine," she repeated automatically, reaching for a strip of clean cloth to wrap around his arm. When she was done she tied it off and swiped at her cheek again, adding a little more blood to the stain on the back of her hand. "I'm going to go wash up," she announced, turning to walk out.

"Stop," he said. She paused, giving a weary sigh.

"What?"

"Let me see that," he ordered. She turned around and faced him. The trickle of blood had slowed almost to a stop, but the side of her face was smeared with it and it was in her hair too. He rose and walked over, catching her chin in his hand again and inspecting her cheek. He brushed the dark brown hair out of her face, looking for the cut. She tried to jerk her chin out of his grip, but he held firm and turned her to the side, searching further up, above her hairline. When he found the wound, he was surprised to see that there was a significant bump, with a small gash in it. It was not a bad injury, and she clearly wasn't suffering from a concussion or the like, but the cut still needed to be cleaned at the very least. When he lightly touched the area near the bump with his finger, she hissed "That hurts!" and tried again to pull free. This time he let her, and took a step back toward the bed to the medical kit.

Nick turned away and tried to make another break for it, but he reached out and snagged her wrist. "Do not try to run. You have to clean that out, or it'll get infected."

She sighed and yanked her hand out of his, getting frustrated. "I just need to wash my hands!"

"You can wash when I'm done! Why are you so mad at me all of a sudden?" he asked as he poured some cleanser onto a bit of gauze.

His question surprised her, and she looked up at him. "I'm not… I'm not mad. I'm just… I'm really tired. And my head hurts. Today sucked."

"Not all of it," he said, turning back to her and pushing her hair out of the way so that he could apply the disinfectant.

"No," she agreed. "But two dead crews and almost getting blown up kind of outweighed the good conversation." Her voice was weary and she stared at the floor, wincing as the cleanser stung the cut.

"Too much death for one day, huh?" he asked softly. "All you need is a beetle to seal the deal."

"There was one in the galley," she confessed.

"Seriously?"

She smiled and nodded faintly. When he let go of her head, Jim took a step back and walked around her to the dresser, pulling out a new shirt and shrugging it on. Nick blushed slightly when she realized again that he had been half-naked the whole time… she pushed that particular train of thoughts from her mind quickly.

"You'd better go wash your face," Jim said, cutting into her thoughts. "And be careful who you let see you like that. They'll think I beat you."

"If you hear applause, you'll know I've been spotted," she said acerbically. "I don't think the crew likes me much."

"We talked about this—they'd like you if you stopped talking back to them. You know that. That's the only thing keeping you from having friends. So just… don't talk."

Nick rolled her eyes and headed out onto the deck, going down into the galley to wash her hands and face. When she came back the lights were down and Jim was in his bunk, staring at the ceiling. She climbed into her hammock and rolled onto her stomach, reaching an arm down to scratch between Ishmael's ears.

There was a stunted goodnight, hindered by their exhaustion, the lingering tension from the day, and a hesitation born of awkwardness. Nick lay awake long after Jim fell into a restless sleep. She couldn't get her mind to shut down. Everything from the day replayed in her head, from lunch until just before they went to bed. She tried not to focus on the men in the ship… but their dead bodies floated to the forefront of her mind every so many minutes. She thought of something—anything—else, desperate to get her mind away from what she knew was going to haunt her for some time. Her thoughts floated to Jim… and suddenly she was thrust into the memory from earlier… that long pause when she had fallen into him… that was just a pause, wasn't it? It wasn't anything more, it didn't mean anything… they hadn't even paused for any reason. It was just that they were tired and startled… and there wasn't any reason to keep thinking about it. Even if there had been a reason for the pause—which she refused to admit—it was probably just… um… stress! It was stress. It had been a long day… with lots of emotional turmoil and a certain life-or-death situation which they had barely escaped, much less unscathed… but it was just that. It wasn't anything else. It couldn't be. She held onto that firm belief like a lifeline. There was nothing there but tension and stress, and a difficult day that they had somehow survived together. It had taken her a little while, but she managed to explain it all away.

Nick didn't sleep that night. She lay there, listening to him toss and turn, and stared at the ceiling with wide eyes, forcing the images of the slaughtered crew from her mind. Her eyes closed only a few times, and for only short periods, earning her little rest and no relief from the sinking, twisting feeling in her stomach.