AN- An update to read to distract from current overwhelming headlines! I hope you're all not just staying physically well, but mentally and emotionally too. All this shit can lead to burn out. Switch the news feeds off and come read about some Fangrai content.

Lightning's eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring at the ceiling in the med bay. Her head pounded, and the fluorescent glow above her head burned her eyes. She groaned softly, trying to sit up, only to feel a gentle hand pressing her back down.

"Easy, Lieutenant. You and the captain have had a hell of a trip." Nora's low, soothing voice slowly brought Lightning back into awareness. The older woman slowly helped her prop up with a pillow and handed her a glass of water. Lightning gave her a small nod of thanks and cast her weary eyes around the room. Her breath caught when she saw Fang sitting against the wall, by another bed with Vanille lying in it.

The captain's gaze slowly tracked to her and darkened on sight. "Satisfied, lieutenant?" Fang growled threateningly, her eyes locked onto the pinkette with unwavering fury.

"Wh… What happened?" Lightning asked, looking around the med bay uncertainly. She sat up slowly, trying to piece together her fuzzy mind and the events that happened moments before she lost consciousness. Fang's lip curled into a snarl and she stood up and stalked over to her bed. Nora stepped back with a worried look on her face, ready to intervene if she had to but otherwise not wanting the captain's ire turned on her as well.

"Let's see... You refused to listen to me when I told you to leave shit alone on the space station, caused a fucking calamity with fucking Cie'th bearing down on us, Vanille almost fucking died protecting the ship, and then Etro activated her crazy fucking powers and made a warp jump through the gate from a distance that should have killed us. But we're alive, somehow, no thanks to you."

Lightning withered under the assault of anger. "Fang… I-"

"I wasn't asking you not to get involved out of laziness, or an unwillingness to right the wrongs of the galaxy. I was asking you, begging you not to get involved because there are times when we have to pick our fucking battles! Your stubbornness almost cost Vanille's life! Our lives! We're now stranded in unknown space, because all our systems are offline bar life support, and Etro isn't responding!" Fang raved, her anger clouding her restraint. Lightning could feel it through their connection, though dulled. She reached within herself to search for Etro and found her presence still there, but offline. Or sleeping. However it could be described.

"I'm sorry." Lightning whispered, her voice barely audible. She slowly got off the bed and held her ribs, the ache felt in every movement of her body. "It… It felt bigger than us, than… This. I'm sorry."

"An apology isn't going to get us out of this situation." Fang snapped, her fists balling by her sides. There was a silence that fell over the room, save for the soft beeping of the medical monitors and the unsettling quiet hum that only came from the emergency life support and nothing else. The lieutenant was looking at a wall by the side of Fang, unwilling to make eye contact.

"Just… I'll work with you to get the ship running again. Drop me off at the next station once we get moving, and I'll forward the credits for the trip to your account and find another way home. I'll be out of your way." Lightning said quietly, her voice cracking with sadness and guilt. She bowed her head and limped from the medbay, to head for the solitude of her quarters. Fang watched her leave before slumping against the wall, sliding down until she was sitting on the ground with her head in her hands.

Vanille approached her sibling cautiously, limping a little from her own injuries. "Fang… That wasn't very nice." The brunette's head snapped up, anger twisting her facial features into a savage curl of her lip.

"You're fucking kidding me, right? We almost died. I almost lost…" She choked off her own sentence, not willing to finish it out loud. "Your ship is gone, Ragnarok is stranded and a sitting target for any pirates that swing by this vector, wherever the fuck we even are! How can you side with her in all this?"

Vanille sighs and adjusts her arm in the sling Nora had fastened over her shoulder. "Because Fang… What if she's right? She wasn't to know that we were headed into an ambush. She's not the willingly sacrifice everyone's lives for the bigger picture type of gal, you know? What if for once, we can do the greater good rather than whatever is the greater payload? If this Cie'th problem is what I think it is? It won't matter if we get her back to her system. There won't be a galaxy left for any of us to live in."

Fang wiped at her eyes, sick of feeling scared. Sick of feeling like she wasn't in control of her fate. "We're just two people, Van. How can we be expected to shoulder that burden?"

"We're not. We're at least three. More if you count Khosrow and the rest of the Pulsians who survived. More if you count the allies we've found along the way, and will continue to find. The Cie'th aren't going away. If anything, they're becoming more prevalent." Vanille said with a sigh, leaning on Fang's shoulder. She took the small comfort that eased the aches of her injuries. "They are able to take a human form, Fang. That's more dangerous than anything we've seen of their activity so far."

