The moment the connection had gone through, and Changmin had seen Minho’s face on the screen, such a rush of happiness had pulsed through him that it had almost been too overwhelming. It had only been two weeks since they’d parted, but to Changmin who was desperately in love, it felt like years.

“Changmin,” Minho sighed out, a fond smile on his face. “There you are.”

In the privacy of the ship’s bridge, Changmin let himself smile a bit goofily and reply, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in ages.”

Sudden concern flashed across Minho’s face. “Uh oh. That can’t be good.”

“What’s not? That I find you attractive?”

“No,” Minho said back playfully, “that you’re being so emotional. The Shim Changmin I know doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve like he is now.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” Changmin asked back.

The pilot’s seat … Kyuhyun’s seat, was padded graciously, and Changmin sank into the cushions. The slouched position, something that he almost never let him fall into, afforded him a more casual look at Minho.

Minho, who was so damn good looking any other time, but was even more attractive now, after some time had passed between them being together.

Changmin supposed the saying was true. Absence did make the heart grow fonder.

On the other end of the connection Minho leaned forward and said, “Min, you promised me you’d contact me much sooner than this. I thought that was our deal? I give you all the support in the world to run off with your slightly unhinged older brother, and in return you keep me up to date on how you’re doing.”

Changmin grimaced. “Things got complicated.”

“I worried,” Minho said right away. “I worried a lot. You make promises to me frequently, but you rarely break them. I thought something had happened.”

Something had happened. A lot had happened. Changmin just wasn’t sure what he could say to Minho and what had to be kept quiet.

“I’m sorry,” Changmin said, his eyes drifting off to the stars in the distance. “I didn’t mean to worry you. When I say complicated, I mean complicated. I wanted to contact you much sooner.”

With an accepting nod, Minho asked, “Bad complicated?”

Changmin absolutely wasn’t going to share with Minho that he’d been shot. Minho was a worrier. He worried over anything and everything, but mostly he worried about Changmin himself. Changmin certainly wasn’t in need of the worry, and it was a burden most of the time, but he understood the hovering that Minho showed him was derived from love. So he accepted it.

But telling Minho he’d been shot? And then that the wound had become infected and he’d lapsed in and out of consciousness for several days afterwards? That wasn’t an option in the slightest.

However Minho was waiting now, waiting for something from Changmin. He had to say something.

“Remember how I told you my brother’s sort of a … treasure hunter?”

Minho snorted. “Is that what we’re going to call the illegal acquisition of items?”

“Minho.”

Minho rolled his eyes. “I’m not judging your brother, Changmin. I don’t care what he does frankly, as long as he doesn’t get himself into trouble and expect you to bail him out. But I am going to have a problem if anything he does hurts you … and the look on your face tells me that something like that’s gone and happened.”

“It wasn’t Yunho’s fault,” Changmin said, of that he was sure. Though honestly Changmin wasn’t sure of anything else. When Yunho had left, with Zhou Mi and Kyuhyun to hopefully recover the Eye, Changmin’s fever had been rising. He actually remembered very little of anything that had happened, even the series of explosions that had rocked the ship and nearly torn her apart. His memories didn’t kick in until a few days after that, when he’d woken up, his fever had broken, and Leeteuk had calmly sat next to him on his bed to try and explain everything that had happened.

A bounty hunter. That was just something of monumental bad luck.

Calmly, Minho asked, “What happened? Does it have something to do with how long it took you to contact me?”

“It does,” Changmin said, still trying to work out exactly what he was going to say. Eventually he settled on, “Yunho and I ended up separated. He went down to the planet for business and I stayed on the ship. But there was an … accident. Well, to put it more bluntly, there was an explosion and the ship suffered some significant damage.”

“But you’re okay, right?” Minho demanded, eyes growing wide. “What happened to cause an explosion?”

Changmin only really knew what Leeteuk had told him. He knew that Xia, the bounty hunter who’s real name was Junsu, had disabled the navigation system to draw everyone, but in particular Onew, away from the engines. Then he’d rigged explosives to intricate and necessary systems in the engine room, everything from propulsion to life support. The explosion had more than crippled the ship. It had nearly destroyed it.

“I’m okay,” Changmin assured. “And who can say what caused the explosion. Onew, that’s the ship’s mechanic and engineer, isn’t sure yet. But if you ask me it has something to do with how old the ship is. It’s way past its best days. I wish Yunho would let me help him buy a new one.”

