Author's Note: For the time being, I'm just more or less writing straight through and taking advantage of my break. I'm going back for classes in a little over a week, and I'm sectioning off chapters where it feels appropriate right now. Once I go back, I will slow down a little bit on updates, but I'm making sure that I get this through because I have very good ideas of where I want to take this. That does mean, too, that for the time being, I'll be updating relatively quickly.

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The comm was silent as I walked, save the slight breathing I could hear on the other side. Finally, I got a response, "Who is this?" I sighed softly.

"I know you haven't forgotten me yet, Wolf," I said, and I found myself smiling a moment before I turned on the video function, my face projecting from the other's comm as I walked, "I want to ask for a job from you." The video function was quickly turned on from the other side, Wolf surely doing it just to look at me with that pure look of, 'What the actual fuck did you just say?' My expression didn't shift, I didn't even flinch.

"You're Cornerian Military, McCloud," he said, and he snorted a second, "What would possess the high and mighty Fox McCloud to ask for a job from me when he's easily gotten the cushiest job in our stars." His face turned to a sneer, and I lifted with my other hand the letter I held.

"I'm on my way to General Pepper's office as we speak to hand in my letter of resignation. I'm a mercenary and there's no place for a mercenary that's not a part of a team," I said. I felt the words sour in my mouth, because it was me admitting that I didn't have a team, "Look, you don't believe me, meet me somewhere," I said.

"I'll send you a location, McCloud. I'm bringing my team, though, I'm not dealing with any shit from you tonight." I knew it was gonna be some bullshit theatrics, but I just smiled and our comm connection went dead soon after. I found myself muttering some choice words about him under my breath, but I didn't even think about them before they were free. I didn't like Wolf, I didn't approve of Wolf's way of working. I could make it work.

Just a little bit further and I arrived at General Pepper's office, but he wasn't in. It was probably for the best as I didn't want to face him after I was spitting on his opportunity, but everything was detailed in the letter alongside my request for Fara to take over the department. This had to work.

I returned to the dormitories, and I had already packed all of my stuff. I pulled the bags out from under my bed and placed the few other items I had grabbed into them, nestling the memories I could carry into the bag with a tender touch. I didn't dare press hard enough to displace one of the petals, and I appreciated that Jinx had been one of the students I actually got to meet in my time here. I thumbed over the card for a second before I placed it and the wedding portrait in it as well.

As I left the dorm, I knew there was one more place I'd have to pass through before I could leave these grounds, and I found myself pausing as I arrived in the atrium again. Rather than head for the exit and back to society, back from this boxed-in lifestyle that I had taken on in the past two years, I found myself drawn to the center. As I approached the glass box, I lowered to my knees for a second as I knelt before the display. "I'm sorry," I said, and it was the best I could muster in those moments before I lowered myself closer to the ground. My hands clasped, and I prayed, but I don't know what I was praying for or who I was praying to, but a wish for the two years to have never happened and to still have my team wasn't the type of wish I should be making.

I stood, I looked over the grounds, and I returned back to that Arwing all over again. I had asked for it to be removed from the case at the beginning of the summer, asked it to be returned to me, but Pepper had refused. That ship was a piece of history and history weighed higher than my own personal ideals. He offered me a ship to replace it, but I refused, because I knew deep in my heart I could never replace that ship. It had been salvaged from Venom before the Lylat Wars had begun, they sent out reconnaissance teams in an attempt to locate him. When they were fired on and Venom shook with the drums of war, Lylat was thrown into chaos. The ship had been returned and I was gifted it as my right, as his will, but I felt as if leaving it in the case betrayed not only my wishes, but his too.

I turned, pulling my flight jacket close to me and fixing the crimson scarf that I hooked onto my neck. As I reached the doors, I opened them and I realized that carrying bags with all my livelihood in them wasn't terribly practical, but it was the only choice. Two guards at the door nodded and smiled at me, but they didn't realize the implication of the two bags. Most instructors had a lot more to carry with them if they were to leave, having furniture and all sorts of things but I had spent my time in the stars and I learned to travel light.

