Songs: Amy Winehouse - Valerie; Fleetwood Mac - Rhiannon

There were significantly more people saying goodbye to us at the shuttle station than welcoming us when we got here first. And I had significantly more luggage. I had all my guns in crates, but I had an extra crate for my leg now. It looked pretty badass and I couldn't wait to finally, finally get it attached.

With the competition I actually felt how much my injured leg was hurting and I realized I'd be much better off without it and with a new prosthetic limb. My backpack was full with clothes now. I had a whole lot of new clothes and even a new pair of combat boots that I was proud of. My old pair was still good, but you could see I had been using it every day for the last three years.

It felt really, really strange to leave again, after I had gotten so used to this place now and after we had met so many new people. I mean, I couldn't believe we had actually met Mordecai's mum. We both thought she was somewhere off planet. I finally met my daughter and we were on good terms. And then there were Nadia, Jael and Camila with her little son. They were all there to say goodbye.

It also felt really strange to leave without Axton and Gaige. I had kept them up to date with what was going on, but it was just really different having them around in person and talking to them over the ECHO. I had already kind of realised that with Lilith, and I was looking forward to seeing her again.

Brick and Tina were also waiting for us to come back and I couldn't imagine how Tina must be feeling. It was pretty hard for her to just let us go away for so long and now we were finally back. I could barely believe it myself. And then there were Maya, Salvador, Zero and Krieg, that were all still back on Pandora. I felt like I had been away for years, but it had only been about a month and a half.

"Take care and thanks for your help. If you're back here, come and visit, okay?" Camila said to us, as she was giving us a hug.

"Definitely. If you ever need to leave this place for any reason at all, you can come to Pandora. Just let us know and we'll take care of you. It's not a nice place, but if you need to leave the planet, you'll have a place to stay, okay?" I told her. She nodded and stepped back, so Jael could say goodbye.

Jael had her arms crossed and gave us a smug smile. I still had no idea how to feel about her, but she just had this aura that said she was one step ahead of all of us. Like she still knew more about us, than we did about her. It was driving me mad, but I also kind of admired it.

"Don't get into too much trouble, Jael. I mean it. This job might work fine for you for a while, but at some stage you'll get careless and then you're gonna be practically dead." Mordecai told her.

"I won't get careless. But thanks for your concern. And thanks for not feeding me to the dogs. If you ever need any information, send me a message." she replied. Mordecai was shaking his head.

"Whatever you say, girl."

"We'll keep that in mind. If you ever want a change of locations, I think you might actually like Pandora. I don't really know how long Lilith is going to keep up the Raiders, but I hope we'll be around for a good while and we can probably use someone like you. So stay in touch. Alright?" I added.

"Aight." she answered with that smug little grin on her face. I suspected she had made a plan on how to use us to her advantage the minute she met us. There was nothing that I wanted less than to get on her bad side.

I figured Jael wasn't really the hugging type, so I just awkwardly waved at her as we moved on to Yolanda. She looked like she had been up all night, crying. I felt really, really sorry for her. I couldn't imagine what she must feel like, seeing her son again and him leaving so soon again.

"You take care of yourselves, alright? Don't get in trouble." she said to Mordecai and me. The bit about not getting in trouble might have been a bit late. Anything to do with Pandora was trouble.

"Don't worry, mamá. We'll be fine. You take care of yourself, okay?" Mordecai replied and gave her a hug.

"I'll worry about you until I'm dead. I'm your mother, Mordecai. It's what I do." she answered and laughed a little.

"Well, try not to worry then." he said and let go of her, so I could say goodbye as well. I gave Yolanda a long hug.

"It was nice to meet you. Make sure he stays alive, will you?" she told me.

"I'll do my best." I promised and let go of her.

"And call once in a while, okay? Let me know you're alright. And see if you can find your brother. Felipe needs some help and I don't know who else could help." she said to both of us.

"I'll see what I can do, ma." Mordecai replied. The last two people waiting for us were Anouk and Nadia. We quickly said goodbye to Nadia, but it was strange having to say goodbye to Anouk.

"So that's it then." I said.

