#But please stop treating this like the memory loss is an inevitable thing

[familyagrestefanblog]

Hot take to the whole "Marinette will loose her memory because she's now the guardian" thing: No she won't.

All guardians having to loose their memories is not what the episode(s) show us at all. It was said in "Miracle Queen" that the memory loss is a tactic to protect the miraculous holders/secrets if the situation is so lost its the only choice. That's when the Guardians give up their claim to the Miracle box and give the ownership to someone else. But this won't happen every single time, that makes no sense.

Why should Marinette have to give up her guardianship when she picks a new guardian for her box when it happens under normal circumstances? When she's just too old and retires?

Pretty sure this monk from "Feast" who was the one giving Fu the Grimoire, making him the new Master over it and the box, didn't loose his memory in his last moments either because what sense does that make?

Sure, he didn't gave Fu the miracle box under normal circumstances but he also sure as hell didn't went "I guardian (name) give up my claim and make Wang Fu the new guardian!" prior to this. Because why the hell should he? This was no danger situation that required a memory loss. He was about to get eaten and die and not get caught and forced to spill secrets like Fu in "Miracle Queen". So the Monk just, handed it to him. Like it's normally done. They are a whole hidden guardian society on a fuck high mountain in Tibet, passing down a miracle box is not a set in stone memory loss thing. That makes no sense. There probably wasn't even a "passing down tradition" since they all lived and guarded them together in the Miraculous temple. So most, MOST, very damn likely they were all able to use every box because they were trained to know all the Kwamis and how they function. I can't imagine there was a big separation going on here.

Sure, young ones needed to be trained first and therefore weren't allowed to "own" them yet alongside the others but once you are guardian? You're a guardian. And you will be one in this society until you die (old age, accident, whatever) even if you dont practically use and hold the miraculous anymore. Old and wise teachers are a thing too. It's actually really damn important having them around as we see now with Marinette.

So no, Marinette won't loose her memories unless she has to actively pull that sacrifice because the danger situation calls for it. She will one day show the next person how every works and how to open the miracle box, hand it to them when they are ready and life the rest of her retirement as an old woman in peace with Adrien and her children and grandchildren and everyone else she loves. Jesus christ people lighten up

[tailorvizsla]

How about 9 "Did it mean anything to you? Did I mean anything to you?" & 10 "How was I such an idiot, to believe that you, out of all people, could ever love me?" or 23 "When did you stop loving me?" & 49 "I wish we never met" with Paz Vizla. Fuck me over like my student loans, fam.

Title: Aruetii Rating: R Wordcount: ~1800 Warnings: Angst. Author’s Notes: I don’t think I’ve done a lot of Paz Vizsla angst? Hope this hurts you the way you like, Anon.🧡🧡🧡

📚 My Master List 📚

Aruetii.

The word follows you everywhere you go within the confines of the Tribe’s home. The others have always called you aruetii, but you always thought it teasing and playful. Now, as you stand here in the doorway, a brittle smile on your face, you can hear the venom in their voices as they sneer down at you.

Outsider.

They are making it clear that you are not their family. That you never will be part of the intimate, loving relationships they share. Even your relationship with Paz cannot make up for the fact that you are an outsider. No matter how many times you’ve fought at his side and patched up his sorry shebs, you are not family. Automatically, you reach to embrace him as he comes up behind you.

Foreigner.

You falter, your fingers brushing against his cuirass. He hesitates to return your embrace, but he does not deny you. This time, at least. You’ve looked after his children. Looked after his family. Warmed his bed. And now he’s done with you. His hands rest lightly at your waist, as if steadying you on a ladder. It lacks the usual affection, the desperation when he presses himself to you and lets his hands wander all over your body. Desperately, you try to think of something else, of something to forestall the inevitable, but your brain fails you. You know the other half of your heart and soul.

Paz has decided he no longer has a use for you.

And nothing will change his mind.

-

That night, after you’ve tucked the children into bed, he goes in to say goodnight. Paz doesn’t even bother waiting until you’re out of hearing range before calling you the aruetii dala. You grimace, but you say nothing, continuing forward to finish tidying up after yourself. This room – the place you had once seen as your home – is now stifling and choking. Everything just feels so wrong, like everything has been moved by a few inches or like the colors aren’t quite what they should be.

When he puts his hand on your shoulder, you flinch. He jerks away, so you know he registers it. You don’t say anything and neither does he.

What would be the point?

