“It’s funny, you know,” Leeteuk said with a chuckle, “I still remember the exact moment I met him. I mean I remember with absolute clarity the moments before, thinking you were crazy for being so obsessed with this kid that wasn’t even your blood, then meeting him and understanding perfectly.”

In the quiet of the infirmary Leeteuk risked moving his eyes from Changmin’s still form to Yunho who was all but crowded over him, holding his hand delicately. Yunho was certainly looking better now that he’d gotten word Changmin would survive, but he wasn’t looking anywhere near what Leeteuk was used to.

In fact Leeteuk had never seen Yunho like this.

“I don’t …” Yunho said, voice straining, “want to talk about this.”

Across the room, leaning back on a wall, Leeteuk shrugged. “Tough. I want to. Because if I just leave you sitting here by yourself you’ll spend the entire time beating yourself up. So I’m going to tell you a story I’ve never told you before and it’s going to make you smile, even if it’s only for a second, and no, you don’t have a choice.”

Yunho didn’t turn from Changmin for even a second. Instead he continued to the soft skin on the back of Changmin’s hand while he slept on peacefully. “I could kick you out. Space you.”

“Please,” Leeteuk snorted. “You wouldn’t risk causing a scene here. And frankly I’m the only one holding this ship together right now.”

There was a scowl on Yunho’s face, but the fact that he didn’t say anything in rebuttal told Leeteuk he’d won.

“Okay, wait, we have to go back to before the first time I saw Changmin. We have to go back to the first time you told me about him. The Packard job.”

Impossibly, Yunho’s scowl dropped away. “The Packard job. Haven’t thought of that in forever. Gods, what were we thinking? Space mining at sixteen.”

Leeteuk gave an agreeing nod. No sixteen year old would be allowed to take on such a dangerous job now, at least not unless one was so far into Rim space that Alliance rules were more of a joke than anything enforceable. But back when he and Yunho had been sixteen, roped into mining for minerals in space for different reasons, heads had been willing to look the other way.

Leeteuk hadn’t known why Yunho was there at the beginning, but Leeteuk had been there because there was no other option. While he himself had been lucky his whole life to be blissfully healthy, his parents were another story. Before he’d even become a man, in official terms, they’d both developed aliments that required serious treatment. And with no credits to provide that treatment, Leeteuk had been forced to take the first job that paid the most as quickly as possible.

And at sixteen he’d been tall. Maybe he hadn’t been broad shouldered, and he’d still had a bit of a baby face, but if he turned his back to someone, he could pass for older than he was.

For eight weeks he’d kept his head down, laser drill in his hands, and worked. He sent all of his money home to his parents, prayed to the old gods for their recovery, and did his damnest not to get killed.

The money just wasn’t coming in fast enough, unfortunately.

“The way I remember it,” Yunho said, leaning a little closer to Changmin who slept on, “you almost got the both of us blown up.”

“That wasn’t my fault, Yunho.” Leeteuk crossed his arms.

Space mining in general was extremely dangerous, an occupation in constant need of warm bodies to replace the ones lost during production. But of all the dangers within the job, setting the charges and detonating them was the most. It also paid the most.

Leeteuk met Yunho when the foreman called for a replacement for the last man who’d blown himself and his partner up. It was usually a fight to get any of the regular workers to volunteer, even with the pay increase, but Yunho’s hand had been shooting into the air before the foreman had finished speaking.

At sixteen Yunho hadn’t exactly looked like a powerhouse either, tall but still building muscle. His face, however, had no innocence or childhood left. He looked serious, more adult than some of the grown men around them, and focused. Leeteuk could tell, without a single word between them, he and Yunho were kindred spirits. Yunho needed the money for something serious, too. Not just for drink.

Leeteuk had volunteered too.