"Yeah, I guess. Hey, I've got your ECHO frequency, so we'll stay in touch."

"Definitely! And if you ever feel the need to visit Pandora, you can come over anytime. It's not the safest place, but it's a lot safer than when Handsome Jack used to be there. Just let me know if you wanna visit."

"I will! I've never been to Pandora, so I'll come and visit soon, I really wanna see the place. It's gonna be exciting!"

"Yeah. When are you guys leaving?"

"Our shuttle leaves this evening, so we gotta head to the terminal soon anyways." Anouk said. I nodded. Guess, this was it. I held out my arms to hug her.

"I'll send you an ECHO message of my new leg, once I got it attached." I said, as we hugged.

"Definitely. I'm glad we finally met. Or met again, I guess." she replied.

"Yeah. I'll talk to you soon. Take care, okay?"

"I will. And you, too!"

And that was it. I waved one last time and we made our way into the shuttle. I got this weird feeling that I was forgetting something. Any time I ever went anywhere I got that feeling and it was driving me mad.

"You okay?" Mordecai asked me as the shuttle doors were closing behind us. We sat down on our assigned seats. There weren't really that many people going to Pandora, most were heading to some smaller planet on the way or Eden-4 after the stop at Pandora, so the shuttle was only about half full.

"Yeah, I think I am. It's just a weird feeling. Kind of like going back to nothing, because what is there to do on Pandora?" I replied.

"We have to get Athena, Hyperion still has a strong presence and then we'll probably have to question Aurelia as well. Plus, we always have that big map with all the new Vaults, in case we get bored." Mordecai said.

"Yeah, that's true. Man, can you imagine travelling to all those planets? Looking for Vaults again and fighting God knows what corporation this time?"

"Yeah, I can. Although I'll probably get too comfortable again, once we get back to Pandora." Mordecai answered.

"Guess you're right. It would be amazing, seeing more new places and all. Maybe we'll get to do that at some stage."

I looked out of the shuttle window just as we started going up in the air. I realized I wouldn't only miss the people on this planet, but also the planet itself. I'd miss having the possibility to just go into the forest on a hot day where temperatures would be a lot more pleasant. I'd miss the modern feel of the place. I'd miss the tree houses, the markets, the easy availability of food and drink of any kind.

Hell, I'd miss just seeing some green around the place. Back on Pandora everything would be full of sand, rock and scrap metal again. It would be slightly nicer in the Highlands or at any of the places by the sea. But Sanctuary? Same old rusty town. Flying around in the air as usual.

But I was also looking forward to some stuff. I was looking forward to finally being able to just shoot people again, if they were being complete assholes. I was looking forward to seeing Brick again. And Tina. And Lilith. Seeing all the other Vault Hunters. Hanging out with Scooter. And I was looking forward to getting my new leg. I never thought I'd look forward to that.

"Can't wait to be back home, to be honest." Mordecai suddenly blurted out. I looked over to him, a confused smile on my face.

"I mean, it was good to be back on Artemis, but now that we're actually leaving, I can't wait to finally be back on Pandora." he explained.

"Yeah, I think I know what you mean. I could do with the whole journey being over right now, too." I said.

"Plus, I can't get my brother out of my head. I'll have to see if I can find out what happened there and if we can somehow bail him out of prison." he added.

"Sounds like a plan. Maybe we'll have some time to take care of that once we're back. Lil probably still has all the Hyperion data stored away somewhere. We can scan through it and see if there is something."

"Yeah, probably. You think Anouk will actually come to Pandora?" Mordecai asked, changing the topic. I shrugged.

"I don't know. I just hope that when she visits, it'll be a really calm and peaceful time where no one gets killed. Well, except for the bandits and all of them. But none of us." I answered. I was hoping that Anouk would come and visit, but I knew that the chances would be pretty slim.

Yeah, she knew I was her mother now and she said she wanted to visit, but don't we all make empty promises like that all the time? But maybe she was really serious about this. Maybe she would like to come and visit me. She seemed like the kind of person that would actually travel to Pandora because it was exciting.

"Yeah, true. Let's just focus on getting home. I guess then we can see what's going on. I'm sure, Lil has a plan or something."