The location arrived on my comm, and it seemed like Wolf knew that if I was serious, I was literally just gonna walk out of there with no plan. He was right, but it was a bar that was all of a two minute walk away. I made a bee line to it, cutting through the weaving path and back to the street. Each step felt like it was lightening the load on my heart, but I was still angry at the fact that that ship was sitting there, penned up in plain sight. It was a monument to my shame, to the fact that I had taken a job in the military and became a golden goose for them. All I did was speak and appear and make them look good but I couldn't even be allowed to teach because I had to do paperwork and set up a program that Pepper should have done in the first place.

When I got to the bar, I stepped in, and I knew that if it got ugly, I could just resort to using the blaster that had been supplied to me by the school. It had a few modes, but I left it at its default: to kill. There was no reason I would ever take that gun out unless I had a premeditated plan that involved another mode or if I needed it to kill someone. There was a small booth in the back corner, but as I went to step to it, one of the men at the door looked at me, "Can't bring your stuff in. No one's moving in here," he said, and he gestured toward the door.

I looked back at him, and I shook my head, "I didn't even plan on buying a drink, but if you let me go in with my things, I'll buy one for each of us," I said, and my voice rasped for a moment. He recognized me as I did.

"Oh, Mr. McCloud, I'm so sorry, of course. And thank you," and I was disturbed that my name let me do things like that, but I needed it. To be honest, I needed a drink.

Wolf wasn't here yet, he couldn't have been, the bar was too quiet and no one was fighting. I made my way to the bar, grabbing a couple beers. I gave one to the man at the door, and he was still red to his ears, then I set myself at my table and set a beer across from me. I took a drink, and I peered over the room. Wolf didn't seem like the type of person to be late, but we hadn't agreed on a time, so I suppose I'll just have to wait for him.

I took another drink, and I heard some commotion at the door. A group of at least 8 stepped in, and Wolf was at the front. I didn't flinch, I just looked across the bar and I'm sure Wolf could feel how drained and upset I was when he made eye contact with me. I saw his hand gesture towards them, for them to wait and do something else. They mingled, going to the bar and getting something to drink. They probably had songs of war to sing, but the booth was occupied with a man with nine years on me and he muttered something as he accidentally kicked one of my bags. He took a drink before he looked more directly at me, "How the hell did you get my comm link, McCloud?"

I looked back at him, and in the back of my head, I reminded myself this was a business deal. I could be professional, "The military has some records of you. I couldn't trace that comm if I tried, but I can at least get a hold of you. Of course, the clearance for that was well above my rank and file, Pepper's too, I'm sure," I said, but I looked at the bottle for a second, "I had to get a little crafty to get a hold of it, but, when my team said they didn't want to go back to being a team, I knew I had to get a hold of it somehow."

"Well, I'll just have to get a new comm," he said, and he muttered for a second as he took another drink. I matched him, and I could feel he was trying to figure out how to do this. "This is your shit, though," he said, letting out a small laugh, "You quit that job, you actually did it," he said, and the laugh only got louder, "But why the fuck would I offer a job to you? You're deranged."

"You know I'm a good pilot, Wolf."

His hand slammed on the table, "You've been trapped behind a desk teaching pups how to fly an Arwing. You're rusty and you've got no damn ship to speak of, pup. I know they put that thing in glass, it's on display for all the students to see but it's a grave to your fucking career as a mercenary, McCloud." I promised myself that no matter how riled up he got, I would keep my cool, but I could feel it grating. I could feel something in me let go, and that professionalism that I had tried to foster in the past 2 years had all started to slip down the drain.

I don't even remember making the motion, but I slammed my own hand on the table and I was in his face, "Don't you fucking think I know that, Wolf? I don't fucking belong behind a desk, I spent two years of my life in hell and I'm not fucking going back. If you're not gonna give me a job, I'll fucking find some other pilots and make my own damn team again, I don't care how good they are. I need to be in the fucking air," and I could feel my emotions frying, I could feel that I would cry soon, but I wasn't backing down. I could smell him, his breath, the entire air of superiority that he had over him. I hated it.

The next motion drew a gasp of surprise out of me, Wolf's hand at my throat as he slammed me back into my seat. His face followed his hand, never getting more than a few inches away, "I can't give you a job, McCloud, I can't do that. I'm not employing some goody-goody to fly and go on adventures. Not all of us get to be a mercenary that can choose from any job in the galaxy, and you fucking threw it away." His eyes narrowed, and for a second, all I could see was red.

