Still Has Thorns [Vitale]

[Abigail Gunn]

The empty halls had never been so long as she made her way toward what was going to be her meeting place with Vitale. Her sense of time was catatonic. Pleasurable things tended to go by too fast, but painful things seemed to drag on and on. At this point, she had no way of knowing what she would be walking into. She felt she was getting too close to the room too quickly because her own anticipation was getting more and more stoked as she walked.

What did she feel about him? What did she think about him? Her mind was divided. He had forced her to reveal herself to Davis despite not knowing whether or not she'd be executed, or imprisoned and sent back to Onas for a more torturous and unpleasant death. By that same token, he hadn't shot her when the opportunity presented itself, and even gave her the dignity of bringing it to Davis herself. That said something, didn't it? Maybe it just spoke of the complexity of humans, and nothing about anything else. One thing was for certain, though: she'd never figure out her thoughts if she didn't put herself in the position to explore the object of them... Vi himself.

When Gunn was at the doorway, she froze for a moment. Time really felt like it stood still, and she refrained from exhaling. Why was she so tense? It wasn't like he was going to recant his sparing of her and shoot her when she walked into the room. She should have barged in like she owned the place, planted her ass somewhere comfortable, and made Vi sweat. That was the person she liked to be. Not this way, in this moment, when her hand was shaking a little and she felt like she was hotter than engine components in the ship. Part of her wanted to just leave, to tell Vitale she forgot she was meeting him and simply disappear.

It was annoying, to say the least.

It may have been that she was humbled and a little deflated from having herself so exposed, so vulnerable, and only by the kindness and mercy of the captain did she find herself drawing breath now. She'd skirted close to death before, but not... like that. Not revealing herself and making her case for survival.

She knocked on the door after a moment, a gesture she forced herself to make. She almost regretted the reverberations of sound, almost wanted to ditch this and run away somewhere... but that's why she'd knocked. That''s why she'd made herself known. She couldn't take back the sound, the noise that would have alerted him to her presence, and so it forced her to stand there and wait on him.

[Deleted]

Vitale's only stop on the way up to the torpedo room was by his own bunk, to change into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Well, and boots of course. That only took a minute or two, and once he'd gotten to the job at hand, he really wished he'd gotten a shower first. Maybe in a few minutes once the drives had been erased on the first set, then he could go while the new data was being uploaded. Until then, it was time to get the company legal again, as ordinance that was out of date was highly illegal. The legality of multi-government contracts using dangerous and expensive ordinance such as warheads was enough to drive most to stop buying them, it was a convoluted mess that almost no one would want to sort out, lets dive right in...

The Peerless operated under not just multiple nations, but multiple worlds, but also on a higher scale, multiple systems. Each coalition, alliance, accord, federation, league, clan, clique... whatever, had it's own license that one had to attain rights to use, if one wanted to run a PMC. In the case of the Peerless, that meant Davis. And each license came with a laundry list of addendums and additions. In the case of warheads, or volatile chemicals, PMCs like Peerless LTD were allowed to purchase, store and use them, so long as they paid a bunch of plat met the requirements of whatever particular governing entity's property that they were operating in. For instance, Sweethome tended to fall under the Red Pact, but other's like to monitor the claim as well. Call it... perennial negoti... well, just call it greed. The point is, that every time one of these entities known as "Governments" decided to update their particular set of rules for Mercenary groups, ships like the Peerless were expected to hop too, and just change everything. Penalties can range from a hefty fine(most common) to forfeiture of contractual license approval. Getting caught operating without a license has much, much stricter fines, usually paid via credit cartridge.

So in the case of today, Vitale hated bureaucratic crap like recoding again. This was an ongoing issue for him, as no one else had earned Davis' trust enough to do the job, or else they were too scared to fool with it. Don't get it twisted, there was a logical reason most of the time, new ships IFF lists which are handy so you don't go off on the wrong cargo ship, new boundaries being marked which was always good to know, new laws/bylaws made which changed the legality of Mercenaries owning certain tools of warfare. Usually it was the basic stuff for torpedoes, and then got more complex for weapons like chemicals, but the Peerless didn't fight those kinds of battles, and these annoying checks were just one of the reasons. But all that aside, the actual pain was that the Peerless sported a baker's dozen. Each warhead had to be removed from it's torpedo, and then the chip had to be taken from the warhead's internal mounts, which amounted to keyless safe in Vitale's book. Each one took about sixty minutes to go over, round trip, but often Vi would at least pull the next one off the racks while the uploads were running, which could thin it down to thirty-thirty five minutes each. Give or take. That gave plenty of time for him to sit around with a knot in his stomach, waiting for Gunn to come up, and find out what the Captain did about her predicament. He might have even settled for Lewis to keep him company at this point, anything to avoid sitting and thinking. The job was monotonous, not difficult, which just made it plain dangerous. Even if you were sure the warhead didn't go off in your hands, which Vi was, what if you reassembled it wrong, and when it was fired, it never went off? Or went off in the tubes? Ehh, not a good thought, which is why he didn't have a lot of help, but it would have beat walking around unable to really get into the project.

