Kobra Kid spent several minutes blinking like someone was shining a bright light into his eyes. He did that at first to get the sand out, wincing from the abrasions on his face but refusing to complain, because that was an easy thing to trade for not getting horribly maimed by an angry mob.

Then he blinked in confusion at what the hell Jet Star had just done.

He hadn't been able to see much of it, surrounded by Dracs, pinned to the ground with dust in his eyes, and the- what? Whirlwind? Sandstorm?- hadn't helped matters much. He had heard the conversation, of course, but hadn't really believed that Jet had some grand plan to put into place. He'd thought maybe Jet was just stalling for time until Kobra could claw out from under the people holding him and distract them enough for everyone to escape.

He had apparently underestimated his friend's planning skills, and his ability to conjure vast windstorms from thin air using only his guitar.

He was all for the power of music, since the concert had made him feel much better and no longer terrified of going onstage- well, okay, maybe just a little less- but that had been pushing it. Not that he was complaining, just amazed that Jet had somehow managed to create a weird tornado and control it in almost the way Kobra controlled his "anti-building projects" as he had taken to calling his fires (which he would later realize he no longer needed to help control his anger, and give up).

He and Angel had helped each other up, neither of them bruised and bleeding as they should've been, and asked Jet what had happened to the Dracs, because the land around them was entirely empty aside from the concert hall behind them. Jet had said that he hadn't harmed them in the slightest, which Kobra was not exactly happy with but was determined not to dwell on, and he'd sent them away to someplace where they wouldn't hunt anyone anymore, and where they could maybe find a way to get along. He'd sent them to the one place where, according to him, "it's impossible to be angry or hate anyone."

They'd gone to the afterlife's version of Water World.

Kobra followed in Jet Star's wake as he meandered along the side of the road leading away from the city, picking idle tunes on his guitar. He looked surprisingly happy for someone who had, in under an hour, received massive amounts of depression and almost been brutally assaulted. Kobra didn't feel much worse, but he figured it was just adrenaline.

And of course there was Adrenaline Angel, walking alongside him, peppy as always. She was going on about how awesome that fight had been, even thought they had nearly lost badly and she had been punched a lot. Kobra could tell, though, that she was in a weird mood: she laughed a little too often even for her, and while she walked close enough that they could've been holding hands, she exercised the utmost care not to touch him.

To try and ease this uncomfortable tension that had settled on them, Kobra said teasingly, "Wow, Angel, that was a genius move, charging at them after they had me held down. I would've thought that after you died that way, you'd think twice about trying it again." The topic of how they had died was not nearly as awkward for them as it was to living people; here it was kinda like asking someone where they were born, and they'd often talked about each of their deaths.

Angel glanced sideways at him, and he knew something was up, because she blushed and fixed her eyes again on Jet's back. He'd never seen her blush, not in the five years they'd been friends.

"That's…not what happened," she muttered.

"What?"

She closed her eyes and made a face that he recognized because he'd done it often enough himself: the face of a person who's been asked an awkward question they don't want to answer.

"Uh…Yeah. I didn't, exactly, tell you how I died, or at least, um, not the whole thing," She bit her lip. "I wasn't just being stupid…though it was flattering how quickly you accepted that version, Kobra," she added with another sidelong glance, more of a glare this time, that made her look like her old self for a second.

"I don't think you're stupid," he assured her. "But we all make mistakes. What'd you do?"

She slipped back into awkwardness. "I…I might've, um…" she trailed off, tried again. "Okay, you know the Scarecrow attack I told you about?"

"Yeah?" He remembered how they'd discussed the whole thing in great detail, because he'd obviously wanted to know what had happened to the rest of the Killjoys while he was gone. Now he wondered what parts to believe; what was true and what was half-invented? Kobra had never known Angel to lie outright, either, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.

She frowned more deeply, as though bracing herself for a cold shock, or warning him to brace himself. "I had to get rid of them. It wasn't that the others fought them off."

"But they're not dead. We'd know."

"Right, and as far as I know none of them are dead. Fun Ghoul was messed up, but we'd have heard from him by now if he was here."

"So what happened with the Scarecrow, then?" Kobra asked.

He thought at first that Angel hadn't heard him, or was avoiding the question, because she went on as if he hadn't spoken. "I'd never met Fun Ghoul before then, as I've said, but he had a reputation for being a bit of a weapons nut. He was supposed to carry grenades up his sleeves and be able to put bombs together in like ten seconds."