Something in me snapped, people were looking, and as I went to throw a blow back, I felt hands on both of us as we were out on the street, my shit landing on me soon after. Wolf and I weren't done, and I grabbed my shit and threw it out of the main path of the street and into the alley, but the motion gave Wolf the opening. His hands were back on my throat, and we spun and struggled until we were trapped in the dark embrace of the alley. I realized that we weren't alone, but it was his crew, not someone that would actually stop it.

I couldn't overpower him, he had me against a wall, and I was coughing as I felt my windpipe press down. A familiar face was caught in the light from the streetlamp outside, Leon, and he approached Wolf. He handed Wolf something, I knew because the hand left my throat for a second and I could breathe. All I could see was his eye, it was too dark and I couldn't even fight him anymore. He was taller than me, and I found out what he had been handed a few seconds later as I felt a blade against my neck as he held me above the ground. "How does it feel, McCloud? This is what a real mercenary's life is like. You can lose it at any second, and the missions mean kill or be killed. Are you afraid of death, McCloud?"

I could feel it in my gut, some sort of rejection. I wasn't afraid, and I didn't shake. "I accepted death a long time ago, Wolf," I said, and I reflected on that moment for a second, "When I flew into Venom's core, I should've died and I wouldn't have questioned it for a moment if I did," and he held eye contact with me, "Every day I'm alive is borrowed time, but that time means nothing to me," and my eyes narrowed for a second before I found myself shouting at him, "If you're going to kill me, Wolf, just fucking kill me," and the shouting pressed my neck against the blade enough that I could feel blood slipping free, but not deep enough to sever anything vital, "I'd rather be dead here than ever go back to sitting behind a desk."

He snarled, I could feel his breath rolling over my face, he was looking over me, he was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth but we were in some sort of dark hell, he couldn't see my features, he could only hear my heartbeat and it didn't skip a beat, it was calm. I wanted to scream, I really wanted to, some part of me was telling me to get the fuck out, but that wasn't the part in control, I didn't care. The knife drew back from my neck, and I could breathe again as I fell to the ground. "Grab your shit McCloud, we're staying upstairs in this bar until we ship back out, tomorrow. We can discuss specifics when we get inside," and I could feel my heart ripping through my chest for a moment. I wasn't dead.

I grabbed my things from the entrance of the alley, and I followed Wolf closely, feeling his team tailing behind me. The face, appeared like a phantom over my shoulder as he leaned close and dragged his tongue through the blood on my neck, "Pity, I would've liked to see one of your team die after all these years," he said. It was Leon, and god damn was he a lot more terrifying than Wolf was. I resisted the urge to shudder.

"Not today," I said, and he gave an amused little snort.

"We still have some hours left."

He retreated from me after a few seconds and we were back inside. Wolf got a dirty look from the bouncer, but he was allowed back in without too much trouble. The same bouncer looked at my neck for a second and then back towards Wolf, but something in how I walked must've convinced him to just let it go. I knew that in that same crowd I was walking, Pigma could very well be among them, assuming he hadn't flaked another commander. I'd have to play nice with him in spite of what he had done, I'd have to bury my father's memory enough to be able to be here.

Wolf continued walking until he reached a set of stairs and he guided me up alongside his team, and there were a set of rooms at the top of the stairs. Wolf gestured me into one room and he closed the door behind him. There were only five rooms, Wolf probably planned to sleep alone after killing me and relish in that little victory, but I was sitting in that room and he took my bags and set them in the closet. There wasn't a table to speak of, just a cot and a lamp. He sat at the end of the bed, but I chose to stand for the time being. "We need to figure out pay and other stuff," he murmured, running his face over his hands. He hadn't planned this conversation, he had planned to kill me.

I lifted my hand to my neck, but I remembered the gloves that I quickly removed and placed in the pocket of my flight jacket. I lifted my hand once again, dragging it through the sticky fluid before I drew it to my tongue, tasting my own blood. A little deeper and I'd be dead, and I found myself looking towards him again. He continued talking, I just enjoyed that I didn't have to, "We provide enough for everyone that works with us to have the bare minimum to survive. You get a little bit of food, a little bit of water, and we maintain our station's power. There's a gym, there's other shit, we've built it to be comfortable. If you want more than to just survive, you need to go out on jobs. For jobs, money is split evenly between everyone on the job, it doesn't matter who's leading, they get the same cut. A little bit of the money is put back towards Sargasso, usually 25%."

