By the time he filled out his fifth form, Kraglin was ready to punch somebody, probably the droning Xandarian Corpsman who kept foisting page after page on the Pad he'd been handed. He had better things to do than dance to the tune of Nova bureaucracy.

Luckily the Corpsman finally took the Pad back, shuffled through it, sniffed, and said, "Alright Mr. Obfonteri. Follow me."

Kraglin's heart started to hammer as he was lead through the carefully organized rows of grey and blue tents. Yondu was alive, but Kraglin didn't know what state he'd be in. Would he even be fit to be Captain anymore?

They finally stopped at a tent that was the same as all the others. How his guide know this was the right one, Kraglin had no idea. The Corpsman gestured that he should go inside and then bustled off to do something more important. He hesitated, than brushed the flap aside and stepped into a tiny, air conditioned space that stank of antiseptic.

He froze.

Yondu was laying on his left side, dressed in ridiculous yellow robes and covered in a thin blanket. He had both arms and at least one leg, and aside from the shivering, and the grey tinge to his skin, there didn't look to be much wrong with him. Kraglin moved further into the room and almost laughed. The deadly Centaurian was curled around his arrow and holster, hugging it to his chest like a stuffed animal.

The strange red implant on his head flashed briefly, causing Kraglin to go cold with fear.

Did Yondu ever kill people in his sleep?

Apparently not.

Instead he opened his eyes and shifted to stare right at his First Mate. His pupils were dilated and the normally bright red was dull and off. He grinned dopily and said, "If you ain't really here you can just bugger off."

"Um... I'm really here?" Kraglin responded uncertainly.

"Oh good. Was wonderin' when you'd catch up."

The Xandarian wrung his hands and cautiously stepped closer until he was next to the bed. "Sorry it took so long. We weren't sure if you were dead or not."

"Oh..." Yondu's face scrunched up in confusion. "Am I not?"

Before Kraglin could answer, Yondu's hand whipped out and grabbed him by the arm. "When'd your face get so orange?"

He didn't know how to respond to that, so with growing concern he said, "Are you okay?"

Yondu blinked at him and grinned again. "Lot better 'an I was. These Nova jackasses are a lot 'a morons, but they got some gooooood shit."

"You're high?" He sighed. "Great..."

"I know, right?" Yondu still had a smile on his face as he closed his eyes and promptly started to snore.

Kraglin sighed again, sat on the edge of the bed, and put his head in his hands. There was so much to do, so much the Captain needed to take care of now that he was alive, but here he was high off his ass and barely able to move. Kraglin had seen the jacket. He knew Yondu should be dead, not laid up and loopy; the man needed to rest.

The Xandarian never took on this much before. He was just gaining his feet as First Mate and now he'd be dealing with the worst hit to the Ravagers in years, but he'd do it. He'd get done all the crap that needed doing before Yondu was up and at 'em again.

He owed the old Centaurian everything.

"Hey... Obfonteri..."

Kraglin turned and looked at his Captain. Yondu's face was eerily neutral, but there was some strange emotion in his eyes. "How bad is it?" he asked.

Kraglin's skin crawled. It wasn't the first time he got the notion that Yondu could read minds. "How bad is what?"

"Like you don't know," Yondu scoffed.

He took a deep, steadying breath. "The Galleon's down. Gonna take weeks... maybe months to get it space worthy. Two-thirds of our men are dead. Most of our ships are wrecked. There's this Denarian lurking around. You're laid up... and we can't find the kid."

Yondu frowned at him like he was crazy. "Whadda you mean 'we can't find the kid?' He's right there."

He followed the pointing blue finger to the end of the bed, where the damned Terran was fast asleep, curled up as snug as a bug on a bench.

What was he doing there? Wasn't he trying to escape. Yondu had been here for more then a day and Kraglin was pretty sure if the brat vamoosed in that time, the Captain would have had no way of going after him.

"Why didn't he run?"

"Gave 'em his Walk Man thing," said Yondu. "Now he ain't running no more."

Kraglin rolled his eyes at what he assumed was drug addled nonsense, than he felt his stomach drop and he bit his lip. "How're we gonna deliver him on time? Do we send someone ahead? Trelzar maybe? Or Ross?"

He was mostly musing to himself, so he didn't expect Yondu's quiet answer.

"We don't deliver him."

Kraglin turned to stare at his Captain in disbelief. "Skimp on a job? Your mind's gone funnier then I thought."

Only Yondu looked exhausted, and gaunt, and deadly serious. His eyes were wide, like he was staring down a ghost as he said, "We can't deliver him."

"The Ravagers are an institution-"

"His Daddy's gonna kill him." He closed his eyes and struggled to stay awake, to organize his thoughts. "Kid's a halfbreed, and his jackass of a father only wants the not Terran half... shouldn't be telling you this..."

Kraglin felt like he'd been punched in the gut. The Ravagers attracted plenty of shits who'd have no qualms about murdering alien children, but he wasn't one of him. Yeah, this brat made a fool of him, but a kid is still a kid. "What do we do?"

"I'm keeping him," Yondu answered like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"What?!"

"I like him." He shrugged with his not mangled shoulder. "He's a good kid."

