A/N: It's very difficult to type with a broken and very sticky 'o' key. Especially when you have a character called the Count. Unfortunate. If I did slip up anywhere in this or the last chapter, let me know. My rating covers the F word by principle because there are so many of them in the movie, but the Count-without-an-o word is something else entirely.

It was raining when Carl arrived. I tried not to think of it as a sign. It happened without incident: one moment I'd never met him, the next I had, and that was it. He ticked all the right boxes in the 'lifestyle' department, kicked out of school for smoking pot, also smoked cigarettes, had nothing to live for back on land. I liked him straightaway.

He wasn't much to look at, though, young Carl. The awkwardness of pubescence still hung about his limbs, and he was skinny in a way that suggested malnourishment rather than exercise. I smiled at the thought of the fun Felicity was going to have feeding him up.

The crew started testing him as soon as they saw him. He turned out sort of average; could hold his breath longer than the Count but not as long as me, could rap better than Angus but not as well as Simon.

His common sense, though, was disappointing. His first real test, the subtle but cruel one, came on a sunny Sunday, three days after he arrived. I was inside, having a staring competition with Simon while John tapped on his typewriter in the background.

Simon was unnaturally good at staring competitions. He didn't seem to have to blink as much as a normal human being. I was therefore determined to beat him someday, but it didn't look like that day was going to be today. My eyes were starting to water.

I was just about to give up when the door banged open and I started. Unfortunately, for me, starting meant blinking and Simon crowed with triumph. I scowled and turned to Dave, who had interrupted. "Putting the two halves of our conversation together," he continued, and Carl followed him in, "I will give you ten pounds, if you will let me break four of these eggs," he held up a six-pack carton, "on your head."

"Ooh, ten English pounds," Simon backed pointedly. I opened my mouth to tell him not to do it, but then stopped; I knew this test. Dave had done it on me, too, and I knew that Carl would be a fool to trust him. If it was me, I'd want to be left to make my own decisions.

"Wait," said Carl slowly, "so, ten pounds, four eggs," he held up four fingers, looking like he couldn't quite believe his ears, "on my head." He pointed to it. I bit my lip. He was going to fall for it.

"On your head," Dave repeated. "Do we have a deal?"

I shook my head slightly, involuntarily; Simon grabbed my arm, his fingernails digging into my wrist painfully. "Don't," he hissed.

"Absolute deal!" Carl agreed, holding out his hand. Dave took it delightedly.

"Wow," he said, not quite believing that he'd actually said yes. "If you'd like to come this way…" he led Carl to a seat in front of the dinner table. Simon leapt excitedly to sit behind the table, dragging me with him.

"Can I take my jacket off?" Carl asked.

"Absolutely, yeah," Dave replied. "Corduroy and eggs… uh-uh." I scratched my head awkwardly. John came and sat next to me, looking as though he felt the same way I did.

"You just sit down there." Carl put his jacket down and sat in the chair. "Ok. Egg Number One:" He held it up. I was vaguely aware of Angus as he walked in, looking like he'd just won the lottery. Then Dave brought the egg down on Carl's stupid head with a resounding crack.

I have to admit, hearing the egg break and seeing the expression on his face as the yolk ran down his forehead and into his eyes was enormously satisfying. It was that cruel, satisfying pleasure when you watch someone else pay the price for a mistake you, too, made long ago. I still wasn't looking forward to the end, but Egg One wasn't so bad. Simon slowly let go of my arm.

Thick Kevin walked in, wearing his usual vacantly interested expression. "Ten pounds, eh?" Dave said happily, stretching out the moment, enjoying the pain. "You could buy seven albums with that –"

"Yeah, sorry, but could we get this over with, please, because it's not very nice," Carl interrupted, trying not to open his mouth too wide. My hand twitched; Simon grabbed it again.

"Yeah, absolutely," Dave said, though he sounded slightly guilty now. He held up the second egg like a magician insisting there's no trickery in his act. "Egg Two."

Crack. A few of the boys reacted this time with short intakes of breath. It was mesmerizing, watching him sit there and take it, pound-signs reflected in his pupils. I wanted to look away, but somehow found myself watching anyway, just as enthralled as everyone else.

"Egg Number Three," Dave said, obeying Carl's wish to get it over with. "Oeuf Toi."

Crack. I was almost holding my breath, nauseated with remembered sensation as the egg dripped across his forehead. Everyone gasped this time, a few 'eew's escaping too. I wrenched my arm out of Simon's grasp and put my head in my hands.

"You know what?" said Dave, his voice slightly muffled through my fingers, "I shan't cast Egg Four."

"What?"

"I think I'll just… leave it there…" I looked up as he put it back in the carton gently. My pity for Carl as I saw his face made me want to shove that egg down Dave's trousers.

