Lullaby by Chris Cook

Disclaimer: Willow and Tara, as well as other characters who may or may not show up later depending on my mood at the time, belong to Joss Whedon and his Minionators. Whatever's left is mine.

Author's Notes: Based on characters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and Farscape created by Rockne S. O'Bannon. All original material is copyright 2003 Chris Cook.

Summary: In the aftermath of a battle between the Nebari and the Peacekeepers, Nebari joyrider Willow takes it upon herself to rescue Tara, a Sebacean Tech, from the wreckage of her ship.

The world is warm, nurturing—the cradle of life. But space is a cold ocean surrounding the cradle, vast and treacherous, unforgiving and uncaring of children who wade out too far from their comfortable shore. The typical calm of space belies the ferocity it can show to those too weak to defend themselves from the cold, the searing radiation, the erosive vacuum. The void is full of malice.

In some places, however, even the void would be a relief. The X-Nexus, where two asteroid belts crossed paths, was a seething mass of collisions between mile-wide chunks of rock, the fragmented remains of ancient worlds now pounding each other to dust. It had been happening for millennia, and it would go on for millennia more before all that remained was a cloud of microscopic particles. Until then the region was a shooting gallery of tiny granite fragments hurtling at supersonic speed, jagged shards of rock spinning and smashing against each other, and huge mountains of ore obliterating everything in their path as they tumbled mindlessly through the chaos. It was not a place any rational ship's master would steer his vessel.

A silver dart of a ship shot through the gaps between the giant rocks, rolling and twisting to avoid the debris. It banked sharply to avoid a rolling mass of iron, spun back to miss a shower of supersonic rubble by inches, and thundered through the gap between two asteroids that were seconds from colliding. The pilot pumped her fist energetically, then seized the controls again just in time for a split-second maneuver to avoid yet another danger.

Willow sighed and flipped a switch to acknowledge the transmission. She cast a baleful glare at the sparkle of light from beyond the asteroid belts, where the bulky Trawler was waiting.

"What is it?!" crackled the voice from Trawler. "Well, how about you almost got yourself killed just then?"

"When?" said Willow indignantly. "Oh please, I totally had it under control. Hey, watch this!" She sent a massive burst of power through her ship's hetch drive then shut it down completely, coasting on the momentum and using only the tiny maneuvering thrusters to control her flight. Back on Trawler, Lexa sighed a long-suffering sigh.

"Oh for the love of Cholok, turn your drive back on. Will, turn your- Will look out!"

Willow was letting her ship spin lazily, seemingly oblivious to an enormous boulder tumbling into her flight path. At the last second she kicked the hetch drive back into life and soared up, away from the path of the asteroid.

"Hezmana," swore Lexa, "Will, you'll be lucky if Establishment doesn't impound your cute little eema. You know the X-Nexus is off limits..."

"Correction," replied Willow, steering one-handed as she played with the cockpit's environmental system, "the X-Nexus is the limit. I'm only in breach of Authority if I happen to maneuver into the outer boundary of the belt."

"Don't know," Willow shrugged, "probably dropped in and out of it half a dozen times already. But what're they going to do, impound a Tri-System Regulator's daughter for a little joyriding? Puh-lease. Establishment's got better things to- what the yotz is that?"

"Scan five thousand metras off my hammon-side wing." Willow slowed her ship and slipped into the shadow of one of the larger, slower asteroids, where she could leave the controls alone without worrying about micro-meteors hitting her.

"Too much dren between us and those coordinates," reported Lexa, "we can't see a thing."

Willow zoomed in her visual sensors and stared at the holographic image that formed on her in-flight display. The dark gray shape she had spotted was a sleek, menacing cruiser, big enough to dwarf even Trawler with its size. Willow gazed at it, and at the power readings and beacon identities she read from it.

"Holy hezmana," she whispered, "it's an Interdictor." There was a yelp from Lexa.

"It's a what now?" she said in a frantic whisper. "Has it seen you? Get the yotz out of there!"

"Calm down, they haven't seen me," said Willow quietly, fascinated with the mammoth ship. "It's not even scanning the belt. I think it's waiting for a rendezvous, or something."

