"Ain't we all just runaways? I knew it when I met you: I'm not gonna let you run away." ~The Killers, "Runaways"

After she and Party Poison settled Fun Ghoul into a bed in the back of the station to recover, Hot Chimp went into the living room, which doubled as a studio, to talk to the one person she never would've expected to see again but who she had to admit was probably the most likely to end up here: Steve, the guitarist in her old band, now going by the name Dr. Death Defying (she'd thought he sounded familiar).

Lindsey hugged him awkwardly and sat down on the couch across from him, to talk about what had happened, to catch up on irrelevant things like she hadn't done in years. But he was quick to point out the state of his injured, scarcely-conscious friend Show Pony, slumped in the comfiest armchair she had, with a sheen of sweat on his face and a nasty burn on his shoulder.

Hot Chimp jumped up, going over to the kitchen cupboards and taking down a boxful of Betterlife Bandages. She returned with a second sheet of blue film, which she placed on the wound on Show Pony's shoulder. He jumped and winced at the contact, but seemed to believe her when she explained that he'd be okay in the morning.

Hot Chimp was eager to talk to someone, anyone, about what she'd just been through, but Show Pony was dozing off where he sat and Dr. Death looked dead on his feet (foot? How the hell had that happened?) so she directed the DJ to the second back bedroom, where the Girl was sitting, watching nothing through the window, her teary eyes filled with reflected laser beams. Dr. Death told her to go to bed, and even though she snuggled up to him like a puppy, even though he put an arm around her comfortingly, Hot Chimp knew Grace wouldn't be getting much sleep.

She walked past Fun Ghoul's room, saw Gerard curled up on a blanket on the floor beside his bed, and went back to the living room. She made a bed on the pullout sofa and touched Show Pony to wake him. She offered him the sofa bed, but he said no thanks, that he didn't mind staying right where he was. "That's a recliner," Hot Chimp informed him helpfully.

"Oh," he muttered, pulling the handle on the side and stretching out in a near-horizontal position. "Thanks."

Hot Chimp curled up on the pullout couch and soon she, like all the other Killjoys, had sunk into a restless, fitful slumber.

Party Poison had woken up with the sun, eaten some actually decent food for breakfast, and then gone back in the bedroom to wait for his friend to stir. He waited for what seemed like a very long time as the sun rose higher, and tried everything he could think of to wake Fun Ghoul up faster: flicking him, calling his Killjoy name, calling his real name in hopes that maybe his unconscious mind still thought of him as Frank, telling him that he had a concert to get to, only joking a little when he held an open pack of cigarettes under his nose. But after he been at it for an hour, and Fun Ghoul still showed no signs of coming around, Party went outside for a smoke, hoping that his wife had been right and that Fun would wake up on his own.

She was sitting outside too, on the arbitrary front porch swing (the radio station looked like it had once been a house), wearing a short-sleeved shirt that showed off the dozens of tattoos winding their way up her left arm. This was probably part of the reason she was in such a good mood- she'd always had to cover up her ink because BLI would've forced her to get laser surgery if she'd shown them off, and now anyone could tell at a glance that she was a rebel.

She looked up and smiled when he sat next to her. Lindsey was reading a letter, and, when he glanced at it in interest, told him, "I never get mail here, but this is pretty important." She handed it to him, and he read:

Andrea,

I hope you're all right and that Isoda didn't chew you out too badly.

Our mission was completely botched: all the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, some of our best soldiers, were killed by a suicide bomber and I myself was injured badly. I'll be alright, fortunately.

However, I do have some bad news. Korse is aware of your location and the nature of your company and has announced his plan to attack you if you do not respond to this within twenty-four hours. He also wishes to inform you that, if your companions are willing, he would like to challenge your leader to a formal duel to the death. It will take place a week from today on August 27th where Route Guano passes into the limits of Battery City, and the winner will decide the fate of any reinforcements brought by the other side, as well as receiving important information concerning the enemy's base locations, numbers of troops, and upcoming attack plans.

I wish you the best of luck. Tell your friend Fun Ghoul that he's not the only one with a laser burn in his neck.

Stardust,

Leonard Connor

Party Poison's first question of many was, "Who's Leonard?"

"He works in the same office as me. You met him at that party a couple days ago," Lindsey said, chuckling at her mundane answer. Then she frowned. "But I have reason to believe that he was spying on you as well, long before then. He gave us details he couldn't possibly have known otherwise. Can you think of anyone you know who could've been actually working for BLI?"

"Sweet Revenge," Party replied, feeling another rush of anger as he remembered the man who he had thought was trustworthy standing there, declaring his traitorism, nearly killing Party's best friend, and all the bastard could say was that he was sorry? "He worked at the gas station near us; we went there and talked to him almost every weekend."

"That was Leonard, then," she confirmed. "But I wonder why, if he is on BLI's side, did he say 'Stardust' at the end of this?" Lindsey bit her lip in contemplation.