"So… so I get… seven pounds, ten shillings, then?" Carl asked, crestfallen.

"No. You see, the deal was, four eggs, ten pounds; we didn't make any three-egg deal."

Carl looked at us, looking so horrified that my heart almost broke. "Wait, you're…" he laughed nervously, "you're joking."

Dave laughed too. "No."

"Yeah," Simon agreed. "You should have made a deal for three eggs."

"Always make the three-egg deal," John added sadly.

"You're too greedy, mate!" Angus offered delightedly.

"You shouldn't have trusted the asshole!" I exploded angrily.

"That is so unbelievably unfair," Carl said unnecessarily, looking as though he was about to go into shock.

"It is unfair," Dave answered. "And that's the important lesson I was trying to teach you – life is unfair." He started a round of applause, which the others joined. I looked around in surprise at how many of us were there; everyone but Harold, the Count and Mark, who were about to switch shifts at broadcasting, and Quentin. Kevin had that look on his face like he thought he was being intelligent but didn't quite know why he was clapping.

"You are a bastard," stated Simon.

Dave smiled awkwardly. "Well, it may seem that way, but I think you'll find I'm a nice guy really, under… underneath…" he looked around, laughing nervously, the clapping gone, as the general opinion took a shift against him.

Simon laughed too. "Way underneath."

"Well," I said, sensing my moment, "lesson learned, don't you think?" the others nodded. I vaulted the table, picked up Egg Four and turned to look at Dave. He seemed to think it was destined for his head; he cowered. I stood there for a moment, letting him sweat, then in one movement turned and brought the egg down on Carl's head. "I'll pay your ten fucking quid."

I made to walk out, but found the Count blocking the doorway. "What you do now, Dave, is you tell her you'll give her twenty if she'll lick it all off."

I composed my game face and turned back to the Doctor. Poor Carl looked absolutely terrified; he really was having a hard time of his first week.

Dave also glanced at him. "I'd love to, but I wouldn't do that to Young Carl."

I narrowed my eyes viciously at him. "All right, Doctor Dave," I said, camping up the defeated-villain look, "I'll let you have the last laugh this time."

I threw the Count a not-this-time look, turned and walked out, smiling a little smile to myself; his last laugh would be very short-lived indeed.

"He did that to me, too, you know," I said kindly, handing Carl a tenner.

He smiled, a genuine, rogueish sort of smile that I instantly liked. "You don't have to," he said, not taking the banknote.

"No, seriously, take it," I insisted, reaching past his hands and stuffing it in his coat pocket.

"Okay, then," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. I grinned approvingly and sat down on a deckchair.

We were topside, looking out at the waves. It was Wednesday and twilight was falling; the water sparkled as though a thousand diamonds had been cast carelessly across the sea. He sat down next to me. I offered him a cigarette and lit one myself.

"So what happened?"

"When?" I blew a stream of smoke out and watched it dissipate.

"When Dave did the thing with the eggs to you."

I laughed. "Oh." I paused, remembering. "I wasn't too bummed. I didn't really think he'd give it to me, right from the start, you know? I did it more to show them that I was game than anything else. I was laughing it off when Dad showed up. He paid me in the end."

Carl laughed too. "I can't really imagine the guy who owns this having a daughter," he mused.

"One-night stand," I explained shortly. "Mum can't even remember what he looks like." I took another drag and eyed my exhalations critically. "He's a good father, though. I first wrote to him when I was seven, and he wrote back, no questions asked. Sent me awesome presents every Christmas and birthday, records mostly." I held out my foot. "He gave me these the birthday before he invited me here."

"They're cool," Carl said hesitantly, looking at my black pirate-boots. I laughed at his obvious lack of women's-fashion-knowledge. There was silence for a while, but a comfortable one that I didn't feel the need to fill at all. "So what do you think of it? The boat, I mean?"

"It's home," I said simply. He looked at me expectantly, so I expanded. "I love it. I belong here. I have a proper family, and I can listen to music all day without people yelling at me to turn it off or turn it down…"

"So you are here because of the music?"

"You can't not be," I told him. "I never understood how people can not like rock. It…" I struggled for words to express the life that came purely from rock and roll. "It's the only thing that makes sense of the world. It's life, it's energy, it's… fuck, I wouldn't get up in the morning if I didn't have rock and roll."

"Okay," said Carl gently. "So… a lot of passion there."

I laughed. "There is nothing on this earth that can make you feel as good, as fast, as Hold me, love me, hold me, love me, I ain't got nothing but love, babe, eight days a week…"

"All right, fair enough." Carl created a rather pregnant pause. "How did you end up here?"

