Fanfic: Avalon Ch 65, White Collar

We'll be kings forever, ooh

Holding on together, ooh

Feeling so much better, ooh

When everything was wrong,

and everything was gone,

we ran to Avalon

The morning came faster than any of them had ever even wanted and for the most part of the day they did all kinds of adjustments and repairs for their longest part of the journey. The craft was a great thing Nate had chosen because it had specific type of energy source so it wasn't dependent on fuel as majority. There was battery charging from all the sun light and some kind of crystal feeding autonomous energy into the engines so they could go as long as they needed.

The main thing to change was the interior.

But after several hours of work they managed to free up some comfy space. Nate had even located few serial numbers to erase and managed to change the energy signature as he made sure the tiny starship he counted as just on-surface transport unit turned out to be capable to actually travel to outer space pretty much like a shuttle could. And quite possibly even further. Basically between planets in near distance it was safe bet. If there was more travel it was tiny enough to hitch a ride on a large starship - so basically this was rebuilt shuttle type with custom civilian refits. And by the looks of it very custom. However one source he trusted assured it's not as unique so if they did more of their own it would look like reference or even just inspired by the real deal as the engine reconfiguration wasn't that unheard of and judging by the specific model type it was a very old shuttle hybrid that came from entirely different type of galaxy which was rather far from Federation type.

This gave Nate big relief. He was trying to keep it low for a reason.

By the time the thing was turned into a super cozy living room couch on the inside and very dreamy looking night sky scene from the outside the transport didn't even resembled to a shuttle. Neal was indeed a fabulous artist regardless of paint type.

And Noel had an eye for cozy rooms. Nate made sure control panel was exactly as he felt the most comfortable for both him and Noel. He was doing most configuration work but Noel was feeding Neal snippets of what their powers were and what might be Neal's others.

As most they had one or two base strongest powers like Shadow Energy skills and in Noel's and Nate's case technopathy. Since Neal didn't show much connection with computers and never had but he was more on the empath side they came to conclusion it could be empath based like Samara. He wasn't exclusively Psy-Op trained like Rain and Marena were so that left him like Samara.

Being Shadow already validated most of sneakiness and likes so the rest was more on the individual character.

Which was okay because they now had specific skill set available and it was more diverse and useful instead of them all being same.

So like with the shuttle they could jump in together and do the job together and be done by the first moonlight.

Nate packed up and left leftover scraps back in the garage for the contact to gather it and sell at the scrapyard. It was their keep as a pay for the cabin and all the secrecy.

They had now achieved rather comfy tiny spaceship with actual capability to keep oxygen inside via very intricately designed filter system and very specific atmospheric modificator system that could even use any type of atmosphere around it and change it to oxygen they could breathe. This type of system removed the need for oxygen tanks and that was probably the other main reason for ship being that small. But the most main thing was the lack of fuel tanks or other type of power source for regular engines that weren't warp cores which was for Fleet size ships.

Shuttles like theirs were meant for short range transport but they had enough room for modifications for longer ranges. But in their case he found out the real issue was mostly software related because for longer ranges one needs more electronics or just settings programmed for travels between galaxies because as far as their mods went they could just leave and be fine for a travel as long as few months as the least far. Issue started with amenities and food supplies because they literally had no room for extra storage. There was small one for mostly emergency parts and stuff but if they chose less lone ride there was always possibility to hail actual starship and get their pitstop.

For the time being Nate was just getting too obsessed with this project so Noel and Neal simply bodily pulled him away from the shuttle and spoon-fed ice-cream and together washed it away with hot chocolate by the fire.

With everything packed and stowed away they erased their traces and piled into the shuttle that now sported very nice comfortable but still safe backseat lounge and more flexible front area with controls that allowed the second person to jump in whenever and still be as comfortable with everything.

It wasn't exactly clear how long their travel will be as Nate didn't say what was their final stop but from the looks it was clear the man had planned something very special and the fact they had another person wasn't even mentioned meant there will be all the room for all of them.

It made them all full of hope and positive energy.

And somewhere in the middle of their travel Nate found out the owner of the shuttle was actually found dead as he was about to go up and check it very moments before big bang wiped that off their to-do list. Half of the crafts were destroyed so completely none of the scraps could be ever identified. Which meant their shuttle was now okay.

Half of the survived goon gang didn't make it through and the ones that did couldn't be of much use as their importance wasn't that big. And they just served their time and would be sent to a colony planet for labor.

Neal's old FBI crew still worked for same office just weren't called FBI anymore. They had been trying to find Neal a very long time even after every piece of rubble had been taken and they only found pretty damaged piece of the anklet but no body so they all suspected Peter Burke played it cool because he just always knew if there was no body and only anklet left to find Neal was okay and safe somewhere enjoying freedom.

