outsiderslogs | CLOSED;

It's been days since the hit, and Marco hasn't left his apartment since. The reason was part paranoia, part decompression, and all constant vegging out watching whatever crap videos he could find on the extranet. He didn't have a hard time explaining the sudden influx of slothness to his roommate; the pizza shop closed up because they ran out of stock to sell. They had offered to outsource him to running supplies for the group working on fixing the water problem, but he declined that for unstatable reasons.

Marco is one smelly kid by the time he gets around to dragging himself to the Quad. It's the first time he's encountered fresh air in a while, and his rumpled, baggy hoodie is all sorts of grody from having contained a teenage boy marinating in cold sweat for days. Under the hoodie is a light chest plate, something that isn't obviously bulky, won't save him from someone who actually wants to kill him, but makes him feel better in case someone tries to put a knife between his ribs and doesn't notice the armor.

The swagger in his step as he walks up to the bar and hops onto a stool is substantially more forced than usual, and he sweeps the entire room with a quick nervous glance before he speaks, but he's still cracking a grin once he gets York's attention.

"So I'm assuming none of the soda taps are running at this point, meaning you clearly don't have a choice besides giving me a shot of bourbon today, right?"

In truth, York can't really complain about anybody coming into the bar stinking to high heaven. Everybody stinks. York hasn't had a shower in at least five days, and her hair is lank, a little greasy, and she's sure she's got to be pretty fragrant by now. But somehow, an equally-marinated pubescent teenage boy smells so much worse. York barely wrinkles her nose, though, and she gives Marco a sort of grim smile.

"Maybe if I were in a worse mood, but trust me, kiddo, I'm not that cruel. Nothin' worse than a hangover during a water shortage." York rubs a glass clean with a barely damp cloth, leaning against the bar. It's not like she'd forgotten about the other day. She's glad to see that Marco made good on coming to see her, and it's just as well that it's not too crowded tonight. Everybody here's already drunk enough not to care what they're talking about anyway, she figures.

"Besides, bourbon doesn't taste nearly as good when you're coughing it out your nose," she adds, a little wryly. She gives Marco a good, thorough look. He doesn't just look unshowered and grubby like the rest of them. "So how's your week been, huh?"

"Well, if I cough it out of my nose, it's not gonna give me a hangover, right? C'mon, York, I must have earned it."

On second thought, he eyes the glass she's rubbing and wonders what the rag is even damp with. Do krogans sweat? He sighs and leans on the bar, propping his chin in his hand.

"Anyway, it's been a dull, smelly week. I'm lucky my roommate's inorganic, 'cause that means I don't have to smell him."

He's being careful, too guarded. The Quad might have just a sprinkling of zonked out drunks, but that doesn't mean Marco's willing to run his mouth.

Edited (typo sniping) 2013-04-10 05:15 (UTC)

York lets out a gentle short with a brief shrug, and she gives a cursory glance around the bar before she sets the glass and rag down, nodding toward the back. Marco's obviously jumpy, but she can't blame him. Hell, she's glad he's being careful. He's a little less liable to get himself killed, that way.

Just a little, though.

"C'mon, let's go sit in the back. It even smells a little back there. And," she adds, dropping her voice a little, "I've got something even better than bourbon."

Marco would have beeen kidding himself if he thought that showing up at the Quad somehow wouldn't result in York dragging answers out of his mouth, but that doesn't mean he's any less reluctant once she drops more signs that this was going to happen whether he liked it or not.

At least she's being nice about it. He can appreciate that. Sort of.

"York, are you trying to be inappropriate? 'cause as much as I think you're a total babe, I'd like to stick with girls closer to my own age."

Defense mechanisms are not disengaging. Still, he's slipping down off the stool to follow her.

"Says the thirteen-year-old who keeps trying to trick me into getting him drunk," York shoots back breezily with a chuckle, leading him into the back room. She closes the door behind them, leaving it ajar just a few inches so she can still see out to the bar. She sets herself down in a chair, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back, and nods to the other for Marco.

"All right, time to get the unpleasant part over with," she says with a sigh. She's not here to be anyone's parent, but man, she can't just not say anything. She likes Marco, okay? And she has a feeling she'd never hear the end of it from older Marco if she let the slightly more pint-sized version of him get out of this with at least a warning. "Look, I know I'm not your mom, and I don't wanna be, but I can't keep my mouth shut on this, so I'm just gonna get it all out at once for both our sakes." She leans forward and swipes her hand over the side of Marco's head -- less a smack and more of a tousle of his hair, more for the gesture than anything else. She's actually frowning for once. "Come on, Marco, what are you, crazy? I thought you had some sense in you, but I guess if you're trynna find a good way to get your ass killed, you've just about hit the jackpot."