-

The next morning, you wake up cold and alone. In the past, Paz had woken you up with kisses and cuddles. Sometimes he would bring you kaff if he had the time. Those were faint memories now. Sighing, you sit up. You can feel him on your ribs, your thighs, inside you. That was one thing that had not stopped, you think wryly to yourself, as you get to your feet. At least the sex is still enjoyable.

Idly, you think you’ll need to start packing your things so you can leave and pretend this had never happened.

“Hey,” Paz rumbles out as you start dressing for the day.

“Hey,” you respond, not looking at him. “Did you need something?”

“Can we talk?”

Here it is. He’s going to end things. A small part of you wants to cry. The rest of you just feels disgust. Disgust with yourself for deluding yourself into believing he would ever want you. Disgust with him at how easily he had involved your – his, they are his – children in this mess, that he had allowed you to be their mother when he never had the intentions of making it true.

“Sure,” you say, turning to him. “What is it?”

“I wanted to ask what your intentions are,” he says. “About our…relationship.”

You don’t miss the way he hesitates to say relationship, his tone filled with an undercurrent of trepidation. You keep calm, your thoughts racing. You take a deep breath to steady yourself, to try and will yourself to forget the smiles and laughter your little clan of five had once shared here.

“Did you ever want something permanent, Paz?” you dare to ask.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

At the hesitancy in his voice, you realize he knows that you know.

“Was this all just a farce?” you whisper tremulously, eyes filling with tears.

Fuck, you promised yourself you wouldn’t cry. That you wouldn’t give him that satisfaction of knowing that he had completely fooled you. You swallow around the knot in your throat and grit your jaw. It’s just a breakup, you remind yourself. Plenty of partners had broken up with you in the past. You had broken up with plenty of them. This is no different, even if it feels like you are losing a piece of yourself.

“What are you talking about?” he asks, taking a half-step back, as if to distance himself from the pain he has caused you.

“Paz, you’ve changed,” you say. “You treat me like you don’t care anymore. Why? What did I do?”

“Look. You haven’t done anything. I do care about you, but this relationship…I’m not sure where it can go.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that from the start?” you choke out.

“It’s complicated. You’re…” He falters. “You’re – “

“Aruetii,” you finish bitterly. “I know that. Don’t you think I hear people muttering it at me every single day?”

“Then you understand,” he says softly.

“No, Paz, I genuinely don’t. Why did you bring me here in the first place?”

He doesn’t respond as you press forward.

“Why did you let me think you loved me?”

He jerks back at that accusation. He inhales and exhales, shaking his head.

“We just have differences, and I’m not sure how we can overcome them if you’re aruetii.”

“Did it mean anything to you?” you ask. “Did I mean anything to you?”

He looks taken aback by your words.

“You mean something to me,” he says. “I cherish our relationship. I just think we need to take a step back – “

“You called me outsider instead of my name last night,” you say. “Be honest with me, Paz. Please.”

“I care about you. I really do,” he says. “But like we have established, you are an outsider. I’m not sure this is the right path for either of us.”

You thought your heart had been broken a long time ago, but those words shatter you into a million tiny pieces. Two years by his side, raising his children, looking after his family, using your skills to ensure you could provide for them. And this is how it ends? With his uncertainty about the future the two of you had been fantasizing about just weeks ago?

“When did you stop loving me?”

He doesn’t respond. He looks away. It hits you like a fist to the gut.

He has never loved you. Your stomach roils violently, leaving you feeling light-headed and sick.

“How was I such an idiot? To believe that you, out of all people, could ever love me?” you ask bitterly.

He flinches, as if you had reared back and slapped him. Your eyes well up as you silently plead for him to say something, to tell you he’s made a mistake, that he loves you. But you know better than to hope for anything else. Paz Vizsla has never changed his mind once he has come to a decision.

“I think it would be best to end this discussion.”

You nod in response, your eyes shutting. You wipe the tears off your cheeks.

“Yeah,” you say hoarsely. “I agree.”

He stares at you for several moments in silence. You give him a wry smile. Then you turn back to the bag you had brought your things in. Paz tilts his helmet.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Packing my things, Paz,” you respond softly.

“You don’t need to leave.”

You continue putting your things into the bag, leaving everything he has ever given you where it sits.

“Please stay,” Paz says, placing his hand over yours.

Hot anger and disgust fill you. You jerk your hand back from his.

“You’ll have to find someone else to warm your bed.”

He sighs.

“Cyare – “

“Don’t call me that,” you snap at him.

“Can you please just listen to what I have to say?”

“You got everything you wanted,” you say. “At least one of us is happy, right?”