Yunho was just too damn stubborn and prideful for that, no matter how hard Changmin pushed.

Minho muttered, “Maybe I’ll just buy your brother a new ship, especially if it means I won’t have to risk it blowing up with you inside it.”

Something told Changmin that Yunho would be even less receptive to Minho buying him a new ship.

“Anyway,” Changmin continued, “the explosion was pretty bad. A couple of the crew got hurt, and we lost everything from navigation to power. I guess it was more than bad there for a second, but Onew is a miracle worker. He got the ship jump-started, essentially, but that flung us pretty off course, and our fuel cells were nearly depleted.”

Everything had needed to be conserved. Everything. Changmin had woken to a dark infirmary, where the air felt a little too thin, and the artificial gravity kept cutting in and out. Changmin had been confused, to say the least.

“And this is you telling me you’re okay now?”

Changmin gestured around him. “Lights are on full power. You can’t feel it, but the engine is humming under my feet, and while I have no doubt that the ship needs some extensive repairs, we just left the port we’d limped our way into. We’re back flying, Minho. Everything is okay now.” Changmin grit his teeth. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

Changmin sunk a little deeper in the chair.

Once more, the stars caught Changmin’s attention. He spent so much of his time staring up at them, but they’d never looked brighter than they were now. It seemed ironic, because Changmin had never been as lost as he currently was.

“I was on the ship, remember? When it was catapulted through space, for lack of a better word. Yunho was left on the planet, and the rest of us were srnt floating through space, trying to survive. Yunho … we could barely help ourselves. We couldn’t help him. We couldn’t even get to him.”

Minho asked, “So you had to leave him behind? While you tried to make repairs to the ship?”

Changmin gave a soft nod. “I don’t want to scare you, but we cut it pretty close with the fuel cells.”

Cutting it close didn’t even begin to explain the situation they’d been in. For nearly two days they’d drifted through space, trying to squeeze power out of a damaged engine, trying to keep the life support system going, trying not to think about how close the hull had come to buckling.

“See?” Minho asked with forced cheer. “This is why I hate space travel. Something always has to go wrong. Min, I’m sorry to tell you, I think the rest our lives is going to have to take place planet side.”

“Minho,” Changmin said, thinking about how long he’d known Minho, and how absolutely dependable the man was. He thought about how Minho always came through for him, and was beyond trustworthy.

Changmin probably could have told Minho everything, including everything he knew about the job Yunho had just pulled which involved stealing the Eye out from under Choi Siwon. He could have told Minho every last detail, and Changmin had a gut feeling that Minho wouldn’t have done anything but kept the information to himself and done what he could to help.

Minho was upstanding in that way.

It was the single most impressive thing about him, his loyalty, and it was what had won Changmin over from the start.

Once more he said, “Minho,” then he tucked a leg under his bottom and added, “I need your help.”

The image of Minho was a little distorted, but the earnest look on his face wasn’t. He jokingly asked, “You are clear on the fact that I love you? That we’re getting married? That’s ringing a bell?”

“Yes,” Changmin said with a slight frown. “Where are you going with this?”

“I’m saying,” Minho replied, “that we’re about to become partners. I mean, I already consider us partners, which makes anything you need, something you don’t have to ask for. How can I help?”

Changmin’s chest seized up a little. “I really love you,” he said, and it was the best feeling in the world.

The smile on Minho’s face grew wider. “I love you too. Now, what do you need?”

“Yunho,” Changmin said immediately. “The ship’s communications went down with all the other major systems when we lost control. We couldn’t contact Yunho on the planet, or the crew that were with him, and we didn’t exactly have a choice in leaving them. By the time we got our communications back up, all traces of Yunho on the planet were gone. He’s … we can’t find him anywhere, Minho. We can’t find out what happened to him.”

Minho blanched. “You haven’t received so much as a message from him?”

“No,” Changmin said. For all intents and purposes, Yunho had up and vanished into thin air. And hunting for him on New Haven wasn’t an option at the moment.

Minho questioned, “How far adrift did you end up? Are you that far from the planet you left him on?”

“We ended up in the middle of nowhere,” Changmin told him. “Our navigation was down, so we weren’t even sure where we were, or what was near. Onew worked himself to exhaustion, trying to get the most important systems back up. By the time knew where we were, we only had enough fuel to get to the nearest repair port. We had to go in the opposite direction, and we still haven’t been able to make it back there. I tried contacting the planet, I tried reaching Yunho through his personal comm. I tried everything. I can’t find my brother, Minho. That’s what I need your help with.”

