The five weary travelers wasted no time finding themselves a friendly looking pub in Coward Springs, which was more or less like every other little town they ended up staying in on their death-defying adventures. It wasn’t as cowardly or springy as the name would have suggested, which was probably for the best. They secured themselves three rooms and then settled at a table to order something to eat.

“Well,” Paul announced with a smirk at his friends, “I think that this occasion calls for a nice bottle of fine Mexican tequila, some drunken stupidity and, if the night goes well, singing like madmen.”

“So just another boring night in for you then, right McDermott?” Greg chirped.

“First round’s on me,” Brad announced, getting up from the table. “Come on mongoose man, I’m gonna need help,” he added, wrapping two knuckles on the top of Paul’s head. Paul sneered at Brad as he headed to the bar, but placed Troy in the middle of the table with a finger of warning pointed at the others and wandered up next to Brad as he placed his order with an older bald gentleman.

“We’d like a bottle of tequila and three glasses.”

“Good Mexican tequila if you’ve got any,” Paul added with a friendly smile. The bar tender returned the smile with what could have been a hint of animosity. “And a Coke for Gina.”

“Oh, and ginger beer if you’ve got it, with a shot of whiskey in it, yeah?”

“Drugging the little lady now?” Paul asked, looking sideways at Brad as the bartender wandered off to fix the drinks. “I don’t know if you realize this or not, what with your bad memory when it comes to getting Fenny naked, but she’s your wife and she’s totally obsessed with you for reasons no one can understand, you don’t need to get her drunk.”

Brad shrugged noncommittally. “Could be fun.”

“Do you remember the last time she got wasted?” Paul asked, eyebrow raised in equal parts amusement and caution.

“Yes,” Brad mused, smiling to himself with the memories of that rather steamy night. “Yes I do.”

“What’s going on?” Greg asked, sauntering up to the bar. “Who got drunk?”

“Fen,” Paul shrugged.

Greg gave a hearty cackle. “Really? What happened? Why wasn’t I told?”

“Someone spiked her soda at the after party for the play we worked on. She sang, she danced, she groped me…”

“She groped me too,” Brad mused. “It was fun.”

“So what, we’re getting the girls drunk?” Greg seemed much more excited by the idea than the situation warranted.

“Why not?” Paul smirked. “But I take no responsibility if Fen tries to seduce me again.”

“Does that mean I can take no responsibility should I get drunk and happen to try—”

“No,” Paul and Brad answered in unison as the barkeep placed their drinks on the bar. They grabbed them and headed back to the table where Fenny seemed to be trying to feed Troy pretzel sticks. Gina looked up just in time to see Paul plop a bottle of tequila down in front of her.

“Always with the bloody tequila,” Gina smirked, shaking her head.

“I see embarrassing moments in the immediate future, followed by threats of disownment.”

“Thank you for that, Madame Fenella,” Greg teased as he started pouring shots. He slid the first over to Paul, but it was intercepted by Gina, who raised it to her lips, causing everyone at the table to stare. Without hesitation, she downed the entire shot in one go.

“Oh my,” Fenny breathed.

“That’s my Genie,” Paul chirped proudly.

“You guys really drink this shit for fun?” Gina demanded, scowling at the taste. “Yick.”

“What’s this all about?” Greg asked.

“I’ve had a hard day,” Gina pointed out with mock seriousness, “and I think we’ve all earned a little bit of relaxation and making arses of ourselves. Except for frumpy Fenny maybe, but we need someone to watch the mongoose I guess.” Fenny stuck her tongue out at her childishly and Paul inched Troy a bit closer to him. “Besides, we’re safe and we can have all tomorrow morning to deal with the aftereffects.”

“My thinking exactly,” Brad smiled, drinking down the last half of his first shot and sliding the glass back towards Greg for a refill.

“But first I think I need to find something that’s not going to eat away the lining of my esophagus. Want something Fen?” Gina asked as she stood.

“No thanks, I’m happy with my soda.”