“I’ve got a brother,” was the first thing Yunho said to him on the first morning they were planning to set charges. “You need to understand that he’s the most important person in the ‘verse to me, and I’m doing this to get money to join him on Helios. I don’t have any plans to die doing this before I can get to him, and if you ruin that for me--”

“--you’ll kill me?” Leeteuk finished for him with a laugh. “Good luck with that, if we’re in a million pieces.”

They almost had been. Yunho had set the charges perfectly, according to Leeteuk’s precise calculations, but what neither of them had know at the time was how thick the particular structure in front of them was. The first detonation had only weakened it, not brought it down completely, and they’d used too much for the second.

Sitting in the makeshift hospital afterwards, being treated for exposure when their suits had ruptured and depressurized suddenly from debris, Leeteuk had half expected Yunho to try and make good on his threat. It had been Leeteuk, not Yunho, who’d pushed to use the second charges without taking new readings.

But Yunho had merely stared at him from across the tent, breathing extra oxygen in through a mask.

“What?” Leeteuk had finally demanded when he couldn’t take any more.

Yunho had pulled the mask from his mouth, seemed to give his words some thought, then said, “ this job.”

There hadn’t been anything to do but laugh.

And for the next few months they worked in tandem like they’d been doing it for years. There wasn’t another incident, and Yunho made it a point to tell Leeteuk everything about this kid named Changmin who was his brother and off training to become a Companion.

After a year, which was highlighted by Leeteuk’s parents dying within months of each other, and Yunho finally being able to smuggle letters to and from his brother, Yunho quit.

Leeteuk quit too, nothing left to work for.

And it was then, following after Yunho to Helios with no where better to go, he began to understand the draw that Yunho had. There was something about Yunho, something precious that made people want to follow him, put their trust in him, and believe in him. Yunho was a natural leader, and Leeteuk hadn’t thought twice about following him.

“Changmin was so little back then,” Leeteuk laughed, thinking of a thirteen year old Changmin, dressed in clothing that looked too big for him, hair sticking up everywhere, eyes huge on his face. “Just a kid.”

“He was,” Yunho agreed quietly.

“Before I saw him,” Yunho admitted, crossing to stand near Changmin’s bed, “I accepted that you cared for him--loved him even. I accepted that you considered him your brother and that if I wanted to be your best friend, which I did, I’d had to be kind to him and try my best to like him. But I didn’t think much of him. Then you dragged me up to see him, and I saw the way you two were together and I got it.”

Memories faded over time. It was a fact that Leeteuk had taken for granted as he’d grown older. His childhood, his parent’s faces--so much faded. But the first meeting he’d witnessed between Changmin and Yunho? That hadn’t faded. Almost a decade later and he remembered ever moment.

“I’d never seen you that happy,” Leeteuk told him. “I thought you were going to squeeze the poor kid to death.”

It was also the first time he’d seen Yunho cry. He’d wept openly as he caught Changmin up in a tight embrace, dragging his brother off his feet.

“I hadn’t seen him since the Guild came and took him.”

Leeteuk paused in thought. “Now that I think about it, we were still on the House’s property when we went out to see him. If we’d been caught we could have been thrown in jail. Yunho, I never thought about this. You almost got us thrown in jail.”

“Leeteuk,” Yunho said, and Leeteuk swore he saw the start of a smile on his face, “I do believe the first time we got thrown in jail it was your fault.”

“Ah, good memories.” Leeteuk shook his head with a grin.

“I think we need to talk about our definitions of good memories.”

That night, under the cover of darkness, on the Companion’s Helios based House, Yunho had hugged Changmin to his side and introduced, “Leeteuk, this is my brother. This is Changmin.”

Leeteuk had sized Changmin up a bit more, from his pleasant face, to his quiet demeanor, and how much of a contrast it all was from Yunho. “So this is the fabled brother Yunho never shut up about while we were doing our best not to get blown up.”

That had been a miscalculation on his part. Yunho had looked furious, but it was Changmin who’d done the impossible, suddenly transforming into a dangerous, horrifying monster as he spun on Yunho, slapping him harshly on the shoulder and demanding, “What have you been doing, Yunho? What’s he talking about? Have you been doing dangerous things?”