From Minho’s end a voice called his name faintly. Minho called back, “I’ll be there in a second. I’m speaking to Changmin.” Minho shot Changmin an apologetic look. “Sorry. That’s Seoyoung.”

“Tell your sisterI’m sorry I missed her,” Changmin said.

Minho waved a hand. “She already told me she expects you to make it up to her the second you’re back. And she’s about to be your sister, too.”

Changmin admitted fondly, “I guess she is.”

“Changmin.”

“Minho?”

The kindness in Minho’s voice alone was enough of a comfort to make Changmin feel like there was something Minho could do. Anything. Even if it was just listen.

“Didn’t you tell me all those weeks ago that you were going to New Haven?”

Changmin agreed, “That’s where Yunho was left behind on accident.”

Minho grit his teeth. “That planet all but belongs to the Choi family.”

Changmin pursed his lips, then took a risk and said, “Yunho wasn’t on that planet for a social call, Minho. He was doing something that could get him sent to a penal colony if caught … if he was very, very lucky.”

Tersely, Minho said, “Stealing from a man like Choi Minho is about the stupidest thing your brother could choose to do.”

“Could you maybe say that a little louder?” Changmin demanded. “Not enough people on Helios heard you.”

Minho chuckled, “There’s my Changmin.”

Feeling quite peeved, Changmin said blandly, “I don’t think this is funny at all, Minho. Yunho could be--”

“Changmin.” Minho leaned even closer to screen. “I know you love your brother, even when he does stupid things. And I’m very much in love with you, with plans to marry you shortly. That makes Yunho family. Give me some time, okay? Let me see if I can dig up anything on him. I’ve got some friends in that area. Maybe they’ll be able to do in person there, what you or I could never accomplish from where we are.”

“Thank you,” Changmin said, meaning it with every fiber of his being. “Thank you, Minho.”

“He’s family now,” Minho replied with a shrug. “But while I’m helping you track down my soon to be brother in law, can you please contact me a little more frequently? You’re exceptionally good at getting yourself into trouble when you want to, and I know it drives you crazy, but I worry.”

“I must get that sense of trouble from Yunho. He’s a master at it.” Changmin wiggled his fingers at Minho and promised, “I’ll call you again soon. I promise. And thank you again, for helping me and doing this for me.”

“I love you,” Minho said once more. “And I can’t wait until you get back here. Life is boring without you, Changmin. Too boring. Talk to you soon.”

The screen went back in response to the ended communication and Changmin tried to be reassured that things would be okay. Minho wasn’t a miracle worker, but he was the kind of man who went above and beyond. Yunho had to be okay wherever he was. It was just a matter of finding him.

“Am I interrupting?”

Changmin spun the pilot’s chair towards Leeteuk who was lingering in the door way.

“No, no, of course not.”

Leeteuk took a step forward. “I didn’t want to interrupt your call. I know it’s the first time you’ve gotten to speak with your fiancé since we left Helios. Everything’s okay on his end?”

“You’re considerate to a fault,” Changmin said, really appreciating Leeteuk’s propriety. “Minho’s fine. He was worried that I’d taken so long to contact him, but I explained we had a bit of a mechanical issue.”

“That’s saying the least,” Leeteuk said with a hoarse laugh.

Changmin nodded. “I told Minho we lost Yunho. Don’t worry, I didn’t give him any details that might endanger him or us, but I asked him for help. Minho’s father has quite a few Alliance ties. If anyone can help us find Yunho faster, it’s him.”

“I don’t know if getting the Alliance involved is what we need right now,” Leeteuk said a bit wearily, sinking into the chair opposite Changmin.

Shrugging, Changmin told him, “I think it’s safe to say that Yunho and the others succeeded in stealing the Eye. If they hadn’t, it would be on the net from the Core to the Rim. He’s got it, Leeteuk, we just have to find a way to get back to him, and I think Minho can help. He can reach where we can’t right now, and I think he’s trying to earn points before the wedding. Minho is … he cares a lot about family, and Yunho is about to become his.”

A slow grin spread out on Leeteuk’s face, one filled with fondness. “ I still can’t believe you’re getting married.”

“I’m not exactly a little boy anymore,” Changmin reminded.

