There were still many mysteries in the ‘verse. The worlds that had been terraformed and now played home to humanity hadn’t always been that way. Before the planets had been transformed to cater for human life, they had once hosted other lifeforms, most of them long extinct. But there were still remnants of these entities. Some revealed themselves in supernatural ways, others more subtly, and still others waited… waiting to be unearthed, waiting to be revealed, waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting ‘verse…

The Sereni-Tree, Somewhere in deep space.

In the two weeks since Soul's death, Serenity had spent most of that time in her room, only coming out when absolutely necessary and barely talking to anyone. Now, with many of the crew sound asleep, Serenity emerges from her room and creeps downstairs, heading to the kitchen.

She is STARVING, having hardly eaten anything since, well, she doesn't like to think about it. But now she's hungry. She finds a bag of chips and munches those while she raids the fridge. She pulls out pie, sandwiches, a hunk of cheese, pickles. She pops her head in the freezer and finds a tub of chocolate ice cream. She grabs a big spoon and digs into that, adding whipped cream and candy right to the container.

Dale the ferret wanders in. She picks him up and sets him on the table and feeds him the greens from the celery she dips in her peanut butter.

Finally, sated, she finishes off the last of her glass of milk, puts her head down on the table, and falls asleep, leaving the remains of the ice cream to melt on the counter.

--

The phantom floats through the hallways and the rooms, observing the people contained in the ship called SereniTree, but he is not sure why he watches, or why he is even on this ship in the first place. It is a mystery, even to him. He exists, and that is as far as his mind let's him go. He has no name, and he has no comprehension of what a name is. So he floats behind the veil of reality, and watches.

He is not evil, neither is he good. Again, his comprehension for those words does not exist, either. He cannot be seen or felt, and the laws of reality do not tie him down.

So he floats, and watches. It is what he does.

Death intrigues him. Not just the act of a person dying, but the process of what happens after they die. After staring at the body in the frozen tube, he begins to contemplate about the afterlife, yet another part of his persona that has come floating to the surface. He thinks about souls, and if a person really does have one. If so, what happens to the soul after their body can no longer support life?

And with that… does he have a soul?

If not… what does that make him?

The Phantom floats back into the main room of the infirmary and finds quite a few more people in there than when he left. He is starting to feel comfortable around them, despite the fact that none of them can see him, and none of them know that he even exists. Even the new faces seem almost familiar to him, as if they all share the same spirit, the same sense of adventure, it seems.

He moves closer, his previous musing pushed to the back of his head, and he leans to see who is lying on the table. There are people in his way, though, and he does not wish to pass through any of them since he is still unsure what that might do. So he reaches out instead, almost as if by instinct, and wishes for the one in front of him to move just one step to the right-- --and the doctor moves one step to the right. Exactly one step. Phantom moves back in shock, and then slowly forward again. Did he make the doctor do that, or was it just coincidence? So he tries again. This time he wills for two steps to the left--

--and the doctor moves exactly two steps to the left.

Well...interesting...

Phantom floats back again. Something in his mind clicks. A memory. Very fleeting. A pull. But a pull to where?

He floats away, back towards the infirmary. He can’t figure it out, but something is drawing him back. He passes the winged woman, and something leaps inside him, something trying to tear it’s way out of him—

Serenity

--And then the barrier hiding his memories cracks, and he suddenly knows what to do. As fast as he can, he flies to the infirmary and makes his way to the room holding the cryogenic tubes. On the way he reaches out to a girl working there and makes her walk to the tube and activate the waking process. Then he lets her wander back out of the room, now confused as to how she got in there.

The tube hisses open and warm saline solution begins to run into the veins of the body. The Phantom stares at the prone figure and the barrier falls, all of his memories rushing back in a flood. He arcs his head back and screams, for once glad that no one can hear him; he races up to the ceiling as his true identity returns, and drops like a bomb, still screaming as he rushes to the body, inside the body, and—

Soul of Serenity opens his eyes.

He is freezing and confused. The last thing he remembers is being on board the Arkham and—

He sits upright, as fast as his thawing body will allow him.

I’m supposed to be dead!

His head is swimming, but somehow he manages to swing his legs over and stand up. He stares down and realizes that he’s naked. He looks around until he sees a table piled with his clothes. Slowly, painfully, he dresses; and then his nostrils open up to the smell of food. He grins and makes his way out of the room. He passes through the infirmary and heads for the kitchen, his body warming and growing stronger with each step. He reaches the doorway…and steps through.

Serenity heads over to the fridge to refill her glass of water. As she turns back to the table, she sees someone walk through the door. Someone that can't be there.

The glass falls to the ground and she falls after it.

Hearing the noise, a number of nearby crew step in to be greeted by an impossible sight. Whilst Nell caters to Serenity, the others embrace their resurrected comrade.

Between the gasps, cries and questions, Soul tries to answer them, but all fades into insignificance when he spots Serenity

She sits slumped against the fridge and finding it hard to breathe."

“Soul?”

She has to touch him, to feel that he is real. She tries to stand, but her knees give out and she slides back down the fridge.

“Soul?”

“Serenity?” He races over to her side.

She looks up at him slowly, a strange look on her face. Her eyes focus, and she slaps him hard.

Then she kisses him.

From the back of the room, Cozen sighs. "Do I have to die to get a kiss around here?"

“How is this possible?” one of their friends asks.

Soul smiles and shakes his head, unable to believe it.

"I'm honestly not quite sure myself. As far as I can figure, my soul-" he grins at using his namesake "-kinda got tied to this place, and these people are my family. I guess even when my body died, my soul just couldn't leave." He shivers a bit, and someone places a jacket over his shoulders.

"Plus, I can't leave this ship without a Security Chief. God knows what Rat would have done!"

