"Right then, you know what we're doing?"

"Aye!"

"Good. Can you sew?"

"Yes, sir!"

The engineer gestured to Archer's patch-covered jacket with his free hand, the other holding a large needle in his hand and a roll of canvas under the arm. Normally Archer knew that Lawrence would have chided him for the use of 'sir', but right now they both had bigger things to worry about.

"Did you patch that one up yourself?"

"Yes Mr Walker, I think I've all but rebuilt it a few times over by now."

The man gave a slight smile, quickly smothered and replaced by a stern expression.

"Good. We're going up into the balloon to patch it back up after the captain's last stunt. I say after the captain's last stunt, I mean during the bloody thing, since it's only just beginning. It's the same principle as the patches on your jacket though, just a lot bigger. Grab that second roll of canvas, I don't know how much we'll need. I've already grabbed the needle and thread for us, so we should be good to go. I know, this isn't what you expect to be doing when they tell you you're to be an engineer, but I'm afraid that's life. You'd be surprised how much mundane work goes on that you don't consider when signing up, and how important it all is."

Archer swallowed and followed the man, doing his best to ascend the ladders single handed. There was only a few people on deck, Cooke amongst them and eyeing them both nervously. Archer was forced to grip the bars of the ladder leading up to the balloon tight as a sudden violent lurch nearly sent him tumbling down to the deck. He peered down after regaining his footing. If he was lucky, he'd only break his legs and his back if he fell. He didn't feel like testing that luck.

"Archer! Are you all right?"

Lawrence's voice was thick with worry, but Archer was quick to give him some only slightly shaky reassurance.

"I'm all right! What was that?"

"Exactly what I'd hoped wouldn't happen! Come on, quickly, we need to get up to the balloon right this moment!"

Lawrence's footsteps up the ladder were far quicker than Archer's own, the man having decades more experience than Archer did, but he still made an effort to try and match the man's pace as best he could without endangering himself. There was little sense in distracting his mentor with something like his death right now. Eventually ladder rungs gave way to walkways, and Archer breathed a sigh of relief. He'd become quite adept at going up and down the ladders on the outside of the ship that joined the decks, but they were only ten or fifteen steps each, whereas the balloon had to have been at least fifty, perhaps sixty steps up, and the same again within the balloon itself.

"Archer, you alright? Still with me?"

"Yes sir, sorry sir! I'm not used to climbing to such hights."

The man nodded in understanding, still not reprimanding him for his use of the honourific as the two of them clambered up the last few rungs and stood atop the walkway, moving towards a winch.

"That's all right, you're up here now. Your job is mostly simple, okay? Listen to me here, look at me, listen! All right, you see that winch? And that gaping tear in the balloon? I'm going to attach myself to the winch by that harness there, the one that looks like a thick belt, you see it? Are you following me so far?"

Archer nodded shakily, not at all liking where this was going.

"You're not going down there, don't worry. You'll be cutting the canvas and keeping an eye on the winch when I'm down there, okay? I don't trust it; it's been making an awful din recently but our Captain refused my request for a replacement, or even a repair. It's probably the only thing on the ship that I've never known how to repair myself, and I hate the fucking thing. Whilst I'm down there, you'll be up next to it making sure it doesn't kill me before winching me back up with that hand crank on the side when I give you the word, okay?"

Archer nodded stiffly, resolve filling him. He wasn't going to let the crew down here. He wasn't going to let Lawrence or any of his friends down here.

"Lets do it."

Lawrence smiled.

"Good man. Winch me down first, so I can take measurements, then we'll cut the canvas and I'll begin sewing. You may have to prepare some pieces of irregular shapes, just as a warning."

"Alright. Tell me what to do, boss!"

Archer put as much false enthusiasm in his words as he physically could. The inflection sounded hollow, even to his own ears, but Lawrence just gave him a grateful smile as he quickly, but not at all skipping any details, explained how Archer would be operating the winch. It was mostly just an old hand crank that could be hammered inwards to prevent any further slack from coming out, which seemed a simple if inelegant method to use, but what did he know? It took Lawrence somewhere around thirty seconds to get himself attached to the winch system, and another thirty to make his decent and tell Archer to "Stop!", the man immediately hammering the handle inwards as he'd been instructed. With Lawrence's decent stopped, the man took out his measuring tool and began to measure a rectangle around the outside of the hole. The actions took the experienced engineer perhaps two minutes, whereupon he seemingly went back to the starting point and measured everything again. Archer nodded in silent agreement with his mentor's actions. That was a lesson he'd learned whilst patching up his own clothes as a teenager: measure twice, cut once.

