A/N: Thank you Deana, ComtesseAlanna, pallysd'Artagnan, 29Pieces, and SnidgetHex for reviewing again!

"Keep Your Friends Close"

2389

"What have you done?"

"I had orders."

"To murder two people for no reason?"

"It was a black-flag directive. They would have destroyed my entire ship if I didn't."

"Since when are you in the business of trading lives? Who gave you the goddamn right to make that decision?"

"That's the burden of being Captain!"

"That's crap! We could have figured this out together. As a crew; as a family. But instead you chose to become a cold-blooded killer! I'm ashamed to call you my captain."

The phaser, hanging laxly in its wielder's hand, lifted up. It barely touched the captain's mouth before the blast splattered blood and brain matter over the bulkhead.

Water rushed up and over him, dragging him down into its darkened depths. He couldn't move, couldn't scream as it tossed him around like a rag doll. A puppet with its strings cut. That's all he was.

The water rippled, light lancing across the surface. An amorphous hand reached toward him, the lilting notes of a lullaby singing in the distance.

"Cris."

He jolted awake with a gasp, blinking rapidly to clear the remnants of darkness from his vision. Raffi was standing over him, mouth pursed as though unhappy. He looked around the small living room, dark save for the glow from the holographic projections on the walls. He'd fallen asleep on the couch.

Pushing himself upright, he winced at the tightness in his lungs and braced an arm across his chest as several guttural coughs punched their way out.

"You still need a doctor."

"I'm fine," he grunted.

Raffi was silent for a moment. "Agent X probably thinks you just slipped away on your own, but they'll eventually find that the hospital called me, so we should get out of here."

It took Rios a moment to process what she was saying. "Shit."

The last thing he'd wanted was to come crashing in and ruining Raffi's life. Such as it was. The state of her apartment reminded him of his own living situation these past few months.

"I need to go home," he blurted, shifting his legs over the edge of the sofa and planting his bare feet on the floor. His brow pinched as he realized he had no shoes, no clothes, nothing.

Raffi snorted. "Yeah, they'll definitely be watching for you there."

He shook his head. She didn't understand; there were things there, things he couldn't leave behind. "I'm supposed to go on the run like this?" he asked sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes. "I'll replicate you some clothes." She frowned as he started coughing again. "And call a doctor. Don't worry, I know a guy who doesn't ask questions."

Rios didn't know if he should feel comforted by that. He rubbed at his chest, hating the vice-like clenching around his sternum, like he was ever so slowly being suffocated.

Raffi walked over to her replicator and started punching in for a pair of clothes. A pair of jeans, long sleeve shirt, and boots materialized. She brought them over and set them on the couch beside him. "Hang tight while I get that doctor."

Rios watched her head out the door. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to change out of the hospital scrubs and into the fresh clothes. Once the boots were strapped up, he forced himself to stand and started staggering toward the door. He hesitated though, and turned to grab a PADD instead. He typed out a message thanking Raffi for everything but saying he didn't want to upend her life or put her in danger. If anyone came looking for him, she could deny she ever saw him. He left the PADD propped up on the couch where he'd been sitting and then left.

It took him a while to figure out where he was as he made his way down the street on foot, predawn light just barely illuminating the sidewalk beneath his feet. He avoided the transporter station in case there was an alert out on him. Which meant it was a rather long walk to his place and by the time he reached it, his chest was burning and each breath felt like stabbing needles.

He stood under the shade of a tree across the street and watched the complex for several minutes as people exited on their way to work or other daily activities. He couldn't tell if anyone else was watching it; no one was loitering outside pretending they were doing something else.

Still, he made his way around back to the entrance off the side alley. It looked clear, so he slipped inside and took the stairwell up to the second floor. Each step was killing him and he regretted coming. But he had to. He had very little left and he wasn't going to let Starfleet take every last scrap from him.

The hall outside his apartment was clear so he ventured to his door and went inside. The place was a mess, but not because anyone had searched through his things—there were empty liquor bottles everywhere, along with plates of half-eaten food he hadn't shoved back into the replicator to be reabsorbed.

He crossed the living room toward his bedroom, intent on packing quickly and beating a hasty exit. A figure stepped out from the darkened room, swift as a shadow, and delivered a roundhouse kick to his sternum that punched what little breath he had from his lungs and sent him slamming back into the floor.

A woman dressed all in black strode toward him. Gasping raggedly, Rios managed to roll himself upright and throw an arm up to fight back. She caught his wrist deftly and twisted his arm up behind his head, then snaked her arm around his throat to trap him in a headlock. Spots burst across his vision as he struggled on his knees to gain some leverage. She pressed something to his temple. There was a sharp jolt like micro spikes piercing his skin.

