Jim had shifted a while ago so he was sitting and could support William's head in his lap.

His heart ached. He was tired. He was so damn cold.

William's fingers were intertwined with his own. He mumbled the last bit of his story, his eyes still closed as they had been when he first started to speak. He trailed off into silence other than his ragged breathing. The rushing of water and slow patter of rain surrounded them and Jim found himself entranced by the rhythmic sound. He jerked weakly when William's fingers tightened the smallest amount around his own and he wheezed, "I'm sorry…I…let everyone down…got so many people killed…"

Jim suppressed a sob.

What was he supposed to say?

He wanted to tell William it wasn't his fault. That he'd been trapped in a shitty situation. That he'd been coerced. That his parents' debts weren't his burden to carry. That Jim forgave him.

But…

There had been other options.

Options where people didn't have to die so William's mother could have kept her house. Options that would have absolved the debts that William had inherited. Options that hadn't forced-

"I'm sorry Jim…"

He stroked his fingers down Will's cheek. Could they go back to when they were in the Interstellar Academy? Go back to days where their biggest worries were the upcoming exam and dreaming about what their careers would look like? Go back to when they were young and eager and naïve?

"It's ok, Will."

A tear slipped down his cheek finally.

"I…can give you…my coordinates…get to the Ruby…before…"

Jim shushed William gently, but the other man wouldn't listen. He weakly offered his navigation device and started to list numbers. Jim tried again to quiet him, but William only spoke with more vigor, his eyes opening finally and holding Jim in a surprisingly firm gaze.

"I know your brain…know you'll remember those numbers…" his lips curved into the smallest grin before he gasped and shivered.

"Will, stop…just…just rest, ok?" Jim tried to push the navigation tool away.

"Jim, take it! I'm not…I'm going to d…die…"

"Don't say that," Jim couldn't stop the tears that brimmed his eyelashes and ran down his cheeks, "Not you too."

William huffed a soft laugh, "No stopping it now…it's ok...I'm...ready...been ready a long time..."

An agonized sound came out of Jim's throat unbidden. He closed his eyes and bent down to rest their foreheads together. Another whimper slipped out. He shouldn't be mourning William. He was a traitor. He'd tried to hurt Jim. But he couldn't erase twelve years of friendship. Twelve years of bickering and teasing and late night calls on their communicators when they missed each other and needed to vent about the woes in their lives.

"Jim…I love…you…"

He sniffled. William's eyes were closed again. His breaths coming as shallow gasps.

"Yeah…I love you too, Will."

It was a different love than he had for Sidon. A different love than he had for Silver, or Morph, or his mother, or any of the other close friends he'd made in his life, different than if they'd been brothers. He didn't know how to explain it, but he did love Will.

He felt William go lax in his arms and his fingers relax their grip.

And he was crying again. Silently this time. The tears sliding down his cheeks and his breathing coming in slow, even strokes as he gazed quietly at his friend's peaceful expression. He startled himself when he sniffled. His fingers fiddled over the navigation tool absently.

They'd known each other too well.

Just as he'd known Will would keep a cheat sheet in his navigation tool, Will had known he would unconsciously memorize the coordinates he told him. Jim was almost annoyed at himself when he'd punched the numbers into the tool without even thinking about it. The hologram showed all six full coordinates. They made a perfect circle.

That's weird…

He traced around the six points with his eyes, connecting them like a constellation in his mind. They were too perfectly spaced. Too perfectly lined across from each other. Laid out as if they were the outer ring of a target…

A...target…A TARGET!

"The intersection point!" Jim breathed. He zoomed in on the screen as close to the middle of the points as he could get.

There was a squealing shriek and Jim snapped the navigation tool shut, tucking it into William's hand and clasping his limp fingers around it. Part of him wondered why he'd done that; he'd seen the coordinates. He knew them like they were part of him now. Morph shot out of the trees and slammed into his chest with enough force that he exploded into a million tiny pink blobs before he reformed and wiggled in the air in front of his face.