Kobra was surprised when he felt sad at the mention of his still-living friend, like he was grieving for him, only backward. "That sounds like him, all right."

"Well, he had this bomb, and we couldn't leave it there 'cause the Scarecrow would get it, and you know their hatred for the Killjoys doesn't extend to perfectly good explosives. So I took it, and I figured the only way out of the jam we were in was to blow up the Scarecrow. But the bomb was too heavy to throw accurately, and besides, they'd probably throw it back. So…"

He stared at her in dread of what she was about to confirm. "Please tell me you didn't…"

She gave another unnatural laugh, this time mixed with bitterness. "What else was there to do? We couldn't lose another of the Fabulous Killjoys, or there wouldn't be enough to lead the rebels, give them hope. They didn't need me.

"And anyway, it was okay in the end, 'cause…" She swallowed. "I get to be with you."

He wasn't fooled by the offhand way she said the last part. That was the only true reason she'd done it; she'd come up with the others later, maybe even as she spoke. He knew by the way she looked at him: it was the same way his wife had looked at him on their wedding day.

He wondered how long Adrenaline Angel had been in love with him.

This was going to be bad enough without other people listening in; he called ahead to Jet Star that he and Angel needed to talk for a minute. Jet nodded sympathetically, like he already knew what they were talking about and wished him the best for it, then went and sat on a conveniently placed bench by the roadside, still immersed in his music.

Kobra and Angel crossed a few dunes, keeping the road in sight, and finally he couldn't take the silence any longer. Holding up his left hand to show off the gold band, he said, "I'm married, Angel."

"I know," she whispered, shaking her head pathetically. "I know. And I know it'll never work for us Kobra, and that's why I didn't tell you, but…"

"How long have you felt this way?" he asked, and he was irritated, in spite of his pity and embarrassment, that his afterlife seemed to have become a really crappy soap opera.

She scrunched up her face in thought. "Well, I've always liked you as a friend, of course, but I think it was only after you died that I realized I felt anything more."

"Maybe you were just missing me?" he suggested, though he could tell that he was wrong before she responded.

"No," she said quietly, taking a step towards him and reaching up to gently and carefully pull off his sunglasses.

He could've jerked away, or snatched them back, but Angel was still one of the few people that he trusted and he didn't want to hurt her more than he had to already. She was still looking at him with the same loving expression, and he tried to think of something to say to make her feel better. But all that came out was, "Angel, I think you should go."

She flinched slightly as she took in his words, but could not deny that he was right. It would be much worse for her if she had to see him every day, and it would make everything more bearable in the long run if they parted on good terms now rather than having a fight later. He hoped she could tell that he was still her friend, that he was trying to do what was best, but he could not be sure she got the message.

"Angel, I'm sorry," he began, but she shoved his sunglasses back at him, having seen in his eyes that he wasn't lying and really wanted her gone.

She shook her head, said, "See ya, Kobra," and stretched up to give him a brief kiss. Before he could react, she turned and ran off into the darkening desert.

He missed her before she was out of sight, and he hoped that someday soon she'd get over her infatuation and come back, and they could be friends again.

Kobra went back to the bench where they'd left Jet, only to find him kneeling, pleading, with the driver of- was that the old Bus? Damn, they'd done a number on it!

The driver pulled Jet to his feet, and seemed to be waving off his profuse apologies. "It's okay," Kobra heard him say. "No, really, I mean it. We're fine."

Kobra rolled his eyes and went to go see what was up, and what Jet was sorry for now.

Cameron had felt like he was ready for anything his afterlife could throw at him, but he was still caught off-guard when the people he had befriended and betrayed, and often both at once, got on the bus and sat by him.

He introduced himself with his true name, and was shocked at how well they took seeing him again, especially Jet Star, who positively beamed when he learned that his old acquaintance had had another name all along. Cam worried whether they'd pick up on these themes of half-truth and hidden identity and piece together his traitorism, but as they were not the suspicious types (not even Kobra, anymore, apparently) and they hadn't heard so much as a whisper of his old lives, they guessed nothing.

They talked for a while about a concert that the two had just held, and when they recounted how "super-shiny-awesome" it had been, Cam almost died again because he had missed it. True, it had been a lifetime ago that he'd been an MCR fan, but clearly that had not died out when he had. Jet noticed his pained expression and suggested that they have a concert of their own, just the three of them. Johan heard that and pulled the bus over to let them off at a flat place between some dunes, not too close to the city that they'd be bothered by anyone.

