Songs: Bob Marley & The Wailers - Rastaman Live Up

"Am I seeing things or is it my girl Nova?" I heard Lilith shouting as she came walking towards me and Mordecai. We had just arrived at Pierce Station with all our stuff. I had sent an ECHO message to Lilith just after we got out of the shuttle. Looked like she got here quickly.

"It's me." I answered and held up my crutches with a big grin on my face. Not having the support almost made me topple over and fall, but I could catch myself just in time. I was feeling better after sleeping a few more hours in the shuttle, but I could still feel the effects of the anesthetics.

"Careful, chica." Mordecai scolded me, shaking his head.

"Are you okay? Did you come here right after getting your leg replaced?" Lilith wanted to know.

"Yeah. I'm still tired, I'm gonna have to go to bed." I told her, smiling a little. I felt a little more comfortable with the thought of having a prosthetic leg now, but I wished the few days of waiting would be over already.

"Then go on to HQ and get some sleep! I'll catch up with you in a minute, let me just say hello to poor Mordecai. I've been ignoring him all this time." she answered and went over to him.

"Hi Lil." Mordecai said while feeding Talon some snacks in an effort to make him less disgruntled after having to be in the cage so many times. Talon was the sweetest bird, but he could be a little diva sometimes.

"Hey Mordy, it's good to have you guys back. How have you been?" Lilith said. That was when I was suddenly almost crushed by two massive arms pulling me into a hug. It was pretty painful.

"Look who's back! I missed you guys." Brick shouted.

"Can't... can't breathe, Brick..." I stammered.

"Brick!" Mordecai exclaimed started running up to him. Brick thankfully let go of me and ran over to Mordecai, pulling him into a tight hug.

"Aren't you glad those two have each other again?" Lilith commented with a smug grin. I laughed.

"I am kinda glad. Can you believe they kept echoing each other to gossip while we were away? Like they were talking more than we were." I replied.

"We gotta up our game."

"Oh, absolutely. So how have you been? How is Tina?" I wanted to know. Lilith just sighed, as if I had reminded her of some chores.

"Did you know that the girl is like... 13 and no one had the talk with her?" she asked. I looked at her in disbelief.

"Are you being serious right now?"

"Yeah. That honour was mine. It was really fucking awkward."

"Yeah, I'm glad I escaped that part of parenting." I answered and laughed a little. Poor Lilith. Poor Tina.

"Anyways, she's missed all of you. Mostly Mordy. But she missed you, too. Brick's been doing well with taking care of her, though." Lilith told me. I nodded as I watched Mordecai and Brick talking as if they hadn't seen each other in 10 years. And that was even though they had talked to each other over the ECHOnet just before we went down to Elpis. And I was pretty sure they had talked while I was asleep in the shuttle. I wouldn't have known with how knocked out I was.

"I missed all of you, too. I didn't even realize it when I was on Artemis, but as soon as we were on our way back here, I realized how much I missed everyone." I said. Lilith gave me a warm smile.

"You look wrecked, Nova. Let's get you upstairs, so you can sleep." she suggested. I nodded and started hopping towards HQ on my crutches with Lilith following me. Brick and Mordecai were following us in some distance.

"I've been sleeping for ages, I really just need to sit down for a while." I protested as we made our way into the house. I didn't want to sleep when I could catch up with everything that happened while we were gone.

"Well, then you go to bed and we can catch up if you're not feeling too tired. How does that sound?" Lilith replied.

"Sounds perfect." I said and was just about to follow Lilith upstairs when I realized I had no idea how to. I had never been on crutches before. I had never not known how to walk. But now I found myself looking down at my leg and up at the stairs with no idea how to get up there.

"Are you okay?" Lilith asked, looking down at me from the top of the stairs. This felt really embarrassing.

"Uh... I'm not sure..." I answered and it looked like Lilith was realizing what was going on. She grinned.

"Hold on a second, I got this." she told me and suddenly there was a purple flash and everything was glowing and when everything stopped glowing we were upstairs. Did she just...?

"Oh my God, Lilith, did you phase us up here? You know you can't just use your powers like that!" I said. But, to be perfectly honest, I was pretty glad I didn't have to limp upstairs or anything like that.