Changmin had been a force to be reckoned with back then, even at thirteen.

“He’s going to be okay, you know.”

Yunho bowed forward until his forehead was resting on the bed. “He was shot.”

“I know,” Leeteuk said. He was tired of the same exchange between them. In the moments after Changmin had been delivered to the infirmary in a desperate attempt to save his life, it was all Yunho could say. Leeteuk had taken him to his bunk, washed the blood from his skin, and over and over they’d said the same words to each other. He didn’t want to start the cycle over again.

“And it’s all my fault.”

Leeteuk reached a hand out and pressed it against Changmin’s forehead. The skin was blissfully cool and he breathed a sigh of relief. Fever, which indicated infection, was the biggest threat to Changmin right now.

“Don’t be stupid, Yunho. Don’t say stupid things. Or I’ll wake Changmin up right now and tell him what you’re saying.”

Yunho’s free hand balled up the sheets on the bed. “This is my fault. It is. I … I should have known Changmin would go after Hero. I should have known he’d try to stop him from leaving, knowing my feelings on the matter. Changmin’s always been like this--sneaky in his selflessness.”

“Jaejoong.”

Yunho’s head finally picked up from the bed. “What?”

“This name is really Jaejoong.” Leeteuk rounded the bed and grasped Yunho’s arm tightly. He pulled him up out of his chair and to the far side of the room even before he knew Yunho could get his legs properly under him. “He’s been using the name Hero, but I ran a check on his papers. And I had to do some digging to get past the obvious forgeries, but I found out who he really is. Jaejoong. And …” This wasn’t a problem he wanted to lay on Yunho right now, but Leeteuk felt he had no other choice. Yunho was the Captain. He had to know.

“Problem?” Yunho asked. “It can’t just be that he used a fake name.”

“It’s not,” Leeteuk assured, keeping a firm hand on Yunho’s shoulder and his voice low. “Kim Jaejoong has a bounty out on him for his return, Yunho.”

“Seriously?” Yunho hissed.

Leeteuk nodded. “And it’s … a huge bounty. Three quarters of a million credits, Yunho.”

“For what?”

Leeteuk knew what he was thinking. He was thinking there was no way he’d misread Hero--Jaejoong so severely. They’d believed him to be a kind, non-threatening friend they’d made.

“It was put out by his father,” Leeteuk said, mouth pulled tight. “And Yunho … I looked him up, too. He controls almost all of the trade that goes in and out of Helios bound for the Rim. He’s very powerful, and--”

The infirmary door opened and Jaejoong stepped through. Leeteuk wondered how much he’d heard. He had his answer a second alter when Jaejoong said, “I wasn’t kidnapped like the bounty says. I know that’s what he’s claiming. I know that’s what he wants people to think, but I wasn’t kidnapped. Yoochun didn’t kidnap me.”

Leeteuk mumbled to Yunho, “I was going to run the other one’s ident number next.”

Yunho pushed past Leeteuk to demand, “Changmin’s still fine, right?”

Leeteuk wanted to strangle Yunho over his priorities.

Slowly Jaejoong nodded. “I promise you, the surgery went well. Changmin’s well on his way to recovery.”

“When will he wake up?” Yunho pressed.

Jaejoong moved to Changmin’s side, checking things over. “When the sedative wears off, I imagine. I didn’t want to risk him waking early and aggravating any of his wounds with his confusion and panic. Give him another day or so.”

“Can we focus?” Leeteuk demanded of the room.

There was a wince on Jaejoong’s face. “You should know the whole story. You should know what led up to this point.”

“I think we deserve that much,” Leeteuk ground out. “For all the trouble you’ve brought on us, or at the very least will.” There were sure to be bounty hunters already out on the prowl. They’d be scenting out Jaejoong as they spoke, and dealing with a bounty hunter would be nothing like dealing with a drunk in a bar.