Kobra suggested that they start a fire to ward off the cold, and then chuckled at his idea and added, "And then we can all sit around it and sing Kumbayah." They set to the task at once, and soon had a roaring fire going.

Jet recalled Cam's fondness for "Helena" and decided that it should be the first on their unofficial setlist, but they'd barely gotten to the first word when Cam stopped them. He couldn't take it, sitting here with these double-crossed, should-be friends of his who were so blissfully ignorant of how he'd betrayed them.

He figured he ought to start with something small; it wouldn't make sense to just launch into his life's story with no introduction, so he said, "You know why I always liked that song?"

"Why?" Kobra asked. "Sentiment?"

"Yeah," Cam said with a nostalgic smile. "The best day I ever had was when I was one of the pallbearers in that music video."

They stared at him in astonishment; Cam was likewise shocked that they had never recognized him. "I thought you looked familiar!" Jet exclaimed.

"You've known him five years, Jet; I should hope he looks familiar," Kobra teased.

Jet gave a brief grin at that, but persisted. "Why did you never tell us that we'd met you before?"

Cam had often wondered that himself, but he'd found the reason in the end. "I wanted you to accept me as the person I'd become, not the kid I was when we first met. And I didn't want you to judge me based on my crappy first impression," he joked. "Besides," he added, with a sigh at the dark turn the conversation had to take from this point on, "while that was the best day of my life, it was surrounded by some of the worst."

Naturally, they asked what had gone so wrong for him that getting to be in a funeral procession was a highlight. But he had a concern of his own before embarking on the awful tale: the oppressive sense of guilt he still carried.

"I-I have to tell you something," he confessed and felt dread build up in his stomach, the words rushing out of him as though eager to evade the inevitable backlash. He still recalled Kobra's barely-restrained attack attempt and how the Killjoy had struck trepidation into Cam with more strength than if he'd actually hit him.

"What is it?" Jet asked quietly, sensing Cam's abrupt fear.

"It was my fault, all of it!" he said, his voice rising to near-hysteria, not just from fright, but the impossible idea that he'd soon explain everything he'd sworn to keep from everyone, sometimes including himself. His voice dropped to a whisper as he admitted, "I'm the reason you're dead."

"You didn't kill us," Kobra replied instantly. "We just had a fight with the bastard that got Jet, and Korse did me in. Don't blame yourself." He exchanged a mildly amused glance with Jet.

Cam hated to risk elaborating, but at this point he had no choice- if he didn't do it now, he never would. He'd forced worse out of himself, anyway.

"No, I didn't pull the trigger, but I turned you in. I told Korse where to find you."

Never mind that he hadn't wanted to get involved to begin with, had cried alone in his gas station after Korse had dragged the information out of him. He had no space for excuses now.

Kobra stood, took a step toward him as he had feared; he closed his eyes to brace for the blow that never came. Instead, he heard the last thing he expected: not a furious yell or a harsh threat, but the soft strains of "Freefallin'" by Tom Petty.

He chanced a peek at the Killjoys and saw that Jet Star had caught Kobra by the hand, holding him back while, eyes closed, he mind-sung to calm him down. Kobra did not resist, but sighed and said coldly to Cameron, "How long have you been on their side?"

"Always," Cam was whispering again; he could hardly bear the sound of his own voice.

"And what did you help them with?" He struggled to keep the rage out of his face.

"I passed them information: everything I knew about you from my days as a fan, everything you told me about yourselves, they knew it too." It seemed important to add what he'd said about Kobra. "One of the first things I told them was that you were bipolar. I learned that when I was sixteen, and it's been one of the things I most liked about you."

"Fun Ghoul told me you didn't know that," Kobra countered distantly, sinking down beside Jet with a dazed expression.

"Those things I said about being weak and having addictions," Cam continued, his voice gaining strength and volume as his confessions gained direction, "those were meant to provoke you. I'm so sorry, but I had to get you out of the way for the plan to work. I wanted Fun Ghoul out, too, but no such luck. So I figured I had one chance, and I sent out a homing signal to a nearby Drac patrol, who were waiting for it, showed up, and attacked. I had hoped that they would try to kidnap you all, want you alive to present to Korse, but they tried to kill you. Of course, I should've known you hadn't gone far and they were no match for you. I was glad when you beat them."

Jet and Kobra seemed to be at a loss for words, staring slack-jawed at him, taking in the outlandish realities he revealed to them.

Finally Jet asked, "But why'd you do this at all, Cam? You told us that you were a huge fan, that we'd saved your life."

"Or was that a lie too?" Kobra interjected. "And what's your deal with my bipolar disorder? Why do you like it? I can assure you I don't."