Gina shrugged and wandered off as Brad tried to hide a snicker behind a cough, until Paul elbowed him in the ribs. “Ow,” he whined, and flicked Paul’s ear in retaliation. In protest, Paul kicked Greg in the shin.

“Hey you little troll, what was that for?” Greg shrieked.

“Didn’t want you to miss out on the fun,” Paul grinned. Greg threw a slice of lime at him. “My eye,” he shrieked as Brad began giggling.

“Boys,” Fenny warned, “don’t make me send you to your rooms.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Greg countered.

“You can send me to my room,” Brad said with a decidedly lecherous grin. “I’ve been bad…”

Fenny rolled her eyes and tried not to smile as she got up to find Gina and perhaps an iota of maturity. “I don’t know how much more of you people I can take.”

Claudia shifted uncomfortably in her seat, leaning her head against the closed window shade and continuing her pout for the fifth straight hour. The last thing in the world she wanted to be doing was going to Australia, let alone with this particular nauseating, repressed couple. They’d been stoutly ignoring one another and her, burying themselves mindlessly in their reading material. Claudia could practically smell the pheromones oozing off Beven and Ritza. She raised her head briefly to glance towards the bathroom with a sigh. “There’s a free toilet if you two want to get it over with and just—”

“Ferme sa bouche ou je vais la fermer pour vous.”

Still annoyed by Beven and Claudia’s occasional mysterious French exchanges, Ritza scowled into the paperback she’d picked up in the airport. A sappy romance was probably not the best choice, but they’d been in a hurry and the English selection in their particular terminal’s shop had been limited.

“I told her to close her mouth or I’d close it for her,” Beven said softly into her ear, making her smile in spite of herself.

“Can we close it for her anyway? I might still have my emergency duct tape in my bag.”

“You keep emergency duct tape?” Beven asked, eyes suddenly wide.

Ritza gave an enigmatic smile. “You never know when you might want someone bound and gagged.”

Beven nodded dumbly for a moment, cleared his throat and decided to go back to his magazine. Claudia rolled her eyes and went back to picking the chipped polish from her nails.

Danny sat on the floor with his ear against the doorjamb, straining to understand the muffled voices from downstairs. After about two mind-numbing hours of listening, he’d only discovered that Otto was a real whiny brat and that sitting on floorboards for two hours was not good for one’s rear end.

As he shuffled around on the floor to switch ears, he heard distinct footsteps coming up the stairs. With a hushed obscenity he yanked the balaclava back over his head and leapt back into the bed, face down in the pillow and covers pulled up to his shoulders. He tried desperately to calm his heart rate so Amy would assume he was asleep and leave him alone.

No such luck.

She opened the door softly and gently locked it behind herself as she moved to kneel next to him, rubbing her hand up and down his arm. “Sean? Sean sweetie, how’re you doing?”

Danny made a big show of acting like he was reluctantly waking up. “Hmmmmph?”

“You feeling ok?”

“Head hurts,” he grumbled, burying himself deeper into the pillow.

“Maybe if you took that stupid thing off your head you’d feel better,” she suggested, and he quickly shook his head in refusal.

“Keeps my head warm, it helps,” Danny said, finding it impossible that this psychotic woman was actually buying his act and his comic attempts at an accent. Whatever she’d been drinking downstairs probably wasn’t helping her out any, and he had no choice but to go along with it.

“Oh, come on sweetie, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said, gently stroking the back of his head.

“No, stop,” he gasped, flinching away. “Please,” he added, “it hurts.”

“It’s my fault, I’m so sorry,” she whined, “I should have had someone out there with you to watch the cars but I never thought they’d get out of that fucking cellar.”

“Guess that’ll teach you to underestimate ‘em,” he breathed into the pillow. He felt Amy recoil a bit.

“I mean it,” she said softly, “I’ll kill them for this.”

He tried not to cringe at the declaration, but didn’t manage to keep from stiffening up as Amy’s hand rubbed down his back. Her weight shifted and he felt her breath on the back of his neck.

“Not now honey, my head,” he argued feebly.

She kissed his neck anyway, briefly, then moved to say in his ear, “Let me, it’ll make you feel better.” She grabbed him by the shoulder and guided him onto his back. “I promise.” She latched onto his neck again, her hand snaking up under his shirt.