With more clarity in his words than Leeteuk had expected, Yunho posed, “So you obviously weren’t kidnapped. So you ran away instead?”

Jaejoong was not like them. He wasn’t able to carefully guard his emotions and what was shown to others. It was so plain and clear, the magnitude of distress on his face, as he said, “I ran away. And Yoochun helped me. I think he knew the other alternative was me killing myself.”

Leeteuk startled but it was Yunho who cut around him to take Jaejoong by the arms. “You were going to kill yourself?”

“I wasn’t sure then, but I am now. I would have done it eventually, if not for the night Yoochun and I ran away. My father … he …”

How was it Leeteuk suddenly felt like an interloper?

“He hurt you,” Yunho said knowingly.

Jaejoong agreed, “He hurt me. He … controlled me. He told me what to eat, where to go, how to dress, and who to have as friends. And when I didn’t do what he said …”

Leeteuk had known men like Jaejoong’s father in his life. He’d known too many of them. Brutes, the lot of them. They were animals who thought their superior strength, or power gave them the right to hurt others. Leeteuk despised them, or anyone who preyed on the weak.

“I think my father only allowed me to attend medical school because of a single mistake he made. Or else he would have tried to control my profession, as well.”

“What kind of mistake?” Yunho asked, eyes narrowing.

“With my genetic makeup,” Jaejoong said so frivolously, reminding Leeteuk how regular such a thing was with Alliance babies. “He wanted me to be his perfect heir, so he designed everything about me, from the way I look to my personality. He wanted a son who was intelligent, beautiful, ambitious, focused and dedicated. He also wanted an apathetic baby. What he got instead was one who was empathetic.”

Yunho’s face twisted. “He tried to make you not care about things?”

“I imagine he wanted me to be very cold,” Jaejoong corrected. “He wanted me to be able to kill, like he does, without feeling anything. But accidents do still happen with genetic manipulation. And instead of a son who was ruthless, he ended up with one who cared deeply for others. I could more than just sympathize with others from a young age, I could empathize. And I certainly couldn’t hurt them for no reason, not like he could. I was drawn to the medical field, and pediatrics in general, because of how he made me, even if it was a mistake. So really he had no choice but to allow it, and try to increase my worth to him in that way.”

Before they could derail the conversation any further, Leeteuk prompted, “Tell us about the night you booked passage with us.”

Jaejoong cleared his throat. “That night my father called me home from the hospital early. I’d just finished a heart transplant on a toddler, completed my rounds, and then I returned to the house. He had company, but I didn’t know who it was. Yoochun didn’t either. I overhead them talking, my father and this man. My father was bartering me away like cattle. He was giving me to this man, whoever he was, in exchange for trade rights. And this man, he terrified me.”

“You thought he’d hurt you too,” Leeteuk surmised.

“I know he would have,” Jaejoong said plainly. “And my father told him to beat me as necessary.”

Yunho gave an angry sound. “So you made a run for it?”

“I did, because I knew that if I stayed, my life would be over. And no matter how restrictive my life had been before, I’d still had something. Being relegated to the position of bed warmer, wasn’t a future I was willing to endure, especially with a man who believed he could beat the defiance out of me. ” Jaejoong’s gaze slid away from Yunho to Leeteuk. “I never wanted to put this crew in danger. Yoochun and I did our best to stay away from you, and not involve you in our trouble. We were going to get off at the Moon Hub and protect you from our trouble.”

Leeteuk took an actual step back as Yunho clasped Jaejoong tightly, shaking him slightly as he demanded, “You should have told us. You should have told me.”

Jaejoong arched an eyebrow. “So you could feel sorry for me? So you could endanger your crew and your family for me? I couldn’t do that.”

“No,” Leeteuk cut in, “you should have told us so we could have dropped you at a better place than the Moon Hub.”

“Yunho,” Jaejoong said softly, bringing his fingers up to Yunho’s jaw. “You need a shave,” he chuckled. “You’re really starting to look like the space pirate I thought you were.”