"Who cares what it's doing," hissed Lexa, "get your eema back here now! That's an Interdictor, not a frelling pleasure yacht! We don't even have clearance to think about being in the same grid as that thing!"

"Yeah," said Willow thoughtfully, "you'd better get back home. I'm staying, I've never even seen an Interdictor before."

"Will, are you completely mind-frelled? That ship is so classified the Establishment can disappear you just for being here!"

"Red Witch out." Willow tapped the comms closed and settled down to watch the Interdictor in silence.

Tara stopped dead half-way across the flight deck and turned to see Anlar Toorek glaring at her. She transferred her toolkit to her other hand and saluted smartly.

"Five minutes until launch," he said curtly, "did you fix the dekka stabilizers in my Prowler?"

"They keep mis-aligning during flights," Toorek complained, "every frelling time." He glared at Tara, then turned and stalked off towards the bay his fighter was stored in.

'That's because you never shift the stabilizers when you go past hetch three,' Tara thought bitterly at his retreating back. She sighed and continued on her way across the deck to the maintenance bays, wondering why, of all the pilots on the Command Carrier, she had to be assigned to the one who was a complete idiot.

"Attention," echoed the voice of the Carrier's flight officer through the ship's internal comms, "entering Nebari space in one hundred microts. All flights prepare to launch in sixty microts. Frag cannons stand by to fire."

Tara ducked underneath a pressure door and found an unoccupied corner of the maintenance bay where she could be left alone to get on with her work. She and her fellow Techs in the launch bays wouldn't have anything pressing to do until after the battle, when the remains of the Prowler flights would return, and the Techs and Medics would begin salvaging what they could from those that were damaged. 'Maybe you'll get lucky, and Toorek will fly in front of a frag burst,' she thought absent-mindedly. She frowned, not liking to be thinking ill of someone who was about to launch into a situation where he quite possibly might die. Still, her last assignment, Officer Hena, had at least been considerate enough to call her by her name. Tara didn't like Toorek at all. There were many things she didn't like about serving aboard a warship. But of course, she'd never been given a choice in the matter.

Willow was excited and horrified at the same time. She had watched, patiently and silently from her hiding place in the belt, as a gigantic war vessel steadily approached from outside the system. As it neared Willow saw it was a Peacekeeper Command Carrier, and an uncomfortable shiver ran down her spine. She had never seen a Command Carrier before, but she had learned about them and the militaristic Peacekeepers who built them. And she knew for a fact that the Nebari Establishment would never contract Peacekeepers to perform any service for them, which meant only one thing: the Carrier was scouting for invasion, and the Interdictor was waiting not for rendezvous, but in ambush. Suddenly aware that she was on the edge of a potential war zone, Willow cut all her systems to minimum, praying she wouldn't get hit by a stray blast when the two ships locked horns. The Interdictor waited until its prey was almost past it, on the verge of breaching Nebari territory, before it leapt out of hiding and opened fire.

Seen from Willow's distant vantage point, the battle was slow, almost elegant. The Interdictor powered straight ahead, presenting its bow to its enemy, its smallest possible target outline. The Command Carrier took the first salvo on its flank, suffering catastrophic damage as whole decks depressurized and collapsed. It began to bank towards the Interdictor, rolling to bring both port and starboard guns to bear, leaving a trail of debris and fluids in space behind it, like blood in the water. Three of the gigantic frag cannons mounted on its perimeter rings swiveled and thudded out a salvo of return fire - the fourth had been reduced to scrap already.

Willow watched, fascinated despite her fear. She couldn't risk engaging active sensors, but the passive receptors on the Red Witch's hull fed her what information they could. Energy readings from the Interdictor's blasters, all off the scale her tiny flyer was calibrated to record. Mass and velocity readings from the frag bursts tearing into the Nebari cruiser's armored bow. Spectral readings on the debris leaking from the Command Carrier: alloys, mechanical debris, hull fragments, organic residue. Bodies.