He sat there for a second, trying to regain his train of thought, "We need to figure out a ship for you and other shit," and he ran his hands over his face once again. He was thinking, and he didn't seem to be too happy about what he was thinking about, "You're too good of a pilot to be shooting shit with a lot of the people in Sargasso. We have an open spot in our team, Andrew and Pigma aren't there anymore. If you can get a ship, you can fill it. It's something like half a million credits for a new Wolfen, though. We've modded ours to hell, but those were older models," he said, and he needed to stand. He stepped towards the window, opening it and letting in the humid summer air. He fished in his pockets, finding a pack of cigarettes before he lit one and took a drag. He offered one to me, and I took it without hesitation.

I took a drag before I chimed in, the rasp in my voice probably because of my windpipe almost getting crushed and sliced and all that other shit, "I have a ship, Wolf. My ship," and those words felt so much stronger coming from my lips than they had in my head. I wasn't convinced that I could get it back, the military would flip. "And I'll be damned if I'm going to let that ship sit in a display case."

"Do you have any fucking clue how hard it would be to get a hold of that ship, McCloud?" he said, turning towards me, and even though he gave me a moment, he couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. I found myself smiling, though, partly out of the frustration and stupidity of it all.

"That ship was dragged up out of the Venomian ocean and restored and given to me. My father flew that ship and he gave it to me. Fuck the military," and I held that moment to my heart, "That ship is mine. It has a lot of memories forged in it and there's still mementos of mine and my father hidden in that cockpit. It's coming with me."

"If you want the military after you, be my guest. We already have a bounty, McCloud," he said, and he smiled as if he was proud of me for a second, "You'd be joining us with one already on your head, you know? And that's a government monument or some shit, you might rival my bounty with that."

"All the more reason to do it, right?" and I found myself smiling. I took another drag and blew rings from the window. Something about being there with Wolf made me want to try and be like him, to appease him. I didn't like what he did, but damn if I didn't want to be a badass and make sure that he at least respected me. I didn't care if I changed a little.

We sat there a little while longer, I had time before I could go back and do anything like that. A few drags later and I rubbed the flame out on the windowsill and tossed the butt out to the street below, in the same fashion Wolf had done, and we turned. When he sat on the end of the bed this time, I sat down as well. We had a few feet between us, but I turned and I tried a bit to talk, at least. I started with bad topics, of course, "Why didn't you kill me?"

"Easy prey's no fun, besides, you're a good addition. You have to be ready for that shit, though. I've seen a lot of men die and beg for their lives," he said, "I've never seen a man stare death in the face and taunt it," and he laughed a moment, "You're a fucked up pup, McCloud."

"I'm about to turn 21. You don't have to keep calling me a pup, Wolf."

"I'm about to turn 30. You'll always be a pup as long as I'm around." I felt heat catch my face. Wolf accepted I'd be around a little while. "If you make it to 21, expect a party. No better time to celebrate shitting on death's embrace than another year without meeting it. Especially since you'll be legally to do just about everything except collect Social Security, I might hire a stripper, if you don't piss me off that is," he said, and I saw a bit of a smile from him, "I've been dodging that bastard all my life." He turned back towards me, "What made you quit your job?"

I winced for a second, "I accepted the job because the only way that Falco would take it would be if I took it. He'd stick by me even if it fucked his life up, and I stuck with it because I was making a difference. I hated it, though. I was behind a desk, I didn't even get to fly to teach the students, eventually I just did paperworks and made press appearances on the military's behalf. I became some sort of trophy and there was nothing there redeeming it." I stopped, but I could feel that lie on my lips.

"You were with that one instructor, Fara, right? Media had a fit over it, some pictures surfaced and shit," he said. I'd forgotten about that, but that might have just been because I refused to acknowledge most of the things that happened at the academy.

"She's taking over for me," I said, soft.

"You left her behind, then?" he asked, he looked at me and he searched in my eyes for a second. It felt awfully personal, but I didn't blame him for asking, and I didn't dare withhold information

"Yeah." I paused a second, we both did, and I didn't like the silence, "When'd you end up running a station?"

"A little over 4 months ago we commandeered a space station during a mission. The client wanted his valuables back from within it but we kept the station and outfitted it to be our base of operations. Before that, we just sorta drifted and camped in the back alleys of Zoness and wherever we could go." He stopped, and all I could do was nod. He turned and fired right back, getting just a little more personal, "What did they tell you. . ." he paused, not sure how to word it, ". . .when news got back about your dad?"