“No,” Leeteuk agreed, “but I think your brother and I are more alike on this matter than you want us to be. I still see you as this scrawny spitfire of a kid, Changmin. I know you’re grown. I know you’re old enough and mature enough to get married, but it just seems so sudden. Your childhood feels like yesterday, Changmin.”

Changmin leveled him with a heavy look. “I’m really scared for the day you have children, Leeteuk. You’re going to think of them as babies forever.”

This time Leeteuk gave a deeper, more satisfied laugh. “Probably. But I think that day is very far off in the future.” He got himself back to his feet and leaned over to check the readings on the display in front of him. “Anyway, I came up here to let you know that Jaejoong’s looking for you.”

Changmin’s face twisted into a sour look. “Another checkup?”

“Yes,” Leeteuk said, rolling his eyes. “I think you should forgive him for being a little overprotective of this crew right now. You were …he was really worried about your fever. And then almost everyone ended up hurt in some way after the bounty hunter tried to abduct him. He’s tapped ribs, stitched cuts, and bandaged wounds. That’s a little overwhelming, don’t you think? So let him look you over one more time and make sure that you’re okay.”

“I am okay,” Changmin said. Since he’d woken two days previous, his fever broken and able to think for the first time in a while, he’d been making leaps and bounds in his recovery. His wound was still a little red and agitated, but he was able to walk around on his own, climb stairs if he did it slowly, and his fever hadn’t returned. He only needed rest and he’d be fine by the time they got back to Helios.

Of course the bullet wound at his stomach, one that had almost taken him completely out, was a scar he was going to have to explain to Minho very delicately the next time they tumbled into bed.

Changmin sort of hoped that would happen the moment they were together again.

“Can’t Jaejoong just fuss over Yoochun some more?”

“I’m sure that’s Onew’s department now,” Leeteuk said. “And he is fussing. Yoochun ended up with a bullet in his shoulder and damn near the same in his leg.”

Turning his back to the blackness of space completely, Changmin stood gingerly. “Well, at least Onew doesn’t seem too sad anymore. Maybe Yoochun is the distraction he needs to try and move on with his life. No matter how much it hurts to move forward, we can’t live in the past.”

Leeteuk nodded in agreement. “But try not to tease them too much about it? I can tell, Onew is barely okay with the idea of trying to care for someone else in that way, and Yoochun’s spent his who life hiding from people. They need time to work their feelings out on their own.”

“I’m not Kyuhyun,” Changmin pointed out. “I’m not …”

Strongly, Leeteuk told him, “We’re going to find Yunho, Kyhyun and Mi. They’re not lost forever, Changmin. Don’t give up.”

Changmin made his way steadily to the doorway, still having to brace a hand ever few steps, getting winded too easily. “I’m not, Teukkie.”

Changmin was getting married. He was making the biggest commitment of his life to another person, and he wasn’t doing it without his brother and best friends there to watch.

It was frustrating in a way with how long it took for Changmin to make his way to the infirmary. What would have been a two minutes wal before, less if he was quick about it, turned into something approaching fifteen … if he was being generous.

But he took his time, listening the steady hum of the ship, feeling her under his feet and against his skin every time he touched metal. It was the reassurance he needed at the moment, after they’d come so close to ending up spaced. That and if he came into Jaejoong’s infirmary breathing hard or sweating, it was possible that Jaejoong would just use it as an excuse to try and readmit him.

That was happening over Changmin’s dead body. He’d spent enough time in the infirmary to last him the rest of his life.

“I’m here,” he announced, sliding through the cracked doors to find Jaejoong and Ryeowook chatting easily.

“Good,” Jaejoong said, springing into action. He told Ryeowook, “We can talk more about this over dinner, okay? I need to see how much Changmin’s gone and aggravated his healing wound.”

Ryeowook smothered a laugh behind a hand as he disappeared through the doors.

“Funny,” Changmin sighed, slowly heaving himself up on the examination bed.

“Shirt up,” Jaejoong requested, slipping his hands into gloves.

Changmin leaned back on the bed and lifted his shirt over the tapped off wound. “I really do feel fine,” he told the doctor. “The pain is more than manageable, and I haven’t had to take anything today yet.”

Jaejoong’s fingers were cool and gentle as they prodded the area. “Contrary to what you must think about you being a inable to sit still, I always knew you were going to heal quickly. When you’re a doctor long enough, you start to be able to tell quickly enough with different patients. And right now I can tell you that the wound looks even better than I could have expected.”