Lawrence, upon seeming satisfied with the measurements, called back up to him.

"Alright, start pulling it back towards you! The teeth are angled towards you whilst the crank is hammered in, so you shouldn't need to worry about dropping me. Bring me up, if you please."

Archer nodded and began pulling on the crank, slowly reeling the man in as though he were enjoying a leisurely afternoon of fishing with the baronet and father, and not in an airship a league above the ground. The work was tough, but with the crank nowhere near as tough as it would otherwise have been. He certainly never wanted to find out what it would be like to hoist someone up without the aid of the winch, that much was for certain.

"Twelve feet long, four across. Three across should do it, but I'd rather have some leeway both sides. The long needle and the strong thread will work in stitching them together, so that's something at least."

Archer nodded as he helped Lawrence back up to the platform, the groaning of the winch setting his teeth on edge. His anxieties certainly weren't helped by the fact that Lawrence seemed to glance at it askance with a concerned expression, before shaking his head and carrying on helping Archer to cut the proffered length of canvas.

"Are you sure this is alright, sir?"

Lawrence looked the cut length of canvas over to ensure it was up to his standards. Whatever he'd seen, it seemed to be satisfactory, for he nodded.

"Yes, the canvas seems fine to me. Why do you ask? Not that your diligence isn't appreciated of course."

Archer bit his tongue. It wasn't the canvas he had been asking about, but the whole plan they were enacting. He shook his head to clear his mind. Lawrence was in charge here, so Lawrence he would follow, regardless of the churning in his gut.

"It's nothing, Mr Walker. Are you ready to descend once more?"

The man nodded at him, needle and thread at his hip and canvas under one arm.

"Indeed. Send me down if you please Mr Haywood."

Archer nodded and pulled out the handle until he felt resistance, and the cord began to slowly lower Lawrence once more.

"Stop!"

Immediately the handle was hammered back into place, and the engineer's decent was halted.

----------------------------------------

It for half an hour Archer stood and watched, making sure the winch remained stable as Lawrence sewed the new canvas over the old, careful to thread the needle through in such a way as to not get the end stuck outside the balloon and thus make his life a lot harder. The winch mechanism creaked and moaned every time the man moved, and Archer made sure to tell Lawrence whenever it did.

"That one was a bad noise, Lawrence!"

The man shouted back, threading the last of the needle and tying of the thread.

"Don't worry, we're done here! Bring me back up!"

Archer moved to reel his mentor back in, but there was something wrong, he could feel it. There was too much resistance, then all of a sudden too little. Something audibly cracked within the device.

"Lawrence! It's- It's falling apart!"

The man was just close enough for Archer to hear his muttered curses as he fumbled with the rope to try and climb his way up.

Then there was a shattering sound.

The cord began unspooling at a far faster rate than normal, and the crank did nothing to reel it back in or even slow it. Thinking as fast as he could Archer grabbed a section of the cord and held on for dear life, only for the air to be forced out of his lungs with an "Oomph" as he was suddenly pulled forcefully against the railings. The rest of the cord fell and went slack, no longer connected to the winch. Archer wasn't sure what had broken inside the device, but he did know that he was now the only thing standing between Lawrence and a long fall with a sudden stop.

Fuck, there's no-one else here!

He cried out to the man below, teeth gritted and words shouted in a tone of panic and exertion.

"LAWRENCE... LAWRENCE!"

"I KNOW, I KNOW, THERE'S GOT TO BE SOMETHING I CAN-"

Whatever the man was about to say was cut off as the Sunbird veered sharply to the larboard side, causing Archer to lose his footing for a moment. He was forced unceremoniously to the floor as he clutched at the cord, his feet desperately scrabbling as he tried to find purchase on the gratings, his hands scrambling to clutch at the rope as he was jolted to the side by a second turn.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"LET GO OF THE CORD! ARCHER! ARCHER!"