“That isn’t fair.”

“You don’t get to tell me what is and is not fair,” you say to Paz. “You wasted two years of my life, Paz. I wish I had never met you.”

He looks at you, inhaling sharply.

“Do you mean that?” he asks quietly.

“This,” you say, gesturing at the space between your bodies. “This was all just a lie, wasn’t it?”

Paz takes a half-step back at the vitriol in your voice. He stares at you for several long seconds, his hands tight at his sides. Then he turns around and walks out of the room, confirming your suspicions. He has never loved you. He never will. Numbly, you finish packing what little property you had to your name when you first came here. You keep some of the warm clothes he had given you – you figure you can claim it as payment for everything you have done for him. Hefting your bag over your shoulder, you look around the room.

This place had once been your home, your shelter away from the outside world. This was the place where you had first seen his face and kissed his lips. This was the place where you had celebrated pregnancies and their subsequent losses. This was the place where you had helped him raise his three children. This was the place where you had planned to raise more warriors with him. It was all just a lie, a lie that he had driven straight into your heart like a knife.

You step out of the room, bag across your chest, holding your head high. Stepping out of the tribe’s home, you glance around. Town is a few hours on foot, but you have no other way of getting away from Paz and the lies he had filled your head with. You start walking, making mental lists of things you need to do now. Secure work, find lodgings, figure out if your bank code is still working. You need to find a new home, one safer than this place, since you are alone now.

Well, not completely alone.

Your hand drifts down to your midsection. Fourteen weeks into gestation, you are not even showing yet, and you are deathly afraid that something is going to happen to the baby. After all the losses you experienced in the past two years, you know this one is the one who is going to make it. This is the one you will finally name and hold in your arms. This baby is going to survive, just like you.

You survived before Paz. You survived him. You’ll survive what comes next.

You don’t need him.

-

-

-

*pats bench* @hdlynn @princessbatears Y’all want some hurt? lol

[medicallyinevitable]

Medically Inevitable

Chapter 15:- Hopeful Happenings

Characters:- Arielle Valentine, Ethan Ramsey, Ines Delarosa, Kyra Santana

Pairing:- Ethan Ramsey x Arielle Valentine

Warnings:- Slight mentions of cancer

Word Count:- 1700+ words :)

General PoV:-

As the sun shines bright in the late morning, Arielle parks her car and heads straight towards Edenbrook’s locker room, a to-go cup in hand from Starbucks instead of Derry Roasters not wanting any chance to bump into Dr. Ramsey, despite knowing that he’s her boss. Making her way to the nurses’ station, she picks up her charts and textbooks and heads toward the cafeteria.

Arielle’s PoV:-

You keep at your textbooks, scouring the pages for anything that could explain Nigel's symptoms, and the tidal wave of self-doubt doesn’t help either. You let out a sigh, "Maybe Dr. Ramsey's right. Maybe I really don't belong here..."

"Mind if I join you?" A cheery voice snaps you back to reality.

You turn around to find Kyra. Dread fills in you as you see her. "Kyra, what are you doing here? Is your cancer back? Is something wrong?", you start asking.

"Woah! Dial down the doom and gloom there, Dr. Sob Emoji. I'm in remission." Kyra beams.

"What?! Oh my god congratulations! I’m so happy for you!" You envelope her in a warm hug which almost melts all your tension away.

"Just had another check-up. Will be coming a lot for those," she catches you up with her remission plan as you two sit. "No offense but I definitely look in better shape than you!"

"Ugh I know. I'm exhausted.” And just like that, all the tension fills your mind as you give her the details. " My shift ended like five hours ago, but instead of going home I am sitting here and reading till my eyes bleed."

"You should probably get that looked at." Kyra's face morphs into something serious but genuine as she continues.

"Look, I don't want to be that cancer survivor… but it did make me realize that life is too short." You give her a sad smile knowing how painful it must have been for her.

"We only get so many chances you know? But maybe you need that lesson more than I do," she continues after pausing for a moment.

"Is it that obvious?" You raise your brows.

"Let's chalk it up to my incredible intuition." Kyra smiles," Anyways there's an amazing ice cream shop nearby. They make an triple chocolate gelato that's literally to die for," she jokes, " You can take my word for that." "Why don't we visit that place? It'll give you a distraction and a much needed break."

You look at her and then your textbooks, not understanding what to do. All you can see is blurry lines. the words and concepts swim around in your very exhausted brain. You close the textbook with a slam after your answer is crystal clear.