The implications were terrifying. They could infiltrate any place in the galaxy where they could hide amidst menial tasks, bring down colonies from the inside. If they were hiding on a station before Sanctum space… How many ships didn't make it through? Would the Sanctum officials even notice a significant decrease in traffic?

"We… Have to warn Khosrow. Tell her what to look for. This is bad, 'Nille."

"I know." Vanille replied, getting to her feet with a grunt. Nora helped her up with a soft chide at her needing to rest, which she agreed with. "And you need to apologise to Lightning."

"But I-"

"You know you're in the wrong." Vanille interjected, not wanting to hear the excuses. "If the boot was on the other foot you would have gone and investigated as well and you know it. I get that you were scared for me. I was… I was scared too. But she didn't deserve that."

Fang fell silent, looking thoroughly chastised. "I… Yeah. Ok." She sighed, slowly getting to her feet and leaving the med bay. Nora looked Vanille over with a slow arch of her eyebrow and smiled as she resumed her work patching up Vanille's injuries.

"She really puts on a tough front, but really is a sap when it comes to those she cares about, isn't she?"

Vanille watched the captain leave with a knowing smile. "You have no idea."

The slow hum of the life support system did nothing to ease Lightning's conscience, or her wounded heart. The lack of ship engine thrumming beneath her feet was uncomfortably terrifying, like at any minute the ship would just start collapsing in on itself. And it was all her fault.

Lightning bundled her knees to her chest, burying her head and crying. In all her years of sworn duty, she'd never put people's lives at risk the way she had. Fang was right. But none of this trip made any sense to begin with anyway. That she was able to traverse the opposite ends of the galaxy in the blink of an eye, that an artificial intelligence is now somehow embedded into her, feeding her all of the thoughts and feelings of a captain that now likely preferred to have her spaced through an airlock.

There was an odd sense of hesitancy to her own feelings, and it took her a moment to realise they weren't coming from her. Lightning sniffed and shot to her feet as there was a quiet knock at the door, and she felt the same sense of reluctance tenfold within herself. "C…Come in.." She called out, and the door slid open to reveal Fang standing in the hallway, a tray in her hands.

"… May I come in? I… Brought you some food." The captain offered, a bowl of steaming noodles sitting on the tray. Lightning was not going to accept the food at first, but a loud growl of protest from her stomach gave her other ideas. She bowed her head and stood aside to let Fang in.

"Thank you. I.. You can… place it on the desk."

Fang moved into the quarters and placed the tray on the table by the bed, before stepping back to give Lightning space. She wasn't sure if the lieutenant was going to immediately boot her from the room so tried to speak up. "I… Can we… I also wanted to… Um…" Fang sighed and buried her head in her hands, rubbing her face. "I owe you an apology."

Lightning's gaze was fixed to the floor, tears stinging at her eyes again. "You don't owe me anything." She replied, her voice raw. Fang stepped over and took her hands, the gesture bringing Lightning's eyes up to meet her own.

"Look I'm… Sorry. That I went off at you like that." Fang watched the lieutenant's posture carefully, seeing how guilt made her withdraw significantly. It was twenty steps backwards, and Fang had let her rage and anger get the best of her, as per usual. Lightning shook her head, averting her eyes once more.

"You were right though. It's my fault. I never should have gotten either of you involved."

Fang sighed, realising just how much damage she'd done with her words. She was determined to make things right, realising she was mad at the wrong person. "Look… Light, we're…" Fang paused, taking a breath before continuing. "We're alive. And maybe you shouldn't have dragged is in, but… Maybe I'm glad you did."

Lightning looked up at the serious jade eyes boring into her, and swallowed hard. "I… don't understand."

"We would have been dragged in one way or another. Vanille's right. This is bigger than a damn delivery run. There's something going on that's going to impact all of us."

"This isn't your battle to fight."

Fang shook her head and let go of Lightning's hands, walking over to the small window in the quarters. "You know what though? It is," she replied sadly, looking out to the stars beyond. "The Cie'th started with us back home, and I won't see what happened in Oerba be the reason the galaxy falls."

Lightning glanced over at the captain, taking in her features. Fang's jaw was set, her eyes still ablaze with anger and hurt. But it didn't appear to be directed at her, at least, not anymore. A dull throb in the back of her mind seemed to grow briefly in intensity before her vision pulsed blue, and the artificial intelligence came back online. They both gasped as a surge of sensation, emotion, and information flooded through them, and Lightning could really feel the guilt from Fang's earlier reaction, as much as Fang could read her own.