Lawrence was shouting furiously at him, all but begging him to just save himself and let the engineer tumble away, but there was no chance Archer was letting that happen.

Please, someone, help... come on, I just...

He did his best to keep his grip, gritting his teeth and digging his feet into the lip of the railing, pushing back with all of his might to keep himself atop the walkway. For three full minutes he sat there, muscles burning with exertion, brow practically soaked in cold sweat, and a piece of metal two inches tall and a centimetre thick as the only thing stopping him and his friend from tumbling away past the megaflora and down to the earth far below.

"ARCHER! DON'T KILL YOURSELF MAN! THAT IS AN ORDER! LET GO OF THE FUCKING CORD!"

"Archer!"

Archer would have breathed a sigh of relief if the situation had been any less dire, but somewhere to his left he heard Talon's voice and heavy footsteps as he ran towards him.

"Talon! Help! Me! Pull! Him! Up!"

The man nodded with a terrible determination in his eyes, grabbing on to the thick cord and seemed to completely ignore how it sliced into the palms and fingers of his gloveless hands. He heaved with a terrible exertion, his added strength allowing Archer to rise shakily to his feet and begin walking backwards alongside Talon. Step after terrible step they marched backwards, knowing full well that a single misplaced foot, a single trip or slip or stumble, and Lawrence was as good as dead. There was blood running down the cord now, hot and sticky, though luckily it didn't seem to be affecting his grip. Ten paces, twenty, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven...

With every step back they took, the harder it got to continue pulling their friend up. The walkway ran perpendicular to the direction they were trying to pull Lawrence up from, and as a result they were pulling him up thanks to the cord getting caught on the corner of one of the bars that formed the walkway's safety fence. The downside of this was, of course, that the friction of the cord against the aforementioned bar made every step backwards an inhuman effort, each inch they reclaimed somehow twice as hard as the one in front.

Eventually after almost a full six minutes of slow, grinding, nerve-shattering movement, Lawrence was able to scrabble and grab at the same bar that the cord was caught around. With a single, monumental effort, he made to pull himself up and over the bar. Every movement was accompanied by a rage-fuelled scream, a defiant shout, a breathless cry, but eventually he was up onto the safety of the walkway. Lawrence slowly walked towards them, gripping the railings with such an intensity that his knuckles had turned white. Archer looked down at his own hand and realised that he was gripping Talon's own with so much force and adrenaline that the two of them were shaking as they began to walk towards Lawrence, closing the distance. Archer felt as though his legs were that of a fawns, so unstable they were, but eventually the three of them reached each other and practically fell into one another.

The three of them collapsed into a boneless heap atop the walkway, the old winch now pretty much cordless, as Cooke pulled them both in for one of the tightest hugs Archer had ever received from anyone ever. Normally he'd protest at the familiarity of the action, and he reckoned that Lawrence would normally make a scandalised comment or give an indignant groan at such an action on principle. This was not a normal moment. For once the two of them remained silent and hugged back, Archer relishing in the comfort that hugging the other two brought, the knowledge that they were alive, they were real, they were still here. It had been a harrowing experience for Archer, in more ways than one, and both he and one of his friends had nearly been killed. Quite frankly he couldn't have cared less what anyone thought of him in that moment as the last of the adrenaline left him, and so he began to cry.

They were not tears of sadness, for all had turned out okay. Nor were they tears of joy, for he felt as though the fact that this had happened at all did not lend itself well to cheer and jubilation. He wasn't sure why he was crying, but he was. Relief, perhaps? Yes, relief sounded right. He clutched the two of them and smiled a watery smile, the action being mimicked by Talon as the two of them looked at each other. In a move neither of them seemed to expect, it was Lawrence who gently, yet somehow forcefully, pulled both of their heads to his chest and held them there, cradling them as one might a wounded animal.

"Apologies," the engineer choked out as he audibly held back sobs, "you saved me. I thought I was going to die. I thought you were going to die."

Archer choked down another sob, a sense of guilt filling him.

"I'm sorry. I-"

Cooke cut him off with a squeeze to his hand, fresh blood spooling out from between their intertwined fingers.