"How can I say no to chocolate gelato!", you say dramatically.

"That's more like it!", Kyra beams. The two of you collect your belongings and make your way out as you tell Kyra everything about the dilemma with your latest patient.

"This place is pretty cute.", you say as you look around.

"Try nauseatingly adorable. I want to make it tiny and keep it in my bookshelf," Kyra replies. You laugh.

"You collect tiny shops?" You ask as the two of you made your way to the counter.

"I collect many sickeningly adorable things," she laughs before turning her attention to the boy behind the counter. "I’ll have the large Death by Chocolate please. And my absurdly attractive friend here will have…”, she nods for you to continue.

You roll your eyes at her before placing your order. You take a look at their menu before deciding to have the same one as Kyra as it's the most chocolatey one.

“I'll have the same.", you smile at the server.

The server scoops your gelato into two big cups and slides them across the counter while Kyra rummages through her bag for her wallet.

"I'll pay.“, you say getting your card out.

"No way!", she stops you by swiftly taking your card from you. You whine but to your dismay she doesn’t budge.

"This was my idea. Besides I didn't get out much during recovery. I've got months of dining-out budget to blow."

The next minute she's handing the cash to the server and then guiding you to a booth. As you two take your seats, Kyra hands you your card.

She takes a spoon full of her Death by Chocolate and sighs blissfully.

“Mmmmmm…”

You smile at her antics. "That good?" You ask before taking a bite.

"Orgasmic. I never used to eat junk food before my diagnosis."

She takes another bite and you take your first. You can't help but let out a moan as the chocolatey silkiness melts on your tongue. Kyra smirks and gives you a smug look.

She then continues, "I was super into exercising and calorie counting. I never did anything I wasn't supposed to." She smiles sadly. "And I still got lung cancer. At my twenties!"

"You must have been so strong!", you reply.

"Everyone keeps saying that but-", she pauses, "I don't know. I just went to the doctor to see why I was breathing weird."

She sighs. "Then suddenly I was going for all these tests, and then I had cancer."

She laughs humorlessly. "Life went from jogging and juice every morning to chemo and puking."

You can almost feel the pain as she speaks about her experiences even when you’re aware you’ll never truly understand.

"But I didn't do anything," she says, " Those things had to happen , and I had good insurance, so I did them. And it's not like I had any alternative."

"I think you should give yourself more credit.”, you reach for her hand and squeeze it in a comforting manner.

"You faced death with a smile on your face. I'll always remember you cracking jokes on the way to surgery-", you stop for a second before adding,"You are the strongest person I know Kyra."

Kyra blushes, a little embarrassed. "Well you can laugh or you can cry and I chose to laugh.”, she shrugs with a smile on her face.

"And like I said, I don't want to be that cancer survivor but it does put certain things into perspective."

"That kind of clarity must be nice.", you reply.

"Well yeah, you have to get some kind of consolation price for nearly dying, right?" She then shakes her head.

”But enough about that. If we keep talking about this you'll always see me as a girl who beat cancer."

"I'll never, Kyra." you say truthfully. "That's not how I see you."

"Oh yeah? And how do you exactly see me?" She asks playfully.

"I think you are inspiring."

A blush creeps on her face as she’s caught off guard, but quickly retaliates with a sassy reply. “If you keep giving me compliments then I’ll never let you hear the end of it.”

“We’ll see about that.” You both dissolve into fits of laughter as Kyra fills you up on the hospital gossip...

“What wait?! Seriously?! I can’t believe it!”

“Me either, but you know how gossip is!”, she replies with a shrug.

Just then your phone chimes. You pull it out to see it’s a reminder for your shift.

“Crap, I have 10 minutes till my shift.”

“Oof, you better hurry!”, she replies.

“We should do this again, this was really nice.”, you say as you gather your things.

“We should! Besides there would have to be 12 different things wrong with someone to turn down Gelato!”, she jokes.

“..12 different things wrong….. oh my god, Kyra, you’re a genius!”

You scramble to your feet and quickly throw away your cup.

“I like to think I am but what did I do?”, she asks.

“I’ll explain later!”, you yell.

“Ookay…” You rush back to the hospital, typing out a message on your pager as Kyra sits there in utter confusion.

“Well I guess I could get another scoop of gelato…”

————————————————————

An hour later, you take a deep breath before entering Nigel's room to find Ethan and Ines already inside.

“Well what are you waiting for?”, Dr. Ramsey says. Pushing back all of your invading memories of him, you continue with your explanation.