"Oh hell!" Kraglin ran a hand over his weary face. "Please tell me you're gonna forget that when you're sober."

Yondu responded with a noise that was a cross between a giggle and a groan. He slumped down and stared at Kraglin for a couple of seconds before saying, "I ever tell you about the time I crashed an Asguardian hunting party?"

The rule of thumb was to humour him when he started up one of his stories, but Kraglin didn't have time for this. "Yeah," he said. "You did."

"Oh..." Yondu frowned and blinked warily. "What happened to Mar-Vell?"

Kraglin was standing, getting ready to leave, but he paused. "Who?"

"The Kree Captain. He dead?"

He had no idea why Yondu would care, but it wasn't his place to question it. He shrugged and said, "Last I heard, the Nova had him locked up."

Yondu sighed. He looked almost... relieved. "I'll be out 'a here by tomorrow."

The Xandarian opened his mouth to tell Yondu off, but bit his tongue. There was no way it was acceptable for him to give his Captain orders, no matter how much he thought the man needed to stay in bed. Instead he said, "What do you want me to do with the kid?"

"Leave him here. He ain't going nowhere."

Kraglin nodded. "I gotta make sure work's going smooth and keep the boys from causing trouble. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Bring you some clothes?"

There was that dopy grin again. "You're good... should make you First Mate. You wanna be First Mate?"

Struggling not to laugh, Kraglin said, "Sure thing, Captain."

He left a tracker in the tent so he'd be able to find his way back, and he strode back to the wreckage with purpose. It was Trelzar he wanted, and he found the engineer alone near the back of the galleon, staring sadly at the sorry state of his pride and joy.

The old cyborg focused his eye on Kraglin, but pretended he was paying attention to something else.

"Anymore survivors? The doc?" asked Kraglin.

Trelzar continued acting distracted as he said, "Afraid not." He dropped his voice to a discrete whisper. "Did you find the Captain?"

"Yeah. He's high as a nebula, but he's in one piece. Says he'll be up by tomorrow."

"That's good to hear." Trelzar wiped his hands on a dirty oil rag and moved over to a pile of parts he was working on. "Will you tell the others?"

Kraglin stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I'm thinking 'bout it. Would be good if they knew they still had to answer to him, but..."

"Reluctant?"

He scuffed a foot on the ground and frowned at the little cloud of dust he kicked up. "It's Horuz. A lot of his little fan club survived and I'm worried the Captain's chair might start looking mighty comfy."

Trelzar's good eye widened and he straightened to give the First Mate a hard, long look. In a normal voice, he said, "Yondu has nothing to worry about from Horuz."

"You kidding me?" Kraglin's brow rose.

With a smile, the engineer said, "I know how it looks, but the Captain would have killed him long ago if he was a problem. Fortunately Horuz has no interest in responsibility and complete loyalty to the Ravagers... and to Yondu. He just doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut."

"Ah..." Dammit. Kraglin was hoping for an excuse to get rid of that oversized psychopath. Changing the subject he looked up at the ship. "How long do you think this'll take?"

"Haven't a clue," Trelzar answered heavily. "However long it takes to get the parts she needs, and... she won't be as pretty as she was."

"So long as she flies." He made his decision and left to break the good news to the crew.

As promised, Kraglin returned to the medical tents a couple of hours later with a bunch of clothes from Yondu's quarters tucked under his arm. He even included a spare com in the bundle. He wasn't sure if he picked well, but the Captain could not be seen by the crew wearing Nova-issue pyjamas.

He ducked into the tent and found Yondu in the same arrangement as before. He was glad to see the stubborn Centaurian was out cold, and he moved carefully and quietly to make sure it stayed that way.

"Hey!"

Kraglin nearly jumped out of his skin as the Terran stood up from the bench and yelled at him. He glared at the kid, who stared back, wide eyed as a startled bramel beast. "Quiet," he hissed.

The kid was smart enough to clamp his mouth shut and sit back down.

Kraglin dumped Yondu's clothes on the foot of the bed and left. He returned a few minutes later with a folding chair that he set up in a corner and took a seat in.

With everything taken care of as good as it could be, he would keep a vigil over the Captain. He still didn't trust a good chunk of the remaining crew not to follow him and attempt an assassination, not to mention the Nova Corps were a bunch of shifty, self serving bastards. If they decided taking out the Captain of the Ravagers was in their best interest, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

The Terran was staring at him. It was making the hairs on his neck stand on end.

He put on his best sneer and said, "What?"

The Terran jolted and looked away; a submissive gesture that calmed Kraglin down somewhat.

"Wanted to say sorry," whispered the boy. "You know... for tripping you? I didn't get you in trouble did I?"

Kraglin's eye twitched. "Are you for real?"

The boy answered with a shrug.

Kraglin sat back and regarded the ex-cargo with a cool frown. No, he didn't get in trouble. He supposed he better forgive the little brat, especially if Yondu wasn't going to change his mind about keeping him. Kraglin smirked and said, "Anything you gotta 'pologize for ain't worth doing."

The Terran gave him a confused, cockeyed look before sighing and plunking some funny wires on his head and turning away.

Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the night.