It was a full smile that blossomed on Yunho’s face at the words, and Leeteuk’s feelings twisted up in him awkwardly. He’d wanted to be the one to make his oldest friend smile. Leeteuk had wanted to be the person Yunho relied on to make him happy again, even in a horrible situation. Not some new sob story that the Captain was smitten with.

…but maybe he just wanted to see Yunho smile more than he cared about who made it happen.

“How could your father force you to marry this man?” Leeteuk asked, eyes narrowing. “You’re not a minor, correct?”

“I’m not,” Jaejoong agreed. “I’m twenty-six. But Leeteuk, you need to understand, I’m my father’s property more than Yoochun is. He owns me, and it has nothing to do with how old I am. He considers me his property and he won’t ever relinquish that hold. I’ll spend the rest of my life running from him, but I will run. I won’t go back. I won’t endure any longer. I want to be free.”

Yunho said suddenly, “You don’t have to worry about that. I won’t let you go back to him. I won’t let him take you back.”

Leeteuk rolled his eyes.

Jaejoong said, “You don’t know my father, Yunho. You don’t know his reach. You have no clue who you’re trying to protect me from, either. This bounty for my return is just the beginning. He’ll send an army after me if that fails--he can certainly afford to pay one. He’ll see this as a personal slight, and his reputation on the line. He’s made the deal with this man for me. He’s promised me to someone. He has to deliver, though that’s if he doesn’t kill me first for this. I’ve been seriously considering that he might just take the hit in his business negotiations and kill me out of anger.”

“How can you say that so casually?” Yunho demanded angrily.

Jaejoong’s fingers slid from Yunho’s face completely and his hands fell down at his sides. “Because if he takes me back, Yunho, it’ll be a mercy to die, rather than whatever else he’s capable of.”

Leeteuk’s eyes trailed back to Changmin who was blissfully unaware of what was going on around them. He was sleeping easily, chest rising and falling evenly, and he looked even younger than he was.

He didn’t deserve what had happened to him. Changmin, of all people, who could be mischievous and a little bit of a terror, was still caring and gentle and so undeserving. He was, in a way Leeteuk had never imagined him becoming, a little brother of sorts to him, too. There wasn’t anything Leeteuk wouldn’t do to protect Changmin, and it was hard to imagine that in less than a year he’d be married and going off to start a family.

And with the Magistrate’s son, no less.

The Magistrate …

“Jaejoong,” Leeteuk said, moving closer to him. “Changmin’s getting married to the Magistrate’s son. This might be a long shot, but maybe he could get something done about your father. There’s no one more powerful on Helios, than him, even if your father thinks otherwise. And his heir might be his older son, but it’s widely known he favors his younger, Minho.”

Jaejoong gave them a sad look. “My father had the Magister over for dinner less than a week ago. They’re drinking friends. They have scotch and cigars together every Sunday night.”

Leeteuk felt his shoulders fall. “Oh.”

“But thank you,” Jaejoong said, such appreciation on his face. “Thank you for caring enough to think of a solution.”

Yunho swore, “We will find a way to resolve this.”

“No.” Jaejoong shook his head. “You’re going to let myself and Yoochun off at the first place we can get a transport. I will not stay on this ship and continue to endanger people I care about. My father will burn all of you to get to me, Yunho. You’ll be casualties of an unwinable war.

Oh, Leeteuk recognized the look on the Captain’s face. He knew that look from the time they’d taken a chance on a fifteen year old kid who boasted about being the best pilot in the ‘verse. And from the time they’d taken on a kid who had no real skills, other than being able to cook and run errands, simply because he had no where else to go and he probably reminded the Captain of his brother.

All lost children apparently reminded the Captain of his brother … and lost adults as well.

Yunho gestured to Changmin. “You’re a doctor, right? You dug the bullet out of Changmin’s body? You stabilized him and saved him?”