"I spent the last two days trying to figure out the one thing causing all of Mr.Platt's symptoms.”, you say as you stand beside Nigel's bedside.

"And?", he asks. For a split second, you can see a slight look of hope in his eyes, but it passes as quickly as it came, leaving you to believe it was a mere delusion of yours.

"That's when I realized nothing was causing all of them-" But before you can continue, you’re interrupted by Nigel.

"Are you calling-", he burps, “me a liar?", he asks, rude as always.

You control the urge to roll your eyes. He could've at least let you finish your sentence.

Ignoring him, you continue what you were saying," Mr.Platt has been experiencing tingling and hair loss but also cold sensitivity and some hearing problems." You pause for a second before continuing,"All of which point to hypothyroidism caused by Hashimoto's disease easily treated with levothyroxine."

"Go on." Ethan orders in his usual cold bossy tone.

"I couldn't fit in the constant burping and the chest pain… because it was completely separate." You explain. "I ordered a barium swallow X-ray and detected a hiatal hernia in the esophageal hole through the diaphragm."

"The treatment?", he asks, motioning you to continue.

"I have already booked a laparoscopic surgery to repair it.”, you answer with a touch of pride.

"Good work Dr.Valentine." Ines smiles at you.” You return it with a nod and a tentative smile.

"So ... I'll be cured?" Nigel asks.

"Yes-“, you calm yourself down before you rip him apart and then continue.

"You'll be good as new." you say instead with a forced smile.

"Good... because I don't want to spend a -" he burps, " second more in your hopeless company."

Your blood boils at this point as you bite your lip to control yourself. “The audacity! Ugh, he's a patient, Arielle. You have to be nice to him.”

"Mr. Platt, might suggest viewing this as a new lease on life. Perhaps a life where you don't make everyone around you miserable.”, Ethan's stern voice retorts, shocking you and Ines.

“No way...he did not!”

"Dr. Ramsey!" Ines exclaims with a shocked expression on her face, which you’re quite sure your face resembles.

"I'll report you! I want to talk to your manager," he says more angrily than before.

"Go ahead," Ethan says with a sarcastic smile." Maybe she can't talk to you like this but I sure as hell can."

You look at Nigel who looks like he's about to say something but just then Bryce struts in. He winks at you playfully as he passes you.

"Someone called for a laparoscopic surgery?"

"Oh great, first Barbie and now the damn Ken doll!” You don’t even attempt to hide the disgust on your face as you roll your eyes.

By the time you’ve finished your consultation with Bryce, Ines and Ethan have already left the room. Pleased with yourself, you take a left in the hallway without noticing Ethan standing leaning against the wall.

"Rookie..." His velvety baritone voice calls out, pulling you out of a haze.

Wincing, you stop dead in your tracks as the memories of the previous day replay in your mind. Still embarrassed with your encounter, you turn around but never meet his eyes. You’re sure you look like a kid, standing before him with your feet crossed, one hand fiddling with your hair as you bite your lip.

"So, you figured it out in the end. And you kept things professional.”, he nods, barely visible.

"I guess I just needed a… push.”, you reply in a timid voice laced with embarrassment.

"Maybe you aren’t so hopeless then.", he says.

Unlike yesterday, his voice isn’t filled with disappointment and malice.

So mustering up some courage, you look up to meet his eyes. Relief washes over you as you don’t detect a hint of disappointment in his eyes. He isn’t smiling but something in you tells you he isn’t angry. You don’t realise you’ve been staring into his oh-so blue eyes until his pager beeps, shaking you out of your reverie.

“..Uh- I’ll see you around, Dr. Ramsey.” You can almost swear that you see longing etched into his chiseled features as you lose yourself in his eyes once more.

“Likewise, Valentine.” With that, he turns around and stalks away.

You sigh and lean against the wall, the events since you started your residency swirl around like a hurricane filled with memories.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

******************************************

And this concludes Season 1 of Medically Inevitable!

Authors’ Note:- Hey everyone, hope y’all enjoyed this chapter! As you’ve probably seen before, this is the last chapter of Season 1! Season 2 will be out soon, as soon as we work out the kinks and pump out a few chapters with different moodboards and title themes! Season 2 will be much more eventful, more drama, angst and shocking cliffhangers mixed in with the string of festivities that Thanksgiving and Christmas bring! Stay tuned and check our blogs and Instagram’s (same handle) for more updates! And lastly thank y’all so much for all the support, we are extremely grateful.