Needless to say, no one was coming to help him willingly, and even if they did, he'd spend more time teaching than doing, and that would just be counterproductive. The biggest reason this trade was never passed on, was the inherent danger involved with the procedure itself, so Davis didn't open any of the torpedoes until necessary, and that was usually right before a mission in a place they hadn't been in a while. Which lead to not having enough time to pass on the knowledge safely. Not that he didn't have aspiring proteges, the demo twins could likely move faster than him if he could ever get Davis to let him have them. Eli had, had a dry run at it, but Vi was pretty sure Davis thought him too young for it, and then there was Kalli, who'd sat and watched him take the chips out for hours, but was always hesitant to do anything that involved physical contact. She at least ran all the computer stuff, and Vi could concentrate on heavy lifting, and that did actually help. There was always Lewis... Yeah. Lewis...

Suicide apart, Vi slid the chain hoist over to the rack, grabbed the holds to either side of the first torpedo, and pulled the munitions to him and into the rigging. Once he had it suspended, Vi tracked it over to the maintenance lock, and lowered it onto the table, and removed the chains. As he gathered the codelocked screwdrivers to begin taking out the security screws, he thought he heard a sound behind him, and jerked his head around. He turned his body a bit more, and looked about, then looked slowly back to the ordinance on the table, with slightly widened eyes. He decided to just ignore the spooky sound that he'd never heard before, and not think about it. Why didn't these things have little panels like in the spy movies? Back with that guy, what was his name? The one who had potential, but started making all the chick flicks? Cecile Storm? Cyrano Storm... Sidney Storm. In the first ten minutes of any of his spy movies, there was always some warhead that had it's chip stolen with a single phillips head screw, and that looked much easier. Which, was probably why they were so hard to get too in real life. The sound crackled again, only this time, Vi heard and identified it as a knock. He set down the first screw, and walked over to the door, typing in the passcode, and opening it slightly. The sliver of eyes, cheek and mouth available to be seen belonged to Gunn. She'd been prompt after all, good. Vi felt a slight pressure let off that had been quietly building, and eased the door further open.

"Okay, I'm here," Gunn announced rather obviously.

Vitale smiled a bit, and closed the hatch back. The hatch closed to the rest of the ship, unlike most interior doors on the Peerless, this one was designed to close to the ship, rather than open out, which was protection, against possible detonation. Comforting stuff. "Thanks for hustle'in," He said honestly, then while he walked back over to the torpedo to continue, he asked, "Quick question, not of topic. What was the name of that guy, that always did the spy action films?"

Gunn raised her eyebrows, "That narrows it down..."

Vi smiled at her quip, "The guy who was always fighting the Blue Sun Corp in the movies, Cecil, Cyrus... The guy who started making chick flicks," Vi said, waving his screwdriver about.

She looked like she was tracking now, "Skyler Storm?" Gunn offered.

Vi smiled, "That's him, right on the tip of my tongue."

Gunn cocked her head sideways, "He doesn't just do chick flicks."

"He doesn't make good ones anymore," Vitale said, almost on instinct. Storm used to be a guy's guy, now, he was a woman's sellout. Vitale continued with the project while Gunn loitered on the conversation. Perhaps they were both just stalling the real issue at hand. Vi wanted to ask her about Davis, but seeing as it was he who'd thrown her on the train rails, he was hesitant to ask. He was kind of hoping she would just go into it without being goaded.

"I liked Red Sun Set. It was full of action." Blockbuster fangirls would be proud.

Vitale nearly snorted as he plucked another screw free, "Are you kidding me? RSS was terrible."

"On what level was it terrible?"

"Gunn," Vitale said finally getting her name right on the first try, "Every guy in that movie was roided up with a mighty perfect tan for being space dwellers. Name one guy in the movie that wasn't a total douche bag?"