Without the pillow to muffle his voice, he didn’t trust himself to speak and just yawned while pushing her gently away from him.

“Fine.” Amy gave a defeated sigh. “I guess you probably should get some sleep, rest up for tomorrow.

“Thanks,” he breathed, pulling the blankets tight around him again as he curled up on his side, trying to ignore the fact that Amy was sliding into bed behind him. His friends would owe him for life for this, that much was certain.

Ritza glanced idly around the cab of the plane. It was reasonably quiet and not too crowded, although there was a significantly inebriated man in the row next to her embarrassing his teenage daughter by complaining loudly about the lack of choice in the in-flight movie.

“In a world where we put microprocessors in toasters and people on the moon and satellites around the planet and a man on Mars, why can’t I get a good movie on here?”

“No one ever put a man on Mars,” the girl murmured dejectedly into her crossword puzzle.

“Yes we did.”

“No, we put remote control cars on Mars.”

“Venus then, it must’ve been.”

“No, the atmosphere destroyed the probes.”

The man paused to take another drink. “Well the moon was a big deal. And who put people on the moon? Us. Damn Australian planes.”

“Damn Americans,” Ritza grumbled under her breath as the girl took to chewing on her pen and continued her attempt to avoid eye contact with everyone else on the plane.

“We haven’t heard from the others in a while,” Beven announced more in an attempt to break the monotony than to initiate any sort of conversation.

“Probably busy kicking the shit out of Amy,” Ritza mused.

“I hope she’s killed your friends already.”

“Fuck you,” Ritza snapped, too tired, annoyed and stressed for snappy comebacks or any of Claudia’s attitude.

Claudia leaned over Beven to get close to Ritza, who folded her arms across her chest and scowled. “He already did,” Claudia perked, patting Beven’s thigh for good measure. Ritza lunged at Claudia with a strangled growl. Beven easily captured both of Ritza’s wrists before she could actually attack the Frenchwoman, who leaned back casually to flip through the fashion magazine she’d obtained at the airport.

“Come on, up,” Beven commanded, pulling Ritza to a standing position and nudging her towards the aisle. “You, don’t do anything,” he added to Claudia. As he turned round, he found himself being stared at by a steward and half the plane.

“Is there a problem sir, ladies?” the steward asked cautiously.

“Sibling rivalry,” Beven offered, “you know how it gets, who did Mum love more…”

“Merde,” Ritza snapped, wiping at a damp patch on her shirt. “She spilt my drink.”

“But, she’s—” the steward protested.

“French and arrogant, I know,” Ritza interrupted, “which is why Mum wouldn’t have anything to do with her. Now if you’ll excuse us, thank you.” With that, Beven took her by the hand and led her into one of the empty bathrooms. “Boy Duggan, you sure know how to treat a lady,” she chided, looking around the cramped quarters.

“Look Ritz,” Beven sighed, trying to find something to do with his hands. “If you have to kill Claudia, can you wait until we’re off the plane and through saving the guys from American psychos? You know she’s only doing it to get a rise out of you.”

“And she’s doing a fine job of that. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“Of course I bloody well noticed. But you’re a smart woman, I know you know better than to play into Claudia’s power trips. Right now she’s winning and it’s driving us both nuts.”

“And now she thinks we’re in here fucking each other stupid, surely that’s a couple points in her favor?”

“Actually,” Beven mused, “I think that’d probably be a couple points in our favor.”

“Right,” she nodded. “Never mind then.”

“So can you try to just ignore her? We’ve still got helpless amateurs to save, we don’t need to be arrested for assault and battery when we land.”

“They’re pretty good at handling themselves for amateurs,” she pointed out, leaning against the sink.

“Yeah, but who’s gonna save them from killing each other?”

“Right, we probably should get there as quick as we can.”

“We probably should be looking after Claudia,” Beven mused, looking around the cramped cubicle a bit nervously.

“What’s she gonna do, run away?” Ritza countered.

“Whore the stewardesses?” he suggested.