Love,

@drariellevalentine & @mysticaurathings

Medically Inevitable Taglist:- @whimsicallywayward15 | @iemcpbchoices | @sizzlingcashherohumanoid | @archveexz | @deepikakkannan | @nishas-paradise | @maurine07 | @archxxronrookie | @adrex04 | @everythingchoices | @rivenni | @annekebbphotography | @mrsethanfreakingramsey | @jamespotterthefirst | @natureblooms24 | @katkart122 | @udishaman | @hopelessromantics4life | @custaroonie | @mvalentine | @queencarb | @lisha1valecha | @ezekielbhandarivalleros | @ejrownsme @the-pale-goddess | @justanotherrookie | @miss-smrxtiee | @missmiimiie | @choicesfics | @romewritingshop | @taniasethi | @keithandlevi-ontheroof | @choicesfan10 | @open-heart-ramseyyy | @crookedkittyperson | @sistatribe | @tsrookie | @starrystarrytrouble | @caseyvalentineramsey | @alina-yol-ramsey | @openheartthot | @gryffindordaughterofathena | @binny1985 | @groovypalacehorselover | @akshara16 | @epiclazershark | @aarisa-frost | @shanzay44 | @jooous | @angela8754 | @red-rookie |

[tren-fraszka]

Fic in a Box 2021 Exchange Letter

Dear creator,

Thank you for taking your time to check my requests. I know my requests can sound a bit tricky, but please don’t be discouraged. I wish you will have good time writing first and foremost!

My AO3 is Tren, if you wish to check it out.

Likes: comedy, casefics, canon compliants, AUs, time loops, bodyswaps, roleswaps, “being hoisted by your own petard” plotlines, snark, pettiness, rivals, enemies to friends to lovers, violence, friendships, and character bonding,

DNW: explicit sex (makeouts and fade to black is okay), A/B/O, mpreg, rape depicted as positive (so no “it’s okay, because the other person enjoyed it/it was what they truly wanted”), trans headcanons, soulmate AUs, stories ending with surrender to fate/destiny, fourth wall breaking in canons where that doesn’t occur, character has cancer or other real-life terminal disease AU, word “queerplatonic”.

Also, I included what ships I’m okay with in each fandom. Please do not include any ships that aren’t canon and I have not allowed in those sections (if you feel really strongly about a ship I haven’t mentioned, you can always ask through mods just in case).

On a separate, but similar note, I’m okay with OCs as long as they don’t overshadow the characters I requested.

Additionally, while I almost never request fanart as possible medium, because I prefer my main gift to be fic, I would be very okay with receiving fanart treats. Also, feel free to peruse my old letters if you get your hands on them. I never stop being interested in fandoms, and if I requested something once I will still want it in the future.

                                           REQUESTS

Medium opt-ins (they are the same for all the fandoms):

Length Opt-In: Drabble Length Opt-In: Drabble Series Medium Opt In: Any - Any In-Universe Documents Medium Opt In: Art - Drawn - Comics Medium Opt In: Art - Drawn - Fanart Medium Opt In: Art - Excerpts from a Character's Sketchbook Medium Opt In: Art - Tarot Card Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Bureaucratic Paperwork Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Excerpts from a Journal/Notebook/Sketchbook Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Field Report Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Mission Report Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - In-Universe Scientific Documents Medium Opt In: Writing - Unreliable Narrator Medium Opt In: Writing - Non-Linear Narrative

MARIMASHITA! IRUMA-KUN

I read new manga chapters as they get translated so feel free to incorporate anything from the manga that’s available in English.

Kirio Amy/Suzuki Iruma

There are many good ships with Iruma, but this one just has a lot things I like. I love enemy ships with both sides being way too emotionally invested into each other so this was inevitable. I love how this relationship starts as this really wholesome friendship and school festival preparation, except Kirio turns out to be a bit messed up and wants to blow up everyone. But then they both accept the outcome and go on with their lives still thinking about each other. Iruma goes through a lot of trouble to keep the club operating even though Kirio has been pretty much expelled. And then Kirio is now obsessed with Iruma as his anthitesis and perfect enemy.

I’m okay with the potential story happening at any point in the canon. I would love both a story set before the festival while Kirio is still hiding his true colors or a story set after it. Maybe Iruma runs into Kirio somewhere after he escapes prison and instead of calling an adult, he tries to stop Kirio from causing trouble on his own. As for pre-festival story. Maybe some upperclassmen steal important parts from the club and Iruma and Kirio set out to get them back.

