Author's Note: Trying to pinpoint how exactly I want different characters to behave in certain situations and all, but full steam ahead for the time being while I get a more definite feel. Expect more questionable boundaries and weird things, though, but it's not romance yet.

–

I screamed myself out of a fitful sleep. When I got my bearings back, I found myself panting in my Arwing. Every time I slept, I saw him again, and it should've been a dream to see him, but it never was. The media had torn me apart in the early part of the war, saying that I was just a dumb kid trying to fill my father's shoes and a delinquent at best. He always agreed with them in those dreams. I found myself crying, for lack of any clue what to do otherwise.

That dream was different though, there were new people. I never saw Star Wolf in my dreams, not when I had them, but they were there. Wolf took the fall, really obviously, and let me take the win to improve my standing with the media. Leon pulled shots and missed Falco, he kept my friend from dying, but. . . in the end, the people that heard the results still laughed and still stared. Of course Junior beat a pilot that only had one eye, the dumbass was flying without depth in a field that even a 10 year old could out pilot him.

My ears pinned to my head, but I saw that my comm link was flashing. I clicked the comm link, and for the first time, I looked out of the glass of the cockpit. "Oh, wow," I said, and the line that picked up was Wolf.

"You've been drifting about out there since we came in. Your ship's a bit faster than ours, you've had to have been here for at least 6 hours," he said, tilting his head visibly. I don't even remember clicking my own video on, but I must've looked a mess, "We cleared you to dock, the docking bay doors are on the underside of the station." He turned to look at something, gesturing back towards the camera, "I'm gonna go meet him at the docks," he said, and then the connection cut.

I could still feel the touch of tears on my face, and I realized that I just needed to stop being a cry baby. I wiped them up, with my thumbs and started my engine back up. It must've auto shut off when I didn't input further instructions after we arrived at the coordinates, but I steered myself with a little bit of ease into the dock. The creeping headache certainly didn't help, or the cotton mouth that had to have been the worst thing I'd experienced in months. I landed, and the first thing I did when I got out of my Arwing and saw Wolf was ask, "How much did I have to drink exactly?"

"A bit much," he said, and he threw a water bottle in my direction. I missed, not expecting it, but it also didn't explode on the ground so that was a plus. I grabbed it, opening it and chugging every last drop, and even then, I still felt like I'd been eating sand for days. I coughed, and walked the rest of the way over for him, he even waited a second to make sure I did catch up. "Welcome to Sargasso," he said, and I looked at him for a second as I saw just how unenthused he was, but he gave me a tour.

"The center of our base is mostly blocked off, from the outside and it contains a handful of shelters in the case of attacks. The top floor is restricted to the central area and has a 360 view that functions as our bridge. This floor is largely restricted to common areas that allow for some level of comfort for a base. We have the docking bay that we just came out of, up on our right is a fully equipped gym, to our left is a kitchen, and on the other end of the hall there's a swimming pool as well as just a common room," he said, continuing his walk down to show me those.

"The floors above this are circular and consist of a large amount of our living space and meeting rooms," he said, "Additionally, we have emergency docking locations on each floor that must be opened manually by one of our staff," he said, and he stopped and turned before his claws caught each of my eyelids. I went to back the fuck up, but his hand was on the back of my head and then I felt him find my scruff and I was limp. He removed his hand from my eye for a second before he pulled out a scanner of some sort and removed the hand from the back of my head and repeated the motion, scanning my left eye first, then my right eye, "You're in the system, McCloud," he said, then returned to the tour as if nothing had happened.

We arrived at an elevator and he pressed the button to take us up, "I'll take you through one of the residential floors then we'll go up to the upper levels and I can show you our command center, bridge and such," he said. As we arrived on the next level, he was true to his word and a long hallway of doors was there. The station was massive, though, and there was a single ring of doors. He walked a little bit until he found one that was empty and opened it. The building must be AI maintained, because even with no one living in it, it would still find some way to get a mess if it was unlocked, but it was pristine and massive. Each of these rooms were essentially small apartments or hotel rooms, and a bathroom was next to the door, a large sprawling living space, a refrigerator, a TV, and then a door that separated the bedroom.

"Wow," I said, and he smiled for a second.