Willow switched off the sensors entirely and shivered. She knew the Interdictor must have hundreds of crew aboard, but the Command Carrier was massive compared to it. There must be thousands - tens of thousands - of crew manning it. How many left? No way to tell. The Peacekeeper ship was taking a brutal beating from the ambush. When it began to turn away from the engagement, Willow guessed its master had had enough, and was retreating. But the Interdictor didn't let up, rolling over to bring its broadside guns to bear on the Carrier's avenue of escape. The Carrier veered away, covering its vulnerable flank with further frag bursts. It abandoned its direct retreat, and turned instead for the asteroids.

Willow froze as the huge ship began to turn towards her. Were they going to go through the belt? Could they do that and survive? No, she saw at once, the Carrier was continuing its turn, coming close and using the unnavigable asteroid belt to shield its flank from its pursuer. It came so close that Willow could make out, by eye, the individual rows of lights that marked the decks of the huge ship. She sat in stunned silence, watching the giant wall of metal pass her by. It had almost passed, and Willow had looked away to avoid the intense glow of the ship's hetch drive outlets, when a sudden violent burst of light lit up space.

Willow's eyes snapped back to the Command Carrier. The Interdictor had fired again, all its blasters in a single salvo, tearing a jagged gash from the rear section of the Carrier. Dozens of decks were open to space, bleeding atmosphere until the plumes of gas cut off, one by one, as pressure doors sealed off the damaged section. The debris from the blast, tons of jagged, spinning metal, was hurtling into the belt, straight at Willow.

"Frill!" she screamed, kicking the Red Witch into action. She spun herself around and shot away from the bombardment, seconds before a huge fragment of the Carrier's hull split the asteroid she had been hiding behind in two. The enormous energy the Interdictor had hit the Carrier with had thrown the debris away faster than Willow's light flyer could move. She switched on every avoidance system the ship had, ducking inadvertently as torn shards of metal shot over her head. With one eye on her in-flight display, one on the turmoil outside her cockpit canopy, she steered herself through the storm.

Finally the faster fragments passed her, and her drive had accelerated enough to avoid the larger, slower debris. Finding a patch of open space she turned her ship around to check the dueling battleships. The Command Carrier was far away, with the Interdictor giving chase, hammering it with blaster fire, but slowly losing ground. Willow sighed with relief - not that either ship would have been bothering, or able, to scan for ships among the hell-storm of debris they had thrown into the belt, but Willow hadn't wanted to survive only to get impounded later on. Joyriding in a restricted area she could get away with, but joyriding in a hostile encounter zone was a lot more than her father's influence would be able to pay for.

Her sensors beeped at her. One of the chunks of debris was giving off a reading - faint, faltering, but definitely a reading. She moved in for a closer look. It was some sort of contained section, sealed with pressure doors such that it had held its tiny atmosphere, even when torn right out of the ship it had once been a part of. And there was someone inside.

Willow tried to do two things at once, stopped herself, and did nothing for a moment while she thought. Rationally, she should get the hezmana away from the belt and get home. But there was someone alive down there, and no way for them to survive more than a few arns. If she left, that person would die. That person is a Peacekeeper, she reminded herself. They hate the Establishment. So do I, she admitted, they're a bunch of stuck-up greebols. And it's not like that's a fighter, or a troop carrier - it's a piece of wreckage, for Cholok's sake, it's hardly likely to contain shock troops waiting to ambush any innocent Nebari who might be passing by. They're Peacekeepers, her cautious voice insisted, you know what the Establishment say about them!

"Yeah, well, the Establishment can shove it up their eema," Willow finally muttered to herself, maneuvering into place for a tow cable lock.

It was more than four arns later that Willow finally was ready to open the wrecked module and see who was inside. The Red Witch was not a hauler, and had been slow with the added mess of the debris trailing behind it. And it had taken time to find a place to hide - she could hardly bring a shipwrecked alien home, or in fact anywhere near an inhabited world or outpost. Finally she had homed in on the old beacon of an abandoned mining post, a tiny station built in the side of a relatively stationary rock, far away from the violent X-Nexus. It had taken the better part of an arn to gently shove the module into the station's cargo bay, seal it off, power up the old reactor and bring the environmental systems up to normal. Now she stood in front of it, regarding the only undamaged pressure door in its walls with apprehension, and a pulse pistol gingerly held in one hand.