"Mo-" Jim choked in surprise and his hands came up to cradle the frantically chattering creature. He struggled to keep up with how rapidly Morph was moving and squeaking and chirping, "Where- where did you come from? Were you still with the longboat? How'd you find me?"

The little blob's wide eyes bugged out before he screamed and dove into Jim's pants pocket.

"Looks like your luck's finally run out, hasn't it, Navy boy?"

Jim gasped. He went rigid, not even daring to look around. He knew who it was. Knew that smug voice.

He heard the soft shuffling of stones grinding together getting louder as Raith walked until she was right behind him. The bite of deep-seated hatred came through in her voice, "Do you have any idea how big a pain in the ass it was to find you?! That fucking longboat you stole didn't stop sailing until it was three miles from here! Had to smash into a cliff before it stopped! Good thing I've still got Yeam; if I didn't have his bloodhound nose then we'd never have found you."

Jim didn't know which one of her crew Yeam was, but he hated him.

There was more shifting and clunking together of rocks and Jim imagined the rest of Raith's crew was walking up to join them. He didn't bother to turn around and look. It didn't matter. He was dead whether he looked or not.

The click of a pistol hammer getting pulled back resounded in his ears as if it echoed off everything around them.

Get it over with already.

"That piece of shit Delaney was supposed to give me his coordinates, but he clammed up the minute he found out you were involved in all this," Her voice was closer, as if she were leaning over to look at William.

Jim's fingers trembled. He used one hand to gently stroke Morph to keep him calm. The poor thing was going to be stuck out here all alone for the rest of his life…

"Having just your half of the coordinates does me no good," he could hear the sneer in the woman's voice, "Since you're of no use to me it's time to end this."

He could feel the barrel of the pistol press against the back of his head. Jim let out a shuddering breath and closed his eyes.

"Before we can make any plans, we need to know everything we can about the situation," Timetra stood where John normally would, her hands resting on the desk as she gazed at the faces in front of her.

Sidon leaned against the wall, sitting with his legs crossed and a half dozen pillows the crew had scrounged up shoved around him to support him. John was in the chair in front of the desk, and the rest of the crew either peered in through the door of their cabin, or squeezed inside and stood with their backs against the far wall.

John leaned back in his chair, resting heavily on his right arm. Timetra could tell his left side was still sore. Demitria offered him a health elixir, which he tried to refuse, but he accepted it quickly after receiving a sharp look from both the Zora healer and her. He grimaced at the bitter tasting drink and nursed it slowly.

"We have the coordinates that Jim and William had already been to, we can start there-"

"I thought there wasn't anything at those coordinates though?" Sidon glanced at the crew before looking at her again.

He really wasn't well enough to be up and about, but he refused to lie down any longer than he already had. They had done everything short of the entire crew tackling him and tying him up to keep him from moving around too much and he wouldn't have it.

Timetra sighed, "We don't have many other options to go with. We only placed a tracker on the Eclipse-"

"The tracker!" John choked on the elixir. He spluttered for a moment as he cleared his throat, "I put a tracker chip in William's navigation tool!"

She stared at him for a moment before scrambling for the desk drawers. The tracking device was half buried under other trinkets and tools and she snatched it up after a moment of fighting to untangle it. The screen blinked on and the crew leaned forward anxiously as they waited for the system to come online. Timetra almost couldn't handle the anticipation as the signal rotated around and around as it searched. If they were too far out of range they'd never find them in time-

Blip. Blip. Blip.

The hologram finally flicked on and Timetra stared at the tiny blinking dot that appeared on the grid. It pulsed and she watched it for any wavering frequency or weakness in the signal, but it continued to flash consistently.

"Boys, we've got our target," She looked up with an elated grin.

Jim waited for the gun shot. Waited for pain. Waited for blackness. Waited for- he didn't know what all he was waiting for. Presumably something would happen when he died. He had always imagined that he would feel different when it all ended and that somehow he would know.

But he didn't feel anything.