She doesn't want Marco to get himself killed, or maimed, or any of the other bullshit that comes with merc territory. Hell, even York isn't willing to touch those guys with a ten-foot-pole yet.

"What is this, your interrogation room?" Marco is cooly distant as he takes the other seat, and he doesn't bother getting terribly cozy. This isn't going to be a cozy experience.

His expression barely changes from its well-practiced adolescent disdain while York lectures him, except when he bats at her hand as she gives his head a thump. The moment she opened her mouth, he put her in the rapidly growing category of people who, for some crazy reason or another, decided that his well being was part of their business; the more she nags, the greater the gap that grows between them.

"Yeah, okay, York, chalk this up to good old teenage self destructive habits and call it a day." He folds his arms, the creaking of the body armor under his hoodie reminding him of the amount of trouble he has very rapidly gotten himself into, as if he was in danger of forgetting.

"Besides," he continues, his eyes darkening a shade, "you're not beautiful enough to be my mother anyway."

Who does she think she is, anyway? She's being way closer to him than he thinks she gets to be, and he can't forget that she knew some weird time warp version of himself; his gaze is coldly calculating as he stares her down, trying to figure out how much she thinks she knows him.

York can tell she struck a nerve, and not on purpose. Mom -- or maybe just family -- seems like a hot-button issue for Marco. It's gotta be, because while she knows she's stepped on his toes before and made him groan and roll his eyes, he's never tried to be mean before. For all she knows, he's just lashing out.

But it's York, and she's not wounded so easily. "Hey, I'm prettier than I used to be," she says glibly, hardly missing a beat. "But like I said, I'm not interested in being your mom. I'm not here to talk you out of it. I mean, you're already in, right? You've already killed one guy. Can't really unring that bell, I guess."

True to her word, there's barely a trace of the scolding tone left in her voice. She uncrosses her legs, leans forward, elbows propped up on her knees to let her wrists dangle limply between them. She arches one eyebrow at Marco, and her face is actually kind of serious for once -- there's no reproachful purse to her lips, just a slightly contemplative one. "What I'm interested in is you not dying, kiddo, and you can't really fault me for that. Can't even chalk this one up to some misguided sense of responsibility, either. I just like you, and I don't really wanna see you wind up as a smear in an alleyway."

She cracks a smile then, a lopsided quirk of her lips, but it's not as cheerfully flippant as it usually is. "So I'm gonna help make sure that doesn't happen."

If Marco was less ridiculously stressed out, he'd have better comebacks, but somehow, even though he's done little else besides sleep, lounge about, and sleep some more, he's still pretty drained. The patience required to keep being amusing had run out as soon as they entered the back room.

His gaze remains distant while York talks; it isn't even that she's not saying the right things, so much as she's saying any of this at all. He's kicking himself for even bothering to show up, because what did he think they were going to talk about, the Knicks game?

But if he even lets himself have two seconds of introspection, he'll realize that he's both terrified and lonely; he joined up with the mercs for the sake of having more backup, but it's rapidly turning out that having 'Eclipse' on his resume meant more guns pointed at him than guns pointed back. He doesn't have anything resembling a safety net---at least not the sort of safety net he wants. Everyone he knows either wants to kill him, babysit him, or he can't trust them. What he needs are friends.

Just like what York is probably offering right now.

"What are you gonna do, then, join up next to me and call yourself my bodyguard?" Oops, still feeling mean. "Because you know what, York, I'm also pretty interested in not dying. And as far as I can tell, pretty much the way to minimize that on this junk heap is to have some ridiculously huge combination of money and firepower to your name, or go home. I don't see you in any position to like, offer me a lift to earth circa 1997 or contribute to my personal protection racket."

He's starting to look antsy, just some scared, lonely kid who's on the verge of getting up and stomping off to avoid having to listen to this conversation anymore. Between this and their last encounter, York is proving herself to be annoying persistent in making him talk, and he's getting fed up with it.

He looks like he's about to bolt, and York eases back in her chair a little. "Hey, settle down, kiddo. I'm not interested in hiring my gun out to anybody, let alone a bunch of mercs. I'm pretty comfortable where I'm at. Besides, wouldn't do you any favors if I did all the work for you, anyway."