Cam felt the guilt well up in him, magnified by the truth Jet had spoken. He could never have an excuse for any of this, but he tried to explain as best he could. "It's true. I was- still am, actually- a fan, and you did save me. But I…" he broke off, not sure where to go from here; they seemed to have started in the middle of the story when they should take it from the top. "It started with my mother, and her mood disorder."

He told them of his childhood, growing up with a mother suffering from what he had later learned to be severe depression and a father who despised the idea of her getting treated for it. "It wasn't that he didn't love her, though they drifted apart eventually. He hated the thought of anyone being dependent on anything and didn't want her to be what he considered weak."

They saw the connection, he could tell, and he quickly confirmed it. "Yes, that was what I was ranting about. I only realized later that I sounded just like my father, even as I wallowed in the hypocrisy of hating dependency while working for BLI. The worst part was that I meant what I said.

"I was trying to make you mad, sure, but I also wanted to be mad at you. I wanted to be able to face you, and myself, when I turned you in. That backfired, obviously, so I ended up just ratting you out to Korse instead and letting him take over."

He elaborated on how he'd grown up, and how after his mother had hung herself from a curtain rod and he'd found the body (he'd almost broken down at this point, but Jet went over and put an arm around him until he felt better), his father had become unbearable. They never went more than a week without fighting, and the arguments would usually end with Cam curled up in his room, alone, fighting back sobs.

The situation had only worsened when Cam had realized that he was like his mother. He researched her condition and found out that he was showing the same symptoms: the crying jags; the fits of lethargy; the feeling that life was just a slow, plodding walk down a painful road to death. He was depressed too, but God forbid his father find out!

The strain of keeping his pain a secret finally got to him one night, when he and his father had a screaming match that was far worse than usual (it had been about his mother and whether she had meant to abandon them, which was insulting her memory and made Cam angry just to think about). Cam yelled his father out of his room and slammed the door before curling up in a corner, feeling like his life had hit a new low, and he couldn't bear to have to face his dad in the morning.

He'd thought that dying was his best option, and he'd taken a razor from his bathroom in the dead of night and cut open his wrists. But the slashes weren't deep enough to kill him, and so when his father had shown up a half hour later to give the same empty apology as always, it was to find Cam lying on the floor in his own blood.

He woke up in the hospital and was greeted with a speck of hope: maybe his father would realize how important Cam was to him and really mean it when he said sorry, and they'd get along better and it would all be something resembling okay…

Fat chance. His father's first words to him upon his return to consciousness were "How could you be so stupid?" On the doctors' advice he tried to avoid stressing Cam out when he needed to rest, but Cam could feel the bitter disapproval in his father's glance and he knew nothing was going to change. In fact, judging by the way his father had grown to almost hate his mother's memory, Cam suspected things were going to get much worse.

He did not intend to be there when they did.

"I wanted to try and kill myself again," he explained, and it was strangely good to have his listeners react to this with not pitying sighs but empathetic smiles. They got it; they got him. "But then I found you guys." And with them, he'd found another way out.

His first MCR song had been "Helena," which he had discovered while surfing the Internet for the best suicide methods (Kobra gave a dark chuckle when he said, "Did you know there's a whole section of Youtube for that?") The lyrics were perfect for his relationship with his parents, and just like that, he became a fan. Over time, he also grew out of his suicidal notions, because MCR was proof that there were other people who dealt with this kind of thing and he didn't have to go it alone.

His next goal was to show his favorite band his gratitude, and what better way to do that than to be in the music video for his favorite song? His father had agreed to let him stay in California alone because he couldn't take time out of his job to go with him. Their awkward goodbye at the airport would be the last contact they would have in this life.

"I took my life's savings with me, and some of his too," Cam admitted. "I stole it from his hiding place behind the bookcase when he was out. I think that was what really signified how serious I was about leaving. When I didn't show up back at the airport he tried to call me, but I didn't answer, and he probably thought I'd missed my flight and was just being obstinate by not telling him.

"But I was way beyond that. I bought my own apartment in Los Angeles, changed my name to Leonard so Dad couldn't find me, and gotten a job at an upstart company called Better Living Industries." He noticed Jet and Kobra's frowns and said, "I didn't know at the time what they would grow to be. I just knew that the job came with health insurance and they advocated my treatment.

"I was happy, for the first time in my life." Cam had almost lost track of where he was, gazing not into the crackling fire but his memories.