"Light… come here." Fang said quietly, pulling her into her arms. The connection intensified, and the captain tried to send as much comfort and reassurance down their link as she could. "I'm so sorry. I am an absolute arsehole."

"… You are." Lightning agreed, taking a moment to burrow into her neck. "I'm not… Fang I'm used to cargo infractions and petty theft. Not five-hundred year old captains and crystallised monsters and… Whatever else I've landed in."

"I know. I'm sorry. I was reacting out of fear. I was so scared that I'd lost Vanille and… I took it out on the wrong person. It wasn't your fault, ok? None of this is your fault." Fang held her a while, just wanting to smooth over the damage she'd done from her misdirected anger. She realised how unfair she had been, and how much work she had undone in the progression of their relationship. "We'll still head to your home, Light. Don't worry. I… Have a real bad feeling about what's going on and I want to make sure your sister is ok. I'm not abandoning you to some random station."

There was a tiny spark of hope they both felt, and Lightning looked up. "R..Really?" She asked quietly, her voice barely a whisper.

"Really. And.. I'm not going to charge you for this run, Light. I'm getting you and the others home because it's the right thing to do. Not because of it being a good haul of coin." Fang felt a tiny electric charge, and Lightning looked up at her with an expression of awe.

Etro's reappearance interrupted them, blinking into their field of vision while the orb of light looked a little wobbly. [I apologise for my absence. I needed to conserve energy after that jump gate… Experiment.]

Fang gave Lightning a sardonic look and glared at the AI's apparition. "Experiment, huh? Mind telling me what exactly your experiment has done to my ship?"

The orb spun slowly, processing, the projected illumination pulsing in time with the environmental stations. [Please wait… Life support systems are online and functional. I ensured they would remain intact and undamaged while diverting the rest of the power. Warp drive offline. Communications offline. Navigation offline. Weapons offline. Shields offline.]

"So in other words we're sitting ducks." Fang sighed, sitting on the bed and gesturing for Lightning to eat the food on the table. "Go on. Before it gets cold."

Lightning nodded, remembering her hunger as soon as it was pointed out. She sat down and began shovelling the food into her mouth, grateful for something real and substantial in her stomach. She could sense Fang watching her out of the corner of her eyes, but she felt calmer since the captain's apology.

[Correct. I can attempt to restart some of the Ragnarok's functions, but most will require hands on repairs.]

"What exactly did you do?" Lightning asked, between mouthfuls of food. The orb looked hesitant, hovering away from them both before answering.

[Employed the same methods that brought you to Pulsian space.]

Lightning almost choked on the food she was halfway through swallowing, and Fang gave her a couple of sympathetic slaps on the back as she spluttered. "You want to run that by us again?" Lightning gasped, reaching for a nearby bottle of water.

[The method the Cie'th currently have at their disposal is one of the many experimental prototypes that were worked on back at Oerba. The ability for ships to jump anywhere in the galaxy without the need for the gates. Almost any warp drive has the capability, of course, but the key is whether the ship can withstand the acceleration, and whether you can land the coordinates without careening off into uncharted space.]

"Most ships already have the capacity?" Lightning repeated, looking at Fang in shock. "If that's the case, why isn't this more common knowledge?"

[Simply put, because most ships don't have the ability to survive. Your small craft was ironically protected by being caught in the wake of the larger Cie'th vessel. If not for it, you would have likely disintegrated.]

Lightning suddenly didn't feel like her meal anymore, and pushed the bowl away from her. "Thanks. Thanks for that thought, Etro." She answered dryly, rolling her eyes. "So can you tell us at least, did we make it through the jump gate? Are we in the Sunleth cluster?"

[We were successful at evading the Cie'th.]

"And you're not so successful at subtlety and avoiding the question, Etro." Fang growled in warning, lazily batting at the projection. Her hand breezed through it, but the orb jumped back startled regardless. "Are we in the Sunleth cluster or not?"

[We are.. Not. We are currently on the outer reaches of the Eden system.]

Fang blinked at the orb before inhaling slowly.

"For FUCKS-"

Lightning's eyes moved back and forth on the bridge, following Fang's pacing until it made her head hurt. She blinked a few times and cleared her vision, going back to the console she'd been working on since they left her quarters. It gave her something to do, and stopped her from focusing on the growing frustration from the captain.

"So. Let me get this straight. We have somehow jumped not one but three systems in the wrong direction?"

Etro had opted for a more human appearance, to convey more emotions in her speech. [Experimental, captain. The technology is experimental. It is the equivalent of trying to precisely land a mountain on the back of an atom. Hence why the technology is not widely known or distributed amongst the public.]