Naberius Callego & Suzuki Iruma

I love Callego for being a much better take on Snape than original Snape ever was. The second the series made Callego Iruma’s familiar I knew this was about to get good. And it was. I love how Callego slowly warms up to Iruma, even if he is still allergic to his and Sullivan’s antics. I love that Callego is actually a competent teacher who cares about his students, but at the same time he would rather eat a whole lemon than admit it out loud.

For prompts, maybe Sullivan ends up having an important business and Opera isn’t available so he dumps looking after Iruma on Callego for a few days. Or Iruma is struggling with studying since so many things are new for him, so Callego ends up forced to help him catch up with the material (if you are following manga inclusion of Balam is always welcome). Or maybe Iruma gets into usual trouble ends up stranded somewhere and the only one he can call for help is his familiar.

Crocell Kerori | Kuromu/Gyari

One of the last thing I expected to get this year was a canonical yuri romance in this manga, but here it is and it’s perfect. I love how it is pretty much built on mutual pining. I love how Kuromu loves Gyari, but refuses to reciprocate her feelings, because she knows that she needs to remain unattainable to keep their relationship alive, and I love how Gyari is never ever going to give up.

I would love to see more of the time when they worked together. We know it was love at the first sight for Gyari, but I would love to see how Kuromu’s feelings grew. Those hours they spent together practicing, maybe a not-date where they sneak together to scout a venue where they will be having their first big concert, or maybe a small contest that would sow the seeds for their future rivalry. I would love any and all of it. Also, Gyari doesn’t seem to be aware of Kuromu’s civilian identity, so I would love a story where Gyari meets Crocell Kerori rather than Kuromu. Does she recognize her? Or does Kerori manage to successfully trick her? Maybe Gyari makes a full investigation after hearing rumors that Kuromu is attending Babylys. I would also love any sort of future fic for those two.

AUs and ships

I love the worldbuilding around the demon world, so I would ask that if you decided to write an AU that it still incorporates demons. I would definitely love an AU where rather than getting summoned to demon world, Iruma accidentally summons either Kirio or Callego into the human world. Maybe Iruma’s parents try to use him as an offering, but instead he ends up bound to a demon. I would love to see Kirio excited to unleash suffering (even if his weak powers severely limit him in that regard) onto human world just to discover that he made contract with the biggest pacifist possible. Or Callego being torn between wanting to return home as soon as possible (he has classes to teach!) and wanting to somehow help the weird human child that just keeps getting into trouble. Any other demon-focused AU is also welcome. For Gyari and Kurmou, maybe one of them is a human who ends up summoning the other as a demon. How different would their relationship be then? I’m also fine with any sort of AU divergences scenario. Maybe Iruma keeps accidentally sabbotaging Kirio’s terrorist plans without realizing it. Or Iruma ends up summoning Callego more often as his familiar when he gets into trouble. What if Gyari also attended Babylys.

As for ships, I’d rather avoid any love triangle scenarios for this canon, so please focus on just one pairing per character (competing for Iruma’s attention is normal for this canon, I’d just rather not see outright romantic competition). It’s self-explainatory for Kirio request, but if you want to include some shipping elements into the other requests I also ship Iruma/Amelie and Callego/Balam.

VIVY: FLUORITE EYE’S SONG

Solo: Vivy

WB: Any

I would love a look into some alternate timelines or missing scenes. Feel free to go as tragic as you like for alternate timelines, or make a happy end, or anything in between. I just think the core concept of the show has a lot of potential in that regard. For a more specific prompts I would love an AU where Diva doesn't disappear, but maybe she and Vivy end up spliting in some way (I'm sure Matsumoto could find a spare body or something). Or maybe a story where one of the Sisters ends up dragged into Singularity project (I really loved what they did with Elizabeth in the show).

For more worldbuilding prompts I would love a more in-depth look of how Matsumoto as more advanced AI differs from the past eye and how that gap is slowly being closed with each case he and Vivy resolves. Or outsider POV on how Vivy’s and Matsumoto’s actions shape the world. Them turning off the plant producing new androids and the subsequent suicide would definitely get coverage. I would love to know how the whole thing was officially explained. Are there conspiracy theories on the Internet? Sisters are involved in every major incident, would people suspect something?

AUs and ships

I would prefer no setting changes for this story. Any other AUs are fine. As mentioned I would love any look for alternate timeline. I would also love an AU where Diva doesn’t recover her memories and keeps helping Matsumoto while trying to regain them.

Any canon pairings are fine.

SOUSOU NO FRIEREN

I read new manga chapters as they get translated so feel free to incorporate anything from the manga that’s available in English.