Starfleet came out with announcement and list of those lost forever. Noel was on that list but they noted that since his body wasn't ever recovered it could still be possible that he may be somewhere. However MIA lists weren't a thing and he had to be listed somewhere.

Unofficial version was that he may have gotten thrown further away and possibly random Samaritan could've taken him away for some reason or maybe he woke up in the bushes completely out of it maybe even suffering from amnesia and somehow gotten off-planet. It seemed they somehow didn't rush to find him so they decided it was okay even if they'd find him one day - there always was option for belated brain injury stomping its feet down.

As for Nate - his lungs didn't complain much after their first stop. He actually had just inhaler with him so they risked a lot in case things took turn, they didn't.

Noel eventually got him to some doctor and they checked that he was rather okay. He still had his condition but something caused it to improve enough he wasn't drowning in his own fluids. Which was great. He could keep his lungs longer. And Neal even brought him new nebulizer for home and another one super portable for their adventures. Neal also had made them both very special and pretty with custom designs and he never told how and where did he get them.

Noel had a long way to go. The longest of them all. Maybe almost as long as Neal but maybe way longer.

Eventually his hardware broke. Not completely but for most part the one that was already there if it wasn't for Fleet.

So it took a while to get there and a lot of sneaking around but in the end he got a lot of his hardware issues sorted out. Including those on the way to breaking and he had a lot of other hardware to keep his body in one piece.

He still was in terrible pain and still basically a druggie. No amount of drugs really took the pain away and he still had bad days and good days. But that's life of a crippled man as he kept saying himself.

Nate helped a lot of times and obviously Neal kept him company when Nate had to get out to scavenge some stuff for them and Nate actually liked that because for some reason Neal was always drawn to the man like a moth to flame and he seemed completely oblivious to that. Noel also enjoyed cuddling them both and having all these moments together and neither felt like overstepping any borders or uncomfortable.

Neal was just fitting in as if he'd never left. Surprisingly he was a lot more cheerful person than it might seem. And somehow he lost his depressive mood pretty quickly which was something unexpected. It seemed like this sudden change was a huge boost to the man's mental state and as he spent more time with Noel and Nate he opened up even more if that was even possible. They took a while to explain the whole story and Nate was even able to find computer to uplink and after a long way of avoiding being noticed he showed Neal his paperwork. There wasn't much on paper but it helped Neal understand WitSec was just a cover for when he wonders about forgotten past. He had suffered a lot of trauma in one last assignment which led to his departure but mostly due to memory loss.

Which led to his whole life in NYC.

Knowing his old family was all ok made things even better. His mental state completely improved from that point onwards. He still got blackouts once in a while but way less now. He wasn't suffering from anxiety as much so there was that. A lot of their issues seemed to resolve once their stress levels dropped.

And Neal was getting some of the memories back and realized so many of his nightmares were actually repressed memories. He was learning about his heritage and practicing with the boys.

Somehow their journey took over two Earth weeks to get to a place Nate organized their transfer. Some freighter had room for them so they jumped that and traveled to a very far corner of their galaxy. A very outer rim spot. From there they took off to a neutral space zone just outside rim.

It was a planet without much control and inspection from Federation side. Starfleet sometimes came here for vacations as it was very green and luscious and lacked metropole sized cities and extremely mega high rises. Everything on this planet was like regular suburbs and then just tons of nature.

They lived on an island straight out of tales about paradise. There were a lot of things to do and explore. The nature was the most beautiful. Especially at night. Everything turned into a glowing colorful dream of wonderland and that was incredible to see. Every surface glowed either on its own or by touch and everything was illuminated from the inside. It was magical beyond words.

They built a cabin out of scraps and made a garage part for their trusted shuttle to keep it out of elements. And damn, weather was so much like it was on Earth it truly felt home now.

They didn't have much but they had each other. And somehow it was just enough.

They were finally happy. Noel was occasionally doing deliveries from place to place, if money got too tight he took up to travel between planets for deliveries. It paid good. Neal was doing art and it sold in galaxy like nothing ever does.

Nate tried his hand at cyber-security and other basic tech jobs to manage out of their home. He didn't like going to city because it still made his lungs feel less okay.

They all did some basic farming and it was amazing.

Sometimes Neal pinched himself to check if it all was reality. It has been the most adventurous his life has ever been. And he loved both his twin - he still had to remind himself he actually had a twin brother - and his twin's man. Somehow sharing cuddles never felt out of line and neither even noticed. Not that they ever got anything graphic, they had enough with things the way they were and it was all needed to feel contentment.

So they lived their happily ever after in a galaxy far, far away…