"I don't know; he probably thinks it's a fad or something," Party said irritably, not really caring about that now; he was still pissed at the scumbag, and now here the coward was, asking them to let Fun know that he wasn't the only one who'd been wounded. Well, of course not! You would know, wouldn't you-he thought as though he was addressing Leonard- you were the one that shot him!

Just as he was wishing that the turncoat were here so Party could grind out his cigarette in the fucker's eye, Lindsey changed the subject. "How's Fun Ghoul?"

"He hasn't woken up yet, but he has a pulse, so…"

"He just needs to get some rest, I'm sure," she said. "Almost dying takes a lot out of you." She grinned, and he was amazed at how optimistic she seemed in spite of everything.

Party sighed out a little cloud of smoke, and stared into it while he felt an increasing amount of pity for his friends, and how messed-up they were because he had decided to become a rebel. But before he could get too angry at himself, he remembered that they had all agreed to come with him, no matter what. That didn't make him any happier about the state of things, though.

"Lindsey," he began. "I hate to ask this, but what happened to Bandit after the show?" He hadn't thought about his daughter in months, he realized sadly. Only since he'd found out his wife was still alive had he wondered about their child.

Lindsey closed her eyes, frowned. "I dropped her off at Jamia's house while I went to the concert, and when I was waiting for you in the parking lot- " Party winced at the memory of why he'd never met her there "- an air raid siren went off. We all hid in the basement of the concert hall, and when we came out, I didn't see you anywhere, so I went back to get Bandit and make sure she was okay. But when I got to Jamia's house, they were- " Lindsey broke off, swallowed, and tried again. "The house was destroyed."

Party knew that Frank's wife hadn't had a bomb shelter- no one had had a bomb shelter in 2013- and sighed again, in sadness that his worst fears were made definite. His wife said, in a shaky voice, "I don't think we should tell Fun when he wakes up. It'd just depress him."

"I'm not sure it would, really," Party replied, and for something to do he dropped his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. "It wouldn't even be a surprise. I mean, we all kind of figured that after the war and everything that you guys would be dead." Understandably, this seemed to make Lindsey very sad, and so he embraced her, like he'd wanted to for six years. He'd forgotten that she always smelled like strawberries; it was nice.

"It's okay," he whispered, and found, to his mild surprise, that it was okay: Painful though talk of his daughter's death was, it was really only confirming what he'd assumed, that both she and Lindsey were dead. And to then find that his wife- who was still so beautiful his heart ached- was alive; well, that was truly wonderful news. He smiled in an ironic sort of contentment as he thought, One out of two ain't too bad.

When Fun Ghoul woke up, he was aware of two things: first, that his neck ached like hell, and second, that he had no idea where he was.

He sat up, squinting in the sunlight streaming through the unfamiliar window, and as he tried to stand up, quickly discovered that not just his neck hurt. He felt completely exhausted and beaten, as though every nerve in his body had been ripped out, stretched to the breaking point, stomped on, and sewn back in with barbed wire. He groaned and blinked to try and fend off a growing headache.

It took him several minutes to get up enough leg strength to stand, but he finally did, and wobbled down the hall, where he met the other Killjoys. They were gathered in what he guessed was a living room, all talking at once. Party Poison was the first to notice him, and he looked at Fun Ghoul with his eyebrows raised in concern. Fun tried to smile, to reassure him that he was at least not dead yet, but as he had to hold on to the doorjamb to keep himself upright, he probably just looked mildly nauseous.

The others stopped talking and looked over at him, and he waved feebly. He'd expected that he would have to keep the Girl from hugging him with too much enthusiasm, but she simply beamed at him from the couch; someone must've warned her that he'd be in a lot of pain when he woke up. He sat next to her and she leaned against him carefully. Everyone was still silent, waiting for him to speak.

"What happened last night?" Fun Ghoul asked, startled at how hoarse his voice sounded.

Party started to tell the story, but Fun couldn't stop from gasping in shock, along with everyone else, when Party told them how Adrenaline Angel had sacrificed herself. "That's insane!" Fun croaked. "How the hell could she do something so stupid?"

"I don't know," Party replied. "I wanted to stop her, but she was too fast. By the time I realized she was going to bomb them, she'd already left."

"That sounds oddly familiar," Show Pony spat sarcastically, though he made a valiant attempt to sound joking. "Weren't you the one who wanted to fight a hundred Dracs single-handedly and have us blow you up?"

Dr. Death placed a hand on his arm to calm him down, but Party replied easily, "I was an idiot. I was too shortsighted to realize the effect that my death could've had on you guys. But I had Lindsey- " he smiled at her "- to help me figure out that life was still worth living. I don't think Adrenaline Angel had anyone like that."

Show Pony closed his mouth and looked away, saddened by the loss of a person he had hardly known.