Jet prompted, "And you just stayed on after the war?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I know it sounds heartless, but the war was good for BLI- good for business, with all the people flocking to the little fortress, Battery City. Nobody called it L.A. anymore, not after BLI took over.

"I went along with it, got promoted even. I was assigned to work in what I was told was a prison for rebels, people trying to destabilize the government. And then one day, we were told a group of high-priority threats had been captured- "

Kobra cracked his knuckles, the sharp sound breaking into Cam's thoughts. He looked up, thinking that Kobra would finally go for him (Jet had finished that Tom Petty song ages ago and had stopped holding him back), but he remained sitting, glaring at the ground.

Cam went on, not entirely comforted. "I was shocked when I realized it was you guys. I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone who considered you, of all people, a threat."

"You should've busted us out, then!" Kobra snapped.

Should have, should have…How many times had he told himself the exact same thing? "I know. But I didn't know what would've happened after that. There was no Killjoy rebellion then, so I couldn't be sure that you wouldn't just get recaptured and have worse done to you…" He grew tired of such excuses, no matter how true they were, and said, "I was just scared. I didn't want to be in danger too; I knew they'd kill me or torture me or something if I helped you.

"But I did try to get them off your back," he said to Kobra. "I told them how dangerous and violent you were, how they should be afraid of you."

Kobra stared at him in dawning comprehension, all traces of anger gone. "Then…that's why they didn't attack me for so long!"

Cam nodded. Turning to Jet Star, he added, "I'm sorry I couldn't have been of more help to the rest of you, but they didn't believe me about the rest of you- especially you. They said you were too polite to be that evil."

Kobra snorted.

"They believed me after you broke out, though. Then they trusted whatever I said."

"You did help us, though," Jet replied. "I remember a man who came to our cell and sung us to sleep at night- that was you, wasn't it?"

Cam remembered it differently: he'd spent those nights sleepless, berating himself for his weakness and sympathy for the people who were supposed to be his enemies. Now he just smiled. "I did what I could."

"It was 'Sleep,' wasn't it?" Kobra asked, looking as though he'd just learned the meaning of life. Cam knew there was no chance of Kobra going for him now, and he confirmed that by saying, with a trademark smirk, "You do have good taste in music."

Cam went on, "I also let Show Pony in, when he came to break you out. I was on door-guard duty and I didn't ask why he was there; I could see that he had a gun and I just didn't bother to stop him. He got half of you out before the general alarm went up."

"You got us out alive." The gratitude in Jet's voice was more than Cam deserved, when all he had done was open a door.

"No, I let in someone who could help more than I could."

He carried on with the story, this time explaining how he'd become a spy and fixed up the old gas station, using supplies from BLI. He'd had to get a Killjoy name, and had chosen the title of his favorite album, trying to distract himself with his somehow-surviving admiration rather than focus on his betrayal of the band that had saved him once. It didn't work.

He had spent the years of their acquaintance torn with indecision, trying to figure out whether to stay loyal to the people that had given him a job and treatment or those that had given him a reason to get away in the first place.

He had finally cracked and agreed help Korse and the other Exterminators set up a trap at the gas station. There, Leonard or Sweet Revenge or whatever-his-name-was had the first priority of getting Kobra Kid out of the way: apparently his hyperbolic descriptions of Kobra as ruthless and deadly had come true.

"I was terrified the week leading up to it," Cam confessed, his hands still shaking at the memory. "I asked for some extra meds, even. But we all know how well that attack went." He tried, and failed, to laugh at his own stupid joke. "I hated myself the whole time, too. When I was ranting, I was really just trying to keep myself from drowning in hypocrisy and to try to get my allegiance straight. But that didn't work either, because of you, Kobra.

"It's not that I like your disorder," he explained. "In fact, at that time, I hated you for dealing with it so well, better than I'd ever handled any of my problems. I couldn't have that if I was working for the other side now, so I told you all the hateful things I couldn't say to myself. When I thought they were going to kill you, though, I realized how much that would hurt me, too: you were the closest thing I had to a good role model.

"After all the Dracs were dead, though, I had to have a way to really apologize, or at least, as much as I could without giving up my position as either your friend or the most famous, successful spy at the company." He chuckled darkly. "See the bind I was in? I did try and help you out, though: that lithium I gave you was my extra."

Kobra was too surprised by all of this to do more than mutter, "Thanks."