Summoning up her courage - and walking lightly on her toes, ready to leap aside at the first hint of danger - Willow reached out and touched the manual override on the door. A tiny panel slid open, revealing a miniscule sensor package, complete with its own power pack. When the tiny machine had satisfied itself that the outside environment was acceptable, the pressure door swung open half-way, and stuck.

Tara heard a sound, and opened her eyes. She was lying on her side, in the tiny store room she had gone to in order to find a flux capacitor that worked. It was completely dark. She was terribly hot, and hurt all over. She tried to remember what had happened. She had come in here, and - something had hit her. Or had she hit the floor? She couldn't remember. The heat was oppressive, more than she had ever felt in her whole life. A fault in environmentals? She had to get out, report it. Had the heat made her pass out? No, she'd be dead by now, surely.

The door in front of her swung open half-way. She blinked in the sudden light, and stared up at the figure who slowly moved into her view. She reached out, trying to ask for help. The heat was unbearable.

Willow instinctively took the woman's hands and helped pull her out of the module and into the derelict cargo bay. The air inside the module was blistering, and she seemed less agitated now that she was in the cool. Willow stared at her, her fear diminishing as her curiosity increased. The woman wasn't armed, or armored. She wore sweat-stained work overalls, a muted gray color, much like Willow's skin. The woman's own skin was pink, pale but definitely colored, and her hair was golden. Willow tentatively touched the woman's face, and then ran her fingers through her hair. She had never seen anything like it before. Willow cradled her head, gazing at her face. The skin around her eyes was exactly the same shade as the rest of her face, and the eyes themselves - lighter than any she had ever seen, blue like the sky. Bizarre, yet Willow found her fascinating. Even beautiful.

Tara tried to focus. Someone had found her, helped her. She didn't recognize this place, or the face that was staring at her. She concentrated on the face. Young, attractive... worried? It wasn't right - was something wrong with her sight? She couldn't see in color anymore. No, her eyes were colored, deep green. But the rest of the woman's face was a pale gray, tinged with blue like steel, except where her skin faded to a darker shade just above her deep, sparkling eyes. Even her lips were a strange, glittering silver. And the hair that was framing her face was pure white.

Willow raised her eyebrows and smiled without meaning to. The Peacekeeper woman's voice was not at all what she had expected - soft, melodic, and let's face it, downright cute. She'd been imagining something more, well, alien.

"Hi," she said brightly, trying to figure out what to say. "Um... are you okay? You don't look so good - I mean, you do look good, what am I saying, I just mean... are you okay?"

"I'm..." said the woman, "I d-don't know. The heat, it might have... I'm not sure. Where am I?"

"Yeah," said Willow, smiling in what she hoped was a reassuring manner - oh Cholok, she thought, please don't let there be any weird Sebacean customs like smiling when you're about to attack someone, she's weak as a kitten and I don't need her panicking as well, cause it's not like I'm Miss Calm at the moment either. "Um," she said aloud, "who are you?"

"Tara," said the woman. "Sorry," she corrected herself, "I mean, tech specialist first class Tara Maclay, assigned Nova wing, second battalion... wait, you're... a-are you," she hesitated. "Who are you?"

"Willow," said Willow at once, "I'm Willow. Yep. Oh, I'm not, like, a soldier or anything, I was just hanging around, you know, and I kind of rescued you."

"You're Nebari," said Tara dreamily, before stopping and considering what she'd been told. "Rescued? What happened, where's the Boralus? M-my ship?"

"Um, they left," said Willow hesitantly, "there was a battle. You remember? Your Command Carrier and one of our- well, not my, because like I said I'm not a soldier, but anyway, a Nebari Interdictor. They hit your ship pretty hard, and you were in a bit of wreckage that got thrown clear." Tara seemed to grow agitated as she listened.

"Oh, no, they're fine. Well, not fine, because taking damage, like I said, but they pulled around and got out of the system, they weren't destroyed or anything."

"Yep," said Willow softly, "but you're okay. I mean, you're not in any danger here."

"But y-you're Nebari," insisted Tara, her initial confusion clearing as her body cooled down, "you're not allowed to- I mean, I'm... th-they said that the Nebari don't allow outsiders on their worlds?"