"Stop right there, mister. You're not allowed to finish that apology. You did nothing wrong. You saved Lawrie's life. I don't care if you think that's what happened or not. You did everything you could."

"But if you hadn't have been there then-"

This time it was Lawrence who cut him off with a watery, shaking voice.

"No. We don't deal in what-ifs, Assistant Engineer. What-ifs are too dangerous a path to walk down."

He swallowed hard.

"But if I'd-"

"No," Cooke's voice cut in, sounding far more tired than the man normally did, "I've tried reliving those ideas sometimes. Those 'if-onlys' and 'if-I'd-justs' nearly killed me after... after that day. Sometimes I still think about the things I left behind to live up here, amongst the clouds. It hurts beyond measure, to think on what might have been. But what might have been isn't what is. So we ignore it, because we have no other choice. Please, Archer. We're all safe. We're all alive. That's what matters. You'll revisit this moment a hundred times, no matter the fact we're all safe. You'll dream it all went wrong, that we're not here anymore. When that happens, talk to one of us. Please."

Archer nodded choppily.

"Good. Thank you, Archer. It's easy to return to the past, but it's hard to leave, because no-ones there anymore. Keeping yourself in the present with us? That's what you're meant to do. This is where you're meant to be. Come on, lets get down from here. You're both safe now, and that's what matters."

"I got the hole patched up as well, so we're good on that front."

Talon sat up, detaching himself from the pile, and looked at Lawrence with a voice that sounded as angry as Archer had ever heard the man.

"Lawrence Arthur Walker, if you think that I care a mite for the status of the balloon for even a second when I watched you nearly fall to your death-"

Talon stopped himself as a sob tore from the throat of Lawrence, the weight of what had almost happened seeming to only just sink in.

"I- God, I nearly- I'm sorry, I don't- God, I'm sorry, please, I don't-"

Archer sat up and allowed the man to let his head sink into his hands as he cried, Talon's voice immediately returning to a soft and warm, almost motherly tone.

"Oh, Lawrie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you. I just don't want you to think that your own life can be valued on the same level as a few scraps of canvas. Come on, lets get you down from here."

Cooke looked at Archer and nodded towards Lawrence with his head, the assistant engineer picking up on the hint and nodding his affirmations back. Archer rose steadily to his feet, extremely thankful that the last quarter-hour of respite seemed to have allowed him to keep his legs mostly steady, the worst of the shakes subsiding as he and Cooke pulled Lawrence to his feet and began walking back towards the ladder down to the decks.

"What if there's another rip?"

Lawrence's protests were weakening the more steps he took, surely knowing that he was far too exhausted now to effectively work.

"Then it's someone else's problem. We're all done for the day. Besides, even our captain won't be stupid enough to fly that fast now, not until we clear our way through the Mortuary."

Archer had never heard such vitriol in Talon's voice, and it seems that even Lawrence was a little taken aback.

"Talon... you've never openly disparaged the captain before."

"Yeah, well he's never been quite so reckless as to nearly get you killed before. He has now. He's put us all in danger half a hundred times, that much I can't deny anymore, but I'd always given him the benefit of the doubt. I can't think of a single person to whom I haven't given another chance, but I think this is it. I think I've found my limit on the amount of recklessness I'm willing to excuse. No more. I can't go through that again. Never again."

Lawrence took a shaky breath.

"You know he's been like this for years, Talon. This isn't new."

"I know. I can see that now. I think I just... wanted to believe otherwise. I wanted to believe he meant well, that he was just naïve and wanted to prove himself to be his father's equal."

"He's never needed to. He was raised to think that he already was, despite not having the experience or willingness to learn that his father did. Do you remember two years ago, that disaster when we tried to dock at Auld-Kern without slowing? Or five years ago, when we last made the trip to Three-Streams, and nearly wound up grounded in Occsa? He's always been this way; we just haven't been the ones staring death in the eyes before."