Changmin couldn’t help feeling a little relieved. “That’s good to hear.”

“Actually,” Jaejoong said, looking a little guilty, “I didn’t just ask to see you because I wanted to check you out. There’s something else.”

“Shoot,” Changmin said easily enough, watching as Jaejoong resealed the bandage on his wound.

In a frustrated way, Jaejoong said, “No one ever tells me anything. I guess I’m just the doctor. Changmin, I want to know about Yunho.”

Changmin froze. Of course Jaejoong wanted to know about Yunho. Jaejoong cared for Yunho, and before New Haven their tentative relationship had been on the fast track. Changmin tried to imagine what it was like for him at the moment, not knowing if the person he cared for was okay, or what they were doing.

“You know we didn’t choose to leave him behind, right?”

Jaejoong gave a firm nod. “We didn’t have any control over how far we got flung into space, and we were so damaged we couldn’t go back for him.”

Sitting up with Jaejoong’s help, Changmin settled his shirt back into place and told the doctor, “Yunho is a worrywart. He plans for the worst all the time, and he and Leeteuk had an agreement for if anything went wrong during the job.”

“Plan? What kind of plan?”

“If we get separated,” Changmin clarified. “The rule on this ship is that if anyone ever gets separated, based on where we are and in which system, there’s a rendezvous point. That’s why Onew’s been working so hard to get the engines up and going. It’s why we’ve been conserving power like crazy and flying even when the Tohoshinki should probably be dry docked planetside for repairs. Because Yunho knew that if we had to leave for whatever reason, that we’d be waiting for him at the meet up point.”

There was at least some relief on Jaejoong’s face. “So it’s possible Yunho and the others are already there?”

“Very,” Changmin nodded. “Even if they aren’t, Yunho will know to go there. We’ll wait until he gets there.”

The worrying part, and why Changmin had enlisted Minho’s help, was the lack of communication from Yunho. They’d had communications up on the ship for almost a full day. Why hadn’t they heard from Yunho yet? There was no reason that Changmin could think of as to why Yunho had been silent on his end. Nothing he tried to come up with made any sense, either.

“Is it far?” Jaejoong asked.

“A few days more,” Changmin told him. Then he frowned and said, “This isn’t exactly secret information, Jaejoong. You should just ask if you want to know. You’re a part of this crew. Yunho thinks of you as family now. And I think you proved your worth a few times over.”

Jaejoong offered a bit tentatively, “I have to admit, I was surprised Leeteuk helped stop the bounty hunter. Did you hear about what happened?”

Changmin nodded. “Leeteuk was the distraction so that Yoochun could get to his gun. The bounty hunter wanted to make a deal, but Leeteuk said no.”

“I wouldn’t have blamed Leeteuk if he had taken the deal,” Jaejoong said a little sadly. “We haven’t known each other all that long. The bounties on myself and Yoochun aren’t ever going to just magically disappear. And we were talking about a lot of credits--enough to keep the ship running for a long time, or get a new one. If Leeteuk had needed to make that call … I would have understood.”

Changmin pinched Jaejoong a little sharply on the arm. “Okay, you need to stop thinking that way immediately. This crew protects its own. This crew is family. Leeteuk would never have let that bounty hunter take you. And you don’t ever have to think that he even considered it for a moment. Understand? That’s not the kind of people that make up this family.”

Looking bashful, Jaejoong said, “I’m starting to understand that, I think.”

“Good.”

Changmin’s feet had barely touched the ground when Jaejoong asked, “What if we get to the rendezvous point and that Captain isn’t there? What if we wait and wait and he never shows up? What do we do then?”

That was something Changmin couldn’t even begin to consider. A life without Yunho? A life without knowing what had happened to him?

“Changmin?”

Changmin pushed past the lump in his throat and said, “Leeteuk has been with Yunho on this ship from the very beginning. If the worst happens … Leeteuk will be able to take control. He’ll be able to be captain.”

Truthfully, it had always been a bit of a mystery to Changmin why Yunho was Captain and not Leeteuk. Or some kind of shared responsibility for the position. They were both leaders and both very capable of men. They both could be determined and make the kinds of difficult calls that only captains could. But for some reason Yunho gave the orders and Leeteuk followed them. And it worked.