Cam talked on into the night, telling them of what had happened after they died. He told them about the party and their friends' revenge (this seemed to mean a lot to Jet, who said, "Oh, so that was the Outpost 9 thingy!" and Kobra added, "They didn't take revenge very well. Neither did we, really," and Cam sensed another story to be told). He explained about his interrogations, how he had filmed Party Poison and Hot Chimp and shown that as evidence of his loyalty.

"Though really," Cam said with a sardonic smile, "my boss should've realized that it was evidence of my traitorism that I didn't try and kill them right then."

For he had become a traitor by then, even as he finally gave up the location of the diner and led a Scarecrow strike team in an assault. Kobra suddenly chimed in with details of how the attack was thwarted by a Killjoy called Adrenaline Angel; she was the one who had blown herself up in their midst.

"She told me later," Kobra said, shrugging, as Cam stared at him in amazement.

The story wound on: Leonard had suffered a recurrence of morals and had tried to shoot himself to avenge what he thought was Fun Ghoul's death (it later turned out that he was just fine, thanks to Hot Chimp, who had also turned against BLI), only to be "saved" by Korse. He told them about the duel, and how he had finally gotten fed up with Korse's superiority and decided to try and avenge them.

"And that's how I ended up here," he said, but was not finished.

Cam couldn't help but wonder whether the Killjoys minded that he'd taken over the conversation as he droned on for another quarter of an hour about his meeting with his young self, but they both fixed him with expressions of absolute fascination, and so he continued.

He told them about how he'd rediscovered the pain of his mother's death that he had repressed for so long, his meeting with his father, and ended with how he'd known that he couldn't be Sweet Revenge any longer.

"I mean, it was a shiny name," he said, and this attempt at a joke was easier to smile at. "But it wasn't me, you know what I mean? I was too torn between you guys and BLI to know who the hell I was after a while. I knew when I stood up to Korse that I definitely wasn't Leonard anymore, but it took me much longer to learn that I couldn't be a fake Killjoy either. I had to find out who I had been before all this, back when I could be an MCR fan and go to a concert without having to worry about whether I'd have to shoot you in the morning.

"And I ended up as Cameron," he concluded, feeling worn-out at this rambling tale but, finally, guilt-free.

"I can relate," Jet said after a moment of silence. He held his arm out for them to see, displaying his jacket sleeve. "The bloodstains are gone; they cleared up when I talked to Johan on the Bus and he said that they were doing just fine and didn't blame us for what we'd had to do to them. I finally feel okay again; I feel like me."

Cam was reminded of his own bloody ordeals and glanced down at the healed wounds on his wrists.

He realized what it was that he'd been missing in his misguided attempts at finding himself, saw what he could've had ages ago in the utmost contentment and certainty on the man's face as Jet concluded, "So I'm changing my name back. From now on you can call me Ray."

"By the way," Kobra broke in suddenly, turning to the re-named Ray with a dark glare. "I don't need you to tell me when to calm down; I'm getting pretty good at containing myself, if you hadn't noticed."

"I noticed," Ray assured him, with the shadow of a smile on his face in spite of the situation: making Kobra mad was worse than staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. "I think you've changed, too."

But there was a crack in Kobra's angry exterior: a slight twitch of the corner of his mouth as he said, "Maybe, but if I have to hear you sing about how you're 'freefallin'' one more time, you will be because I'll throw you through a plate-glass window."

Ray doubled over laughing; Kobra flashed him an affectionate grin. Cam was still reeling from the mood swings of the conversation, but eventually figured that it was okay if he chuckled too. After all, there was nothing like a good in-joke between true friends.

When the three of them had finished laughing, Ray asked Kobra, "So what was the deal with Angel?" and as Cam had no clue who that was, aside from her name and her clear friendship with Kobra, or what the deal was, he settled down for his turn to listen to a story.

Well, that had sucked, to say the least.

Adrenaline Angel didn't know what she'd been hoping would happen- she knew he was married and wasn't interested in her like that- but maybe she'd heard too many sappy love songs or something, because she'd thought that maybe they could make it work.

She'd willed herself not to cry as he told her the harsh truth, even though his voice was gentler than when he spoke to anyone else, and that attempt at comforting her made it all so much harder. She was crying now, though, tears making trails through the dust on her face. While they were sweetened like her favorite lemon tea, she thought bitterly that they would never be as sweet as he had been.

Angel choked back a sob, and quickly thought about it in a different way.

As she stalked off across the desert, she realized that she had seen this coming all along. She was being totally stupid about it, expecting him to run off with her, or whatever it was she'd been wishing; she wasn't sure now. Anyway, that was delusional, and she was wasting her time on this crush. She was supposed to be too old to get crushes!