York looks him over again, more thoughtfully than critically, letting her head tilt to the side. "You want money and firepower, you better know how to use it. Bringin' a knife to a gunfight one thing, but bringin' a weapon you barely know how to use is just asking for the other guy to take it from you and beat you over the head with it. And while you're smart, Marco, somethin' tells me you're not intimately familiar with guns. Or dead bodies, for that matter." She gives Marco a small smile, a little terse, but it's definitely a York smile. "But as it turns out, I'm pretty familiar with both of those things."

She can't help but wonder what the other Marco would think about all this. He'd seen war in a way York couldn't even imagine, young as he was, and he'd turned out okay, sure, but would he want something like that for himself? And here she is, helping Marco down the child soldier path all over again.

But this is different, in a way. It's a hostile environment, here, and Marco chose his path for survival. Even if York should think it's the wrong one, it's not up to her to make him go otherwise. Besides, he's a smart kid. Smarter than most, at his age. And if she's behind him, giving him a hand and teaching him how to make it, he might turn out all right, too.

"Look, you don't even have to, if you don't wanna," York says, raking her fingers back through her hair. "But I get the feeling that merc groups don't exactly offer lessons for newbies. And just so we're clear, I'm not lookin' to cover your ass, Marco. I'm offering to teach you, is all. 'Cause like I said, I like you, and I don't want you to die, and sooner or later you're gonna have to learn to stare down a dead body without puking."

Marco's first interaction with York was seeing her in heavy armor, running off a whole pack of batarian thugs with not much more than a dirty look, so he's pretty aware that she's got more than enough bite to match her bark. He's taking that into consideration as he continues to stare her down. Sizing her up. Seeing how much she means what she says---all of it, probably---and what it means for him.

If Marco had a chance to decide his entire future for himself, this certainly wasn't anywhere near a part of it. He'd have picked lots of things like the best cable TV subscription god had saw fit to bestow upon man, every video game magically appearing in his possession the moment it's released, the removal of all invasive alien species from his planet, and the nice happy cozy family life of his increasingly distant childhood. Someday, someone would notice how witty and good-looking he is and offer him a slot next to Letterman, and he'd roll around in piles of money and Hollywood babes until he died a happy old man in his mansion.

As much as he dreams and whines about how the world refuses to meet his expecations, though, he's a realist at the end of the day. A realist who doesn't know how to make the call for right versus wrong, but at least knows how to decide which path gives him the best chance to survive.

These days, it's basically all down to survival.

"Alright, I'm game. But I'm not sure where you're gonna get a steady supply of dead bodies to show me so I can learn how to cull the gag reflex." He cracks a smirk at her, a darker one than he usually does, but a good-natured one all the same. "But hey, you don't ask me too many questions about my line of work, and I won't ask you about yours, capisce?"

"Hey, kiddo, I'm retired, and clearance doesn't carry over between universes. You can ask me all the shit you want." York'll respect his privacy, though. Like she's said, she's not interested in being anybody's mom, here. She just wants to make sure Marco doesn't wind up as an unfortunate smear in some back alley. She lets out a low chuckle, picking herself up from the chair.

"Trust me, place like this, there's a steady flow of bodies if you know where to look. I'm sure we'll work it out. Just stay in touch, okay?" York makes like she's going to lean forward, like she might put a hand on his shoulder or tousle his hair, but she shrugs and pushes the chair against the wall with her foot, leaning against the desk. It's her boss's desk, but obviously he's not in right now. "You got your own weapon yet? 'Cause if not, that's probably a good place to start."

Arthur's already reported his kill to the people that need to know, gotten the armor that brands him as an eclipse merc. Now, granted, he's not wearing it yet; but he is carrying the helmet. Dressed in his normal sacrosanct-issued armor, he walks into the Quad. You can barely tell he hasn't showered, since he keeps his hair slicked back anyway.

He doesn't spot York away, and he's about to sit down at the bar when glances at the back room and sees York leaning back against the desk, and he nods to himself.

He'd promised to keep straight with her, and telling her about Eclipse was probably a good idea. So, he heads to the back room, carefully knocking on the door and then sticking his head in.

"Hey, York," he says, and then his gaze falls on the smaller of the other two rooms occupants. "Hey, Marco." That's a little awkward, they'd gone seperate ways after the assissination.