Did it have something to do with the fact that Yunho had been leading the charge to get to Changmin when Leeteuk had met him? Maybe Leeteuk had seen Yunho’s determination and ambition and thought that following a man like him wasn’t such a bad thing.

“Leeteuk will be captain?’

“He’ll be a great captain,” Changmin told Jaejoong. “Yunho is Yunho, but Leeteuk is a good man. He’s a very good man. He’ll fly just like Yunho does, protecting his crew and doing what it takes to keep the ship going.”

But how many of the crew would want to keep going? How many would bail out at the first sign of the fractured crew becoming permanent? And how could they replaced Kyuhyun and Zhou Mi who were lost along with Yunho at the moment?

“This is all moot point,” Changmin decided rather loudly. “You haven’t known my brother for as long as I have, Jaejoong. You don’t’ understand that Yunho defined the word stubborn as we know it now. Yunho is too stubborn not to get back to his ship--his home. It might be taking him a while, and he might not know what’s going on, but Yunho is the most capable man I’ve ever known, along with being stubborn. He’ll be there, Jaejoong, and if he isn’t, it won’t be long before he shows up.”

“Oh,” Jaejoong breathed out.

Changmin’s head cocked. “If Yunho isn’t … if he isn’t there and he doesn’t show up, are you going to stay on the ship?”

Changmin wasn’t completely sure about Jaejoong’s motivations for remaining on the ship at the moment. It could have been Yunho’s romantic interest that was the deciding factor, or just the safety the ship offered. But Jaejoong could be on the list of crewmen leaving if Yunho didn’t show.

Jaejoong pulled the gloves from his fingers and tossed them in the trash bin nearby. “I really like it on this ship,” he said. “I like the people. I don’t want to leave.”

Changmin thought about leaving himself. Of course he’d always intended to make his trip on Yunho’s ship a brief thing, for the necessity of the job only, of course. But with Yunho currently missing and the ship still in disarray, he couldn’t abandon his friends so easily. But there would come a time when he’d stayed as long as he could and he had to return to Helios for personal and professional reasons.

It was an uncomfortable thing to consider that Yunho could still be missing by the time that Changmin had to catch a transport to Helios.

“Then stay,” Changmin said. “Stay and make this place your home. Yoochun seems like he’s found a reason to stay too.” Changmin thumbed to the window across the room. Down the hallway Yoochun was just visible next to Onew, the both of them partially hidden by an exposed bulkhead. However there was certainly enough of them showing for Changmin to make out the way Yoochun had a hand laid gently against Onew’s cheek, and the kisses that they were sharing.

“It’s because Onew is steady,” Jaejoong said.

“Huh?” Changmin turned away from the pair to ask Jaejoong, “Onew’s steady?”

Jaejoong grinned. “In an abstract way, I suppose. Yoochun likes things that are steady and reliable. To him, Onew must look like the most beautiful person in the world. Onew is like the engine of this ship, steady and reliable.”

“You think?” Changmin questioned.

“I’ve known Yoochun most of my life,” Jaejoong shrugged. “Maybe he never showed an interest in anyone because he was too busy trying to keep his cover, but I think it has more to do with the fact that he never found anyone who was like the mountain Onew is--unmovable. I can see it in the way Yoochun looks at Onew.” A little worried, Jaejoong pressed, “Onew ins’t going to break Yoochun’s heart, is he?”

“I don’t think so,” Changmin said kindly, and he really didn’t. Onew had been like a ghost as of late. He’d been broke and fractured and Changmin had seriously suspected that he wouldn’t be able to move on from the loss he’d endured. But Changmin honestly thought he saw with Yoochun and Onew what Jaejoong did. “Onews a little damaged right now, he just lost someone he really loved, but Yoochun seems good for him.”

Jaejoong offered, “Yoochun told me they can talk about anything, and they’re comfortable around each other even if they’re not saying anything.”

Through the window Yoochun gave Onew’s hand a tug and together they were heading off down the hallway.

Changmin said, “It might be a little longer before Onew is ready to love again, but something tells me Yoochun is willing to wait.”

“He’s very patient,” Jaejoong laughed out. He moved to push open the infirmary doors and told Changmin, “And you’re free to leave now. I promise I won’t call you in for at least another day or two, and then it’ll only be for me to take the heavy stitches out.”

Changmin flashed him the sign for victory.

