The crew had seen some pretty hard times, and Lix Spittle had been through it all right along with them. Other than Celaeno, Lix Spittle was the one who had been part of the crew the longest. She had been around to see dozens of creatures come and go, but one thing remained consistent. They weren't just a pirate crew. They weren't just teammates. They were a family, always had been, and always would be.
Lix Spittle had always loved how close the crew was. If something bad happened, and bad things seemed to happen frequently, there was always a number of people right there, waiting to offer support.
Of course, it worked the other way too. If something bad happened to one crewmember, then they all felt the pain from it. Celaeno had known this for years, and she had seen it in action a number of times, but she had never seen it as bad as this.
If an outsider had come onto the ship, their first guess would have been that somebody had died. That was how low team morale was. At first Lix Spittle hadn't understood why everybody was so upset. Capper had gotten hurt, and it would take time and support for him to be able to recover both physically and mentally, but at least things weren't any worse.
At least they had gotten him back.
Everybody else on the crew behaved as though they had lost him, and with every hour that passed they seemed to be getting worse. It took some time, but Lix Spittle finally realized what was going on with the rest of the crew. They were feeling guilty, because each of them believed that what had happened had been their fault.
Celaeno was the captain. She felt responsible for the entire crew. If something happened to one of them, she blamed herself. Her guilt was just worse this time around because it had been her decision to go to Klugetown. It didn't matter that there hadn't been much of a choice, Celaeno still shouldered the blame.
Mullet, on the other hand, felt more directly responsible. Celaeno had trusted him to keep an eye on both Capper and Squabble, and he had left them alone. None of them blamed him, but he blamed himself. There was no guarantee that Capper would have been safe even if he had stayed behind, but Mullet still couldn't shake those 'what if' thoughts.
Squabble didn't usually feel guilty about things, but when he got hit with regret, he got hit with it hard. Squabble had been the only one on the ship when Capper had been taken. He was also the one that Capper had risked his own safety to protect. Of course Squabble felt bad.
Boyle was probably the only one of them who couldn't have done anything differently that would have changed what had happened, but he still felt guilty about it because that was just the kind of parrot he was. Boyle was the strongest of all of them, as well as the most sensitive. If any of them got hurt, he blamed himself, whether he should or not. He seemed to think that because he was strong it meant that he should be able to keep the crew safe at all times.
Lix Spittle didn't blame the rest of the crew for feeling this way, she just wished that they didn't beat themselves up about it so badly. The only person that should be blamed for what had happened to Capper was Verko. As far as Lix Spittle was concerned, everybody else was innocent. She knew that nothing that she could say would convince the others. The only one that they might listen to was Capper himself.
And that was another problem...a major problem that Lix Spittle was beginning to really worry about.
It had been nearly three days since they had gotten Capper back. The very moment that they could, they had taken the airship away from Klugetown, with the promise to never return there again. They didn't have a set destination in mind, except to get as far away from the the thieves den as possible.
In that time, Lix Spittle had been doing what she could to help Capper recover, and physically things were going as well as could be expected. When they had been in Klugetown, Lix Spittle had been able to find food that Capper could handle eating. It had taken some effort, but Lix Spittle had been able to coax Capper into eating the food that she brought him. That food was able to give him the nutrients and energy that he needed to recover from what Verko had done to him.
Lix Spittle still felt a burning rage whenever she saw Capper's injury. She always hated it when somebody on the crew lost a limb. Injuries of any kind were terrible, but lost limbs seemed to be worse than anything, because once they were lost, in most cases, they weren't coming back. It always took time to adjust to, not to mention extremely painful.
Capper seemed to be healing well. The wound wasn't infected, and had stopped being reopened easily. Skin and fur was even starting to heal in over the wound. It was still extremely sensitive, but not nearly as bad as it had been. Physically, Capper would be just fine.
Lix Spittle just didn't know if she could say the same thing about his mental well-being.
Capper hadn't said a word to any of them since they had gotten him back. Not a single word. Capper had always been such a smooth talker, always interested in striking up a conversation, and yet for the past three days he had been completely silent. It wasn't like him, and Lix Spittle didn't know what she could do to fix things.
That didn't keep her from trying.
"You seem to be doing a lot better." Lix Spittle commented as she came in on her bi-daily check in on Capper. If she had it her way, she would have rarely left his side until she knew that he was completely better, but even without talking Capper had made it perfectly clear that he didn't want to be around anybody. He always grew tense whenever she entered the room, and didn't relax until after she had left. Lix Spittle didn't want to leave him on his own, but she still wanted to respect his privacy, so she had come up with this compromise. She knew that neither of them were completely happy with it, but it was better than nothing.
The first thing that Lix Spittle did when she came in to see Capper was to check his temperature. He'd had a pretty bad fever the day before, and she was relieved to find that it had broken in the last few hours. For the first time in the past three days, Capper didn't look like he was in pain. Lix Spittle wouldn't go so far as to say that he was comfortable, but at least he wasn't hurting.
"How are you feeling?" Lix Spittle asked for the sixth time in the past three days. She didn't get a response, which she had expected. It was still disappointing. "Is there anything you need? Food? Water?" Nothing. "Company?" Capper flinched. Well, at least she knew that he was listening to her.
Lix Spittle sighed and drew up a chair next to the bed. "Capper, I want to help, and so do the others." Capper grimaced and turned his head away from her. If it weren't for the fact that his back was still extremely sensitive, he likely would have turned away from her altogether. "Why does that bother you?"