It was more of a line he's always wanted to say, rather than something he actually expects to hold water here, but the sentiment is appreciated nonetheless. He shrugs when she asks him about a weapon.

"I'm on a nice loaner program at the moment. The less stuff I have laying around, the less I'm going to incriminate myself, right? I live with Robo-freaking-cop, for crying out lou--"

He cuts himself short as he notices someone approaching the back room, then nearly falls out of his chair as Arthur, of all people, saunters by. Speaking of loaner programs.

"Yo, Artie. Fancy, uh, hat you've got there."

Alright, York wasn't expecting Arthur -- granted, he does kind of just drop by, sometimes -- so she looks up at him with surprise, which only intensifies when she sees the helmet tucked under his arm, and she furrows her brow. "Hey, Arthur. I see you've joined up with one of Omega's resident buddy clubs."

Of course, he greets Marco, too, and Marco has suddenly acquired the shifty air of somebody who all of a sudden remembers he has a secret. York looks between the two of them, looking awfully suspicious. "I didn't know you two even knew each other."

"We've met," Arthur says, glancing away from Marco to York, finally. They're in the same merc group now but really, Arthur doesn't know if York knows or not - the idea was to not tell. "He's delivered a few pizzas to my place."

He sets the helmet against his hip. It's not that he was excited about telling York what was going on, but she needed to know when he got into things.

"Yeah, I've got myself some new buddies," he says dryly, but his gaze glances back to Marco.

Man, that's a lot of tension that just suddenly popped up in one place.

Marco sucks in a deep breath, looking between these two people he barely knew, but both knew each other, and both held pretty similar pieces of his own secrets in their hands. So here's Arthur, openly broadcasting his mercie allegiance to York, who knows Marco is up to something similar but doesn't know the details. Meanwhile, York knows more of what's in his head, and, as far as he can tell, more about the other version of him; Arthur's just a professional collaborator at the moment, and the less he knows about Marco, the better.

If time-outs happened outside of gym class dodgeball games, Marco would really like to call one at the moment. Alas, reality.

"Really, Art? Pizzas? That's all I am to you?" A mock-scandalized look of pain over being so casually brushed aside works its way onto Marco's face as he grabs his own chest. "After you couldn't take your eyes off me when we first met? And how I reminded you of someone in your distant past? And don't forget that time we had a secret rendezvous to commit sweet clandestine murder together!"

Might as well get everyone on the same page as quickly as possible. He'll keep secrets from the rest of the station, but this would get complicated fast if he tried to keep things from these two. Based on York's reaction, they'd talk as soon as he left the room regardless.

"She knows, dude, it's chill."

Okay, it's one thing for Arthur to join up with a bunch of mercs. The guy's smart, experienced, he knows what he's doing. And it's one thing for Marco to stubbornly choose his own path, however foolish. But it's another thing entirely if Arthur's making some decidedly irresponsible decisions. Such as assisting in a minor do some pretty shit awful things. At least, that's how it looks from here. Man, she really hopes she's wrong.

"Well, I guess now I know who's running your loaner program," York says glibly, raising an eyebrow at Marco, but when she looks at Arthur, her eyes go flat. "I hope you're giving the kid the good stuff." Her tone is casual, but anyone who's known her as long as Arthur knows that the look she's giving him means there's some 'splaining he's got to do.

Edited 2013-04-21 21:10 (UTC)

Arthur rolls his eyes heavenward when Marco mentions sweet clandestine murder. This was honestly something he was hoping to avoid, but, well, any version of Marco is Marco. He should have known that.

"So I gathered," He tells Marco when he mentions that York knows, glancing at the kid and then to York. Ouch, he's been on the recieving end of that look, but not from York in particular.

Still, he squares his shoulders. Marco came to him when he made his bed, Arthur only provided what he needed to get the job done. And maybe backup.

"Best I can get," he replies after a moment, thinking of the pistol. "Maybe I could start a business on the side, charge for it." Another glance to Marco, "Current company excepted."

"Is that excepted as in I'm not allowed, or excepted as in I get freebies?" Marco folds his arms and kicks his legs up on the desk, mimicking York. He's enjoying the heat not being on him for once in the past week, even though Arthur probably doesn't really deserve it. What was York expecting, that he'd just be abandoned to get the job done on his own? "Because I better be getting freebies, or else I'm going to be one dead unarmed merc pretty fast."