I flinched, harder this time, and I looked at him with a very distinct expression, "Why would you even ask that?" I said, and he looked ready to apologize, but I still parted with the words far easier than I should have. I didn't even tell Fara when she asked, I just bit my tongue until I was ready, "I was told that Pigma turned on him and shot him out of the sky. Peppy only remembers being told he had to get the hell out of there." I paused another second, "The original story I got from Pepper said that Pigma had joined ranks with Star Wolf and that Peppy and my dad tried to fight him off, but my dad saw it was a losing battle. He sent Peppy off."

He looked like he was in pain, "We were supposed to capture him alive. Pigma shot him out of the sky."

"It's better that he got shot down. . ." I said, and I felt the words about my sighting of him on Venom bubbling to the surface. I bit my tongue.

"Sorry."

"It's just our job." Soon after, to break the silence one more time, I asked him the question that was at the back of my mind, "Why don't you hate me?"

"I just had a knife at your throat. I basically called you spoiled. I-"

"That's not the question, Wolf."

"I don't know. I just don't hate you, McCloud. We're mercenaries. If I hated someone every time they just did their job, I'd end up hating a hell of a lot of people out there," he said, "Not worth my time." I nodded again, "Why ask though? Do you hate me?"

I swallowed air, and I felt a little worried at the response, "A little."

"Why?"

"You let Pigma on your team. You helped kill my dad. Even if I try to be okay with it, it's nagged at me for a long time."

"Like you said before, it's just our jobs, McCloud."

"I didn't sign up for this job, Wolf, I ended up in it because I had to fill in my father's shoes," and I could feel the waterworks starting. I couldn't keep looking strong in front of Wolf, but I shielded it by staring forwards, never looking at him, "They hailed me as a hero when the only reason they liked me was because I was on the government's paycheck. You ended up with bounties for this job," I said, "It's not just a job if the government can charge us with treason for taking money we need."

"Maybe not, but even if they want to put a bounty on us, it's what we do. We escort freighters, we kill bandits. I don't really fucking care if we're painted as bandits because we took some jobs they didn't want us to. They don't offer us the work to keep us from being the bad guys sometimes. That kind of work was saved for you."

All I could muster was an, "Oh." I appreciated his honesty, and I could feel for a moment that it started to make sense to me. Wolf was there, but he wasn't a bad guy. Mercenaries were gray.

He sat there in silence for a few moments, and it was stifling. I looked at him, but he didn't make eye contact. "You didn't have to come to me, you could've made a new team, McCloud."

"Maybe I wanted to be in company with a good pilot."

We made eye contact again, we weren't on the best terms, but we respected each other. We hadn't fought in the air enough to hate each other, and I can't really imagine what it would've been like to hate him. I disliked him, when I said a little, I meant I disliked him, but I could see it. If he had a part, he regretted it in this moment. I murmured soon after, "I can't be angry at you just for doing your job, Wolf. I'll get over it."

We left it at that a little while longer. I felt time dragging, but I couldn't think of what to say. I looked at him and he was in the same state, and he dragged claws through gray fur to give him something to do. I found myself staring for a second, but it was at his eyepatch. "What are you looking at, McCloud?"

"Sorry."

We returned to silence before he looked at me a little more directly. It was something in his eyes that told me he knew exactly what I was looking at. His claw brushed over the cord of the patch, but he didn't move it other than seeming to be real fucking self-conscious about it. "Just fucking ask about it, McCloud. We're getting to know each other, you're curious."

"O-Oh," I said, and the pause made me feel like I was in the Academy again, "How'd you injure your eye?" I asked, and it was with some level of clarity at the very least.

"The team I originally ended up on," he said, pausing for a second, "Black Hawk," and my ears perked. I recognized that name, they got a horrible rap and they worked exclusively with crime bosses. He caught my intrigue, "They supplied ships to all of their recruits, they just needed warm bodies in them and they preyed on the recent Academy graduates. I needed the money and the ship to get off the ground," he said, and he paused for a second, "The first time I got shot down, it was early in a mission. Because of it, my team ended up failing the mission as a whole because they got into a dog fight and were one down. The boss took a knife to my eye as punishment and told me to take my ship and leave, that I'd already lost him enough money."

