Songs: Troye Sivan - The Good Side; Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi

I was sitting on the stairs leading up to one of the little makeshift huts in the Backburner. We all had made this place our home for now. Until we figured out what the hell we would do with our lives, now that Sanctuary was gone. I was keeping myself busy trying to wrap the new bandage, that I had gotten for my leg, as neatly as possible around my upper thigh. The wound wasn't bad, but it was stinging a lot. It was really more annoying than anything else, and I hoped it would heal quickly.

"You still busy with that bandage?" I heard a voice behind me saying. I turned around and saw Mordecai standing in the door, looking sleepy. He had been catching up on a lot of sleep since he had been healed.

"Yeah, there's not really anything else to do, to be fair. Everyone's busy with stuff, anyway. Gaige is fixing up DT, Brick is off somewhere with Tina, Lilith is sleeping. Anouk is still trying to get Jael's ECHO signature, but we can't find her." I replied.

"You got any plans for the future?" Mordecai wanted to know. I sighed. I knew this conversation would come at some point, but I hadn't been able to make up my mind and think of something - anything at all - that I wanted to do with my life now that Sanctuary was gone.

"No idea. You got something in mind?" I asked. Mordecai just shook his head and shrugged. At least I wasn't the only one without a proper plan.

"My brother's still in prison. I guess, we could go and try to break him out. Apart from that, there's Vaults to hunt. Even though we have no clue where to find them." he replied and sat down next to me. I stopped messing around with my bandage and rested my head on his shoulder.

"So you wanna leave Pandora?" I wanted to know. I mean, it was somehow clear that that's what we were all going to do at some point, it just seemed... strange. But maybe we had to leave this place behind, especially if there was really nothing left here for us.

"Yeah. I think it'll be for the better. Are you... are you planning to leave, too?" he asked. Shit. This was the question I had hoped to put off for a while. I didn't know if I wanted to leave the planet. I don't know if I wanted to leave just yet. But here we were. Sanctuary gone, the Raiders more or less scattered, the Vault map gone and everyone without a plan. And Mordecai was asking me if I was going to go with him or stay behind on my own. It was a scary question.

"I haven't been planning anything. But I suppose... I suppose if you're leaving, I'll come with you. Let's just not... rush this, okay? Anouk is still here and I'm worried about Lilith, I don't think it's a good idea to leave in a big hurry." I told him.

"Hey, I'm not saying we should leave tomorrow. Don't worry. I'm worried about her, too, but... she needs to start dealing with stuff on her own. And we need to leave at some point. What do you think about sticking with Brick and Tina?" he asked.

"Sounds like a good idea. Tina really likes you, you know? And she needs to get away from this place. She needs to see a bit of the universe. She's only 13." I answered. I had been hoping that Mordecai would want to stay with the two of them. I couldn't imagine how devastating it had to be for Tina if Mordecai suddenly wasn't there anymore. Even though she absolutely loved Brick, she'd be really upset about losing Mordy.

"Yeah, I know. How long is Anouk staying?" he questioned.

"I think she's staying for two more weeks and then she's leaving to go back to Aeres, because she has to get back to work." I answered, hoping he wouldn't say the plan was to leave that soon.

"Alright. I want Talon to spend some time with his own kind, before we leave the planet and before he changes sex, so that's maybe going to take a good while, too. That, plus taking care of Lilith and finding out where we should go... are a few months enough time for you before we leave Pandora?"

"That sounds good." I said and nodded, even though I had no idea if that really sounded good to me or not. Right now, I was just glad we wouldn't each go our own way after Pandora. Not that I expected it, but I had to admit that there was some small lingering fear in me about that.

"Hey, if you need a little longer, we can stay longer. I'm not just gonna leave you behind." Mordecai said and smiled at me.

"I didn't think you would..." I replied, a little ashamed of myself thinking that he would do exactly that.

"You did think I would, don't try to tell me otherwise." he answered with a smug smile. Damn it.

"Fine, but not for long. I was just kind of scared, I guess. I don't even know why." I said. I didn't even know why I was so insecure all of a sudden. It made no sense at all. Probably some side effect of all the stress with Hector and Sanctuary and just everything. And now there was even more change to come.

"Don't worry 'bout it. Everything will work out somehow, okay?" he replied. I just nodded and tried to think of what I needed to do before leaving the planet again. I couldn't really think of anything, though. With Sanctuary gone, there was just nothing there anymore. I had nothing I could pack anymore, there was no apartment that I needed to take care of, there was just... nothing.