It doesn't really occur to Marco that he could probably save Arthur some pain by explaining that he asked for help, not that Arthur enabled him into the job.

"But really, dude? 'Arthur's Murder Weapon Rentals'? It's got a nice, macabre ring to it, but your business model might be, y'know, a tad suspicious."

York pointedly pushes Marco's feet off the desk with a roll of her eyes to herself, shaking her head. Yeah, the heat's definitely off Marco for now. She's long since known it's way too late for it, but maybe Arthur could've talked him out of it. Kept the kid delivering pizzas or some other inane bullshit for at least a little longer.

"Yeah, somehow I don't know if that'll take off," she says, a little dryly, and finally looks down at Marco. "Hey, Marco? Why don't you head on out. Me'n Arthur have a little bit of catching up to do." There's no reason that Marco needs to be privy to that, and honestly, he's off the hook for now. At least he'd listened to her earlier. She manages a real smile at him, nodding. "You'n me, we'll get together soon, yeah? I'll show you a few tricks."

Arthur knows where this is probably headed - a discussion at best if he's lucky, and suddenly he feels like the bad father in this equation - but he steps further in, away from the door and to the side. York wants to talk, he'll talk.

He sets the helmet down, the space Yorick to this conversation, and nods a little.

"Nice seeing you, Marco." He can't resist a dry bit of wit.

Marco nearly falls out of his chair as his feet get shoved; he's about to retaliate with a complaint, but even he can't miss that tone in York's voice. He wants to sulk about getting thrown out, but when Arthur's demeanor also makes it clear that Marco should scram, he sighs and trudges for the door.

"Okay, okay, I know when I'm not loved. I'll see you later, York." He holds up a fist for Arthur to bump. "Good luck in there, dude."

Man, York appreciates the fact that Marco is a sharp little thing, but right now she could do without the savvy teen making smart remarks. She just leans against the desk, arms crossed over her chest, and lets Marco and Arthur part ways, giving time for Marco to scoot out of here before she turns to Arthur, eyebrows raised impossibly high.

"Seriously, man? You couldn't have even tried to talk him out of it a little bit?"

Arthur bumps Marco's fist back amenably, and watches him leave, door closing a bit behind him. He looks back to York with his own eyebrows raised up.

"I didn't get much of a chance." This is partly true, but Arthur also hadn't breathed a word of objection when Marco came to him, or turned him away. "He'd already taken the contract when he came to me."

Marco came to Arthur? Well, she doesn't find that too hard to believe. He's pretty new to all this, as she'd expect him to be. Somehow, that fact is a little comforting. But she doesn't look all that mollified.

"Yeah, but he hadn't finished it. So what, a thirteen-year-old asks you for a gun and help killing somebody, and that's it? You don't even blink?" York huffs out a sigh through her nose, raking her hand back through her hair. "Look, I'm helpin' the kid because he's already in deep and I don't wanna see him wind up as an ugly smear in some back alley. But come on, man, you could've kept him out of this mess."

It's probably unfair to lay all the blame on Arthur. Even if Arthur had tried, realistically, he probably wouldn't have been able to talk Marco out of it. The kid would've just gone off to get somebody else to help him. But it's frustrating, and Arthur's an easy target.

Years of dealing Dom Cobb mean that Arthur's able to handle this a little better than if someone he cared about was arguing with him for the first time. It still smarts a little, and more to the point, York has a point - one that might stick to someone with more of a moral code.

He grinds his jaw a little still before responding.

"No, he hadn't finished it, but if I told that thirteen year old no, would that have stopped him? It's Marco," he says, because it is, even if it's younger. "He would have gone to someone else, maybe even been hurt."

And honestly, it hadn't been Arthur's place. It was Marco's life, not Arthur's.

"This way, at least I know what he's up to."

York's not even sure she'd consider herself more moral. She's done an awful lot of questionable things, but -- dammit, Marco's just a kid. To her, that's a whole other ballgame. And what's worse is she knows he's right. She can't even really be mad at him, either, because Arthur was just doing what she's trying to do now -- acknowledging whatever Marco had decided to do, however fucking dumb, and just trying to help him stay alive doing it. She can't be mad at him for knowing Marco well enough to know that he couldn't be talked out of it.

She lets out an explosive sigh, raking both hands through her hair, and she directs her frustrated glare at the wall opposite her instead of Arthur. Pacing a couple of steps, she lets out another noise of dissatisfaction, but it's not really directed at Arthur.

