Alison wrote: <Michael Keating said Vila was crying because he was trying to get his act together to put *himself* out the airlock. That is, he was going to sacrifice himself, as you think Blake would.>

And Claudia: <Hm. I don't buy that at all. If that's what the actor says he had in mind, I'll accept that, but that's not what comes across on screen to me. To me, he's just in terror. Not exactly betrayal, because Avon didn't do anything Vila didn't expect of him. He doesn't have to wait to see Avon's reaction to Orac's comment; he's already hidden before Avon comes down with his gun and his awful soft voice.>

Agree with all of this, and I actually really can't see Vila sacrificing himself for anyone *at all*. Not even Blake - though I can believe that he might *want* to for Blake. Vila is, first and foremost, a survivor, even more so IMO than Avon, because there actually *isn't* anyone who Vila would deliberately, cold-bloodedly put ahead of himself. I see this in both Vila and Soolin, and a possible explanation in their backgrounds, similar in that both appear to have been flung onto their own resources at a very young age (Soolin's family were massacred, Vila was in prison at age 14). His cowardice is IMO genuine, but only one aspect of this; where he thinks it won't work, he doesn't give in to it.

He does, of course, occasionally take risks for one of the others - an interesting aspect of his saving Tarrant in Rescue is that there is no one there to *tell him* him do it, in the heat of the moment he just does. And almost goes back for Cally, but then when that awful rumble starts, the survival instinct kicks in and he scrambles for safety (I'm not blaming him, of course, there's not a thing he could have done to save her).

But to cold-bloodedly face death for someone else ..? No. What I can see is Blake deciding to airlock himself and Vila *wanting* to stop him, but not being able to pull together that amount of selflessness until it was too late.

<What would happen between Blake and Avon on the shuttle? I have no idea. Neither of them would hide, so instead there would be some kind of "so this is it after all these years" confrontation. I'm sure Blake wouldn't kill Avon, but I don't think Avon would kill Blake either, _in that circumstance_.>

I think Blake would try to leave, and Avon - his *protective* instinct kicking in - would try and stop him. What happens next is anyone's guess, and the stuff of quite a few stories I've read ...

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