"Um, yeah, about that," said Willow, "the Establishment, that's the people in charge, you know, they don't exactly know you're here. Or me, for that matter. And also, we're not exactly on a Nebari world, although you're right about the thing with outsiders, they're pretty uptight about the whole thing. Not that I am, I'm just- well, you needed help, so here I am."

"Willow. Um, that's about it, so far as relevant details go. I'm not Establishment or military or anything official, I'm just, you know, me. Um, hey, if you don't mind me asking," Willow looked around and glanced at Tara sidelong, "are you military? Cause, you're not going to try to capture me or anything, are you?"

"I-I'm a tech," said Tara, "I just fix things. I'm not really a Peacekeeper, or anything, I'm just- well, a tech. Um, why would I try to capture you?"

"Well," said Willow quickly, before she could think about it, "because I'm cute." Tara frowned to herself, trying to work this out. "Sorry," continued Willow, "joke. It's just what I do, you know, mess around, have fun. I'm new to all this serious stuff."

To her surprise, Tara giggled. It was the most adorable thing Willow had ever seen or heard. "So," she asked, "you do think I'm cute then?"

Tara laughed some more, but was overcome by a coughing fit. Willow held her until her coughs subsided, stroking her hair to calm her.

"Thanks," Tara said at last, when she had regained her breath, "I'm okay. I mean, I will be. I t-took a lot of heat for a bit, b-but you got me out in time." Willow glanced over Tara, checking all the skin that was available.

"N-no," explained Tara, "but if we- I mean, Sebaceans, if our bodies heat up too much it can be dangerous." She and Willow both glanced over at the scarred wreckage that Tara had emerged from.

"Well, it was pretty hot in there," said Willow, "are you sure you'll be okay? Cause, if you need anything, I could go get it. Or maybe, hey I know, you should probably rest, right? I mean, if that'd help. There's some crew quarters here, I bet we could get you nice and comfy?" Tara nodded weakly, and with Willow supporting her stood and left the cargo bay.

Tara stirred. She woke slowly, from a dream where her familiar world of barracks, maintenance bay and recreation deck dissolved under a blazing sun, beating her down with its relentless heat. As the white-hot desert faded her skin cooled, and she felt something softly stroking her hair, calming her. Her eyes fluttered open. Willow was sitting next to her, cradling her head and soothing her.

"Twelve arns," said Willow. She smiled and tilted her head to one side, watching Tara.

"Didn't you sleep?" Tara asked, feeling that she should get up, but succumbing to weakness and the comfort of Willow's caress.

"For a while," answered Willow, "on and off. You had nightmares, I think. I stayed up to make sure you were alright."

"Oh, I..." began Tara, faltering when she realized she didn't know what she wanted to say. She had often had nightmares on the Command Carrier - mostly composed of the glimpses of destruction she had seen through portholes when her ship was in battle - but she had always woken alone, and had to calm herself before she could sleep again. Very early on she had been taught to deal with her feelings alone, inside her own mind - not to make her problems anyone else's. No-one had ever watched over her before.

"Um, thank you," she said at last. She found the words inadequate to express the gratitude she felt for this strange woman who cared for her, but her feelings were in too much disarray for her to manage them.

"Hey, any time," said Willow brightly. Her hand shifted a fraction as she strokes Tara's hair, and her fingertips tickled the tip of Tara's ear, provoking a giggle.

"Ah, ticklish," Willow crowed with an expression of delight. "You know, if you weren't an invalid I'd have some fun with you!" Tara laughed, then coughed for a moment.

"Oops, that didn't sound good," said Willow with a frown, "are you feeling any better?"

"I don't feel too bad," said Tara when her chest had stilled, "I think I just picked up a bit too much heat."

"I remember you said heat was bad. You mean like a fever?" asked Willow, confused. Tara shook her head.

"I'm Sebacean," she explained, keeping her voice soft to avoid agitating her sore throat, "we don't regulate heat as well as some species. Inside that module I was in, the air must have been flash-heated when I got thrown clear of my Carrier."

