"You scared the shit out of us, Johnny."

The Boss finally spoke up, looking up from her beer across the small table at her long-lost left hand. Everyone else had long gone to bed, Shaundi being the last, and the two of them had sat in silence since, nursing beers together.

He gave a shrug, swigging back some of his beer and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Eh," he said dismissively, "you of all people should have known it'd take more than some Frenchie to keep me down."

"It was a plane, Johnny. We thought you died in a plane crash."

"My point still stands." He gave a smirk, raising his bottle to her and tilting it a little in a gesture.

The Boss laughed, crossing her arms and kicking her feet up on a crate. "Nice to see you're still smug as fuck," she paused. "I missed it a little," she admitted.

"'Course you did. I'm the only person who's cockier than you. I make you cool, Boss."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," rolling her eyes, she set her beer down on the table, her eyes watching the label. That wasn't why she missed it at all. She'd missed him. "Hell, even all this new blood couldn't make up for it, you know?"

"Yeah," he leaned forward, resting his beer on the table with yours. "Been meaning to talk to you about that. The fuck is with all this new blood, anyway? It's like the fucking Justice League or some bullshit in here."

"They're good at what they do, Johnny. Gotta keep up when your shit gets this big, what, with all this Facebooky, Twittery technology shit or whatever."

"And Keith David?"

"It's Keith fucking David," she scoffed and stared him down. "I don't have to justify that and you fucking know it."

"They even been canonized?" He asked, looking down over his shades at her. The Boss shifted a bit. Johnny wasn't going to like this.

"We don't do that anymore."

Johnny gave a groan and let his head sag backwards. "Are you fucking serious? I leave for a bit and you just throw everything The Saints was out the window?"

The Boss opened her mouth to speak, wanting to tell him that everything The Saints was had died for her along with Johnny. That he was The Saints to her. She stopped herself, however, taking a breath and trying again. "We couldn't be picky when we picked these guys up. After we got off that plane? We had nothing, Johnny. Nothing. No money, no strongholds, nothing. We had to build ourselves back up from the fucking ground and I think I did a pretty good fucking job with what I had!" The Boss stopped when she realised she was raising her voice, talking like she was about to punch someone.

There was a very, very long period of silence following the little outburst, the only other sounds being that of Johnny opening another beer. For a moment, The Boss considered apologising. She decided against it, though. Her emotions had been all over the place today, but she was fucked if she was going to let anyone catch on willingly. She wouldn't have gotten where she was if people thought she was vulnerable, or anything but a complete sociopath. She couldn't afford to have a soft spot.

"You did good." Johnny finally broke the silence, his voice bringing The Boss back to reality, shocking her a little. "Real good. Wouldn't have expected fuck else from you."

The Boss eyed him, before reaching down and grabbing at another beer, knocking the cap off with a hiss against the lip of the table. "Why'd you do it?" She asked, before knocking back a mouthful. "Why'd you stay back?"

She took another swig of her beer, not taking her eyes off him, making out his eyes through the lenses of his shades. He didn't move them from her once.

"When I lost Aisha," he began, cracking his neck from side to side, "there was a lot of shit going through my head, you know? I mean, fuck, you saw it. You dealt with my sorry ass after all that." He gave a long exhale.

"Johnny," The Boss cut in. "You don't have to answer that." She shook her head. "I know you hate this feely shit. I thought you'd just tell me you wanted a bigger kill cou-"

"No," he interrupted. "I wanna tell you this. While we got some time, without all these other…" he reached out and waved his hand around. "You know. Those guys." He shifted a bit in his seat and continued. "Anyway, I couldn't help but feel I fucked up, you know? Like it was my fault. It was my fuckin' job to protect her, 'cos you know, that's what you do when you love a woman. You protect 'em."

The Boss suddenly reached forward for her beer. Great. This was a Shaundi thing. She fucking called this years ago. She threw her head back, getting as much of her drink in as she could while he continued.

"So we're on that plane, and I'm not a fucking idiot, Boss, I can see it's all about to go to shit. And you and Shaundi are there, and the only thing I got going through my mind the whole time is how I don't want to fuck up like that again. I don't want this to be Aisha again. So all I cared about was making sure you got out. Guess I should really thank Shaundi for dropping her clumsy ass out of a plane some time, don't know what would have gone down if you'd come back for me."

Instinctively, The Boss lurched forward, her arm over her mouth as she fought to not spit her mouth full of beer all over the table. "Holy shit Johnny!" She wiped her mouth and took a breath. "Are you being fuckin' serious right now?"

"Yeah, well, it was a long time ago." He gave a shrug. "I'm sure you're fucking Keith David now or some shit. I'll get over it."

"Fuck no!" she exclaimed. "Fuck, Johnny, I just… what the fuck? Since when?"

He shrugged. "I don't fucking know, do I look like someone who keeps a fucking diary? We've been running together a long time, Boss."

"Yeah," The Boss agreed, regaining a little bit of composure and sitting back up straight. "Yeah, we fucking have."

"You aren't freaking out."

"You thought I'd freak out? The fuck, Johnny? After I thought you'd died I'd tried getting over it with sex, violence, revenge…" she shrugged, "...sometimes a weird combination of the three… but none of that made me feel the way I did when you were around. It wasn't rolling with you I missed, it was you." She paused, before reaching back out for her beer, avoiding eye contact. "Well, this is fucking awkward."

She took another drink, Johnny following suit before yet another long period of silence passed, the two of them silently mulling over what'd been exchanged.

"So we're cool?" Johnny finally asked.

"Yeah," The Boss nodded, her voice quiet. "Yeah, we're cool. This is… this is cool."

Johnny took a final swig of his beer before slamming it down on the table. "Good," he laughed. "Because with the way your ass pops when you're shooting was driving me fucking crazy and I didn't want to be the first man to rub one out in space."

The Boss laughed, throwing her head back and leaving it hanging there. "Pretty sure Matt stole that honor from you a long time ago."

"What about fucking in space?"

Suddenly, The Boss's head snapped up, her face changing into a grin.

"You are so on."