Times they are a'changing...

Been a while. I guess I've been too caught up, in... well, everythin'.

S'pose the best way to tell a story is to start at the beginnin', and just work my way on down to the end. Or at least 'til I get to the "to be continued" part.

Duncan ran, stupid man. Up and left us on Caliban, figured he'd get lost in the Black. Lost in his head, wit' his thoughts, more like. Now, I ain't one for losin' things. There's prolly quite a few folk in the 'Verse who can afford to, but I ain't one'a them. Losin' somethin' means you gotta replace it, and to my experience, that's neither easy nor cheap, 'specially when it's somethin' important. 'Sides, after you get that new knife, or whatever it was you lost in the first place, it never really fits. It don't quite rest in your hand like the one you lost, and you end up...

That weren't what I was talkin' 'bout, was it?

Well, I went after him. Not a whole lot else I could do. It ended up bein' a one-woman manhunt all across the 'Verse. Visited a couple backwater moons I never set foot on before, and don't plan to return to, neither. Seemed I was always just one step behind, if I even found somethin' out. Most folk out on the rim know better'n to flap their mouths for nothin'. And I didn't have much to give to loosen up them tongues. Weren't 'til I got to Anvil's Moon, over Himinbjørg ways, that I got a real, solid lead.

Tellin' y'all 'bout the folk I met there is a whole story in itself, and I'll save that for later. Only thing that matters is there was a man there, a decent man, who could point me in the right direction. The real right direction.

And so I found his sorry bee-hind. In a cage-fighting pit, no less, doin' his fool best to mess himself up good'n proper. Now, it wouldn't be fair to say he didn't hold his own, he left a couple fellas layin' on the canvas, cryin' for their mommas. Still, it was a gorram foolheaded thing to do, and when he finally got out and I could talk to him, I done told him 'xactly what I thought 'bout things like that. And he... gave me words right back, and that was that. We bought our sorry selves a bottle'o Jack and just about drank it all up, just talkin', and the next day we were headed back towards the Drift to try'n track down Cody to get the boat back.

An... I guess there's no point in denyin' it. Somethin' had changed 'tween us. 'Course, he was still the Captain, will always be that, but it felt different somehow. Couldn't put my finger on it, so we just went about our business, tryin' to secure jobs and whatnot, and we didn't talk about it. Now, there's that difference 'tween not talkin' about somethin', and not talkin' about somethin', and it felt like the last one, and it was just ...bù píng cháng.

An' then we got a job takin' some cargo from Persephone to Beaumonde, and it kinda stopped bein' bù píng cháng and just sorta... fell into place. It's kinda hard to not talk about somethin' when you're stuck in the black for a week wit' just eachother as comp'ny. And I don't need to sleep on the gorram wooden plank that pretends to be a mattress in the passenger bunk no more, 'cause we share the bed in the Captain's room now, an' that's that.

As it turns out, things are more or less the same as they was before. We still gotta keep flyin'. Still gotta look for jobs, get coin, get by. But I'd be lyin' if I said it don't feel just a li'l bit better, when my back's against the wall, or when I'm tryin' to haggle down the price of somethin' with some sonnuvabitch trader mogul, or when I'm just tryin' to make the time pass while hoppin' from one gorram ass-end of the 'Verse to the other, and I look to the side at the person standin' or sittin' or layin' next to me, and I know... that's my man, right there.