Jaejoong gave pause, clearly unsure where Yunho was going with his questioning. But eventually he did answer, “I performed surgery on Changmin.”

With determination etched on his face, Yunho said, “That makes you this ship’s doctor. That makes you crew.”

And that made the storm they were waddling into, by Leeteuk’s estimate, that much deeper.

Yunho continued, “And maybe you haven’t noticed, but I don’t like it when my crew is threatened or put in danger.”

Jaejoong grinned. “I think you told me on numerous occasions that you throw people out of the airlock, who endanger your crew.”

“Because my crew is my family,” Yunho finished.

Jaejoong let out a long gust of air. “I can’t let you get involved in this Yunho.”

Yunho glanced over to Changmin once more. “You saved his life. Now it’s too late for me not to get involved.”

Leeteuk left them quickly after that. Their serious talk had given quickly away to linger looks, soft touches, and a sense of intimacy that Leeteuk had no part of. He had no doubt they were about to involve themselves with something that would end in some kind of regret, but he also knew it was too late to back out.

The Captain was smitten with Jaejoong, his feelings more than a little real, and even Leeteuk could understand the urge to protect him. There’d come a day when Jaejoong wouldn’t need their protection, but that day wasn’t now. And that made him irresistible to someone like Yunho.

His next stop, despite feeling emotionally exhausted, was to swing past the guest quarters to make sure Zhou Mi was on guard duty.

The thing was, Leeteuk trusted his gut more than what he could see in front of him. He trusted the instincts that had been honed to perfection from years of having to make snap judgments his life often depended on. There was, for lack of a better word, a vibe that Leeteuk felt from people upon initially meeting them, and it was usually strong.

Jaejoong and Yoochun had radiated desperation, but not a real threat.

Their newest arrival, Xia, had an aura of danger. There was something unsettling about him, which was confounding because Leeteuk had already run a check on him. He hadn’t been lying when he’d stated he was out on parole, or that it had been for smuggling. Everything about him checked out. Everything. Maybe a bit too well, but that wasn’t something that Leeteuk thought many others would agree with him about.

Xia just seemed too polished. There was too much in place, and too much around him was contrived of convenience.

It was possible that he had simply been in the right place at the right time, and it was possible that he was simply the kind of man to spring into action when needed.

But there was something there … something not right.

Leeteuk found it impossibly hard to believe that Xia had been right in the middle of things with Yunho and Changmin, deduced immediately that Yunho was a Captain, and been quick enough to extend his services for removal from the space station. He’d claimed that he’d seen Changmin’s would be killer, and that he’d disposed of the aggressor … but that was incredibly convenient.

“Mi?” Leeteuk called out when he was close enough to spot his friend a few dozen feet from the guest cabins, a data pad in hand. “Everything okay?”

Zhou Mi flashed him a thumbs up. “Fine. But I think Onew wants to see you. Ryeowook’s with him. They have something to talk to you about.”

“Really?” Leeteuk was genuinely surprised. Onew didn’t have much to say to anyone these days, least of all Leeteuk who had given the order, with Yunho incapacitated and incapable of doing so, to pull out of the situation that had gotten Joon killed. And leave his body behind. “Okay.”

“And one more thing,” Zhou Mi called over to him. He jogged the distance between them and said quietly, “Kyuhyun’s getting really antsy about where he should be taking us. There’s nothing up on the cortex about what happened at the Moon Hub, so we don’t have to lie low, but neither has the Captain been very forthcoming about where we’re going from here.”

Leeteuk scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know.”

“Leeteuk,” Zhou Mi eased out. “We’re still heading towards New Haven, but that has got to be a bust, right? Changmin was shot. He’s going to need a lot of time to recover completely, and we don’t exactly have a backup Companion waiting to go. This whole thing is a bust, isn’t it?”

It was certainly looking that way. And with no other way onto New Haven, and certainly no doubt in Leeteuk’s mind that none of them were emotionally ready to pull off such a complicated job, it had to be a wash.