"I think so," said Tara, "I-I mean, I'm almost certain, yes. If it had been too much... well, if there's too much heat in our bodies, it starts breaking down our brain tissue. But I was unconscious, so I g-guess maybe my paraphoral nerve was more relaxed - that's the part that regulates heat - and there wasn't any damage. My nerve's probably just a bit exhausted."

"Oh, okay," said Willow, forcing a smile. She thought for a moment. "So, keeping you cool would be good?" she asked. Tara nodded. "Right," went on Willow, gently letting Tara's head down to the bunk she was resting on and standing up, "wait right here. I mean, obviously you will, but just... well, get some rest, I'll be right back!" With a grin and a wave she vanished through the open doorway.

Tara lay back on the bunk and closed her eyes. She did feel a little uncomfortable, from the heat still inside her, but as she relaxed she felt calmer, and the slight nausea she felt eased. She concentrated on her breathing, keeping it steady and slow, timed to match the slow strokes she imagined she could still feel through her hair.

Tara woke up slowly to find Willow sitting beside her, softly nudging her shoulder to rouse her. The room was comfortingly cooler.

"Do you feel better?" asked Willow. Tara nodded. "I figured the cold would help," Willow went on, "so I went outside and made a couple of adjustments."

"In my ship," said Willow brightly, "I hooked a tow cable onto the station's core and burned the engines a bit, just enough to spin us around. We're facing away from the sun now, so less heat, so easier to cool the place down."

"Just a little one," said Willow, grinning, "but yeah, it's pretty cool! The Red Witch. She's a nippy little thing, built for planet-hopping, but I had a real hetch drive installed so she can travel inter-system- oh, I forgot! I got you this." Willow reached down to the floor and handed Tara a flask that had a pair of alien symbols embossed on it.

"Universal regulator, I found it in the medical cabinet. It levels out all your biological functions, it's supposed to help healing from extreme conditions. According to the label it's safe for any carbon-species, do you think it might help?"

"Can't hurt, I guess," Tara shrugged. She unscrewed the lid from the flask and took a sip. It was very sweet, but not quite enough to be sickly-sweet. She gulped down a mouthful and paused. The liquid felt cool inside her, and between that and the cooler temperature around her she was feeling much better.

"Thanks," she said. Willow immediately broke into a wide smile. The pair sat silently for a moment. Willow fidgeted a bit, and Tara searched for something to talk about.

"So," she said at last, "how did you get a ship? I mean, is it usual for Nebari your age to have a- you are young, right? I mean, I figured from the way you looked, you're not a hundred cycles old or anything?"

"Twenty-six cycles," said Willow proudly, "not a kid anymore! Just, anyway. Are you the same? I mean, do you look younger than you are, because I was thinking you look young to be on a Carrier."

"Twenty-four cycles," answered Tara, "I'm young for a qualified tech, normally you wouldn't get a tech commission until thirty cycles, until then you're just a rating."

"Ah," said Willow, not really understanding the distinction, but intrigued anyway. "So did you get drafted, or something? I just mean, you don't seem like the military type, you know? I expected, I don't know, all 'grrr!' and so on." Tara was silent for a moment.

"You're right," she said then, "I didn't volunteer for service. I didn't have a choice, it's just the life I was born to."

"I was born on the Carrier," said Tara with a sigh. "Every cycle the command division runs loss projections for the next twenty cycles, and female officers are taken off active duty long enough to bear children. To make sure there are enough people to take over when crewmen are killed in battle. I got this when I was born." Tara held out her arm to Willow, and she was a tiny mark on her inner wrist, a symbol like a stylized bird.

"The Hentac Tech-regiment," Tara answered bitterly. "My parents were probably both techs, so that's where I was placed."

"You... never met them?" asked Willow. She didn't miss her own father during his frequent absences on Establishment business, and she hadn't been on the same planet as her mother in over a cycle, but still, she had to admit she was glad to at least know she could send a comms to them and have them answer.

"I don't think so," said Tara, "I don't know. I wasn't told who they were. They wouldn't have been told who I was. That's how it works."

"That's-" Willow stopped herself, and started again. "Well, I don't mean to sound all 'your way of life is so primitive because you’re alien', but it seems kind of, well..."