Humming to herself at the sarcastic nature of Etro's retort, Lightning pulled up an old paper star map and looked at the gate network. "On the upside, Fang, we would have had to go through the Sunleth, and then the Palumpolum system to get back to the Bodhum cluster. It's the same amount of jumps between along this path anyway."

"Yeah but through the very heart of the Sanctum system? Not my idea of a safe time for a Pulsian." Fang sighed, nervously scratching at the back of her neck.

Lightning gave her a sympathetic look and moved over to stand by her side. There was a soft comfort in being near the captain again, since the apology in her quarters. It made her want to "accidentally" brush her hand on Fang's arm just to feel that surge of connection again. Something that felt like immersing herself into a warm hug. Something that would assure her she was going to be ok. "I know. It's not ideal but… Pulsians aren't actively discriminated against here, we'll be more likely to find parts that we need to get the ship repaired." She did her best to reassure Fang, but felt the disbelief before she saw it register on the captain's face.

"You're kidding me, right? You… Ah, you've not been exposed to it much, have you?" Fang sighed, giving her shoulder a bump with her own. "Wait around with us and you'll see it. The general populous isn't anywhere near as accepting as you are. It's why we've stayed in Pulsian space for the most part. Generations involved in the war are long since dead but… Their descendants carry their long memories."

"Plus you know, institutionalised sanctions, general populous looking at anyone from Pulsian space like they're going to get mugged or catch a disease, the commentary about the purity of Sanctum blah blah blah…" Vanille added from underneath another console as she worked behind the panels. Fang gave her a look and tilted her head.

"You never thought about the oath they make you take when you don the GC badge? To protect and serve the Sanctum, to keep its sectors clear of the demons that threaten the peace and all that crap? You know demon is a derogatory term for a Pulsian, right?"

Lightning looked embarrassed. Truthfully, like many things political she'd never paid it any mind. Her interests were securing a good job that paid well enough, to help her sister through school and to support her. Like the social and team building aspects of her job she ignored and avoided, so too did she actively go out of her way to not buy into the blatant militant fanaticism of Sanctum's Psicom forces. The way they tried to impart their obsessive patriotism on the Guardian Corps always left a foul taste in her mouth and a claustrophobic slimy feeling on her skin. "I can't say I did, I'm afraid. I just wanted my posting so tuned out of most of the ceremonial crap."

Fang gave a laugh and patted her on the back, seemingly approving of her stance. "You're alright, Farron. Still. Begs the question of how to get out of this mess." She sighed, flinching as electricity sparked from under the console Vanille was working on, followed by a string of Pulsian curses. The lights in the bridge flickered for a moment, before a low whirring picked up behind the bulkheads and the screens began to flicker back online.

"Ha! Teach you to mess with Oerba Dia Vanille, you jerk navigation system." The redhead cheered, rolling out from behind the panelling. "Navs are back up, next stop, communications."

Lightning looked over the screens as they came back to life, analysing the data at impossible speeds with the aid of Etro. Her irises almost appeared to illuminate as she looked over the maps. "Huh. Nearest station is actually one that orbits the planet Tempest. About seven-seven-two million miles from here."

"Tempest? Sounds like a tropical paradise." Fang drawled, folding her arms in annoyance. Lightning gave her a look to behave, and rolled her eyes.

"For about three weeks out of the year? It is. The way the planet's axial tilt is slower means longer seasons, and often more extreme weather." Lightning explained, bringing up some information on the nav systems. "So it's either blisteringly hot for about five months of the year, or deathly cold with wild storms for the rest. The pockets of civilisation live under domed cities to centralise the climate all year round, until those three weeks of pristine, perfect weather when they just throw a huge party outside."

Fang perked up at that, the chance to unwind with a few drinks after the hell they'd been through sounded amazing. "So… Despite the calamities that continue to befall us, we've landed in the system just in the nick of time for this wonderful perfect festival, right?"

"Wrong. Smack in the middle of the FrostStorm."

"Fuck."

Lightning looked at the maps and sighed. The warp engines being offline didn't help, but if they could get it even working at half capacity it would make their trip easier. "If we can do as much as we can to get the engines back up… it should only take a few days to get there, even with it operating at fifty percent. Then we can take a shuttle down to the surface if the station doesn't have what we're after." She explained, giving Fang's shoulder a squeeze. "We'll get her flying again. Come on."

Fang groaned and followed Lightning and Vanille off the bridge, collecting Sazh along the way. "Come on, you. Let's go get this bird flying again. I'm still making you buy me a drink though, Farron."

"It's the least I could do."