Mordecai and I just sat on the stairs staring off into the distance and not saying a word for ages. And we probably would have sat there until it was time to get some food or until Lilith called us in for some sort of meeting or whatever, if it wasn't for my ECHO beeping. I squinted at the ECHO device and saw that it was Anouk who was trying to get through to me.

"I found her!" she said, as soon as I accepted her call.

"What?" I asked, not sure I knew what she meant.

"I found Jael. She's out somewhere in the desert, looks like there's a small village or something." Anouk replied, but slower.

"Okay, that's cool, do you want us to come with you? What's she doing out there?" I wanted to know.

"I don't know the area, so yeah, would be cool. She said she ended up in some place crawling with Varkids and made it up onto some rock and someone lives up there, apparently. They took her in for now and she's been staying there and under the radar until everything had calmed down."

"I think I know the place. We'll make our way there." Mordecai chimed in and stood up from where he was sitting on the stairs.

"Perfect. Meet you two at the Fast Travel?" Anouk asked. I was wondering when she had gotten so used to how we did things on Pandora, but then again she had been here for almost two months now.

"Sounds good. See you there." I answered and looked up at Mordecai, who was getting his sniper rifle ready.

"No rest for the wicked." I mumbled and got up from the stairs. To be honest, I was glad there was something to do to distract me. And I was glad that Anouk had finally found Jael, because she was clearly head over heels for that girl. I went inside the little hut and grabbed my guns from the table. My selection was quite small, now that Sanctuary was destroyed, so it wasn't difficult to pick some.

"You know where we're going?" Mordecai asked me.

"No idea, but I'm sure you're about to tell me." I replied.

"I think she's talking about the mesa near Devil's Razor. Lots of varkids there and there are also some people living on some massive rock formations. They seem to be just workers that had been left behind by either Dahl or Atlas and didn't join any bandit clans. It's a nice enough place, but the varkids are pretty aggressive out there." he answered. I nodded quickly.

"Extra SMG ammo, so?" I wanted to know with a smile. Mordecai nodded with a smile, while I grabbed some extra ammo from the table.

"Got it. Let's head to the Fast Travel station and see whether Jael still wants to stay here or not, because she seems really moody about that and I just can't tell what she's all about." I replied and closed the door behind us.

"She's just trying to survive. And where she's from you don't survive by trusting people. You survive by knowing things and laying low." Mordecai explained as we made our way towards the Fast Travel station.
"So you think she'll stay?"

"I'd say so. There isn't really any organized crime around here. You can barely call the bandit clans organized. I'd say she'll stay with the Raiders, because it'll give her some sort of safety, but also somewhat a lifestyle she's used to."

"I guess. Kinda makes sense. Man, Anouk will be heartbroken. She'd been hoping that Jael would come back with her." I said and sighed.

"She wouldn't want to stay on Pandora?" Mordecai asked.

"I don't think so. She's enjoying all this, but it's more like a big adventure for her and she can go home when she's had enough, you know? She enjoys her normal job more than this, I'd doubt she'd give it up. Not to stay on Pandora, especially now that there isn't a whole lot to do, you know?" I answered.

"Yeah, I gotcha. I guess it's kind of the other way 'round with me. It was fun and all when we were on Artemis and had a proper house and everything was kind of normal, but I don't really wanna have that the whole time. I'd get really bored."

We walked up to the Fast Travel station where Anouk was already waiting for us. She seemed pretty impatient, almost as if she suspected that Jael wouldn't be staying with her, but on Pandora instead. Hell, I remembered how worried I was when I thought Mordecai would leave Pandora any second, after they had found the first Vault. It was pretty mind numbing.

"You ready to go?" Anouk asked before we had even reached the fast travel station. She seemed pretty anxious.

"Sure. Are you okay? You look worried." I said to her.

"I am worried. But the sooner we get there the better. I just need to know if Jael is okay or not."

I nodded and looked over at Mordecai who was busy entering the Fast Travel code into the system. I felt pretty bad for not being able to do much for Anouk, but such was life. I suppose.

"She'll be fine." Mordecai replied just before we dematerialised. I'd never, ever get used to this enough to not mind it. Especially after seeing how smooth fast travelling was on some other planets, just because the systems were better maintained than on Pandora. I could probably get used to it on Artemis, but not here.

When we materialised again I saw the desert stretching out in front of me, as far as I could see. There were lots of stone pillars around, but they seemed to be more like really steep hills. And they didn't look particularly fun to climb. I really hoped that Anouk had Jael's location at this point.

"We really have to go up one of these?" I asked her. Anouk nodded, looking down on her ECHO device.

"Yup, and I know which one. Follow me." she replied.