"There was... uhm... the butler," She said, struggling to find a way to prove the impossible. "Also the criteria given to me was action movies, not skinny boys wrestling."

Vitale huffed, "You just don't get it..." He started to press his point, but waved it off as he unscrewed the last of the safeties, and popped the warhead free, setting it to the table softly. "Never mind. So tell me," He said, becoming more serious as he steadied the half egg shaped ordinance in the cradle, then he looked up to see her eyes as he got his nerve, "What happened with Davis?"

[Abigail Gunn]

There was something a little comforting about Vitale starting out with a BS conversation. She could imagine what he wanted to know, although she wasn't certain what all he wanted to say. He did happen to mention an actor that she, along with about a billion other women, had had a crush on since her youth. It was nice to connect to her past a little. Her past, not Keller's. The fact that he'd started the conversation on a friendly note was a good sign as well... she hoped.

At the end of their banter, Gunn's nerves were a little settled. A little, not a lot, not enough to cut through the palpable unease between them both. Perhaps she should have been angry at him for throwing her to the reavers by involving the captain, and somehow about half the crew, but she wasn't. She wasn't a fan of doing the shoulds in life, anyway. She stood before Vitale having forgiven him sometime in her sleepless night, whether she was jettisoned like trash or not. Fortunately that wasn't the case.

What happened with Davis?

Finally, they had arrived at the conversation they both needed to have. She inhaled deeply, still with some residual tension from all the lying in wait, but continued with no further hesitation.

”As it turns out, he doesn't consider me a traitor. He said, of course, that as long as I was under his command, I'm not to try assassinating Onas. And he also-” she paused momentarily. It was as much to find the correct wording as to deal with her surprise at her own answer. It really didn't feel like reality to her yet. She still felt this surreal feeling, like she was going to wake up from the events that had happened just to have Davis come into the room with Desmond and Vitale ready to put her out an airlock. ”He didn't consider me a traitor. He was very... understanding. He also commented that he would get me help with the investigation.” The word help was where her voice wavered a little because her eyes were tearing up and her throat was just a little constricted.

There weren't a lot of things that could make Gunn or Keller cry, but that was one of them. When her eyes misted up, she instinctively lifted her right hand to rub her thumb and index finger against her eyelashes, closing her eyes when a couple of tears fell. A deep inhalation, and she was sucking it up so to speak. That was one of many ways Gunn wasn't the idea of a typical female. She didn't like to show weakness, and she certainly wasn't about to burst into tears in front of Vitale. She blinked a few more times, having snuffed the glistening trail of water at her cheekbones and making sure no reinforcements would drip out of her tear ducts.

”Before you ask, I don't hold anything against you. At all. I would have done the same thing in your position,” she lied. Not about holding anything against him, but she could pretty much say she wouldn't have turned him in. She wouldn't have given him over to the captain, but if she'd judged him as right in the situation, she wouldn't have tested the captain's ethics about spacing him. That was just the thing to say to, hopefully, put Vitale at ease. As the captain had said: her entire life was a lie. And by now, she could keep a secret very, very well.

[Deleted]

Gunn either gave the cliff-notes, or the exchange between herself and the Captain had been a short one. It was likely the latter, Davis wasn't really known for his lengthy conversations, he was more of a straight-to-the-point kind of guy. Don't kill Knox while she was employed here, makes sense, as having said "So long as we do business," would likely have come with an infinity clause. Knox was good for business, not that Vitale particularly liked the guy, or his little company, but facts were facts. Knox paid about a tenth of the LTD's yearly wages, and that was a pretty plat, and on those contracts, they always got perks. Intel, finances, access to arms they couldn't get elsewhere, personnel... hell, you name it, Knox usually supplied. That didn't mean Vitale necessarily cared about whether or not Gunn killed the guy, but he could understand the reservations, he wasn't an idiot.‏ Vi pulled the first two plugs from the board, and then went into the next of the plates that protected it. Each of the steel gray slides were held in place by coded metal screws that had cross threaded grooves which only released when the correct key was applied. They were also several inches long, and the Peerless only had two hand powered screwdrivers. He began to pull them as Gunn continued, giving her an understanding nod as to the first condition of her release.

