On December 31st, Quentin called us all to the living room. Barely anyone spoke as we all filed in. No one knew what to say. I sat in a beach chair beside the Count and sighed. He looked over at me and nodded. That about summed it all up. Gavin sat on my other side and looked over at me. I met his gaze through the lenses of his sunglasses and gave him a half-hearted smile. He returned it. Finally, Quentin stood up and began. "The day has come," he said somberly. "Tonight, pirate radio dies. From midnight, we are a ghost ship floating without hope on cold, dark waters. You have done almighty work here. Thank you. But your work is done." With that gut wrenching statement, he started to leave.

To my left, the Count stood up and cleared his throat. "Not mine, sir," he declared. When Quentin turned back around, he continued, "I'm an American citizen, and I don't give a hootenanny god damn about your nitpicking limey laws. I intend to broadcast from this ship 24 hours a day until the day I die...and maybe a few more after that." Quentin nodded, smiling a little.

Then, from my right, Gavin spoke up. "Not wanting to sound rude or anything, but don't you think that might be an ever so slightly monotonous experience for the listener?" I grinned as he stood up. "What do you say to 12 hours each, noble sir?"

He and the Count shared a smile, but I cut in. "No!" They both looked at me, a little surprised. "Absolutely not!" I stood up. "8 hours each, you crazy bastards." The Count grinned from ear to ear and clapped me on the back. Gavin just looked at me and nodded.

Angus stood up from where he was sitting on the couch. "The way I look at it," he said, "the world couldn't survive without my comedy. And who's going to have the moral backbone to play The Seekers when the mood is right?"

"They've split up," Dave muttered from beside him.

Angus gave him a look, then announced, "I intend to celebrate the back catalog."

Dave looked up at him, then stood. "I intend to stop you doing so!"

Mark stood up behind me and Gavin and lit a cigarette. We all took this as him joining up. In front of me, Simon stood. "As some of you know, my wife left me after 17 hours of marriage, but I survived that because I...I live for music. And now, with nothing else to live for, I'm willing to die for it as well."

I smiled, then took a few steps forward and hugged him from behind. He pat my arm and smiled too.

Over by Mark, John got up. "I've always lived for news and weather. Happy to die for them, too. Especially the weather," he told us choppily. I snorted and chuckled as I moved back to my spot.

Bob stood on the other side of the room. "Um...I've got nowhere else to go," he said plainly. Quentin gave him a warm smile, and I marveled at how much I liked Bob even though I had never actually talked to him for more than a few seconds.

Beside him, Harold stood for his turn. "I have somewhere else to go," he said. Quentin gave him an understanding nod. "But it's Peckham," he finished. We all chuckled. "So, I think I'll stick around."

Felicity stood and told us, "Can't let everyone starve. And I'm slightly worried where my increasingly powerful sexuality will take me when I return to normal life."

Beside her, Kevin piped up, "I've got a very strong suspicion that Felicity fancies me." We all had to fight guffaws. "Not about to go anywhere, just when I'm in with a chance."

Carl, who was sitting basically in the center of everyone, stood up. "Obviously, I'm in. You're the only people in the world who like me." Simon put a kind hand on the side of his face for a moment, then let it drop.

Quentin looked around at us, at least a little touched by our display of loyalty. "Thank you gentlemen, lesbian, lady," I gave him a slight bow, and he turned to Bob, "strange...bearded thing." Bob smiled. "But make no mistake, they will come after us."

"Let 'em try," Count said.

Quentin straightened up, then saluted us. We all saluted him in return, and when his hand went down, we followed suit. I looked around at all of the people in the room with me, and I was shocked at just how much I absolutely adored each and every one of them for something. Dave maybe just a bit less than the rest. This was my family, and I didn't need anything else but this.

That night, as the clock neared midnight, we all gathered in the Count's studio while he performed our closing speech. "So, faithful followers, the end is nigh. We bid you farewell with dignity and pride. We thought we'd never die. But, well, we can't fight city hall. And so, take care, be good. Listen to the music. It's a good thing to do. It's the Count, counting down and out for the count at last. Three, two, one...and the rest is silence." I looked over at the clock. The second hand struck twelve, beginning the new year, right as his speech ended. I smiled a little. The Count turned and looked at the clock, too. He waited until the second hand got to the two, then cried, "ONLY KIDDING, DUDES! LET'S ROCK!" He turned on My Generation by The Who while we all cheered.

