Dutch had gone up to the cockpit to sit with Johnny, he could vaguely hear them talking...it was the sound of their voices but not the actual words they were saying. All D'avin could do was think about not only that he was going to be father...but that this was some elaborate plan by Aneela to take the child away. Hullen couldn't have children of their own, he got that...and he knew that there were things that Aneela didn't know...things that Khlyen had locked away.

He sucked in a breath.

Khlyen.

All he could think now was looking back at all the times they'd crossed paths with Khlyen. The man's objective had been to protect Dutch...from Aneela...and he'd gone so far as to try to make D'avin a Six in order to do it. Did he blame the guy? No. If anything, he felt like he understood him even more now. He was a man trying to do his best to protect his family in the only way he could think to.

"Lucy, do you think you can do something for me without telling Johnny and Dutch?" he spoke aloud, looking upward even though he knew it didn't matter where he looked while talking to the sassy ship.

"It depends on the request."

That was fair.

"We need to do some things to protect Dutch."

"Johnny also wants to protect Dutch."

He nodded. Lucy was absolutely right. They all wanted to keep each other safe, even Zeph had figured out how that worked out on their little team. "But Johnny won't make the hard calls, Luce."

"I think you'd be surprised at what Johnny would risk for her, if you'd give him the option," the quiet voice spoke up. Zeph appeared a moment later out of the shadows, concern was all over her face.

"You're right," D'avin told her. "Maybe I just don't want him to do it...I don't want him to feel the guilt or beat himself over what is going to have to happen."

"What can I do to help?"

"We have to call in back-up," D'avin told her.

"What kind of back-up?"

"It's time for you to meet more of the family, Zeph."

"So, we've got your step one in play...what's the next step?"

D'avin looked over at Zeph, he'd purposely taken their little plotting meeting to the opposite side of the ship in order to keep it all a secret but also to give Johnny and Dutch their privacy in their talks. With what was going to happen, he knew that that moment between the two of them was precious...and as much as he'd love to crash it and let it be the three of them...he knew that he needed to take steps to keep Dutch and their child safe.

Their child.

It was still a concept that he was still trying to grasp.

"Short of resurrecting people? I think we're going to have to take a dangerous step in order to get a solid foothold when it comes to the Hullen."

"What people need resurrecting?" Zeph questioned.

It felt like that list was just too long, but he started with the ones on his mind first. "Pawter… Alvis… Khlyen…"

"I thought Khlyen was the bad guy?"

"I mean, I'm not going to say you're exactly wrong...but I think he was more misunderstood looking back on things than I would have said after I joined this team," D'avin admitted. He knew that Zeph knew some of the things that Dutch had seen...but she didn't know everything. As nice as it would be for everyone to know everything that had happened, that was in play, and that was going on...some things just had to be kept a secret if not absolutely needing to be known.

"So...short of being able to resurrect people, what's the next step?"

"Figure out where Aneela's fleet and any other Hullen ships might be," D'avin told her. "We need to be ready and we need to know what the map looks like."

"What about the RAC?"

"That's in the cards...just way down the line."

"Like how far down?" Zeph asked in confusion. "Because we need more back-up than you've already sent messages to."

"Zeph, haven't you learned to trust us yet?"

Zeph tilted her head to the side a bit. "I'm not saying I don't trust you…"

D'avin shook his head and smiled, she was definitely thinking about her issue of trust at the moment though. He could feel it. There was a huge unsureness within her. "Look, we were gone for a short while and you held down the fort...relatively well."

"Is that what we're calling it?" Lucy spoke up in full sass mode.

"Not time to start a fight, Lucy," he said as he watched Zeph glare in the direction of the ceiling. It probably didn't help Zeph at all that Lucy favored Johnny over everyone else...even Dutch. Right now they needed everyone on the same page and working together in whatever was closest to harmony with the circumstances. "We need to all work together...for Dutch."

"Can we at least keep her from turning me off this time?"

It wasn't an uncalled for request. It wasn't like Zeph had really hurt Lucy by basically muting her, but she hadn't made things any easier when they'd gotten back. "Yeah, maybe we can talk to Johnny about rewriting programming or something."

"Hey," Zeph complained.

"It's not that I don't trust you, Zeph," D'avin told her, turning his attention back to Zeph. "It's just that I'd rather...the family not fight amongst itself." It was the best way that he could put it in those moments. "We need Lucy just as much as we need you and Johnny to make this all work." A beat passed. "This has to work, Zeph."

TBC…