"Sorry," she mutters, letting her shoulders drop. "Yeah, you're right. Can't talk that kid out of anything, not once he's decided to do it." She casts a look outside the back room, through the space where the door was left ajar, and then she looks back at Arthur, pursing her lips apologetically. "I just -- I dunno, I feel about all this, y'know? Can't help but feel like Marco wouldn't exactly want us steering his kid self into the mercs. But I guess all we can do is look out for him, teach him what he needs to know."

It almost bothers York a little, that it's such a big deal to her. She's almost a little embarrassed by it, insofar as she gets embarrassed by anything. She's always had a soft spot for kids, sure, but the thought that something might actually happen to Marco -- shit, she'd gotten along with him back on Sacrosanct, but the truth was she hadn't known him for terribly long.

Arthur's shoulders are tense until she apologizes, and then he relaxes a tiny bit. He's watched her pace the room, and he knows that she's just venting at him.

He treats it like water off a ducks' back, since that's just plain easiest.

"He's stubborn as hell," he agrees after a moment. "And if I thought it'd make a difference, I would have told him no. But better me than one of the aliens," he says, nodding to the slightly open door. "He's a good shot, too."

It's not much of a comfort, knowing that Marco takes to it okay. Not great, no, but he doesn't think telling York how Marco reacted the first time is prudent.

"He didn't like it," Arthur adds after a moment, though. "It's not a game to him or something he shrugged off."

"I know," she sighs, biting at her thumbnail. No, she can't really be mad at Arthur for this, not anymore. And she's already done being mad at Marco, she's told herself that. Yelling at the kid anymore than she had isn't going to help him, and that's what she decided to do, anyway. "I saw him, that day. I mean, it's not like he'd tell me all on his own."

She's glad it wasn't easy for him, in a way. It's not supposed to be easy for anybody, not at first. Just 'cause she can snap somebody's neck without blinking now doesn't mean it was always that way. She glances back at Arthur, her expression contrite. "Thanks for helpin' him. Sorry I blew up at you. It's just -- y'know, this place."

"I knew he wasn't dumb, but I was wondering how you knew," Arthur admits after a moment with a wry sort of look in her direction. When she apologizes he shakes his head.

"It's okay. This place is different," he says. "Merc work isn't my first choice but I don't have a lot of other options going on."

After a moment, he speaks. "I want to eventually get out to that relay they keep talking about. The one that brought us here that's supposedly broken."

"The relay?" York knits her brow, glancing out the door with a contemplative look. She purses her lips a little, chewing on her lower lip. "How? And I mean -- if it is broken, what're you even gonna do? It's not like you're all that familiar with this world's tech. If they couldn't fix it by now, what're you gonna do?"

"What if it's not broken?" Arthur says after a moment, then shakes his head. "I mean, you have a point, I won't know heads from tails. But if I can find someone who does and get us out there, I'll feel better about where we're standing.

"As for the how," he rubs his hand over his eyes. "That's what I'm working on."

"You'd think if there were any experts on the station, they'd have looked already," York says, looking unconvinced, but he's still got her attention. Arthur's always been on the enigmatic side, but she can't fault his judgment most of the time. "Yeah? You got a lead on a way out there?"

"I think some people honestly like it here," Arthur says with a slow shake of his head. He sets his chin in his hand.

"I've been talking to people. I can't just flat-out ask, but I'm gonna see if any of them pan out. Maybe someone wants to get out of here. Or go home."

"I won't lie, it's an improvement over Sacrosanct most days," York says wryly, but the mention of going home makes her hesitate. She hadn't even considered that as an option. She'd long since convinced herself of the inevitable truth, back on Sacrosanct -- that this was it, there was no going home. That had been comforting, in a way. "Go home? Yeah, I'll believe that the day I see it."

Arthur looks at her with a mildly surprised expression, then away again. She'd disappeared before Delta had made his offer, and - well, he wasn't about to tell her he'd made the choice to go home once before.

"I meant someone more along the lines of a native, trying to get back to a home planet. Gotta be someone stuck here that didn't mean to be."

She doesn't like the way he looks away, but she doesn't think too much of it. He knows she's been through a lot, coming to terms with that. Maybe he just feels bad for bringing it up, even by accident.

She looks a little relieved, though, and she nods. "Yeah, pretty sure there are. Hey, there's a cause for ya."

CLOSED;

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swaggies into this thread (sorry)

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