"Why-"

"Why'd he leave me alive? Beats me. Must've liked me. He killed the others that fucked up."

"How'd you get out of that?" I asked, looking at him.

"I overheated my blaster and used the barrel to cauterize my eye. I went straight to the closest station and ended up in their medical wing, and they couldn't even fit an implant in without doing serious surgery at that point," he said, and he lifted his hand and removed the eyepatch. There was no eye in the socket, not even a trace of one. Scar tissue trailed over what used to be his eyelids, but the skin had been sutured together to shield the former socket and there was just a hairless piece of flesh that hid what used to be there. I felt sick, but Wolf seemed to appreciate my calm response. He put the eyepatch on after a few seconds longer, and I didn't even know what to say.

I looked down after a few moments, not willing to face his eye contact, and after a few minutes more, I went ahead and stood and started my way towards the door. "It's too early for you to go," he said. I knew he wanted to add that I didn't have to leave just because he knew about his eye. It wasn't that.

I shook my head, "I'm gonna go see if I can get another drink to replace the one from earlier. Do you want one?" I asked. He went to say no, but he paused too long and I just stepped out of the room. I got us each two beers from the bartender, and he just looked at me, a leopard staring at me through half-lidded, judgmental eyes. After a few moments, he fished out two bottles from behind the bar, then wto more. When I went to leave, he handed me another set, opened.

"They're the ones you had earlier. I tucked them back here when you two forgot about them."

"Thanks," and I fished in my pockets to get my wallet and pay for them. I realized I hadn't paid for the ones earlier, either, and gave him a little extra on top of it all for a tip. He nodded and I made my way back to the stairs.

I had some trouble maneuvering with them, but I set my haul in front of Wolf when I got back to the room, "Why do we need so much to drink, McCloud?"

I held up my bottle from earlier, or his, I didn't care, "To toast," I said, and he grumbled before grabbing his own bottle. We clinked the tops, and I drank. It was definitely not mine, there was a little backwash, but Wolf seemed just fine with his. I grimaced a moment, and after the first drink, it was okay. An hour or so later, we were smiling and we were on our last beer. I realized soon I was on my last drink, and I toasted with him to being drunk. He chugged his down, I took my last drink, and I fell backwards onto the bed. All I could do was laugh.

"Don't fall asleep we've still got to go to the Academy. I'm leaving tomorrow whether or not you have that Arwing and it's not so easy to find Sargasso, pup." He fell behind and had to more or less chug his last two beers to catch up. It hadn't hit him yet, but I could feel it creeping along my tongue as I just found myself laughing.

"I won't," and I huffed as I brought myself back to a seated position. "Aren't we supposed to be rivals, Wolf?"

"Something like that. You flew point, I flew point, I saw some kid flying point and tried to shoot him out of the sky. He shot me down instead." He didn't even sound angry, I expected him to. "I got over it, it's been two years," he said, and that made sense.

I felt bad for a second, "I'm sorry I didn't get over it," and I realized how petty it was to hold onto it for two years.

"You had a good reason," he said. He didn't have to say it, but he was right, I partially blamed him for my dad's death. Pigma pulled the trigger, and in the end, I don't think there was any way for that to go down where my dad living would've been a good thing.

I looked at him through narrowed eyes for a second, and I could smell him again, "Why do you smell so good?" I asked, and I almost immediately sneezed at the next inhale. I could feel the alcohol swimming, but I was actually probably starting to sober up a little bit.

"What?"

"Ignore me."

"No, really, what the fuck?" he asked, and he started laughing. I just turned away, pretending like I didn't hear him like a child, and he just laughed harder. "Thanks, I guess, McCloud," he said, and he didn't pry any deeper.

"I said to ignore me, Wolf,"

"Know what? If we see Pigma again, I'll let you shoot him out of the sky," he said, and he chuckled a little bit more.

It was late, though, it was time, probably. I started to stand up, and Wolf found himself standing too. He went to gesture me back to a seated position, but I shook my head. "It's close enough and now's as good a time as any."

"You can wait until you're more sober. What if there are guards there?"

"Then I'll kill the guards."