The whole night turned into an epic dance fest. I danced every dance I knew and then improvised for the rest. I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that I was getting paid to do this. I had never had so much fun. Carl was snapping pictures the whole night when he wasn't dancing too, and he caught one of me and Gavin air-guitaring. After blinking the flash out of my eyes, I told him I wanted a copy. He just nodded and grinned. At one point, the Count pulled me over and asked, "So, what do you say? Think you'll ever have better days than this?"

I smiled. "It's not possible. There is nothing better than this in the world."

"I tried to tell you," he laughed.

When the sun began creeping over the horizon, we all retired to the living room, drunk with the ecstasy of the night before. Simon and I, who were laughing hysterically over something that really wasn't that funny, stumbled in, and I saw a free seat by Gavin on the couch and cried, "I get the seat by the sunglasses guy!" even though he actually had taken them off. He smiled and pat the couch next to him, so I ran over and basically, for all intents and purposes, fell onto the couch, laughing. I was crazy tired. That was the only reason I was acting like this. Angus said something that I don't even think I heard right, but I just started cracking up. I was laughing so hard I just laid over and put my head in Gavin's lap. The Count saw and raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything. He turned around, I think to hide his smile.

As the light began to permeate the room from outside, we all started settling down. I was constantly yawning, and teetering on the edge of sleep. Gavin had put a hand on my head and was just kind of petting my hair. It was definitely not helping me stay awake. Finally, Quentin came in and we all gave him some applause. That woke me up a little. He looked around with a weak smile on his face. "All right, we had a good night, but that thing you see shining through the window is the cold light of dawn. I don't want you all to imagine that they won't be coming after us with the full force of the law to crush our testicles like grapes."

"Good thing I haven't got any of those," I muttered sleepily. Gavin looked down at me and bit his lip to hide a grin.

"But don't despair completely, because I'm glad to tell you, I've come up with quite a clever little plan. All hand on deck, eh? I just hope it works."

We all applauded him again. "Of course it'll work!" Simon cried.

That night, I was sitting on the railing of the higher deck, and Gavin had an arm on either side of me to make sure I didn't fall. Wind was blowing through my hair, and I was having a grand time just watching our beloved ship cut through the water like she was made to. "This was a good plan," I said.

"It certainly wasn't a bad one," Gavin replied. He took a drag on a cigarette until I pulled it away from him and launched it overboard. "What the fuck?" he cried in dismay as it disappeared over the side.

"Stop smoking those damn cigarettes! They're going to murder your voice! Not to mention you, eventually."

He glared up at me while Dave came over the radio. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the move. If they want to stop us, they are going to have to find us. This is Radio Rock in motion, on the ocean."

I smiled and leaned back a little to look up at the stars. It was a good thing I had, too, because if I hadn't I would've been shot forward when the ship lurched violently. Instead, I was thrown backwards, right into Gavin's arms. He fell backwards too, though, so we still ended up in a heap on the ground, but it was a lot shorter of a fall that forwards would've been. "Are you alright?" he cried, pulling me to my feet.

"I'm fine. You?"

"Fine."

We both ran to the railing and looked over. The crew members were shouting and running around frantically. We looked at each other, then turned tail and ran down to the living room where everyone else would eventually get to. After everyone was accounted for, Quentin came in. Gavin, the Count, and I were sitting on the couch, me in the middle, staring at out leader. "Guys, I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you prefer?"

"Good news," we all answered unanimously...even if Kevin was a little delayed.

"Ok. The good news is the engine has exploded and we're all going to die," he told us bluntly.

There were some indistinct murmurs throughout, then I raised my hand. "Hello! Cheeky Chelsea, Radio Rock. Um...how exactly is that good news?" Gavin, in all his chilled-ness, just grinned at me trying to be sarcastic.