He laughs out loud, and it feels so good. He was home.

Me looks up from his table and calls out to Dr Whom

“Uh, Doc? Perhaps you should take Soul and, you know, run some tests?”

“Can’t hurt” Soul acknowledges.

Serenity, still holding onto her dearest, leans in to speak into his ear.

“Don't you EVER die on me again!” She manages a weak laugh but sobs a little. Then, with a softer tone she adds. “Oh, and I have something important to tell you.”

"Really? What is it?" he asks.

She pulls him out of the dining room, away from the crowds to a deserted corridor. "I wanted to tell you alone, and before anyone else could spill the beans."

She takes a deep breath.

“I'm pregnant.”

Silence. Soul stares at her, a goofy grin breaking out on his face. "Is it...mine?" She smacks him in the arm. Not so hard this time.

"Ow," he says as he rubs his arm.

“No, you moron! It's Cozen's! OF COURSE it's yours. What kind of a girl do you take me for?”

He looks at her, awe on his face. "So I'm gonna be a dad. Wow."

“Yeah, I know!”

Now, let's get you to the infirmary. Dr. Whom says I'm due for a check-up anyway, so I'll come with.

With Soul and Serenity out of earshot and wandering towards the infirmary, Kelly gets Me’s attention

“What’s the deal with him?”

“Soul?” Me asks.

Kelly nods.

“Long story,” Me says.

She grabs him a drink. “I’ve got time.”

As Soul and Serenity walk into the medical bay, Dr Whom greets them.

“Ah, excellent. Patients. Let me just check your charts. Now you... you're some sort of winged creature who is pregnant. And you... you're deceased. If you weren't good friends of mine, I'd be calling for a vet and an undertaker right about now. Okay... we'll start with the ex-corpse. Open your mouth and say "Ahhhhh." Good, say "Twim". "Twim". "Phadabahaweee". "Twim". Excellent, nothing wrong there. Okay, let's get a little more technical...” as he starts various scans.

“You would like to know the story Kelly?” Me begins. “The story of how Soul died?”

Kelly nods whilst Me takes a swig of his drink.

“We had been tracking Emma, who is yet ANOTHER missing member of our crew. She had gone out on a trading mission and never returned. We followed what we took to be her distress beacon to a derelict ship, the Arkham. While our sensors said that her beacon was there, we could not get a lock on her exact location.

“So three groups of us took shuttles over to explore the wreck, each using a different entry point. But once inside, each group got caught in a separate reality that had nothing to do with a derelict ship. My group was on Whitefall being attacked by endless hordes of mutated creatures, and we were losing the fight. The group with Soul trekked through a mysterious forest and had to face the Dark Tower. As for Serenity, her group were stuck in cages attached to a gladiatorial arena… Or so it all appeared…”

“Now, I have no idea if we were being subjected to hologram-style illusions inside the Arkham, if our minds were being controlled, or if we were truly taken to various other worlds. The details are not important, however. What is important is that we were trapped in these nightmares, with no way out. We were the playthings of some evil alien entity, a puppetmaster, and we were just dancing on our strings for its amusement.

“And it was a sadistic puppetmaster. For some reason, it picked Soul and took him aside. It promised that we could all go free, but for a price. One of us had to die. Soul had to choose. The puppetmaster watched in glee as Soul agonized over the decision. Then Soul decided that HE would die in order to free us all. He willing sacrificed himself to save the rest of us.”

“What a guy!” Kelly said, flabbergasted by the whole tale.

“But anyway,” Me continued. “Now he’s walking around, seemingly alive. And somehow, it disturbs me. It seems too easy. That is why I want the doctor to check him out.” Me drains the rest of the drink in one gulp.

“And we STILL have not found Emma.”

“Well, Doc doesn't seem to be too worried,” Serenity says as she walks with Soul back to her apartment. “So I guess we're both okay.”

“Now what do we do?” he asks her, the moment hanging in the air.

“You want to hear about all that's happened recently” she says with a smile Soul nods. "Sure. It seems like I've missed quite a bit."

As Serenity relates the myriads of events that have occurred, Soul listens intently, asking questions when needed. They laugh, they cry, they hold on tightly to one another.

Reaching her apartment, Serenity flings herself at him and burst into tears again. Muffled words break out between sobs from where her head is buried in his chest.

“Sorry...stupid hormones...” she sniffs.

Finally tearing herself away, she opens the door to her apartment. Wiping away the tears still streaming down her face, she picks up Soul's bow and quiver where they lay on a table by the door.

“Here. PR brought them back and gave them to me. I've been holding on to them, but now you're back, I don't need to anymore.”

Soul smiles as she hands him back his bow and quiver. He quickly re-arms himself, and then gathers Serenity up in his arms.

"Hey, you've got me again. It's a good thing, isn't it. Besides, I like to think that I'm more comfortable to cuddle with than a quiver full of arrows."

“Well, I don't know. Those are some pretty cozy arrows”

She laughs and it's almost like he never left.

Almost.

--

The Phantom’s eyes open, slowly. Incorporeal parts of him that had floated away come wandering back together, slowly filling in the missing pieces until he is once again whole. It takes a moment longer for the cognitive part of his brain to return to normalcy, but as soon as it does, his eyes snap open the rest of the way.

I’m free! Free from that damn soul that latched onto me.

He looks away from himself, and realizes that he is in a room filled with people, and as his eyes narrow in rage, he finds that he recognizes most of them. He looks for the Gunslinger, but he is nowhere to be found.

Then he sees HIM. The one who’s soul latched onto him, who stopped the Phantom from completing his work, and who let his prisoners go.

He raises his arms and roars, and even the corporeal realm rumbles.

No one escapes the Phantom of Arkham