He dared open his eyes again. He was still sitting on his knees with William's head in his lap and Morph trembling in his pocket. It was still raining, the river still rushed by beside them, it was still cold. He still hurt.

"You know the coordinates."

It wasn't a question.

What had he done to give it away? He hadn't touched the navigation tool, hadn't said anything, hell, he hadn't even looked at anyone. Was it because he hadn't begged for his life?

A rough hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and yanked him to his feet. Jim staggered. The pain and the blood loss and how his legs had gone numb from sitting for so long all contributed to his balance wavering. Bright white spots darted and shot across his vision. He was hit by a violent wave of dizziness that threatened to send him tumbling back down to his knees.

But the hand gripped him tight and held him up.

Jim's head lolled to the side a little and he met the gaze of the man supporting him. He recognized the boar-man that he'd run straight into the first time Raith and her crew had captured him and William. How many times had he been caught now? He was weirdly giggly and he grinned a little, "Third time's the charm, right?"

Raith shoved herself into Jim's line of sight and she gripped his jaw with one fur-covered hand. Her claws dug into his skin. He could feel blood bubbling up and sliding from the pin-pricks each talon made. The Feliformid's pupils narrowed as she brought their faces close enough that their noses nearly brushed against each other, "Tell me where the Ruby of Opath is."

He studied her face. His eyes traced the crisp black spots standing against the snow-white fur on her forehead, the prominent black whiskers as they faded to white at the ends, her dark pink nose. There were flecks of green and brown in her one good yellow eye. She would have been quite pretty if she wasn't such an ugly person on the inside.

"Tell me, dammit!" She jerked on his chin painfully.

With everything that Raith had lost up to this point - the number of crew, her eye, all the supplies and time and respect - Jim doubted that even if she got her hands on the ruby that it would cover all the costs to replace everything.

It would almost be worth it to tell her where it was so he could laugh when she was disappointed…

"I swear, Navy boy-" Raith released his chin and poised her dangerous claws around his throat as a silent threat that she held his life in the palm of her hand. Jim grinned. He didn't care.

"I'll do you one better," he murmured. Her ears twitched but she otherwise remained unmoved.

The rain had stopped and now it was just foggy and muggy. Jim's bangs clung to his forehead. He could feel sweat trickling down his skin as the humidity on the planet turned up a notch after the rain. He shivered despite the heat around him. It was good this wasn't a snowy planet, because he would have frozen a long time ago with how weak he was.

He was snapped out of his thoughts again when Raith snarled. She pressed her claws into his skin. Jim could feel his pulse throbbing. He looked up into her face tiredly.

"I'll take you to it."

The longer she stared at the tracking screen, the more nervous it made her.

The tracking chip wasn't moving. Its signal was still strong, but the fact that it hadn't moved from that one coordinate made her stomach twist. It was late morning now, surely late enough that Raith and her crew would be on the move, so why was the chip stationary? It couldn't mean anything good, but she didn't have the heart to tell either Sidon or John that she had a bad feeling. They looked so hopeful.

Maybe they would get lucky.

Maybe the boys had found a way to escape. They'd proven themselves to be resourceful and determined as all hell, what's to say they weren't lucky on top of all of that?

The voice in the back of her head didn't seem so hopeful.

She looked out over the bow. The rain had finally stopped. The humidity made her clothing stick to her skin, so she'd traded her customary spacing clothes for her Gerudo armor. It was better suited for heat - not necessarily for the humidity - and she felt somehow more at home in the gleaming armor.

"We're coming up on the location, look sharp," Timetra called to the crew. There were shouts of 'aye ma'am' in response. They stood at the ready, poised at the railing, armed to the teeth for a battle. John had said he'd only seen a few crew members with Raith during the attack, but that didn't mean she was limited to that small number. An ambush might only need three people to pull it off if it was executed well.

Timetra motioned for the helmsman to bring them to a stop.

There wasn't much to see over the railing. The tops of trees. A roaring river flowing away from a waterfall. Timetra called again, "Ysolde, Eil, Taki, with me. We'll scout the area and retrieve the tracking chip, and hopefully William and Jim. Drenga, sail in a slow circle around the area."