"I haven't yet told you how we're going to die," Quentin answered. "That's the bad news."

"Oh, I see," I said, nodding. "How are we going to die?"

"We're going to drown in the freezing waters of the North Sea."

"Uh huh. That's...that's bloody excellent," I said. I knew my face was losing color, but I was determined not to show it.

Everyone else groaned something that expressed their distaste in this idea except Kevin. He looked over at Angus and quite calmly said, "Actually, that's quite good for you, isn't it? Because you can't swim, so you'll die quicker." Ang looked absolutely horrified.

The smile that I found on my face after overhearing that felt very out of place, but then I noticed that Gavin was smiling a little too. "What you grinning about?" I demanded. He just shook his head and kept smirking.

"Apparently, there is a huge hole in the side of the boat," Quentin said, "and in an unfortunate development, it transpires that the lifeboats are useless."

My mind immediately went to the image of John refereeing our football games with his legs sticking through two large holes in the side of one of the lifeboats. "Of course they're useless," I mumbled. "That would just make things too easy!"

The ship lurched again, and I found myself in a pile on the floor with Gavin again. He stood both of us up, and cried, "Alright! Alright, alright! I'm going to the studio!"

"This isn't going to happen," Count declared.

As Gavin left, I looked around at everyone and said, "I'm going with him," then ran after him. John and Harold followed me.

Once we were down in the studio, John gave a quick newsflash. "A Radio Rock newsflash with John Mayford," the prerecorded announcer said.

"News coming in that the famous Radio Rock has a large hole in its side, and is therefore sinking into the North Sea. Really quite fast," John said before handing it off to Gavin.

I leaned on his table area as he suavely spoke into the microphone. "So, a tiny little crisis here," he said. Something crashed loudly overhead and we both looked up at the ceiling, then at each other. His face betrayed the worry that his voice didn't, and I was pretty sure I looked terrified. "So, if any of you out there knows anyone in Suffolk with a boat of any shape or form, give 'em a ring. Our coordinates are..." he grabbed the paper John was holding out to him, "...53-17 north, 2..." His voice caught, and that scared me more than anything had so far. "Sorry," he murmured into the mike. "2-15 east. Here's a rather long record." He turned on Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum. "I hope I'm here at the end of it."

He looked at me, and regret passed over his face. I think it was from the look on mine. The song itself had gotten to me, and then when he said he hoped he was here at the end...that did it. My well fashioned defenses against fear and personal weakness were breached. I barely trusted myself to talk, let alone walk, but I took a few steps towards the door, saying, "I'm...I'm gonna go get some stuff out of my room. I mean, I know it won't do any good...I just...I want to have it on me...yeah." I took a few more shaky steps towards the door, and then Gavin ripped off his headphones, got up, crossed to me, pushed me against the wall, and kissed me. Hard. John and Harold had about the same wide-eyed expression I had. I finally unfroze and managed to kiss the poor guy back.

He pulled away a little and murmured, "I thought you should get the chance to kiss a blonde before you die."

I actually laughed a little. Nervously, but I laughed. "Get a chance," I scoffed. "You didn't give me a choice!" He smiled and kissed me again, softer this time. "Besides," I said, breaking away and heading towards to door again, "I've had a lot of chances. I just never took them, and that was my mistake. I'm sorry."

One corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. "We've got a few hours yet, pigeon. It's not over."

I smiled. "Ok."

"See you in a bit." He winked.

"Yeah. Yeah, see ya." I ran out the door, and to my room, smiling the whole way. Once in my room, I grabbed the picture of me and Gavin that Carl had given me for my birthday, the star chart that Gavin gave me, and the one picture I had of everyone on the boat. Then, I opened my door, ran out and collided with Simon.

"Oh, Chelsea, I'm so sorry!" He cried, helping me up.

"That's ok," I answered. I still had a huge smile on my face.

Once I was standing, he took note of this smile and asked, "What are you smiling about?"

I looked at him. "Simon...I think I just hooked up with Gavin Cavanaugh."

He started grinning too. "Maybe this isn't the best time...but I bloody told you so."