"Horrible," finished Tara, "you're right. It is. It's not really a difficult life to live day by day, I don't mind fixing things and I'm good at it, but... it's hard knowing you were born just to fill a quota. I remember the first time I was old enough to get lessons on alien customs, and I found out that other races have children because they want to. The officer giving the lesson called it weakness, but I- I just wished someone had wanted me."

Tara's gaze had dropped to the floor, so she hadn't seen the tears form in Willow's eyes as she talked. She took a deep breath and was half-way through a sigh when she suddenly found herself wrapped in Willow's arms, with her head held comfortingly against Willow's shoulder, and Willow's hand stroking her hair lovingly.

"I'm so sorry," Willow said, her voice choked by tears. Tara sat still, in stunned amazement. Then, slowly, her arms went around Willow and she began to cry.

Willow woke up, much later, to find herself curled up on her side, with Tara's body pressed up against her back, one arm draped around her waist. For a little while she lay still, thinking about Tara. Her body, slightly cooler than Willow's, was giving Willow a feeling of perfect contentment. Even as tightly as Tara was wrapped around her, she wasn't uncomfortably warm, and Tara was holding her just right, the arm around her, her quiet breath on the back of Willow's neck. Willow only wanted to stay there. And then she remembered the course of action she had decided on, while she had been outside in her ship, weighing up all the options and finding a way they could both be safe. Tara's presence, even deep in sleep, threatened to make her regret it.

Willow gently lifted Tara's arm and slid out from underneath her. Tara stirred slightly, clutching the rough sheet beneath her. Searching for Willow. Willow sighed and gently stroked Tara's cheek, trying to ignore her feelings as she saw the young woman slowly regain her calm. As soon as she could drag herself away, she left and headed towards the docking bay.

Willow slammed the canopy of her ship closed with more force than she needed and slumped in her flight seat. After a moment she reached out and slapped the comms control.

"Frill damn it Willow, where have you been?" said Lexa's voice at once. "Where are you? Are you alright? Why haven't you come back in-"

"I'm fine," interrupted Willow, "I just needed to make repairs. I'll be back soon."

"Willow listen," said Lexa urgently, "Establishment is looking for you. Your father called, he knows we were in the same sector as that Interdictor, he said he can cover for us but we've got to get back! Where are you anyway?"

"Lexa, listen," said Willow, "there's something I need to do. I'll meet you at our usual staging area in one day. Okay?"

"Okay but... Will, what happened out there?" Willow took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on the inactive flight display, staring at the blank screen.

"Nothing," she said, "nothing happened." There was a long silence from the other end of the comms.

"Okay," said Lexa at last, "whatever. Just don't be late, the Establishment has got a scanner crew going through the asteroids. They know someone was there, but they don't know it was you, and if we get back quick enough your father can make it look like you were never out there. This is serious, Will, if they catch you they'll- well, you know."

Willow sat in her ship for a while, trying to be angry. She knew if she cried she wouldn't stop, and she didn't have much time. Eventually she mustered enough control over herself to grab her toolkit and open the canopy, clamber down to the deck and head over to the other ship in the bay, a disused but sturdy old transport pod. She plugged a comp into the pod's external diagnostics port and watched as its systems checked out one by one.

"Willow, what's going on? What's wrong with your ship?" she asked, glancing at the sleek craft across the bay.

"Nothing's wrong with it," said Willow flatly, trying not to meet Tara's gaze. Gods, she prayed, don’t make this more difficult.

"Then why?" Tara asked, indicating the transport pod. Willow shut her comp down and stood to face Tara, summoning her resolve. Do it, she told herself, it's not like you have a choice.

"It's for you," she said, her voice high as she tried to stop it from breaking, "so you can get away from here. Back to... wherever you want to go." Tara frowned.

"Just- trust me," Willow said haltingly, "this is best. Take the ship and go. Just go."

"Willow," she said at last, "what's wrong? Tell me. I thought you- no, I know you don't want me gone. So tell me why you're doing this." Willow looked up at Tara, stared at her for a long time, and then slumped down onto the deck, defeated.

"The Establishment has ships out here," she said without looking up, "they'll find us eventually. So I have to go home."