She met John's gaze briefly. His eyebrows squeezed together and his mouth pulled into a thin line. She gave him an encouraging nod before hurrying after the crew toward the longboat hangar.

It took only a few minutes to launch and descend toward the river and the blinking beacon on the tracking device. They were almost to the tops of the trees when Timetra whispered, "Keep your wits about you. This may be a trap."

They were tense as they finally touched down, pistols raised and aimed over the sides of the little boat, expressions hard, eyes darting.

"Oh no…"

William lay on the rocky strip separating the forest and the river. He was very pale and very still. Timetra motioned silently. Ysolde and Eil jumped out of the longboat and darted into the trees to secure the perimeter. She and Taki sneaked closer to William.

Timetra knelt beside him, touching this side of his neck carefully. There was no pulse.

She waved the tracking device over his body quickly, pausing when it beeped more rapidly when she swiped it over his hand. A tiny golden device sat in his loose fist. It was pried free without even a little bit of struggle and Timetra figured that if he was dead - he looked to be - then he had died recently. The tool lit up and the beeping became an unbroken whine when she held the navigation device under it, "There's our tracking chip."

This wasn't good.

Timetra peered around, even going so far as to stand and gaze down along the river to see if she could spot another body. Should have brought Demitria to search the water… Ysolde and Eil trotted back toward her and Taki, she looked at them anxiously, "Well?"

"Nothing," Eil shrugged his shoulders.

Ysolde nodded in agreement, "Not even a leaf outta place, ma'am."

Shit.

"Alright, let's load him up in the boat and head back to tell everyone the news and regroup."

Demitria was waiting for them in the longboat hangar with a couple other crew members. The Zora searched her face and Timetra glanced over at William. All expressions were grim as his body was lifted from the boat so Demitria could examine him.

"He's gone."

"Do humans have any special survival thingies like Zora?" one of the crew asked in a soft voice.

Her gaze didn't rise from William's face as she continued to check him all over for any signs of life, "I'm afraid not…"

"We need to tell John," Timetra walked with the purpose of a woman leading a funeral procession. The crew took William to a cabin as she strode up the stairs to the deck.

John sat on one of the stairs leading up to the bridge, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingertips tented together in front of himself. His head raised when she came up on deck and he leapt to his feet the moment he saw her, "Well?!"

Her face must have said everything that she didn't know how to put into words, because he fell back to sit on the step.

"Is…is Jim de…dead?" Sidon's quiet voice startled Timetra, and she spun around to look at him. He sat by the mast, his hands resting in his lap. She'd never seen him looking so despondent.

"I…I don't know," Timetra couldn't lie to either of them.

"Wha' did ye find?"

Timetra looked between the two men before answering, "We found William's body. Nothing else."

She held out the navigation device to John. He stared at it for a moment before taking it in his organic hand. He swiped his thumb over the lid.

"So we've hit a dead end?" Sidon whispered.

"Yes."

John continued to stare at the device dwarfed in his palm. He ran his thumb over it again, teased his claw along the seam between the bottom and the top, clicked it open absently. The hologram rose from the mechanism and they gazed at the six tiny coordinates that appeared on the three-dimensional map. The device went through the last command that had been input and the map zoomed in to the space between all the coordinates.

His eyes lit up, "There."

Timetra watched as he jumped to his feet and hurried up to the bridge. She scrambled to follow, "What? John, what are you talking about? Hey-"

"We're goin' te tha' coordinate-"

"John-"

He spun around to look at her desperately, "We ain't got any other options, Safflina. If they put tha' coordinate in, it's got te be important!"

They gazed at each other. Timetra looked over the deck at the crew. Her eyes landed on Sidon and the desperate look in his eyes. John had deferred to her, really only because she had forced him to, and now everyone else looked to her as well. Timetra stood straight and squared her shoulder. What other options did they have?

"Let's go."