Cooke nodded sadly, and Archer elected to remain silent. He didn't want to put any ideas in people's heads, especially being relatively new to the crew, but he was damn near incensed. The captain had, twice in one day, nearly gotten him killed. On top of that, Lawrence had nearly been killed, and Cooke had been in danger as well. He couldn't see the morale of the crew being that good in the coming weeks; even if they hadn't been directly affected by the last half an hour, surely they'd recognise the danger this route posed to them all, as well as all the extra work they'd have to do to keep the Sunbird afloat. The coming weeks would be brutal on all of them, not just Lawrence and himself, and that was presuming that there wasn't another tear in the balloon in the immediate future. It seemed to Archer that the captain's refusal for extra spares, his dismissal of getting the winch repaired, and what seemed to be his need to undertake dangerous manoeuvres for no reason Archer could make out except to maybe give the newer hands a trial by fire, had gotten them all into this mess. If he remained at the helm, Archer wasn't sure they'd ever get back out again.

He was starting to understand Lawrence's comments about the captain when they first met. He was comely, and he was charming, but he was also a wolf in sheep's clothing. He was a man of much pomp and little substance, that much now appeared to be clear to him.

Perhaps Archer was being too hasty with his vitriol, his assumptions. He hadn't known the man long enough, nor seen him enough, to truly create an informed opinion for himself, but at the same time he thought back to the stretches of silence whenever the captain was brought up, the sneers and scowls the officers wore before someone changed the subject, and so he sort of knew that he was right in his assumptions.

Whatever else comes of this, he thought as he descended the ladder to the deck, I'll follow the two of them. Not the captain. Where these two go, I'll follow. They'd all helped save each others lives today, after all. Archer might not have been as close with either of them as they were with each other, but what they'd been through today had to count for something. The two of them seemed to like him anyway, so this surely had to mean he was truly their friend now, in mind and heart as well as in word. Whatever anxieties he may have had before on whether they truly saw him as a friend or simply someone to tolerate and ply with politeness were gone, for he was with them now.

The three of them made it down to the deck, which had become a flurry of activity since last he'd been down here. Men ran to and fro, adjusting rigging and hauling ropes and whatever else it was that the deckhands did at times like this; it all seemed dizzyingly nautical to Archer at the moment, who right now wanted nothing more than to sit back down and apply something to his chest which was beginning to hurt like a bastard.

"What were you even doing up there with us, Cooke?"

The man turned to him, confused, and it took Archer a moment to realise that he was the one who had spoken.

"I was worried. I knew that something bad was going to happen, it just had to, everything had lined up too poorly."

Archer nodded to him, only sort of taking in the man's words as he pushed open the doors to the mess. A few people were milling around, though even they seemed as though they were about to leave. Archer caught Lawrence nodding at a man who he vaguely recognised, a marine that had probably carried messages for them at one point or another, who patted him on the back as they passed.

"God, I didn't realise how much my back was hurting until then. The harness stopped me from falling thanks to Archer here but I don't think the sudden stop was good for my back."

"It was better for it than the ground would have been."

Despite the situation, Lawrence huffed out a genuine laugh at Archer's morbid humour.

"That's true."

Cooke groaned, somehow managing to audibly roll his eyes.

"Come on, both of you. Let's get you both sat down and have a look at your injuries."

Archer gave the man an incredulous look as he took his seat, Lawrence instead opting for a rather stern tone that reminded Archer greatly of the disciplinarian of a tutor he'd had while growing up.

"Yours as well, Talon. Your hands might have stopped bleeding, but the cuts need to be cleaned and bandaged just as much as myself and Archer's injuries need looking at."

The man halted himself for a moment, visibly struggling with the urge to disregard his own bloodied hands for their own injuries, but eventually nodding in his agreement.

"Yeah, you're right Lawrie. Now come on; there's no doctor aboard the ship but I studied medical practices in my free time when I was younger, and whilst I may never have been able to go any further I still kept up to practice on the basics. All that to say I can run through whatever you don't know, alright?"

Archer chuckled, the action hurting his chest and forcing him to cough. He cleared his throat a little before speaking.

"Medical practices as a hobby? You must have had quite the rich upbringing."

Cooke froze mid-motion, a stretch of bandage falling from their hands and floating to the floor before he shook himself and returned from wherever it was his mind had gone.

"Something like that, I guess. It's not important right now. Now come on, let's get you looked at."