Gunn the 'stone wall', stumbled over the next part, but got it out that Davis also promised some sort of help with her investigation. What investigation? He was about to ask, when she added that she didn't blame him for what he did. He was appreciative of course, but it's not like he'd had any choice. To not have forced her to tell Davis, would have put him into the position to have had to do it himself. That would have changed things remarkably, of that Tali was sure. "Well," Vi started, "I'm glad you don't have regrets." It wasn't much, but it was something. He noticed a tear well up in her eye, and how fast she blinked it away. Vi decided not to say anything, and then look away himself, tears could be a private thing, and he wasn't much of a shoulder to cry on. As he got the first of the screws out, he decided to ask his earlier question.

"So Davis offered to help huh," He set the screw to the side and began to work the other one out, then looked up at her while his hands moved, "Nice sentiment and all, but how much scrutiny do you really have left to work on after all this time? I'd be hard pressed to believe that you don't have something on him that will stick by now." Perhaps that came off a bit snarky, but Vi had watched the entire crew off a lot more people, with a lot less time invested. And that was just on the clock with no personal tie to the kill. "I mean, I get wanting to be sure you get your guy, and others do have their doubts," He was mostly thinking about Ollie and Montgomery's thoughts when he said that. They had been pretty convinced that Knox wouldn't do such a thing. But Vitale still had his doubts. However, none of that really mattered in the end. If Gunn, this supposed next-gen cop, and all out badass enforcer couldn't nail the guy down to a single crime in three years, then why keep pushin the revenge coin? Maybe it was because he didn't have a father. There was some guy out there walking around who could have been a father, but Vitale sure as hell didn't know him. But he could imagine the pain, even if he couldn't feel it. This brought up his own insecurities, which he brushed off by moving own, "But be straight with me here, your not really still considering him as a possible innocent party?"

[Abigail Gunn]

”If I hadn't had some doubts, he'd have been dead already. And so would I, likely enough.”

She replied very bluntly. Vitale's expression tightened a little, but he then seemed to relax himself with a long exhalation. She wondered whether it was her rather blunt response... or the idea of her death being mentioned so soon.

”Any other questions?” She asked in a tone that sounded playful but was actually entirely serious. Clearing the air between them would mean talking it out with Vitale, but at this point, he knew as much about her secret life as anyone in existence, herself included.

”Yeah, actually.” He said, but looked hesitant, chewing his lower lip for a second, as if debating what he was going to say, or perhaps the wording he was going to use. His eyes looked a little brighter, the light reflecting from his irises somehow sharper. ”Why did you shut me down after we kissed on the mule? Was that just for show—part of being Keller?”

While his words could have been construed as showing indignation, that was the furthest thing from his tone. He was serious and firm about the point, but there was no anger, just... just something else. Something that wanted clarification with no strings attached, anger or otherwise.

She felt a connection to Vitale, that much she was sure of. The fact was that the two of them had shared things that crossed the membrane from Rachel to Abigail, and she felt a certain.. chemistry. Granted, she had left him hanging when it came to the sort of night he'd hoped to have. She typically didn't fraternize with co-workers.

She didn't kiss them, either.

Vi was a strange animal for her. He was someone that she felt could relate to her. He was kind of a relief to be around, but more than that, she felt a kind of chemistry toward him that she really hadn't felt in a very long time. He wasn't just the person she'd partnered with, or got a little too close to... he was the only person she had needed to actively resist. And she had, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whether or not one counted a victory by will power to walk away when one needed to... or satisfying a want.

”I couldn't do both,” she replied quietly. He looked unsatisfied with that answer, and she knew he was going to ask her to elaborate, so she beat him to the punch: ”I couldn't sleep with you and lie to you.”

”So, was I kissing Rachel or Abigail?”

”I guess.. both.” She was attracted to Vitale, there was no denying that, but she knew he'd been piercing the veil of her new identity because she genuinely, Keller facade aside, appreciated his company and found his demeanor both soothing and magnetic.

If she had to admit the truth, that kiss had made her feel like her mask was hanging by threads. She had wanted to be kissed by him on a very personal level, and she was no longer accustomed to things feeling personal. So long as she wore the guise of Rachel Keller, she felt motivated to do whatever she needed to do to get what she required to kill Knox. She hadn't, at that time, wanted him to break her shell and get to someone more deeply hidden... herself.

”To that end, I have to say, you can lie to me as much as you want so long as you sleep with me.” He grinned, and she had to laugh.

”I will keep that in mind,” she grinned back at him. ”And here I thought you invited me here, privately, all alone and vulnerable-like, because you wanted to talk about Davis.”