"I don't do anything half-assed," and then he let me through the room a little bit more. It wasn't decorated, but it had basic furniture like the bed, TV, fridge, a couch, a couple chairs, a table, and a desk. Even though the furniture was basic in that it was needed, it wasn't cheap. The couch was a dark leather and I went to sit in it and sank, "This is your room, by the way," he said, and he fished in his pocket before throwing me a key. I wanted to look more, but I knew we had a tour, and after a few seconds on the couch, I was back up and we were moving again.

The elevator ride was longer this time, and when we arrived, we arrived with the sound of music really near by, "We have a bar to your right," he gestured, but he was moving to his left and I couldn't help but look over my shoulder. It looked normal, no kids getting murdered on the pool table or anything, in fact, this was so much nicer than I would've ever thought to get. "Primary meeting room for our upper staff," he gestured, and he started to walk in. I followed. The table in the center had a large piece of tech built into the center and I tilted my head for a second, "Should be familiar to you, it projects 3D models, videos, whatever. We use it to discuss targets and larger missions or anything that's too damn confusing to explain otherwise," he said, then gave a lazy grin, "Or watch movies on it when we hit a dry spell for missions."

I found myself tilting my head a bit, curious but not enough to ask any questions about it. It was still so strange to see Wolf happy and cheerful and giving me a tour, he'd been such an ass when we met on Fichina. To be fair, he held a knife to my throat before he agreed to let me fly on his team. He was still talking, I could hear him vaguely, but I just sorta closed my eyes and followed the sound of his footsteps. There was something weird about this, and I still couldn't completely place my finger on it, but Wolf being this nice was definitely up there in the list of strange occurrences since I'd been around them. It hadn't even been a full 24 hours.

I heard Wolf pause in whatever he was saying, my eyes slipping shut as I realized we were on the bridge now, but there was no one else around, "Why are you being as nice as you are to me?"

"I told you I don't hold any grudges because of our job, McCloud."

"That explains why you don't hate me, but why are you being this generous?" I said, gesturing and turning around to the room. There was no one in this room, but it was a beautiful view, there was no way that no one ever came up here.

I saw Wolf lean a bit, and then I heard the door behind me close. I turned, and when I looked back, he was walking towards one of the massive windows that lined the bridge. He had been telling the truth, before. The door stood at the center of the room, attached to the elevator, and there was massive windows lining the entire room to give view in every direction. Wolf was walking in the direction of another 3D projector as well as a table, but he passed it before he stood in front of the window. When he didn't speak immediately, I went to follow him before I stood a few feet to his side, also staring out the window.

I couldn't make out shapes too far in the distance, but there was a massive asteroid belt that seemed to bend and flow around the base. It was running some pretty impressive gravitational technology, and likely, if I hadn't been cleared for landing or there had been a malfunction, I wouldn't have been able to so much as approach the base. The ship would've been thrown to the side and I probably would've hit an asteroid. I could see the stars, massive and bright but so distant that I could never touch them. He finally spoke up, "I was just hoping I could start over," he said.

"What?" I responded. "What do you have to start over with?"

"Your father," he said.

I looked at him for a second, and I could still feel that burning resentment that was there, but it wasn't directed at Wolf, it just hung to that subject. I would never completely be over that, "I'm not sure he's dead," I finally said, "Whether he is or he's not, he's still watching me," I said, and I looked down for a moment, placing a hand against the glass as I felt the endless chill of the expanse beyond. I let out a breath, one I didn't know I'd been holding, "I saw him after I defeated you."

Wolf looked at me for a second, and his mind was racing, but instead of arguing it, like Peppy had done, he gave a nod, "We didn't investigate after his ship went down," and he left it at that. It wasn't much, but it gave me at least a little bit of hope for the time being.

He turned after a few moments, but all I could murmur was another, "Thanks," and I turned back towards him. He had motivation to be nice to me in that he felt guilty. That had to be enough to drive someone to turn over a new leaf.

"This is the bridge, by the way," he said, starting to walk down the line of windows. I started following him again, but I could hear his words were stilted at least a little bit, "We use this as a command center for any locally based attacks. Unlike most bridges, this is incredibly far from the battlefield but that's due to the fact that we have a massive staff. We're employing a little over 70 pilots at the moment and in the typical attack on our base, one of our primary crew members will stage themselves out of this room and command the squadron. As of right now, since Leon isn't much of a talkative type, I've been leading all of these as they come, but they're rare. I'd like you to be prepared in the case that this were to happen as well."