Angel was glad that Kobra hadn't seen her cry, because she respected him too much for him to know how silly she was being.

She arrived at her store, hung up Featherweight, and slumped into a beanbag chair, exhausted and angry at herself. She fully intended to sit there and cry for a while and get some good moping done, but her mind wandered back to her friend, and music.

She remembered how Kobra had said (had it been a joke?) that she must play country, because she was Southern. It wasn't her fault she was born in Texas and had hated the place from the age of four! She'd always thought the typical country music sucked, with all the twangy banjos and whatnot, especially the cheesy breakup songs. Angel snickered through a running nose when she tried to imagine what kind of song would suit this occasion, and came up with: "I thought I had a boyfriend, but he left me outta luck/Told myself he loved me, but he didn't give a fuck/So now I hafta hit with my daddy's pickup truck…"

Before she reached the chorus, Angel was giggling too hard to think or to brood. And at least Kobra did care about her, and she knew he was always her friend

She was also glad that she didn't have to actually hit him with a truck, because that would be another really awkward conversation.

Feeling considerably better, Angel tried to think of what to do next. She had been so absorbed in planning for the concert, and now that it was over she felt kinda lost.

Well, who said it had to be over? Angel jumped up again as inspiration obligingly hit her over the head. It had never occurred to her that must be other musicians here; she'd met that girl Mackenzie at the concert, and she was just one of who knew how many people who were really talented and itching to perform.

Angel went to her totally shiny new laptop computer and created a poster to put on the door of the shop. It said that anyone who needed a guitarist for their band should talk to her, and went on for a bit about her favorite styles of music, and had a picture of Van Halen shredding, which was obviously the best part. No, the best part was that she could actually shred like Van Halen.

She figured that if she was going to be in a lot of bands pretty soon, she'd better practice like a nutcase, so she picked up Featherweight and set to work.

Halfway through trying to remember a scale she got distracted and started writing a song for herself- not an overly angsty one, though it was full of her issues and fears, yes, but it was also honest, heartfelt, and most of all had a little bit of hope- a desert song.

For a fall from power and grace, it wasn't too bad.

He'd thrown away his old medals and his old name with them, and taken on his older name, Grant. He was not sorry about the nonexistence of BLI; it gave him a chance to think about what was really important to him. He focused on the ideas that he'd always considered his own private heresy: the thoughts that had come to him in the middle of the night, just before he fell asleep; the idea that the Killjoys were oppressed artists and nothing more; that he couldn't really claim to be better than them because if the situation were reversed, he'd fight the same war; and the most worrisome of all, how he knew their leader had once been a comic book artist himself and if things had gone a tiny bit differently, they could've been friends.

He had hated himself for these thoughts, tried desperately to ignore them, and now he could consider them freely, even believe that he was right. He took up a job as a comic book artist again, happy to be doing something familiar. He felt much better for it: his blood pressure had gone down (not that it mattered here, but it was nice all the same) and he mellowed out considerably.

The only people that didn't notice the change in him were the ex-Dracs and the Killjoys. He would often have his former subordinates come up to him in the street and greet him with news on the war, and he would tell them that it didn't matter, that he didn't care anymore who won (though he secretly rooted for the Killjoys), and he told anyone who asked him about BLI to go find something else to do with their lives, because that was over.

The Killjoys had still hated him at first. They would yell things at him, demand to know what he'd done to their friends or cousins or brothers- forcing him to admit that he didn't know the fate of every Killjoy he'd ever led a raid on and even the ones he hadn't, but he had figured out long ago that you could always find someone you were looking for here- sometimes even attack him. His ribs still ached from his recent encounter with some crazy Southern punk rocker who had punched him in the stomach on behalf of her friend Kobra Kid. On the whole, though, things had calmed down between him and the Killjoys: once they'd realized he had no plans to reinstate BLI or anything like it. He'd even formed some timid friendships with a few of them, when they agreed to let him use them and their life stories for his work.

It was ironic that his favorite place to hang out and sketch was at the old diner, which he'd since learned was the place where the Fabulous Killjoys had eluded him for so long. It was just a memory replica, true, but it was really a very nice one.

"Thanks," he said, glancing up from his notepad as Mara, the waitress and an excellent cook, set down another cup of hot coffee.

She wasn't listening, her eyes focused instead on the window. He looked too, and for all his hard-won peace with the Killjoys and professed distance from BLI, felt a tingle of fear as he saw three of his worst enemies: Jet Star, Kobra Kid, and that traitor Leonard.