”"I did, or, I do. I mean," Vitale tripped over his words, working without looking at her, choosing to stare down at his hands while he said it, but as he made slower progress, it appeared he was just avoiding her gaze—and the implication that he'd invited her here to play with his torpedo, ”"Was there more to the story?"

”We made madly passionate love. Repeatedly, and with youthful enthusiasm," came her usually dry, smartass response.

”"Do you know anything about torpedoes or coding?"

"Not a clue."

”"Then we can move on to brighter topics," Vi said, looking up at her again at last, a smirk on his face, and his forward progress resumed: both work and play at once.

"Brighter topics being us kissing and lying?" She asked, still smirking toward him. Only hours before, she was anticipating her death or her return to Persephone to be given as a trophy to Onas. Now, with just a few minutes talking to Vitale compared to the hours of dread she'd had to face, she honestly felt a little more restored.

“Well," Vi said slowly, "That depends."

"On what?" Gunn replied, taking his bait on purpose.

"Define lying."

"The opposite of the truth," She defined.

"Oh, well." Vi said, his grin now very prominent. "That kind of lying, then no, that wasn't one of the topics."

"What kind of-" Gunn started to say, then caught his double meaning and her smile grew with his light humor, "Ahhhhh see what you did there."

"Huh? Huh? At last, a smile. Looks good on you."

”Actually, I do know a lot of the tools you're using. We had to have these on series eleven template sera-metal coding." Vitale looked up at her, and she could tell he was impressed by her mention of something actually related to his work. He offered his side for hee with his hand, and she moved over and proved herself able with naming the lion's share of the components. Surprisingly, torpedoes ran off the same electronics one would see anywhere else, and she knew them well. This began the instructional, and was how the pair of killers ended up in a room, on a ship, in the middle of the universe, working and chatting, and realizing that they shared a kindred spirit for two things; Movies and Jokes. Abigail could run wit with anyone, so long as they had hard skin. And she knew more movies than most: she'd been an insomniac for three years., after all.

It was nice not to have the filter of Rachel Keller between herself and Vitale. She could talk about Burnadette, tell him anecdotes from her actual childhood rather than fabricated stories she'd composed for a deeper, more realistic character. For every quip in their conversation, there was a genuine and open quality that she'd never had before... and it was nice. It was nice to be Abigail with Vitale, rather than Keller. It felt, in that moment, like she'd buried Rachel... and, indeed, she had, in a manner of speaking. That persona could now be laid to rest.. although she wasn't quite sure what parts of Rachel she'd truly become.

Certainly, it was all the parts that liked Vitale.

”We're going to have a long mission,” she began, looking at him very seriously at this point, though she was still smiling. ”You could stay in my room if you like.. you know, go over the strategies, put my passionate lovemaking with Davis to shame. Or play backgammon. Whatever.” She invited, watching him intently for a response. She'd spent several hours talking to him at this point, and by now, she had reached a conclusion that she genuinely hope he'd come to as well.

[Deleted]

So the conversation with Abigail went pretty smoothly. She'd bowed out of the Onas discussion, which Vi was all too happy to leave in the dust, it wasn't his favorite topic, even though it seemed to be a pressing one... But the turn actually came from a byproduct of that. Abi had done some dirty work in her past, he'd known that, and he'd known from her word and her dossier that she'd been a ripper and apparently was a good one, but what he didn't know as how good she'd been. She turned out to be a fantastic help. After only a short instructional, Abigail was right there beside him, taking apart the torpedoes like she'd been doing it for years. She'd known the tools and the systems well enough to just need to know how they tied together, and the rest was history.

Gunn proved to be so capable in fact, that after two rounds, he'd quit checking everything she was doing, as she'd been able to point out what he could do to speed things up. After that, they'd been on to stories about their past, not the bad ones, she'd told him about her dad, her times in Interpol and her youth, her real youth, and he'd told her about the better years of his own life. The stories Vi had were rather droll in comparison to hers, he almost felt like making up better ones, but he wasn't sixteen anymore, so lying about himself just didn't seem to be the thing to do. Still, life at an orphanage wasn't much to talk about. She did most of the storytelling. The real interest came with movies, they'd brought back up Red Sunset, and pretty much went down the rabbit hole of all things cinematic. Turned out, they both had a penchant for action flicks, and light horror stuff, the kind where the monster has weaknesses and the hero finds them and executes.