"And I can't come with you?" asked Tara. She was fighting down the urge to plead for Willow to take her, and it was a difficult fight, but she needed to know what was going on. She needed to be calm.

"Your people told you the Establishment don't get along with outsiders," said Willow flatly. "If they found you here... if they decided not to kill you, they'd take you and- they call it cleansing. They take away your independence, your loyalty to anything other than the Establishment, your-" Willow glared at the deck, and her voice rose. "I won't let them do that to you!"

Tara sat beside Willow and put her arms around her. Willow put up a token resistance, and instantly gave in and leaned into Tara's embrace.

"You should have just gone," she whispered, "I wanted- I was ready to do it, take you to the pod and let you go. And now I don't know if I can do it, and you're in danger here because of me, and they'll find you, and do the cleansing, and then-"

"Shhh," Tara soothed her, "I'm alive because of you. Willow, listen to me, they told us - on the Carrier, they told us about cleansing, in case we were captured, they said it doesn't always work on Sebaceans. Is that true?"

"What?" said Willow. "I don't... there was one time, there were rumors that a Peacekeeper captain broke his cleansing, the Establishment denied it, but - no, Tara, no, it won't work, I've seen Nebari who were cleansed, they let the cleansed go free to show people what happens, they're just- they're not even people anymore. I can't let that happen to you, you don't know you can break out of it, you don't know what it's like!"

"I know," said Tara, "but I can try. I'll find a way back to you, I promise." Willow sniffed back a sob, then turned to Tara.

"Me too," answered Tara, "but it's all I've got. I can't just leave, Willow, I don't know where to go. I've never been off my ship before, I don't know anything about what it's like out there, and... I'm afraid. If there's a chance I could be with you-"

"Why?" asked Willow. "They could kill you, or you might never break the cleansing, why would you do that for me? What's so special about me?"

Willow pulled back from Tara just enough to look into her eyes. They held each other's gaze for a long time, looking for answers. Abruptly Willow stood up, hauling Tara up with her.

"Come on," she said firmly, pulling her towards the Red Witch. Tara let herself be led across the bay. Willow helped her up the side of the ship and hauled open the canopy.

"Get in," she instructed. Tara clambered inside and fit herself in the space behind the pilot's seat. Willow followed her in and closed the canopy over them.

"No buts," interrupted Willow, "you're leaving this system and getting as far away from the Establishment as you can. And if you won't do it without me, then I'll come with you."

"What about your home? Your family-" Willow spun around in her seat, fixing Tara with a determined gaze.

"See this face? This is my resolve face. This face says I'm not leaving you, ever, and I'm not going to let you have your mind frelled around with by the Establishment just because I'm afraid of leaving home. So, do you want to argue with resolve face?"

Tara grinned. Willow made a very concerted effort to maintain resolve face and not smile back. She almost succeeded, until Tara leaned forward and kissed her.

"Darn tootin'," answered Willow, kicking the ship's hetch drive into action. She tapped a comms command, and they both watched in silence as the docking bay doors rumbled slowly open in front of them, revealing a widening view of open space.

"How did you know I wouldn't agree to your plan?" said Willow after a moment. Tara shrugged.

"Well, it was a pretty dumb plan, and you're not a dumb girl," joked Tara. "But if there was no other way, I would have done it. And it would have worked, too," she added sincerely. Willow turned back to her.

"What happened to not being a soldier," she asked, "when did you get all big with the bravery?"

When the bay doors finally finished opening, the Red Witch roared into life and shot away from the old station. Willow did a couple of barrel-rolls before finally settling down and looking out at the infinite array of stars she had to choose from.

"I don't know," Tara answered, "it's all new to me. How about over there? That constellation that looks like a Luxan looking uncomfortable."

"Wha... oh, yeah, it does too," said Willow, peering at the group of stars, "I never noticed that before. She steered the ship around and let the hetch drive out to full power. "Luxan looking uncomfortable," she repeated to herself.

"Over there, Hynerian donkey having a sponge bath," said Tara, pointing. Willow giggled.

"Small stack of dried food squares," she went on, as Willow took hold of her pointing hand and kissed her palm. "Shouldn't you be holding the controls?" Tara asked.

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