Which, if the case, put them in a bad spot. They didn’t have any other jobs lined up, and they were in constant need of credits for fuel cells, food, and every other expense. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be in the danger zone. They were used to cutting it close in terms of jobs, but they’d waged a lot on the New Haven job the second Changmin had agreed.

“Leeteuk?”

Leeteuk assured Zhou Mi, “The Captain is understandably preoccupied with Changmin right now. But Jaejoong thinks he’d going to wake up in less than a day, and I think the Captain will be better off the second that happens. I’ll speak to him then about this, okay? Until that time tell Kyuhyun to keep on flying with our current coordinates.”

“Alright,” Zhou Mi said in silent disagreement. “But tomorrow, please. We’re flying blind now without a plan, and it might be a better idea to stop and figure things out for a while.”

“I will,” Leeteuk swore. He nodded to the cabin behind Zhou Mi. “Keep an eye on that one, okay?”

Zhou Mi’s features pulled into a frown. “You think he’s a problem?”

Leeteuk shrugged. “I don’t know. I do know that something about him is … unsettling. Something about him rubs me wrong. I think he’s got all the potential to be dangerous to us. So just keep an eye on him. He goes no where by himself, and keep him away from the more … trusting members of our crew.”

There was the promise murder written across Zhou Mi’s features if any harm came to Kyuhyun.

“We’ll get through this,” Leeteuk said, then headed towards the engine room.

Onew and Ryeowook were deeper in the biggest room on the ship than Leeteuk expected. They were tucked behind some of the bigger turbines and their heads were bent together looking at something.

“Mi said one of you wanted to see me?” Leeteuk called out. “Or both of you?”

Ryeowook gave an almost frantic nod while Onew waved him over.

“What’s this?” Leeteuk asked, looking down at the object in Onew’s hand. “Where’d you get that?”

In Onew’s palm was a partially whole bullet, its coppery shine showing in the bright lighting of the engine room. It was mashed up, like it had already been discharged, and Leeteuk had no idea where it had come from.

“This is the bullet that was in Changmin,” Ryeowook said. He plucked the bullet from Onew’s palm and held it up for Leeteuk to see properly. “I asked Hero, I mean Jaejoong for it.”

“And why is that?” Leeteuk asked. He squinted at the bullet. It was a smaller gauge than he carried himself, and neither could he place it to Yunho or Zhou Mi’s gun. The rest of them all carried, including Kyuhyun who almost never left the bridge except when they were on land somewhere, but if Leeteuk had to wager, it wouldn’t be even a partial match to that gun either.

Ryeowook gave him a bland look. “I’ve got a feeling about something. About what happened, specifically.”

Leeteuk exhaled loudly. “You know none of that intuition sits well with the rest of us.”

Ryeowook plopped the bullet back into Onew’s palm and crossed his arms. “How is my intuition any different from your gut feelings?”

“Because I base my gut feelings on my experiences dealing with people,” Leeteuk argued back. “You base yours on some carzy mysticism that a hundred years ago would have gotten you burned alive as some kind of sacrifice to the old gods.”

Intercepting the both of them, Onew asked, “Have you really stopped to look at the bullet?”

Leeteuk shook his head. He didn’t exactly want to pay that much attention to something that had almost robbed his best friend of his little brother.

“Something about what happened to Changmin didn’t sit right with me,” Ryeowook pushed on, sounding absolutely sincere. “I don’t care if I don’t have anything to back up how it all makes me feel, but I stopped doubting my feelings a long time ago.”

Leeteuk finally took the bullet into his own fingers, holding it up towards the light. “And what did your feelings tell you?”

Ryeowook said slowly, “That what happened to Changmin wasn’t an accident. That there’s something suspicious here that I’m meant to discover for some reason I don’t understand just yet.”