I giggled at the memory. "Mum got sick of me lying on her couch because of my measly lifeguard salary and blasting my disrespectful junk of a record collection through her house, so she pulled the final threat and sent me to lie on Dad's couch instead. I don't think she knew that she was actually fulfilling my dreams and sending me to live with my heroes…."

He caught the irony and laughed. "Sorry if this is becoming a bit like 20 Questions, but… who's your favorite DJ?"

"That's okay." I thought. "Simon. He's not afraid to make a complete arse of himself on the radio for the sake of comedy. And it works, he's funny. People love him. He never makes jokes at other people's expense, which seems to be the basis of everyone else's humor; he never swears, and he's so innocent it's gorgeous." I flicked ash over the deckrail. "Next question."

He chuckled languidly, leaned back in the deckchair and put his feet up. "Have you ever met Gavin Kavanagh?"

"No." I followed his gesture. "I always wanted to, though. He was amazing… did you listen to him back then?" Carl nodded. "I thought – I hoped – he'd come back one day, but he never did. The Count's a part of the furniture now."

"What's with you and the Count, too? You guys seem to be… edgy."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. It's called war." He looked at me in surprise. "No, just kidding. It's nothing. We make a big show of it, but it is just show. He's only pretending to be mad because I teased him about his weight a week ago."

"So you guys are good friends?"

"Well," I replied musingly, "I wouldn't take his side in an argument unless it was against someone I really hated, but we're not really enemies. He's just easy to wind up."

Carl tried to look like he understood, but I could tell he didn't. It was a while before he began again. "What's your favorite song?"

"I don't know." Again, he waited for me to expand. "I like soft rock, you know, like Bread and those sorts of artists. Bread's song Look What You've Done is awesome. The Stones are good. I love Wild Horses. Oh, and the Beatles are genius, of course."

"Wild Horses?" I hummed a few bars for him. "Oh. Yeah, that's not bad."

"Good guitar riff."

"Do you play the guitar?" He suddenly sounded really interested. "I tried to learn, but I'm ridiculously bad."

"I taught myself back at Mum's, but I was only borrowing the guitar from a friend of mine, and he wouldn't let me take it on the boat."

Carl smiled wryly. "Friend?"

I returned the smile. "Okay, boyfriend. Well, he was. He wasn't too keen on the idea of me living on a boat full of guys without him, so I broke it off. He wasn't worth more than this."

"Sorry." I shrugged. "I saw you swimming yesterday, do you do that often?"

"All the time," I answered. "I love water. I think I must have been a fish in a previous life, if you believe in that sort of thing." He laughed absently. "Okay, last question."

"Is it, already?" he asked surprisedly.

"I don't know," I replied. "I wasn't counting. Were you counting?"

"No," he admitted, "but I'm sure I've got at least two more."

"All right then, two more."

"Okay – one: have you or would you ever sleep with anyone on the boat?"

I chuckled. "No. Even if I did find any of them remotely attractive, Dad'd send me back to Mum, who would refuse to take me back and I'd actually have to support myself for the first time in my life."

"Even Mark?" he probed.

"Is that your last question?"

"No! It's just… an add-on to the last one! Don't answer it if it's going to count."

I giggled. "Yep. Even Mark. I'd love to know how he does it, but not first-hand. So what's your last question?"

"Oh, God," he said slowly. "I have no idea." His eyes fell to the cigarette in his hand. "Why do you smoke?" he asked.

I gazed at my own, considering. "I started because it felt good. You know, knowing that I was doing something Mum would have killed me for if she could have overpowered me. And now…"

"Habit?"

"No, actually. I think if smoking gives you lung cancer I'd get it anyway here because everyone else does it. You can't be in a room with five smokers and not breathe in enough smoke to equal having your own cigarette, so you might as well save the trouble of being the odd one out."

"I won't quit, then." There was a pensive silence for a few seconds.

"I like you, Carl. You remind me of myself." He snorted. The silence descended again. Then I snapped it like a rubber band. "Right! My turn!" He groaned and rolled over slightly so he faced me. I decided to start with a subtle but revealing question.

"Do you like peas?"

A/N: If you're wondering, no, Carl doesn't like peas. I decided. Too mushy. I'm afraid my updates won't always be this fast, but it's the weekend and I had Friday off work too, so I've been bored. And all I've been able to do is write, type, and watch movies, because it's rained. Oh, and I have homework, but that doesn't count for the Master of Procrastination. That's me, by the way.

Only one cookie awarded so far, disappointing :( not that I can get the link to paste into the message anyway, I wonder if it's just that my computer hates me. It's old and probably needs a rest. I'm scared, though, that if I give it a holiday it won't want to start work again... what can I say? I can't win.

Please review, it would totally make my day.

-for you!