“Hijack the plane with her makeup mirror.”

“Can’t, confiscated at the airport,” he shrugged. “You should’ve seen her sulking.”

“She might hang herself with her seat belt?” Ritza said almost hopefully.

Beven shrugged again. “I wouldn’t be too bothered.”

“How come we couldn’t have just beat the hell out of her and leave her in an alley somewhere?”

“We might need her to help us deal with Amy.”

“Then can we beat her and leave her in an alley?”

“If you behave yourself,” he smiled. “Maybe.”

“Thanks,” she chirped, leaning up to kiss him quickly on the cheek before opening the door and sauntering back to her seat, Beven following with a bit of a hazy look on his face.

“Feel better now that you’ve got that out of your systems?” Claudia sneered.

“Much, thank you,” Ritza chirped.

Claudia scowled as Beven settled himself in the seat between them. “You didn’t used to be that quick.”

“Oh just shut the fuck up already you stupid French bitch,” he snapped, causing Claudia to visibly recoil. Ritza smirked to herself and went back to her paperback.

Greg inspected the bottom of the empty bottle of tequila, wondering why there was no worm. Those crazy Mexicans, lime in their beer and invertebrates in their liquor. His eyes wandered across the table to the others. Gina was on her third glass of wine, which she admitted only tasted a little better than their tequila. He had to hand it to her, Gina really cold hold her booze. Unlike Fen, who had gotten significantly goofy and was currently debating the merits of striped socks Brad. Which wasn’t necessarily unusual in and of itself, but she did have one foot in Brad’s lap, where he was fiddling with the laces to her sneakers while examining her green striped socks as the conversation slowly slipped into children’s television theme songs.

“So what exactly have you guys been putting in her drinks?” Gina asked quietly, though Brad and Fenny probably wouldn’t have noticed if the three of them had stripped to their underwear and started a mud wrestling competition.

“What makes you think it was us?” Greg countered.

“Actually it was Brad’s idea,” Paul pointed out. “But we helped,” he added proudly. “I think it’s whiskey.”

“You should be ashamed of yourselves, turning Fenny into a giggling mess. But I know you’re not.”

“Better a giggling mess than a whining pain in the arse,” Paul pointed out.

“But I think we could all do without the sticking her tongue down Sherwood’s throat,” Greg groaned.

“You’re just jealous,” Gina countered, rubbing Paul’s back.

“Am not,” Greg pouted, trying to pour himself a drink but finding again that the bottle was empty, and still not quite up to getting up to find a new one. “I’ve never wanted to put my tongue down Sherwood’s throat. Paul’s maybe, but we’d consumed a lot of widely varied substances that night.”

“It’s a night I’ll never forget,” Paul cooed, leaning across the table to pat his hand.

“I should call my wife,” Greg said with a sigh.

“You always want to call your wife when you’re drunk,” Gina sighed.

“Can’t call her when I’m sober, she’ll think I’m crazy. Least when I’m drunk I have a reason for sounding like a deluded paranoiac.”

“But you are a paranoid deludian…you are paranoid and deluded though,” Paul amended.

“Sshh, she doesn’t know that yet.”

“So what will you tell your wife if you call her?” Gina asked.

“ ‘Hi Pookie’,” he began, holding an imaginary phone a bit unsteadily to his ear. “‘Yes I know—would you calm down a second. I know this is the thirtieth time I’ve done this to you. Yes. Yes, and I know I promised that last time would be the last time. That’s why it was the last time. I know. Just some tequila with the guys. The same ones, yeah. I know you told me Paul was going to give me liver disease. Gina? Um…no. I’m nowhere near any woman I’ve ever slept with, ever thought of sleeping with, ever not thought of sleeping with. No. No men I’ve ever thought of not sleeping with either. I’m sorry Snookums.’ ”

Gina and Paul looked at each other, mouthing “Snookums?”

“ ‘No, I don’t know when I’ll be able to come home. Then could you send my things to that Ramada downtown? I love you sweetheart.’ ” And he hung up his imaginary phone. “I guess you were right, that didn’t go well at all did it.”