Wolf was speechless at that. He probably thought I had bravado when I said I could kill someone, but he was right. I couldn't kill a fly, at least not usually, but those flies were in the way of my ship and I didn't care who I had to shoot to get to it. "Besides, Pepper wouldn't have issued to the guards that I was no longer working there, and in fact, if he did, they probably expect me back to get my things." I laughed, though, and pointed to the closet, "That's everything I own other than that ship." Everything I owned fit into that ship's storage compartments.

Wolf was still silent, but he murmured a soft, "I'll come with you, McCloud, and set myself up outside. If anything goes wrong, I'll bust you out, just this once." I looked at him, squinting for a second as I tried to figure out exactly what his intention was with that, but he only seemed to be concerned I'd fuck it up. "Before you go anywhere, we have to clean up the wound on your neck. You're not gonna get the happy entry you want if you walk up and the guards see you bleeding. You might be able to get in without shooting anyone but they'll be swarming you if you come up bleeding out of your damn neck."

He grabbed me and pulled me, and I whined. He should be as drunk as I am, but he was heavier and he seemed fine. I wasn't as fine, well, not the kind of fine I should be to be driving. We were standing over a sink, and he tried to bring handfuls of water up to my neck to wash it off. It wasn't doing any good, and after a few seconds, he muttered, "This'll be quicker," he said. He leaned in, and I realized what was happening after a second, his tongue dragging over the wound as he picked up flecks of dried blood with his tongue. I groaned. I blushed. He probably blushed too. "Shut the fuck up, McCloud."

He continued, each lick a little more firm than the last, but I could see bits and pieces of the progress in the mirror. When he drew away, I could see the faint mark of the cut, but no more blood was coming from the wound. The dried blood was gone, and he ran the tap again and drew a handful of water up. I smiled, but that was the most I could do without making it awkward, especially since having someone lick my throat got me worked up.

I started my way back towards the door and in the back of my mind I had Wolf's concerns playing on repeat. I stumbled a little, he might be right that I shouldn't be doing this now, but I started my way out of the bar.

Corneria didn't really have any law concerning public drunkenness and people were able to stumble home from the bars at. . . "What time is it?" and my comm lit up and revealed that it was a little past one in the morning. It wasn't too late, but there'd be no one there other than the guards if any, maybe some faculty in the dorms.

The atrium was the first room when you arrived to the building, and I was walking along with my hand on my hip, ready to pull my blaster at any moment. As I turned, I saw Wolf had camped himself out in a pair of bushes across the lawn, close enough to see and to have a stable local comm link, but not too close to rouse suspicion. As I walked up to the door, I saw two uniform-clad military officers at the door. They smiled, tipping their hats at me, and the one on the left asked, "Have a nice night, Mr. McCloud?"

"Lovely," I said, and I covered my mouth as I burped, but he just smiled back.

"Just be careful getting back to your room."

"I will."

I couldn't tell, but it seemed like they didn't know at all that I'd resigned from my position, and this was most likely the last time I'd be able to walk into this Academy. There was no going back to my old job, but I quickly approached the center of the atrium. To allow weather in, the dome was open over night, and worst case scenario, it was made of glass too.

I wove through the trees, approaching the central point of the room as I looked for the case. I couldn't help but stumble, and I caught the root of a tree and fell, feeling the ground rise up to meet me as it took a hell of a lot of willpower to keep from losing consciousness. I had fallen out of sight of the guards, so they didn't bother coming in to make sure that I would be okay and help me to my room.

Finally, I caught sight of the case, but as I got closer and the entirety was revealed to me, I let out a string of curses. It wasn't there, Pepper must have moved it, "What the fuck?" The glass was still resting neatly over where the Arwing used to be, but his legacy was gone. I could hear a response on my comm, Wolf must've said something, but I was too busy flipping the fuck out.

Eventually, there was a voice, "Fox. . ." and I turned sharply towards it. My hand had been on my blaster and it was drawn as I caught sight of them, I hadn't even bothered to turn it to stun. I didn't shoot right away, but I was met with Slippy's wide-eyed look of panic as I swung a gun on him. "It's me, Fox," he said, and he started walking towards the Engineering department, "Follow me."

I tilted my head a moment, but it was enough to keep me intrigued. Slippy might know what's going on, and I followed him. Each step felt a little longer than the last, but that might just be the creeping headache that was coming as I felt the slightest ebb in the swimming feeling in my head. I shook it a second and pushed the gun back into the holster on my belt. We walked into the depths of the Engineering department and eventually, he gestured me onto a cargo elevator at the back of the main shop. We descended into the building, and the creeping darkness drew some panic out of me. Eventually, all we had to light us were foglights, and as I touched my comm, I realized I was out of range from Wolf.