Lewis had managed to come up for a little while, but as he'd mostly been in the way, and the conversation got a little awkward, he'd found himself quickly dismissed. And that was about the long and short of it, just a smooth conversation about nothing, that lead to Vitale really enjoying himself talking to what might have been the first really truly interesting woman he'd ever met. Most gals were cool, no doubt about that. It could normally be broken down into a few tropes, Gals who were too pretty to be smart, because they spent more time worrying about their shell than their personality, gals who spent to little worrying about their shell but were cool, and gals who thought that all women should rule over men. In the modern world Vi lived in, it was a whole lotta the last. That's not to say that every gal followed these narrow paths, but you'd be surprised how many.

Gunn however, had managed to find that narrow path that was laid out in gold. She was flat out gorgeous, was easy to talk too, had a familiar sense of humor, hadn't spent enough time in the population, had a fast lane flirtatious personality and knew her way around a toolbox. Needless to say, everyday Vitale found himself more and more attracted to this woman. Add on to all that, that she seemed to genuinely enjoy his company, and you had a recipe for hip grinding. With Vi at least. Therein lied the very problem though. She'd said it herself that she didn't mess around with colleagues, and it was sound advice. Vi could attest that men and women of action who shared a bed and a battlefield, usually ended up dead. Not every time sure, but enough to make it a viable statistic. Plus, she'd only recently been found out to be a double agent of a very powerful crime lord, and an ex cop. The big time cops, not the local variety. Not that her being a cop was a bad thing, hell, they'd had ex cops on the crew in the past. It was that she was on a vendetta mission and had become about the very farthest thing from being a cop now, kinda messed with his head. This gal had put away dozens of criminals by her stories, and then turned around and did anything necessary to make herself one of them. Serious head spins.

Dedication, no doubt about it. Vitale could talk himself into most things, her hips seemed to be on that list.

The test of his willpower came sooner rather than later, much sooner. ”We're going to have a long mission,” she'd said, ”You could stay in my room if you like.. you know, go over the strategies, put my passionate lovemaking with Davis to shame. Or play backgammon. Whatever.” He didn't know what backgammon was, but he got the idea.

"I," He started to say, and found himself swallowing a lump in his throat. Teasing was one thing, and maybe he was over-reading or being overly optimistic, but he'd have sworn that she was being straight up. "I. We have a lot of work to do, and a lot on our plates tomorrow. Maybe we could just plan things from here..." That was the hardest thing to say he'd ever said. She kinda looked disappointed, if you could peel off the layers of poker face that seemed permanently locked in place. Hell, Vitale felt disappointed, shack up with Abigail Gunn for a night, perhaps his last night judging by the scope of the fight tomorrow... Did life have a rewind button? At least he wouldn't have to say it twice.

"You sure?" She voiced fate's twist of the dagger.

The second time was harder, and even more awkward than the first. "Yeah, I'm sure." Dammit! Why did he say that? Vi had obviously spent too much time around Davis and Alexander, putting the mission above personal wants... Three years ago, he'd have definitely been in hip mode. He stopped working long enough to see her reaction.

"Okay," She said simply enough, veiled underneath too many layers of personification to unravel any further implications. Somewhere in the far verse, men who still had their spines were rolling in their graves...

The conversation continued after very little fumbling, and the two got back to work. Vi was surprised that Gunn was made of such stern stuff, or maybe she just hadn't been that attached to the idea. He tried very hard now to push those thoughts to the back of his mind. They went into Sweethome and the job there the following day, discussing as promised, their plans, and what armorment they'd planned on taking. Over a hundred men, that was the talk, they needed a tank. Vi had decided to carry light, while Gunn decided to live up to her real name, and had planned to carry the biggest thing she could get her hands on. Both decided that grenades would be in order.

After that, it was a little more of the same, and then they realized they were through! It had been just at ten hours on the job, but it had only felt like four. As they finished up, and headed for the hatch, they ended up standing nearly on top of each other, both walking to the hatch at the same time. Gunn stopped, and offered for Vi to go first, but he protested and gave her the universal sign for go ahead. She stood back for him, and a moment passed as each just stood there. Then the both moved at the same time, walking into each other.

It's not like you think, he didn't do it on purpose, but they had this moment, where every inch of this woman was looking expectant. In a way that only an idiot wouldn't understand. And only an idiot would pass on. Vitale leaned a little closer to her, and watched her intently, and she moved a little closer as well. Every thought from earlier that his mind had brought up as a good reason not to do this flooded back in, and Vi took the idiot's route. He turned his head slightly, and stumbled on his words. "I ah... Thank.. you. For your help."

Gunn gave a light smile, "It was nothing."