They came in and sat down in the next booth over, and apparently Mara knew them too, because Kobra started to apologize for something to do with her nose, and she laughed it off with a joke about how it looked better now, and maybe he should go into rhinoplasty.

Grant understood none of this, but waited for the blow to fall.

And, right on cue, Jet Star turned around in his booth and faced Grant and said, "Well, look who finally showed up!"

Kobra and Leonard stopped laughing over their coffee and froze, staring at him in disbelief.

Jet continued, "I never thought we'd see you here." He didn't sound angry, though, or like he was taunting Grant, but simply welcoming, as if Grant had finally found his way to Jet's house for a party after losing the directions.

"I…ended up dying in the end," Grant told him. There was really no need to explain what everyone could clearly see, but it was easier than talking about why he had died in front of one of the people who had helped kill him. "Listen, you should know that I'm not like I was; I've reformed. I don't hate Killjoys anymore- in fact, I never really did, it was just part of my job- and I have no affiliation with BLI in any capacity."

He had more to explain, but Kobra spoke up and said, "Oh, we know. Ray has this weird, like, sixth sense for people who've changed. That's why I haven't knocked out all your teeth yet."

"Oh," Grant didn't know what to say to that. "You don't have to do that, you know. You've been avenged again: I got punched by your friend- Angel, was it?"

Kobra chuckled. "I wouldn't hit you anyway. You're too nice for that now. Besides, I don't need more stress; it's not good for me."

Grant smiled at him, not in superiority as he had when he'd shot him, but in actual kindness. Then a question occurred to him. "Wait, who's Ray?"

"Oh," said Jet Star, with a slightly awkward grin. "I guess we forgot to tell you. I changed my name back to what it was before all this happened. I'm Ray." He reached over the top of the booth to shake hands.

"Grant." He took a second to note just how reformed he was, shaking hands with a sworn enemy, and then Leonard said his first words in the whole conversation:

"I'm Cameron now, and I'm sorry you had to die, sir, but I don't regret what I had to do." Despite the sureness of the words, he looked petrified to be saying them, shrinking back in the booth as though afraid Grant would tackle him.

He looked at his old subordinate, his right-hand-man turned traitor, and realized that he hadn't regretted killing him, either. He had no grudge against him now, though: he had done what needed to be done when he was Korse, and now he could be someone else, live another life, and give Cameron a chance to do the same. It seemed ages ago that they had faced each other on that dusty battlefield, and he was willing to forgive and forget.

He explained this, and Cam sighed in relief and shook his hand.

Kobra asked abruptly if it was rude to wear his sunglasses inside, and answered his own question by taking them off. They weren't really sunglasses, though: they were practically clear, but he took them off anyway.

When the group walked out much later, he would leave them behind and act like he hadn't heard when Mara tried to tell him he'd forgotten them.

Grant was growing to accept these peaceful Killjoys, but was still a little (only somewhat jokingly) shocked to see that Kobra Kid's eyes were human- he'd been expecting some sort of cyborg, or maybe a demon-snake. But anything could happen now that they were dead: he could be friends with his greatest enemies, even!

"I'm Mikey, by the way," the man said, and Ray jumped up and tried to hug him across the table, which didn't work very well because he nearly knocked over their coffee.

Grant moved his stuff over to their table, and they talked for a long time together about what they'd all been through in the afterlife, how they'd ended up here, and what they were going to do now.

Grant's plans were not nearly as ambitious as the others' as he just wanted to work on some more art. They had a growing list of people they had to find that included Ray and Mikey's wives; the spouses and children of the other, living Killjoys; their old Killjoy buddy Cherri Cola; and Mikey's grandmother (Cam seemed eager to find her too, and he explained to Grant that he would finally get to meet the person for whom he'd "helped hold a metaphorical funeral.")

When Grant said that he could tell them how to find all of those people, they practically killed him again in their excitement. He waited for them to calm down and elaborated: the same force that allowed everyone to create buildings with their minds could also be used to locate people.

Mikey chuckled. "Well, I feel stupid for not thinking of that."

"That should make things much easier," Ray added. "Especially since I think the people on the Bus will be glad to help us out."

Grant tentatively asked if he could accompany them on their journey, because he was running out of stories and he figured theirs was the only one the people from the "Killjoy generation" would be interested in anyway. They agreed.

And so Grant reclined in the Killjoys' diner with his new friends Cam, Ray, and Mikey, and felt that being dead wasn't so bad, after all- especially not when the coffee was this good.