"I heard from Falco that you were resigning," he said, after a while, and all I could think was 'How does Falco know about that?' "When you came to all of us, asking about joining the team back, Peppy thought you'd probably end up leaving. I've been taking your Arwing out of the case every night and upgrading it to the current model," he said, and I felt my eyes widen for a moment as the elevator stopped. Slippy knew I'd be back, and he echoed that, "I knew you'd be back for your ship."

He walked through the lower levels of the shop, and Arwings and the likes lined the walls. Originally, the Academy didn't produce them, but they greenlighted and gave a lot of funds to Space Dynamics and Beltino, and eventually, Beltino housed a branch out of the school that completely outfitted the military and students. I could see it, though, on a platform that we were coming up on. It didn't look any different, the metal plating still a bit beat up but Slippy probably left that on because he knew I'd want it to be as much like it was as I remembered it.

"I was just finishing up with the final upgrade when I saw you show up on the security cameras," and when he caught my realization, he shook his head, "They all run through the Engineering Department. No one works in here dedicated until 2, they'll just panic and move the shift up to 1 when they realize what's happened," he said, but he gestured towards the Arwing, "It's a prototype, now," he said, "It's carrying all of the advancements we're completing in our next 3 months of research," he said, 'If it blows up on you, I'm sorry, Fox," and he looked down a moment before he stepped towards the ship, "Pilot: Fox McCloud."

The hatch opened and I stepped up onto the platform. "The others don't know I'm doing this, Fox," he said, looking down for a moment, "They'd probably be here to see you off if they could."

I shook my head a moment, lifting the cover and revealing the cockpit. Even the seating hadn't been changed out, still sunken and shaped for me, and I smiled. "It's fine, Slippy." I set myself into the cockpit and looked out over the edge. It was nearly 2, if I stayed and had a proper goodbye, we'd both get in a lot of trouble. "What about the security footage, though?"

"I'm replacing it with doctored footage before I go," he said, and he sighed softly, but he walked to the edge of the platform and pressed a button. The ceiling above me opened, revealing the room above. "There's a blast door that'll be straight ahead of you once you reach the upper shop," he said, and he waved for a second, "Good luck, I'll open it now," he said, and the platform below me began to rise rapidly.

Within seconds, Slippy's image was gone and I pulled the glass of the cockpit down over me. My comm link to wolf returned as I was into the engineering department again, "Are you okay?" The blast door began to open as I quickly went through my pre-flight checklist, and I heard shouting of some form a few seconds later from outside my Arwing. I took off and left the building.

"I'm fine, Wolf," I said, and I veered out over the sky, "Where am I taking this?" I only had a little time and the only thing that kept me from drunkenly hitting a lamp post was the fact that the Arwing naturally stabilized my movements and kept me from more or less killing myself. That was a good thing in the long run.

Wolf gave me a location that quickly shifted to the glass of my Arwing, and I set myself back to the bar before I went there. It was only a few seconds, the authorities weren't moving quickly enough to get me. The window was open, Wolf forgot to close it, and I lowered the Arwing and set it to hover outside the window before I dove in. I grabbed my bags, and I looked back out for a second, at the hovering structure that represented a lot of my good memories, and some of the ones that were just as bad as they were sentimental.

I tossed the bags into the Arwing and jumped back in, but I could hear an alarm being raised. I had stolen a government monument, a monument to my family's history. My history mattered more than its display, and I closed the cockpit quickly before I set my target location and left Corneria behind. They wouldn't follow me out of the stratosphere, and once I got to Sargasso, it wouldn't matter anyways.

–

Author's Note: And plot! Of course, there's bound to be conflict and other stuff, but a moment of peace and opportunity is nothing to be pushed aside, also the first inklings of Wolf/Fox stuff. Wolf and Fox butt heads because of Fichina and Venom and such, but if that's the only time they were ever really against each other, then it would make sense for Wolf to not be quite so harsh to Fox as there's less of a reason to hold a grudge. I'm pairing this alongside the fact that he started to warm up to Fox following the Lylat Wars and you can see that he respects Fox at the very least.