"And why would you trust me with that?"

"That's exactly the response I'd get from someone who I should probably trust," he said, "Besides, you won't do it at first, but you should know how." He circled the room a bit, before finally saying, "Flight Commander: Wolf O'Donnell." The windows, all at once, were covered by different figures, "Mode: Systems Test." The lights dimmed a bit on the screens and took a distinct green hue. As he continued to walk, he started to gesture at the windows as he passed, "Each of these windows is directly attached to both the main docking bay and the emergency docking bays located beneath it," he said, "There's something like 30 windows here, and there's a total of 15 docking bays so they're done in pairs of two," he said, and he stopped, gesturing to silvery metal that was present between two of the windows, "These silver strips designate divisions between docking bays while the black strips designate adjoined windows."

I gave nods, but it was starting to get to be more and more information, and he only had more to give, "Anything that you say in front of these windows will be broadcast to both of these bays. Right here, the glass provides information on how many ships are docked in the associated bay as well as coordinates for all objects within the space for approximately 2 miles outside of these windows," he said, "If you push the coordinates, it'll give you the map form of the various coordinates and that'll overtake the screen. That'll let you verify you're looking at the right thing and communicate that information to the people flying," he said, and then he tapped the screen again as it returned to the previous screen. "Flight Commander End," and the screens went dull again.

If that was all the information I needed to know on the screens, that would be fine, I could do that and it wouldn't be too much of an issue. I turned and looked at them, returning to the windows out to a beautiful scene. Wolf had to have had a lot of money or be deep, deep into debt, and I don't know which of those two was more worrisome. We probably wouldn't have made a dime, but to make money, you took all sorts of jobs. He'd probably killed a lot of people, and he looked it, but not as much as Leon did.

The steps led us to the table I had seen earlier, or a matching one, we couldn't have made the full ring in that time that we'd been walking. "Here we have a local command table, like the one downstairs," he said, "Same controls, same functions, but we also have the added benefit of being able to register ships to be able to dock in our bays here," he said, gesturing to some of the yellow buttons that lined the console, "It works in conjunction with the coordinate system that was present on the glass earlier, and it'll bring up a list of coordinates and the map system appears so you can properly locate the specific ship you want to designate. This system is a little smarter and only returns the coordinates for ships, targeting the emissions that they give off. Of course, if you want to register a stealth craft, you're gonna want to be better with the coordinates. Or tell them to give you the coordinates."

He stood again after a few moments, and it seemed like he had run out of things to show me, but he didn't seem to be done, "You want to sit up here a while and use one of the windows to watch a movie?" he asked, and I narrowed my eyes for a second.

"Why isn't there anyone up here, Wolf?"

"I don't know."

"I just got out of the relationship with Fara. . ." I started.

He looked at me, and I could see something going on in his eyes for a second before it ever happened. The next second, I was pinned against the glass and the words didn't even quite reach me at first but he was screaming, "You left her and your entire career behind. You can't fucking expect me to believe that you cared about her when you didn't even like her enough to stay," he said. He had pinned me with a single hand, and I realized a second later that his claws had broken the skin and broken the skin on my chest. I reacted immediately to the pain, and my head swung forward and hit his, he reeled back, and rather than run, I shed my flight jacket and scarf.

"I don't fucking care what you're looking for in me right now," I said, and I charged forward and went to kick him. His arm deflected my blow and he immediately went to punch me. I used whatever strength I had retained to flip into a kick, but that strength wasn't as much as I expected as he easily stepped out of the rather slow kick and I landed on my stomach without making the full arc. I went to stand, but he moved quicker and his foot as in the mid of my back.

It only stayed there a second, "Get up, McCloud, let's have a fair fight," and he extended a hand down to me. When I was back up, he took a few steps back. We both charged in. He punched and I dodged, using my smaller frame as I swung with my fast in the opposite direction. He deflected it and landed a clean kick on my side, only to be matched by a cough that felt like I had internal bleeding in my future if he landed a few more like that. My arm lowered and grabbed his leg, and I immediately dropped into a split and kicked his other leg out from under him.

