Fiona had heard tales of the Eridium Blight. That it had always consisted of a tumultuous landscape even before Hyperion had come in and razed it all, scarring the planet permanently. They were too far from the actual site of the scar to see any of the purple eridium remnants layered throughout the earth, but the ground was cracked with lava even this far away. In a strange way, she thought, it could almost be considered beautiful, if only because it was so different from the rest of Pandora's wasteland deserts.

Then Rhys decided to ruin it by zig-zagging across it.

Fiona stopped dead in her tracks - she hadn't thought that he'd actually try running, but here they were. She closed her mouth that had opened in shock when he'd taken off running, and watched in exasperation as he swerved left and right, shouting out the entire time. His arms were flailing in the air and she sighed as she realised that he was only making himself an even bigger target by doing so. Fiona brought a hand to her face and closed her eyes, but couldn't stop a soft laugh escaping breathily through her nose as her lips curved upwards.

"Oh, Rhys..."

She heard the heavy footsteps of the stranger stop beside her and she looked up as he watched Rhys flail around ahead. Despite the mask, she sensed the quizzical expression and could have sworn he was raising an eyebrow under there.

"He says it makes him harder to hit," Fiona offered by way of explanation, before smirking, "but I'm starting to think that this is just how Rhys runs. Pretty sure he did some similar 'avoidance tactics' when we were ambushed by bandits once."

"That seems about right," the stranger commented dryly, "based on my limited interactions with him."

"Yeeeah, about five minutes talking to him is all it takes to learn that this... is him," Fiona said just as dryly, but she smiled fondly at the sight without even realising she was doing it.

"We should catch up before he goes too far," the stranger said as he started walking in Rhys' direction. Fiona chuckled as she fell into step beside him.

"Ehh, he'll run out of steam in a minute or so. Not exactly famous for his stamina."

They walked in silence for a few moments, watching Rhys continuing to zig-zag, though he'd slowed his pace somewhat. Fiona smiled, thinking back to their journey across Pandora all those months ago, searching for pieces of Gortys. He'd been hilariously and somewhat alarmingly unfit back then, too. Some things don't change.

"So," the stranger began quietly, "you don't hate him, even after everything that apparently happened?"

Fiona's breath caught in her throat, disarmed. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with it."

"I don't really see how it's relevant to the story of what happened over a year ago, now," Fiona said shortly, somewhat irritated.

"It's relevant because I'm asking," he said and Fiona could hear that he was growing irritated, too, "and considering I'm the one with the gun, I'm allowed to ask whatever I'd like."

She'd somehow almost managed to forget about that. "... Right."

Ahead, Rhys slowed and even though he was facing away from them, they could both tell he was struggling. Fiona smirked as she watched him come to a complete stop and double over, hands on his knees, sucking in lungfuls of air.

He straightened and turned to face them after a few seconds of recovery. The glare he aimed at Fiona was almost adorable.

"You aren't coming?!" Rhys shouted breathlessly, outraged.

"Terrible plan, Rhys," Fiona shouted back, grinning, "we already talked about this!"

"I'm winging it! I'm doing the thing!" Rhys gestured wildly, eyes wide. Some of his hair had fallen into his eyes - their captor hadn't considered that hair gel was an essential supply, to Rhys' disappointment, and Rhys had been forced to let it be free and fluffy, at mercy to the winds of Pandora. He ran his hand backwards through it in breathless irritation, trying to get it to stay in place.

"You're literally running, and you're barely even doing that - that isn't 'winging it'!"

"You pinky-promised!" Rhys' voice broke as his pitch reached its upper limit, as he visibly huffed at Fiona.

"Rhys, just, wait there and catch your breath before you keel over," Fiona half-shouted as the pair approached him.

"What?! No!" Rhys' eyes went even wider as he gestured at the stranger's shotgun. "He's gonna shoot me now, isn't he?! He'll-he'll shoot my legs! So I can't run! I can still talk with no legs!"

"Does he realise he's giving me ideas?" The stranger questioned, causing Fiona to snort.

"Rhys!" She called to him, though he hadn't looked away at any point and still glowered at her. "He won't shoot you. Right?" She looked pointedly at the stranger. Just play along.

The stranger looked down at his gun, then lowered it and, very slowly, shook his head.

"I don't believe you!" Rhys yelled back, looking as though he was caught between fight-or-flight.

The stranger took one step forward.

Rhys shrieked and immediately began running away again, re-adopting his zig-zag pattern, though at a much slower pace than before.

"As you were saying," the stranger prompted her as they walked again.

Fiona sighed, resigned. "You're right. I don't hate him. ... I hate what he did. You don't know the whole story yet, but, to put it mildly, shit went down. Rhys..." Fiona watched him as he struggled ahead and a weird, sad ache settled in her stomach, "he was responsible for some bad stuff happening. He'll tell that part soon, I'm sure, he knows what happened far better than I do. And I know he never meant to, but he put us all in danger. Sasha, Gortys. Me. It was dangerous enough without him hiding the fact he had Handsome Jack in his head."