"Shh," she crooned. "You'll feel better when you can't remember anything. Trust me."

His heart seized and he struggled harder, but he couldn't draw in enough oxygen and his lungs felt like they were about to explode.

There was the sound of shattering glass and a reverberation through the person restraining him. Then her arm slipped away and she toppled to the side. Rios fell forward, coughing and choking and flailing blindly at the thing attached to his face.

"Easy, easy, I got it."

Someone knelt beside him and peeled the device off. He winced at the sting and blinked up through blurry vision. "Raf?"

She scowled at him as she helped him sit up. "What the hell did I tell you, hm?"

He twisted and saw his attacker lying unconscious behind him, face hidden by a curtain of hair. Shards of a broken bottle lay scattered around her. He turned back to Raffi.

"Did you follow me?" he asked stiffly.

"No," she snapped. "I got back with the doctor and found your note. Figured this was your next stop on your list of stupid things to do. The doc's pissed I woke him up at the crack of dawn for nothing, by the way." She shook her head. "I should just let you run off and get yourself killed. I have my own life to ruin in case you haven't noticed!"

They stared at each other for a long moment, both breathing heavily.

Rios swallowed. "I know. I didn't want…I'm sorry you got dragged into this."

Raffi's expression was hard but her voice calm and tired when she said, "Well I'm here now."

His heart clenched. He wanted to trust her, he did. Raffi had been a rock in his life for so long.

But so had Captain Vandermeer. And Starfleet. And they had both so violently betrayed him.

Still, he nodded and tried to stand. Raffi gripped his arm to steady him.

"I just need to pack a few things," he said.

She nodded. "Make it quick. It might just be the one here—for now."

Rios's nerves were thrumming with anxiety as he glanced at the unconscious assailant, the side of his head still smarting from what she'd tried to do to him. He tore his gaze away and staggered into the bedroom, painful coughs jarring his chest. He grabbed a duffel bag from the closet—his few prized possessions already buried at the bottom of it—and added some clothing. Then he zipped it shut and came back out.

Raffi arched a surprised brow. "That was fast."

"You said to be."

"Yeah."

He let her peek out into the hall to check the coast was clear before they made their way out through the route he'd come in. No one accosted them, but they both kept casting furtive looks over their shoulders the further down the street they walked.

Raffi reached to take the duffel from him and he automatically stiffened.

"You look ready to fall over," she pointed out.

He grimaced. He actually didn't know if he'd make it back to Raffi's place, and at this point part of him thought dropping dead would just solve everything. But he let her take the bag and doggedly pressed on.

There was a man standing in her apartment when they finally returned, looking impatient.

"Sorry, Doc," Raffi apologized, setting the bag down and steering Rios back to the couch. "Ran into some complications."

The man sniffed. "You owe me for this one, Raffi."

"Yeah, yeah. I got a bottle of '72 Chateau Picard around here somewhere. It's yours."

He hummed as though agreeable and moved in to see his patient. Rios broke into a fit of coughs.

"Almost drowning?" the doctor checked.

"Yeah," Raffi replied. "He's got that nasty cough and is in pain."

Rios wanted to glower at them that he could speak for himself—except he truly had no breath to.

The doctor pulled out a medical tricorder and went through the motions. He then switched it out for another device from his bag. "Your lungs need to be aspirated. Lay back and don't move. It's not instantaneous."

Rios shifted to lie down, his entire body taut with discomfort and guardedness. He tried to focus on breathing steadily even though the prone position made it more difficult. The click and beep of the aspirator nearly made him jump, as it sounded too similar to that memory wiping device.

"Try to relax," the doctor coached.

Raffi wordlessly went around to stand at the other side of the sofa at Rios's head, and he tried to let himself put his trust in her watching out for him.

He wasn't sure how long the procedure took, for at one point he somehow drifted off, the toll of everything in the past twenty-four hours catching up to him. The next time he woke, it was to Raffi gently shaking him.

"Hey, we should go."

He blinked blearily. The doctor was gone. The holographic projections on the wall were gone, as were the PADDs and computer. There were some duffel bags by the door, including his.

He sat up warily, but the pain in his chest had been reduced to a mild soreness and he could breathe again. Raffi handed him a jacket she must have replicated because it wasn't one of his.

"Where are we going?" he asked numbly as he slipped it on.

Raffi shrugged. "I got us one of those hovercars for cross-country road trips. We'll just head east and see where we go from there."

Rios looked around her apartment. "I'm sorry." It was a useless apology.

"This was never home," she replied. She sighed and gave him a sad, wistful smile. "You were, once upon a time."

When they were young and idealistic and believed in moral absolutes and the glory of the Federation they'd pledged to serve.

"You were too," he said softly.

They picked up their bags and headed out.