Well, their little jaunt on the Tortuga Station had been interesting, buy uhh...frankly, Elliot was looking forward to seeing the back of it, as odd a thing to say as that was.  It was, for them, the 'any port in a storm' to them.  Not a homey place, not even a permanent or [i]good[/i] place.  It was just A place, and it would be better if they weren't here the whole time.  The reason for the measuring twice and cutting once had been due to some insight in the crew that started from Pitt and ended with Elliot.

Come to think of it, they were measuring [i]thrice[/i] now, weren't they?

In a way, it didn't matter to the somewhat-grizzled man sitting in the gunship cockpit.  If anything happened with the Sweet Child of Mine, there was still [i]his[/i] ship, at least.  Even still, he kind of liked the little gathering of a crew that they had.  It was about as motley as you get, but those are [i]fun[/i].  The only problem was when personalities and habits collide.  That'd been the case...with Irina and Grace.  Now, he didn't know what Catican society was like, or how seriously Irina took things, but Grace...  Grace had been instructed by [i]him[/i], and after a number of years living on the streets with nothing but a knife or two.  People like that don't let go, not ever.

Especially not when the thing they're not letting go about involved breaking a crucial airlock in the heat of battle.

That would've been a good way to [i]lose[/i] the Archer, not to mention the partner he'd worked with for some time, since she had been piloting it.  Elliot had taught her, trained her, and gotten her to work with him, and now that he considered her an equal partner, he didn't want some freak mistake with a docking procedure when a quick escape is needed separating him from his home in space and main trainsport, AND her.  This had led to their disagreements, a brief prank war, and then Grace attempting to teach Irina how to properly pilot, and...

Look, things hadn't worked out.  Alot of it was aggravating, but some of it was funny.

The latter line of thinking was how Elliot was looking at it while he was in the common area with Grace now, getting a little drunk.  They had been going over the happenings of the situation again, and Grace - while not a light-weight - had gotten to talking about how trouble Irina was.

Grace: That cat woman is about as smart as I am tall.

Elliot: Kind of middling, then?

Grace: Not very.

Grace was not fantastically tall.  Irina wasn't especially tall either.  Only one of them was alright with their height.  Not the Catican, funnily enough.

Grace: I was never that troublesome as a child, but Irina IS a child, and I hate it.  I want to inflict her on my parents, as punishment...

That was let loose by accident.  Grace did not talk about her parents, and they were technically in [i]polite[/i] company.  Elliot knew, of course.  Grace's parents straight-up abandoned her for some reason.  It was why she was on the streets when Elliot found her.  It was water under the bridge.  She did resent it, but did not really address it because there was nothing to really say or do on the matter.  Right now, the bigger merc looked at his watch.

Elliot: We'll wanna be right and sober by the time the mission hits off.  Finish your drink, and get some rest.  Busy times a'coming.