Everyone chimed in with their own parts of the story. Fun was impressed when Grace told him she had taken out a S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W with his revolver; he'd always known teaching her about weaponry would pay off, but her providing a distraction long enough for Angel's stupid, decisive blow was more than he'd hoped for. When they were done, Fun Ghoul sat back and tried to process it all. At least I know where we are now.

The conversation then turned to a duel that was apparently coming up; Hot Chimp quickly filled him in on the finer points, and Fun asked, "Doesn't all that bargaining sound a bit suspicious?"

"I think it sounds uninformed," Dr. Death said. "Korse is obviously unaware of the fact that we couldn't tell him any more about our troop movements or how many of us there are than he already knows."

"And on top of that," Party Poison added, "we have no use for lists of his outpost locations or any of that; we couldn't do anything with it."

Hot Chimp laughed. "Are you kidding? You guys wrecked an entire building and came away unscathed! How is that not worth something?"

"It was a fluke," Fun Ghoul answered. "There just happened to be this huge amount of Dracs in one place at the wrong time, and we had the means to attack them. We couldn't do that now, because for one thing, it sounds like they know that you're not on their side anymore." He didn't say the second reason they couldn't have a raid like that now: It would serve very little purpose to seek out and kill more Dracs; they had no cause for revenge (except perhaps against Sweet Revenge himself) if they could get rid of Korse.

"But we still have to fight in this thing, or I do," Party echoed Fun's thoughts, with the reckless-as-always assumption that he'd be the one in danger. "We kill Korse, and the entire power structure of BLI changes. They'll need a new leader, unless Korse cloned himself, which I wouldn't put past him, but if not, there'll be a while where everybody's fighting for his place."

"And we launch an attack on Battery City while their defenses are down, right?" Show Pony suggested.

"I was gonna say we slip some songs into their radio stations and head for the hills," Party shot him down. "Because if we do attack Battery City, we'll, what, destroy some factories and some politicians or whatever, but it won't matter because they'll have more to take their places. Meanwhile, we'll have risked our lives by going straight into their home territory, and I don't think all of us would come out alive. I can't let you guys take that risk."

Show Pony sighed in frustration at his leader's new pacifistic attitude, but had to admit he was right.

"So we don't do anything at their weakest moment?" Dr. Death asked incredulously. "We just run away and let them recover?"

The Girl was looking from each person to the next as they spoke, following the debate like a Ping-Pong match, trying to figure out who she agreed with.

"Party's got a good point." Naturally, Hot Chimp sided with her husband. "I worked at BLI for a long time, remember, and I know how they do things. If we get a break during the power struggle- and I don't think we will; the company's too bureaucratic to collapse entirely, and nothing will stop the Exterminator units aside from killing every last one- but should we get a momentary break, attacking would weaken them for a while, maybe even a long while, but in the end it would just give them more evidence of us being terrorists and more reason to come after us."

"Okay, so," Fun Ghoul clarified. "Even if we win, we still retreat and give them a chance to regroup?"

"Yes," Party replied. "Because then we can figure out how they choose new leaders for the Dracs and see if we can't work that to our advantage."

"Like rigging the votes or something?" Dr. Death asked skeptically.

"If we could get somebody who was working on the inside, a Killjoy like Lindsey, or at least a Killjoy sympathizer, to become leader, it'd be smooth sailing from there."

"That would work," Lindsey mused. "And I have an idea of who it ought to be."

"And even if it doesn't, that would still be the most ideal outcome," Party continued. "None of you would have to die, we'd take out Korse, and do like we always do: Keep running." For somebody who had suggested that he practically dive headfirst into a firefight alone three days ago, Party Poison was making a lot of sense.

Fun thought that they ought to be prepared for the duel in case it was actually a trap, and after saying this to the group, he thought to himself that he should really ask Kobra Kid to teach him kung fu at some point…Where was he aga-

Oh. Right.

Shit.

Dr. Death agreed that they should all be ready for anything, and bring as many dangerous things as possible. Fun chuckled; he already had that covered, but he might have to instruct some others in how to hide knives in their clothing.

Then Grace piped up that they should have battle music. Lindsey grinned at her husband, sharing some inside joke, and said, "That'd be pretty shiny. We could announce our arrival with it."

Party said, "I was actually coming up with some ideas for new songs. Maybe it's time for something a little more battle rage-y."

"I'll play guitar for you, but we don't have any other instruments," Fun pointed out.

"We could always create more drum tracks," Show Pony said, his previous irritation dissolving into typical enthusiasm now that they had worked out a plan.

"Ooh! I play piano!" Grace declared in excitement.

"I play bass, you know," Lindsey chimed in.

"Really? Since when?" Dr. Death joked. "I haven't really played guitar since the band broke up, but I could relearn, I suppose."

"That's a lot to do in a week," Fun Ghoul stated. "How 'bout if we just write a song, and we can learn and work out all the instruments together?" Everyone nodded their agreement, and Fun turned to Party and asked, "What did you have in mind?"

He smiled at all his friends before replying, "What do you think about bongo drums?"