She paused for a moment, chewing her lip. She should have hated him. But, even when they'd been dragged back into each others' lives, had yelled at each other in the desert that first day... Fiona had been angry, her walled-in feelings of anger that had evolved into rage over the last year finally spilling over. However, even to her own surprise, she'd never actually hated him for it.

"It's complicated," she admitted quietly, "and I can't even explain why myself. I can't speak for him, but... yeah."

"Mmm," the stranger said, apparently satisfied enough with that answer. "Rhys is an open book. It's obvious he doesn't hate you, despite your... heated reunion."

"Well that's... good," Fiona faltered, somewhat relieved despite already knowing it. Rhys had been one of the most genuine, open people she'd ever met and it was one of the things she really liked about him. She was so used to lying, deceiving others and being deceived herself, so it had been quite refreshing when Rhys and Vaughn had crashed into her life suddenly. "I still don't see the point of this line of questioning, though."

"Every story has multiple facets. A whole story isn't told without considering all the aspects. Reasons, motivations." There was a new intensity in his tone that made the hairs on Fiona's neck stand up. "All of it is important to understand the whole story. Stories can change, depending on how you see each other now. If you hated each other, it would show in your stories. You could deliberately change things, paint others in a bad light that wouldn't accurately reflect what happened." The stranger's footsteps sounded heavy as he trudged them through the Blight.

"Alright, I'll give you that. Whatever we have going on now, though," and Fiona still wasn't sure what that was - friendship? An alliance, until they got themselves out of this situation? She felt empty at the thought. What was going to happen once they finished their story? "Maybe it doesn't even matter. Maybe it's just that we're both very good at recalling the past, and adult enough to tell our sides in the most fair way possible."

"Maybe," the stranger said after a brief pause, clearly skeptical, "though you both seem fond of... embellishing some parts. As long as I'm getting the whole story."

"You will," Fiona assured him.

Then the meteor shower hit.

Fiona, freshly wrapped-up in more duct tape, prepared her best glare as Rhys began to stir, having been unceremoniously knocked out by the stranger after they took shelter. It must have been effective, as Rhys blinked a few times, then shrank away from her, grimacing.

"Hey, Rhys!" Fiona said brightly and very, very sarcastically from where she was leaning against a broken railing that belonged to a wrecked Hyperion ship. Rhys groaned and closed his eyes. "How ya doing? Thanks, by the way. This is entirely on you."

"Wh- oh, right, yeah, I... can't move." He looked up at her, wearing his best apology face, which caused her to scoff. "Umm, s-sorry about that. Wait, what did you do? You didn't even run."

"Exactly," Fiona said darkly, now aiming a glare at their captor, who stood nearby.

"Well, maybe if you had," Rhys continued as he sent his own glare up to Fiona, "we wouldn't be here."

"You're kidding, right?" Fiona stared incredulously at him. "We'd be in exactly the same situation as we are now, except I'd also have a bloody nose."

"I was only going slowly because you weren't following!" Rhys half-snapped, clearly upset she hadn't gone along with his mad plan, whatever that had been. "If you had, we'd be miles into the desert by now!"

"With no supplies or way to contact anyone, or anything," Fiona bit back, exasperated, "which we already talked about. If you believed in your 'plan' so much, why didn't you just go for it? Run at full speed into the distance and got away? I don't see how you can be angry at me for that."

"What, and just leave you behind?" Rhys shouted loudly, voice echoing through the wreckage of the ship.

Fiona fell silent, mouth slightly open in surprise. Rhys went slightly pink and broke eye contact, staring up at the sky and broken pieces of Hyperion space ship.

"Just... thought we were a team," Rhys mumbled miserably. "Besides, he could have-have shot you, or something, if I'd just gone like that."

"Well, now he can shoot us both," Fiona said, but she was smiling gently. "But... I appreciate it, Rhys. Nice to know I've still got someone looking out for me."

"Well, yeah," Rhys said, looking at her as though he couldn't believe she didn't think that was obvious. "I mean, I- you're- we're friends. ... Right?"

"Right," Fiona said warmly, feeling a familiar warmth spread through her chest as Rhys smiled back at her. "And, we are a team. I'd just... rather be a team that doesn't die of dehydration in the middle of Pandora."

Rhys laughed dryly. "Yeah, alright, that's-that's fair. I officially hand winging-it duties back over to you."

"A wise decision."

"As charming as all this flirting is," the stranger interrupted, deadpan, which caused both of them to turn a rather violent shade of red, both sputtering and suddenly looking anywhere but each other, "I need to know what happened next before this rock planet inevitably crumbles to dust."

"Right, yeah, that-"

"Uh-huh, mmm-hmm, so-"

"We needed a solid plan, like an actual plan, because we couldn't just fling ourselves up to Hyperion and just hope that we'd be ok."

"Yeah, Hyperion was a whole new level of terrifying, even if I had worked there before. So, naturally, it was me that came up with our super genius plan to get up there and get the Gortys beacon-"

"Embellishing already, Rhys?"

"Like you haven't done enough embellishing enough for the both of us. Anyway, it started like all good plans start. With breakfast. Luckily, there was a taco place nearby..."