"Don't." Lix Spittle was taken aback. This was the first word that she had heard Capper speak in days. Why now? What had caused him to be silent in the first place? And why now, out of all of her attempts at conversation, was her responding to her? What was different this time?
"No, Capper, I need you to tell me what's going on." Lix Spittle was tired of walking on eggshells around Capper. She wanted to help him, but she couldn't if he refused to open up to her. "Why don't you want us to help you?"
"...It's not that." Capper's voice was quiet, which certainly wasn't like him, but at least he was talking. "It's not that I don't want your help."
"Then what is it?" Lix Spittle kept her voice calm and accusatory. She was finally getting answers from Capper. The last thing she wanted was for him to shut up again because he felt like he was under attack.
Capper was quiet for a few minutes, and Lix Spittle thought that her question was just going to remain unanswered. He did eventually speak up though, and his words shook her. "I just don't understand why y'all would waste your time like this."
"It's not a waste of time." Lix Spittle said fiercely. "This crew is a family. Family helps each other. It's never a waste."
"I'm not…" Capper growled and became so tense that Lix Spittle suspected that his claws were tearing right through the bedsheets.
"You are." Lix Spittle insisted. She had thought that Capper had already learned and accepted this. Why was he suddenly protesting so much? "You're a member of this crew, which means that you're a member of this family."
"So are the others." Capper's tone was stiff, emotionless. It scared her. "The ones that are missing."
Lix Spittle sighed. So that was what it was about. "It's not your fault." Lix Spittle had heard Celaeno rant and cry about the decision that Verko had forced her to make. Save Capper, or get information about where the rest of their crew might be. Lix Spittle had known that Capper had been there when the offer had been made, but she hadn't actually considered that he had heard it.
"Celaeno wasn't going to give you up to get the others back." Lix Spittle said. "That's not how family works."
"St-stop." Capper's fur bristled. "Stop saying that."
"No, I won't stop saying it." Lix Spittle said. If Capper kept on fighting her on this, soon she would have to bring in the others. See if they could get through to him. "Not until you realize that I'm right."
"Why?" Capper lifted his head and slowly turned to look at her. Capper's eyes didn't have that familiar spark that Lix Spittle had come to know and love, but they weren't as dull as they had been these past few days. Capper's eyes were full of raw emotion. "I-I don't understand why."
Lix Spittle took one of Capper's paws in her talons. She felt him flinch, but he didn't try to pull away. "It's the same reason why you were willing to offer yourself up to protect Squabble. Because we care about you."
"I know that," Capper's voice cracked slightly. He closed his eyes. "I just don't understand why." Unfortunately, this wasn't something that Lix Spittle could just explain. She and the others could do a few things to show Capper that he really was part of their family, but they couldn't force him to actually accept it.
"Whether you understand it or not, we all care about you, and we all worry about you." Lix Spittle said. "The others haven't seen you in days, and they're starting to get anxious." Lix Spittle had all but forbidden the others from seeing Capper. All of them already had negative attitudes. She didn't need all of that negativeness to feed itself. "Why don't you come out on deck? The fresh air might do you good." It couldn't be healthy to one to stay cooped up in a cabin for so long.
Capper looked hesitant, but he didn't argue against her idea. Capper let Lix Spittle pull him up off the bed. They had to be slow and cautious so as to not irritate Capper's injury, but Lix Spittle was able to pull him up. The very moment that Capper was on his feet he started to fall forwards. Capper took a step in an attempt to regain his balance, but this only made it worse.
Capper fell to his knees, but he was able to catch himself with his upper paws. Lix Spittle's initial thought was that his legs were just weak from a few days of not being used, but when she saw Capper's frightened face and how he looked like he was about to be sick, she knew it was more than that.
"Something's wrong." Capper dug his claws into the floorboards. He looked so terrified, so vulnerable. "It's wrong."
"What's wrong?" Lix Spittle asked gently. Capper used the wall to support himself as he pulled himself to his feet again. Lix Spittle watched him carefully. His legs were sturdy without even the smallest sign of shaking. Whatever had made him fall, it was something else.
Capper looked completely off balance, even just standing there. He used the wall to support him until he could catch his bearings and adjust to whatever was throwing him off. Lix Spittle couldn't imagine what was wrong until she took a look at Capper's injury, to make sure that he wasn't irritating it, and she saw subtle twitches and movements in the muscles of the stub.
Capper was subconsciously trying to move his tail...because cats use their tails for balance.
"This may be a problem." Lix Spittle muttered. She put a talon on Capper's shoulder and carefully brought it up over her shoulder. She still thought that he needed to get out of the cabin, she just hoped that Capper didn't mind the assistance. It would take time for him to adjust to the loss of weight that came from his tail, and even more time for him to live without the very thing that kept him balanced. Lix Spittle would do what she could to help him, but there was only so much that she could do.
Capper needed all the help and support that he could get. Lix Spittle still wanted the rest of the crew to get over their feelings of guilt, and maybe this wasn't the best way to make that happen, but she couldn't do this alone. Capper needed all of them, and Lix Spittle didn't doubt that the rest of crew would do what they could to help, despite how responsible they felt for this mess.
Lix Spittle didn't know how they would get through this, but she did know that it would be the same way that they got through everything that was thrown their way. Together.
As a crew.
As a family.
A/N: I would have liked to have a longer chapter, but if I forced myself to make it longer then this chapter would have taken more time and I would probably have just felt very unsatisfied with it. I feel okay with what I've written, and I'll just hope that I get more into the next chapter so it'll be longer and I'll just feel better about it in general.