I wasn't fast enough to land a punch, Wolf rolling away from me as I came back to my feet. I was pretty sure I pulled something in my crotch at that motion, but every part of me seemed to be struggling to keep up in ways that I used to be just fine. This would never have been an issue if I hadn't ended up behind a fucking desk. As Wolf came back in, I dodged his punches again and landed a clean one against his chest, but fuck, I couldn't even form a fist right and I came off hurting just as bad as probably did.

The next time he came in, he swung his leg again, and when I caught it he proved he was a hell of a lot more nimble than me as he used the reversed momentum to swing his other leg at me, but he pulled it. It crashed into my shoulder instead of the side of my skull and I was thrown right off the fucking ground and a few feet back onto the ground nearby. When I went to stand, I knew I'd lost and Wolf's hand was extended out to me to help me up. I just looked at him, I could see the phantom of his old self in that outburst, of being uncontrolled and holding a grudge. "You're just trying to be professional like I did at that hellhole," I murmured.

He responded by pressing his lips firmly to mine, and I didn't even have the chance to respond, to push him back or to concede before he pulled back again, "Yeah, and that's what I get for winning," he said. I realized he'd made a bet without actually ever making a bet, and he turned and walked away from me. His pheromones told a thousand tales, and I could feel the sheer confused rage that was pouring off of him. He didn't look back, he just opened the elevator and disappeared within.

"Officer Fox McCloud," I said, out of pure reflex, "Hold the elevator," and I could hear some discontented shout as I jogged across the room and to the door. The door opened and revealed the open elevator door before I got in and followed him down. "How long?"

"Venom."

"What about Venom?"

"You went in alone to Andross' base," he said.

"But you weren't there on the surface when I came out, there was no sign of Star Wolf."

"This is a story you don't want to hear, McCloud," and as the elevator stopped, he stepped out and walked to his room

"What the hell does that mean!?" I shouted after him, and it was met with a heavy silence. I hit the button and returned to the floor below and trailed the circle of doors. They all looked so similar from the outside, and I had to inspect my key to find a room number before I was able to find my door and unlock it. I stepped in and locked it right behind me and I was met with an overwhelming silence. Even the hum the power systems had in the hallway was absent, and I stepped into the room as if there'd be someone else there but there was no one and I don't know why I'd ever think that.

I tucked myself into the desk chair and leaned back a little bit as the chair leaned naturally with me. There were some questions I needed answered, but none of the immediately relevant questions involving Wolf could be satisfied with a comm search, so I chose to search and figure out what exactly had happened after I left. "Comm search: Fox McCloud." A screen came up, holding over the small pad and it brought up results and the like. There was an encyclopedia page, but it was quickly followed with news stories.

McCloud steals the ship flown in Lylat Wars

McCloud steals from employer day of quitting

McCloud holding a bounty of over 200,000 credits

McCloud leaves behind Fara, Rumored Pregnancy

McCloud case leads to school-wide investigations

I stopped reading them. A lot of them sounded similar, some were just plagiarized articles slipping onto another site for viewers and shock, but I found myself drawn to the one mentioning Fara. I pressed a finger against the display, and it opened it up. It revealed that there was a video, and that video was quickly revealed to be an interview of Fara.

"Hi, Fara." The woman interviewing her was a tigress, terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. She was dressed in a suit, a ruffled blouse fading down into her cleavage as she was trying to draw attention to herself.

"Hello," and Fara was wearing the same officer's garb I had grown to know her for, even though it wasn't unique to her. She was stone faced, but I felt like she had been crying recently.

"We're glad you were able to come in on such short notice, given the events that have happened."

Fara paused a second and nodded, "I only wanted to come and do an interview or two, the earlier I do them the easier it is," she said.

"Well, we just wanted to ask: Did you know Fox was debating quitting?"

She gave a shook of her head, my heart sank, but I knew what was coming, "No. Fox had. . . he asked his former team members about potentially reforming Star Fox. He never officially told me until the day of him leaving."

"Why do you think he did that?"

