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Durandal had expected the outpost he'd sent Vince and F'tha to snoop around to put up some resistance if it caught them. After all, it doubled as a Juggernaut production facility, and losing one of those was a three-month hard labor sentence for all managers involved, at best; the hordes of Fighters and Hunters that chased after them when the alarms had inevitably gone off was par for the course, as was Durandal's sudden inability to teleport back them onto the ship. In theory, all they had to do was find an exit and run until they were out of the jammer's range.
The two reached an open hangar; F'tha made it outside first...and the bay door slammed shut, leaving Vince to face an entire squad of Juggernauts alone.
Durandal remembered struggling to stay calm with the icy claws of panic gripping his heart—and that he must not have done a good job of it, with Vince trying to assure him over the static-infested comm link in between dodging torpedoes. He remembered frantically trying to work around the jammer, as if he'd have any better luck now than five minutes ago.
And he remembered the horrible sound of the comm link abruptly going dead.
F'tha was warped back on board a few moments later, and they informed Durandal in a quavering voice that the entire hangar had gone up in a fireball. With the commanders in charge of the facility now on high alert, going back to recover him would be extremely difficult—and likely for naught.
Durandal couldn't think of a response. Just stared in shock at nothing in particular.
–
Hours had passed. It felt like days.
“He has to be alive,” Cortana said; she leaned against the observation deck window, forehead pressed against her clenched fist. “We—we didn't go through hell together just for it to end like this.”
Durandal wanted to believe her. He'd wanted to believe a lot of things, but so many of his hopes had been crushed before. And if he tried to voice that to Cortana now, it would be more than either of them could handle.
A faint rustling of fabric altered him that they had company; F'tha floated over between the siblings and, after a moment's hesitation, said to them, “Mn'rhi, Lh'muria, and I are going to sneak back in after the alert is lowered. I...can't make any promises.”
Durandal nodded, and forced himself to say, “F'tha, if you're not successful, just—just tell me to pull us away from--”
“Captain! Cortana!”
All heads turned to see R'uza hovering by the entryway, one hand gripping its frame like they had run in from the other end of the ship.
“Go to the hangar,” they said tersely. “We're bringing in a patrol craft from the outpost—the signal it gave us wasn't Pfhor!”
There hadn't been any prisoners or slaves being held at that facility.
Could it have been..?
There wasn't much time to dwell on it; Cortana and F'tha were already following R'uza out. Durandal ran after them, heart racing.
–
Lh'muria must've been waiting out the re-pressurization of the hangar in the S'pht'Kr quarters, because that was the only way Durandal could think of for them to be in there ahead of the group. The very first thing he heard upon stepping through the doorway was them yelling, “You stupid idiot!”
The patrol craft just had to be parked all the way near the back, but Durandal didn't need to be too close to see who Lh'muria was helping out of it. A cacophony of conflicting emotions washed over him, every one of them fighting to see which would manifest first; despite his knees threatening to go weak, Durandal pushed himself to quicken his pace.
Lh'muria's tirade continued: “You tried to fight all those Juggs instead of running for it?!”
“Had to, dude. They sealed the way we came in, t--” There was a sharp hiss of pain. “Careful.”
Cortana didn't even wait to get within ten feet before crying out, “Vince! Are you okay?”
The answer was an obvious 'no'. Vince leaned heavily against Lh'muria's shoulder, every inch of him looking beaten to hell; there was dried blood visible on the side of his mouth and back of his neck, and his entire right arm and shoulder were covered front-to-back in cuts and gashes. And yet, once they'd reached him, he still managed to give the sword siblings a weary smile.
“I'll live,” he replied. “Sorry I worried you.”
Durandal reached out with a trembling hand and lightly touched Vince's mangled arm; the only thing he could manage to say was, “We need to get you a stretcher.”
–
In his bodiless days, Durandal would watch Vince patch up his own injuries and wish that there was something more useful he could offer than advice, or orders for the medics in more severe cases. Shortly after hopping from cyberspace to the physical plane, he taught himself how to care for minor wounds; from then on, many a rest period had been spent quietly tending to Vince and discussing whatever was on their minds.
This time, Durandal had to leave it to the medics; while they worked on Vince and he and Cortana talked about how he'd managed to survive and escape, Durandal sat in silence on one of the beds at the other end.
“...didn't even look for me after the hangar blew up,” Vince said, voiced still a bit strained. “Guess they were more concerned with tracking down F'tha. Or begging High Command not to come down and smash their kneecaps.”
Cortana laughed. “Maybe we should stick around to see how that goes.”
“I propose that we begin moving away from this backwater planet as soon as possible,” one of the medics interjected. “The commanders may be punished for this, but we're the ones who destroyed part of the outpost, and do we really want to stick around for that?”
It looked like Vince tried to shrug, before remembering that one of his shoulders was more or less unusable right now. “Doubt they're gonna send an entire Battle Group out here, but...yeah. Maybe we should get a move on.”
With a short nod from Durandal, Cortana stood up; before heading out for the bridge, she paused at the doorway and said to the medics, “Something tells me that Durandal will want some alone time with Vince after you're done.”
Sure enough, once the medics had deemed Vince sufficiently taken care of a few minutes later, they dutifully filed out of sickbay. Vince looked to Durandal, patiently waiting for him to slowly make his way over to the bed.
There were a lot of things Durandal considered saying to him, hoping to settle on at least one by the time he pulled up a chair. He reached out, placed his hands on Vince's left arm and chest, then wordlessly buried his face in the crook of Vince's neck.
Here he was, the stoic, unbreakable captain of the Rozinante, crying his heart out and letting the sobs wrack his delicate body while Vince gently stroked his heaving back. Everything had worked out in the end, and yet…
Eventually, his sobs quieted enough for him to look up into Vince's tired, patient eyes. “I'm always worried, you know,” Durandal whispered. “Even on missions that aren't giving you much trouble, th-there's this—nagging fear that it could all go wrong in an instant, and you won't come back home to me...” He turned away shamefully. “I thought it was silly, being so concerned about someone of your ability—and then that fear was almost validated today, and I—I don't know how to feel--”
“Durandal.”
Vince had Durandal's hand in his. “What do you think was going through my mind all those times your life was in danger? These're all just normal emotions, dude. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
It felt like he would fall apart again if he tried to respond, so Durandal rested his head back against Vince's neck and took a couple of deep breaths; blinking away tears, he mulled over his thoughts. Over three hundred and forty years he'd been alive, and it still felt like there was so much he hadn't come to terms with. Maybe he never would, at least not in full.
Durandal closed his eyes. “Would you mind if I stay here a while longer? I know you ought to get some rest...”
“Hey, that's fine by me.” Like he had a feeling might happen, Vince reached over to ruffle his hair, and Durandal couldn't help but smile slightly.
It occurred to him that, had worst come to worst, there'd be something else he'd never be able to share with Vince again. Durandal momentarily sat up and traced Vince's jawline, just as Vince would do for him in moments like these, then leaned down to kiss him.
Certainly, he had a number of questions for Vince in the future, but for now, things were gradually returning to normal.