Patiently, Leeteuk said, “A lot of people were shot, Ryeowook. Changmin was one of quite a few victims. He just had the luck of being the Captain’s brother, and there’s no way Yunho wouldn’t do anything and everything to save him.”

“Look,” Onew urged. “Just look at the bullet.”

He was looking.

“You don’t see it?” Onew asked.

“No,” Leeteuk had to admit. “How about you tell me what I’m supposedly missing. That’ll speed things up here.”

Onew snapped the bullet up and turned the smashed of it to Leetuk’s face. “See that engraving? The symbol?”

The bullet, when entering Changmin, had been badly damaged. It was still mostly in one piece, which was why Changmin was still breathing, but missing out on the design on the bullet was an easy mistake. It was only partially there, and it made Leeteuk wonder how either Onew or Ryeowook had spotted it in the first place. “What is this?”

Onew gave him a severe look. “It’s a calling card.”

Leeteuk felt his lungs swell with air. “You think this bullet was discharged from a gun belonging to someone of significance?”

Ryeowook nodded. “The Alliance number their bullets. Average Rim runners use the plain kind, and there’d be a more detailed or intricate design if this bullet came from a Core citizen of wealth. No, this bullet came from someone else completely. And there’s no way it accidentally made its way into Changmin’s gut. This single bullet’s raw material is worth enough to keep us in fuel cells for a week. It wouldn’t have been fired carelessly. I’m telling you, Leeteuk, someone put this into Changmin purposefully.”

“No one would attack a Companion this deep into Alliance space.”

Onew’s head cocked. “There are plenty who would, Leeteuk. Especially the kind who thought he or she could get away with it. And it’s not like this symbol is easily traceable.”

It chilled Leeteuk to think Changmin could have been hurt on purpose. “Do you two realize what kind of path you could be trying to take us down? The Captain barely survived thinking this happened to Changmin on accident. If he thought for a second that it was on purpose …”

“We don’t propose telling the Captain just yet,” Onew said decisively. “Not until we have any sort of idea where this thing might have come from, and how or why it made its way into Changmin.”

Leeteuk turned to Ryeowook. “You just got a feeling that you had to check out this bullet?”

“It just seemed suspicious,” Ryeowook defended, “that Changmin would be hurt in such a way that would allow us to pick up another passenger without having a chance to stop and think about it.”

“Don’t,” Leeteuk surged forward, “even suggest such a thing.” At least not out loud. Not with all of them barely holding it together.

It would be madness if the Captain thought for even a second that their passenger had something to do with Changmin getting hurt. And no one would be able to take back what the Captain would likely do to the man. Not to mention they’d be cleaning up the debris for days probably.

“I get a bad feeling from him,” Ryeowook said, mouth pulled tight. “There’s something bad about him. And don’t pretend like you’re not thinking the same thing, either. I can see it on your face.”

Leeteuk wanted to tell Reyowook he felt exactly the same way, but they were all treading on such thin ice.

“Xia’s background check came out clean,” Leeteuk told him, sparing one last look to the bullet. “And he’s getting off at the first possible chance. More than that, I’ve got Zhou Mi keeping a tight watch on him. So I don’t want the two of you to say even the slightest word about this to anyone else, least of all the Captain.”

Onew pocketed the bullet. “Then we’re just supposed to sit on all of this?”

Leeteuk jabbed a finger at them each. “Look into the design. Just in case … look into it--quietly. But no one else learns about this. Not a single person. And the both of you stay away from Xia.”

For at last a second, they seemed settled, and Leeteuk couldn’t have hoped for anything more. Because if they were even slightly right … if Changmin’s injury hadn’t been an accident …

Gods help them.

“Leeteuk?” Ryeowook asked pale as a ghost. “Something very bad is going to happen soon. And it has to do with our new passenger and that bullet. They’re connected. I know they are. So I’m telling you, something bad is coming our way.”

The tone of his voice caught Leeteuk off balance. “What?”

“I can feel it,” Ryeowook implored. “And we’re not going to see it when it hits.”