He woke up the next afternoon feeling 100 percent better but infinitely more hungry. He looked around but saw no one in his make-shift bedroom, so he decided to go into the kitchen and get food. As he passed Aisha's room, he looked in and saw her asleep. He walked in, temporarily distracted from food, and sat on the edge of her bed. He brushed her pale hair out of her face and gently shook her awake. Her eyes slowly came open and she recognized him and smiled. He got a warm happy feeling and said simply, "I'm hungry!"

"YOU JERK!" She yelled and pushed him of the bed

"What I do?" he asked looking at her from the side of the bed, his eyes level with it peering up

"I stay up all night worrying about you and watching you sleep, and what do you do? You come waltzing in here and say yer hungry!" Aisha screamed with a false anger that hid amusement. But she followed through with it and shoved him into the hall and slammed the door behind him.

Nick stumbled around until he found the stairs and made his way down into the kitchen to find Jim on a laptop.

"Hey Jim"

"Hey yer finally awake!" he said closing the laptop

"Yeah but I wont be for long if I don't find food soon"

"Hmmm, you must have an increased metabolism when you shape shift, just like Aisha, but don't worry, I'll make something" Jim got up and started rummaging through the fridge.

"Where's Gene?"

"Oh, he went with Melfina and Suzuka to cash in on some of the loot in the warehouse. I forgot to tell you that we had a good haul"

"Really? What'cha find?"

"Well" Jim recalled, "There was another room in the back of the warehouse that somehow managed to survive your little... party..."

Nick gave a smirk

"But in it we found a shipment of caster shells, and 25,000 wongs worth of various stolen goods."

"Nice", Nick agreed

"That's not all. We happened to come across some sort of office and we found files of contacts and we offered them to the police and they gave us an additional 3000 wong for information on illegal activities"

"Very nice", Nick approved

"There's one thing the bothers me", Jim admitted

"Yeah?"

"Well, looking over the contacts, we saw that one of their biggest and best suppliers was the McDougal brothers."

"I've heard of them"

"Well you'll hear a lot more about them if they find out that we just knocked off one of their big clients"

"Well if they come around, we'll just knock em around a little bit", Nick said with satisfaction

"I don't think you understand. The McDougall brothers aren't normal thugs. They actually plan for encounters and find weaknesses."

"Yeah yer probably right as usual", Nick agreed

Jim started cooking, and Nick sat down and waited patiently. He heard the front door open and close.

"Gene must be back", Nick said

His thoughts were confirmed when he strode into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

"Hey buddy, how ya feelin'?"

"Pretty good, mostly just hungry"

"Well eat up, you deserve it! You just handled your first job, single-handedly if I might add. That's a big deal for a new outlaw."

And so Nick ate... and ate... and ate until Gene started to worry that he might eat all the profits from the last job, but Nick gave up and yawned.

"Man that really wore me out!" He admitted and said goodnight and strode up the stairs.

Again he stopped at Aisha's room and knocked on the door. She opened up and said "Yeah?"

"I just wanted to... thank you for looking out for me", He said carefully

She surprised him by suddenly hugging him, but he returned the hug.

"No problem, what are friends for?" she purred

"You know what?" He asked

"What?"

"I feel a little less tired now, how bout we go for a walk?"

"Sure!" She said, eyes wide

So they left without any one noticing... or caring.

Outside, Nick started in the direction of the launching fields. Aisha slightly confused ran to catch up.

"Where are we going?"

"My secret spot, well it's not really all that secret but it's quiet."

And he continued to where the vast paved field began and hopped on one of the runway maintenance carts.

"What are you doing? That's called stealing, didn't you learn about that yet?" Aisha yelled

"Shh!", He scolded her and her ears went down and here eyes opened wide, "Besides, I'm just BORROWING it. Hop on."

She nervously got on and he drove off into the coming night. Every few seconds they would pass a ship and its massive dock, each covered in floodlights that were constantly on. They passed a familiar looking ship that took Aisha a minute to recognize in the dark. It was hers, or actually Gene's, the Outlaw Star, but it was soon swallowed in darkness. After a few minutes of speeding along, they came to the opposite end of the field where Nick stopped and got out. Aisha peered beyond and from what she could see, it was a massive gently rolling plain that stretched as far as the darkness would allow you to see.

"I never knew this was out here" She said with wonder

"Well now you do, and my secret spot is now our secret spot" He said as he walked into the short grass and laid down. Aisha followed and laid next to him and he put his arm around her and together they looked at the sky which was illuminated by thousands of stars and a full moon...