Two days later Changmin was on the bridge with Leeteuk and Ryeowook when the planet of Caprix came into view. It was a barren kind of planet, the kind that terraforming had failed on decades ago, but there were two central areas on it at opposite ends, space ports and trading posts. The one to the North was their intended target, and Changmin was honestly terrified that they’d dock, disembark, go looking or Yunho, and find absolutely nothing.

“Take us in slowly,” Leeteuk coached to Ryeowook who was at the helm. If the worst happened, Changmin supposed that Ryeowook and Leeteuk could trade off piloting duties. “We’re cleared for berth two.”

With utmost concentration, Ryeowook brought them in.

“Changmin,” Leeteuk said, steadying himself as they descended a bit roughly. “You know what I’m going to say, right?”

Changmin narrowed his eyes. “I am not staying on the ship.”

“Yes you are,” Leeteuk said, his voice carrying an edge like Yunho’s. “I know you think you’re feeling better, but you’re not ready to go out into the field.”

“The field?” Changmin demanded, feeling as if Leeteuk had lost his mind. “This isn’t a job, Leeteuk. And if my brother is here, I’m going to find him.”

Leeteuk shook his head slowly. “You’re staying on the ship. I’m taking Ryeowook with me.”

“Are you serious!”

“Hey,” Ryeowook called over his shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Changmin.” Leeteuk caught his arm in a firm grip. “Jaejoong and Yoochun can’t leave the ship until we’re sure the bounty hunter was working alone. We don’t even know if he’s still alive, and if he is, he could be in communication with someone. If he has any accomplices and they trailed us in any way, Jaejoong and Yoochun be too easy to snatch off the streets. And Onew needs to continue to make repairs to the ship.”

Changmin asked, “So I’m supposed to stay here and play babysitter?”

“We’re in,” Ryeowook announced, flipping a switch to ignite the landing ers.

“You’re staying here,” Leeteuk stated. “If your brother is down there, he’ll kill me for bringing anyone along who isn’t capable of running away very fast should the situation go south. But especially if it’s you. So you’re going to sit here like the still injured party that you are, while I take Ryeowook, who’s more than capable of backing me up. If Yunho is there, you’ll be the first person I contact. And if he isn’t, you won’t have had to go wandering around, wheezing all over me like you might keel over.”

“Wheezing?” Changmin glared. “I do not wheeze.”

From the pilot’s seat, Ryeowook announced, “You kind of wheeze. It’s a weird sound, like you’re breathing through your teeth.”

“Keep laughing it up,” Changmin said flatly. “You two should just remember who’s credits are going to be used as bribe money if we have to hang around for a while, or if you want to eat, or how about those extra repairs we want to make with parts that need to be bought? Oh, wait, that would be mine. You still want to make fun of my wheezing?”

They were coming in fast to their designated landing area, but it didn’t seem to phase Ryeowook who said sternly, “Leeteuk, Changmin does not wheeze. Can you please not say that about my friend?”

A grin stretched out on Changmin’s face. “That’s a little better.”

“Stay here,” Leeteuk told Changmin twenty minutes later when they were firmly on the planet’s surface, ramp extended and ready for them to disembark. Ryeowook had a pistol strapped to his thigh, something that almost looked absurd, but he also looked like he was ready to handle it, so Changmin was going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“I heard you the first fifteen times,” Changmin said a bit childishly.

As Ryeowook took a step forward, inching towards the busy port, Leeteuk grasped Changmin’s elbow and vowed, “If Yunho is here, I’ll bring him back right away, and tell you as soon as I spot him. If he isn’t, I’ll come back immediately anyway, and we’ll work out what we’re going to do from here.”

“If Yunho were here,” Changmin said, pressing his credit chip into Leeteuk’s palm, “he would have been watching the port for us. He would have seen us land, and he’d be here already.”

Leeteuk gave a small, agreeing nod. “I know.” His fingers closed around the chip and Changmin knew he understood to use it to buy them time at the port.

“Spend what you have to,” Changmin urged. “We have to stay here until Yunho arrives.” If he arrived, Changmin didn’t say.

“Protect the ship and her crew in my stead,” Leetuk called back to him, heading down after Ryeowook.

“Always,” Changmin said quietly, heading for the ramp retraction switch. He’d never let anything happen to Yunho’s home or his crew. And when Yunho came back, he’d see that everything was in its proper place, and the rest of them could be trusted in his absence.

There was no other reality Changmin was willing to face.