"Chill, I'm all good. I'm usually fine when it's only a few people and not too far." she replied nonchalantly.

"Well, I suppose it was the best option, considering I haven't even had those crutches for a full day." I answered and sat down on the bed. It was good to finally sit down again. My leg hurt like hell again, probably because the painkillers were wearing off while I was sleeping. But it felt a little better than it did initially.

"Do you need anything?" Lilith asked. I shook my head.

"Not really. Mordy has all my painkillers and health hypos, but I've got time until he's back here." I told her. That was when someone else walked into the room, looking over at me curiously.

"Nova! You're back already?" Maya asked, smiling and walking towards me. It looked like her hair had grown while I was gone and no one was willing to give her a haircut. Or maybe she wanted to grow her hair out, who knew.

"I am back. And crippled, for now." I said, as she gave me a hug.

"Bullshit, you'll be fine. Gaige already filled me in on all your complaining. You'll be better in a couple of days. You want one of my health vials?" she offered. I was going to say no, but then I figured I had no idea when Mordy would actually end up here in HQ and it was time for another shot, so...

"Well... if you really don't mind..."

"Sure thing." Maya said and handed me a health vial.

"Thanks. Where are the others?" I asked while I got the injection ready. It didn't ease the pain, but it would help the healing process and that was all that mattered for now. I could deal with the pain for a while.

"Salvador and Krieg are questioning a Hyperion spy, Zero is looking for something for Moxxi and I'm here staying in contact with him and keeping an eye on their ECHO transmissions." Maya answered.

"Huh. They're still sending spies down here?"

"Yeah, but not many. Seems like they're slowly getting the message that it's pointless to send spies." Lilith told me. I nodded and laid down on the bed, my head propped up against the wall.

"And where's Tina?" I wanted to know. I hadn't seen her around and that made me pretty suspicious. I mean, yeah, she could be in her workshop in Tundra Express, but from what I've heard last, the plan was to have her in a place in Sanctuary, because it would be easier to keep an eye on her there.

"Oh, Brick was watching her, until we got the news you guys were coming back, so Moxxi's had an eye on Tina for now. I'm sure she'll be back soon with Brick and Mordy, though. Wouldn't be surprised if they made a little detour to collect her." Maya explained. Of course, why hadn't I thought of that sooner?

"Oh, neat. So what's been going on while I was gone? Any interesting news?" I asked. Lilith shrugged.

"I don't know. There are some interesting things, but I'm not really sure what to make of them. Anyway, we found Athena. She's living in Hollow Point with her girlfriend, Janey Springs. Springs is a mechanic, I think Scooter is planning to hand over some of his garages to her, because he doesn't have enough time to take care of all of them anymore. It looks like Athena's been laying low, taking on some mercenary work, nothing that's in any way high profile. I'd say she's hiding, but we're not entirely sure if she's hiding from us or from Hyperion." Lilith said.

"Huh. Okay. And Brick, Mordy and I are supposed to get her?" I asked.

"Yeah, some combination of you guys. I'm not sure if now is the best time, though, there seems to be something else going on. It seems like Hyperion is going to stay in orbit for a while, I'm not sure why exactly. They seem to be trading with some group down here on Pandora. There have been rumours of another Vault Key, we're trying to find out what that's all about at the moment."

"Another Vault Key? That's... odd. I mean, you'd think after two Vaults, a planet would run out of them, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, well, that's what we've got until now. I still haven't found a safe way to bring the city back down on the ground and I think people are coming to terms with that. So that's some good news." Lilith said.

"Now, your turn. How was Artemis? What did you do? How much did you win and how did you get your leg so quickly? I wanna know everything!" Maya added, pulled up a chair and sat down, waiting for me to tell a story.

"It was good. Different. I honestly don't know where to start. We won a good bit, enough to cover our travel costs, the leg and the operation and we still have a nice bit left over. I bought a bunch of new clothes at a street market, it was dirt cheap. I met Mordy's mum. I met my own daughter. Got in a few shootouts. It was pretty eventful, to be honest." I said. Lilith and Maya looked at each other, then back at me.

"Just start at the beginning." Lilith said.