"Because he was scared of leaving?" she said, but she was unsure of herself, "I don't know. He was unhappy and I don't know if he ever wanted to admit that to me."

"Unhappy with you?"

"No," Fara said, and she was firm, "The only joy he ever found at the Academy was his students. His job quickly became all paperwork and he lost the joy that he had," she said, "Once Jinx had graduated, his pet project, he had lost a lot of his will to stay."

"Do you think he ever had relations with Jinx?" and the tigress was leaning forwards and squinting at Fara, looking for any body language.

"No." Fara didn't even flinch, she looked furious, but she didn't flinch.

"How are you holding up through all of this? We heard that after Fox's departure, one of the requests he'd made in his letter was seen through."

"Yes," she said, folding her hands over one another in her lap, "Fox requested that I take over the Leadership program and Pepper confirmed it this morning. It was certain enough to not have to go through the trustees, but I'll be taking over all of the students and taking a new class in this coming year."

I found myself smiling.

"Congratulations! We just have a few more requests regarding you and Fox," she said, "What is your feeling regarding him taking the Arwing with him."

I knew Pepper would see this interview as well, she'd have to censor herself, for better or for worse.

"He did exactly what he should have done."

I started crying again.

"He wasn't informed when the Arwing was originally going to be put on display until he unveiled it. He requested it be removed frequently, then requested that he be able to take it when he left. He was constantly refused, and while I don't agree with how, I don't disagree with why," she said.

The interviewer looked stunned as well, and she had to regain her composure before she continued that line, "But there's a massive bounty that's been placed on him in response to this."

"He deserves that too."

"Very well." The tigress started flipping through the notes she had, and she had lost her space in some heat of the moment, but she was back after a few seconds, "What do you have to say about the pregnancy rumors that are floating around."

Fara looked away from the camera for a second, looking away from the interviewer as she looked away, "I'm not sure," she said, and she left it at that.

The tigress just licked her lip, like it was some delicious piece of information she'd gotten. "Well, that's all we have. Thank you for joining us, Fara."

The screen went dark and I just stared. There was a whole lot of information that was there that I wasn't ready for, but Fara loved me and that wasn't to be mistaken. Fara could be pregnant and that was terrifying, because if she was, it was mine. I couldn't go back now, even if I wanted to. When I stole that Arwing I broke any chance of ever returning to Corneria in anything but shackles.

Our comm links couldn't be traced unless we really fucked up, but as I went to dial Fara, I realized that I couldn't bring myself to do it and I just closed the connection that I had and stood back up. I walked out, and I was sure as I reached the elevator, I could find Wolf's room if I did at least a little bit of searching.

Given that the rooms were minorly personalized, I expected something that indicated it was his, but there was a name plate on the exterior of the door as I reached it. I looked at it, and I knew that he had to still be in there. I knocked a few times, and I heard some rustling on the other side of the door. He opened it, he smelled of alcohol and he still looked pissed. I pushed past him and stepped into his apartment, it was similar to the basic but there was a lot of memorabilia scattered around the room. "Why are you here, Fox?" he asked, and I just went in and sat down.

I looked at him for a moment, and I was sure he could probably tell I was crying, but go figure, I was a huge crybaby and that's what I seemed to do lately. I lost one tear and then I lost a thousand. I looked a little rough, but I looked around the room a little bit before I found my words. "I looked up the news from Corneria," and he winced. He probably had already seen it, I had slept in my Arwing for so damn long. I buried my face into my hands and yelled my frustrations into them. Instead of coming to join me, he opened the closet near the door and dug through it for a second before he walked in. "I have a massive bounty, reporters are suggesting I slept with my students, and Fara is probably pregnant."

I felt something drape over me, and I looked up to find my jacket and scarf, "You can sleep on the couch if you want," he said, "I'm gonna go lie down soon, though." I just looked at him for a second before nodding, and for a moment, it didn't feel so weird.

"Thanks."

–

Author's Note: Shorter chapter! That was to be expected since the content is a little less interesting in terms of plot progression, also because I'm on a lot of migraine medication. I'll be working on the next chapter and I should be able to get 2 more out before the end of break. Hope you all enjoy, feel free to leave reviews if you have any suggestions, critiques, compliments, etc. It gives me an idea of where I'm going with the story.