Frieren

Frieren/Himmel

I love how this manga is a slow-paced fantasy dealing with loss and inevitable passage of time. And I love Frieren for being one of the best depictions of an elf whose long life actually affects their outlook on life and actions.

I would equally love the insight into Frieren’s present with her charges and the past with hero party. What other shenanigans they get into on their journey? What kind of weird magic Frieren pursued? I would love to see more of her mentoring Fern and Stark. I also love to see her interactions with the hero party. Maybe some more insight into how they fought with demons, since Frieren seemed to have picked up a number of enemies during that time. For some more specific prompts: maybe Frieren accidentally stumbles ona cursed item that erases her memories (or just her memories of Himmel). How would it affect her? What would the party do to help her? Or maybe a demon kidnaps someone from Frieren’s party?

Feel free to include any other characters, they are a colorful bunch.

AUs and ships

I’m fine with AUs as long as Frieren’s long lifespan is preserved. Her perspective is very much shaped by how long she has lived, so I wouldn’t want that aspect to change. One exception would be, a roleswap where Himmel is an elf, while Frieren is a human, and exploration of how both of them would be affected by having a different lifespan. An AU with mythological creatures or similar could be interesting.

I would very much love Himmel/Frieren, though I also enjoy how the manga softly builds on their connection. I also enjoy the budding romance between Fern and Stark.

ONMYOJI

I like all the characters so feel free to include any of them in the story. Bonus points for Ennmusubi doing some subtle matchmaking.

Hakuro/Kusa

I love both of them and how much Kusa looks up to Hakuro. I would love to see them have some adventures together. Maybe they help some other youkai? Or one of the onmyoji? I would also love a deeper insight into how Kusa became stronger after getting inspired by Hakuro. How did she try to improve herself? There definitely was some trial and error and I would love to see that.  

Shiranui/Kinnara

That pairing came out of the left field for me, but I absolutely love the interactions the two of them had so far. I would love to see them meeting more, their feelings growing each time they see each other. I also feel like a story where they keep meeting each other in a dream would really fit them, as they would long to finally meet each other in reality.

AUs and ships

I’m fine with any AU. A modern AU with archer Hakuro and gardener Kusa would be cute. Or a dancer Shiranui and a musican Kinnara. Alternatively an AU where one of the two is onmyoji could be very interesting.

I’m fine with Hakuro’s admiration for Hiromasa being present as long as it doesn’t overshadow her relationship with Kusa. 

DRESDEN FILES

Harry Dresden/Lara Raith

I was sceptical of this pairing all the way through Peace Talks, but then Harry and Lara had this intense falling out, Murphy had died, and suddenly this is a supernatural arranged political marriage and I love everything about this situation. I mean everything. Harry still being in mourning and absolutely not wanting to be forced into this arrangement, Lara still being distrustful of Harry, suspecting that Dresden is using their brother as a bargaining chip, Mab expecting both of them to present themselve as a couple for political reasons. It’s just terrible time for both of them, but so much fun for me.

I would love to see them forced to attend various supernatural events to present themselves per Mab’s wishes. How badly would Dresden handle it? Also it was confirmed that he was marked with true love which means he and Lara probably can’t even touch directly. How well do they hide that fact from everyone? How much guilt would Harry have once he realized that the mark has weakened or disappeared now that he started to develop feelings for Lara? How much chaos will ensue when the wedding does happen?

AUs and ships

I don’t want any setting AU for this fandom, because the existing setup is just too perfect. I’m fine with a divergence AU as long as Lara and Harry are still forced into arranged marriage.

I would want for Harry’s past relationships be acknowledged mostly because him being in mourning is part of what I find appealing about his situation. I don’t expect any scenes actually showing him with his past lovers, but I would be very okay with them appearing.

TALES OF CRESTORIA

Feel free to include other Tales characters. My faves are the cast of Xillia, Symphonia and Graces, but I’m also fine with including other characters (I would appreciate proper introductions in that case, I still haven’t played some of the games, so I might not recognize everyone just by their name).

Solo: Lloyd Irving

I would love more insight into small, but murdeous Lloyd. Seriously I loved the idea of Lloyd originally being manipulated into killing Colette and would love to see Lloyd remembering his lost memories at some point (bonus points for also exploring the idea of Colette as an artificial construct). Also I'm always a sucker for Kratos and Lloyd awkwardly trying to rebuild their familial bonds. What if Lloyd went with Kratos after all? What would happen if they ran into each other again. 

Stahn Aileron & Leon Magnus

I would love more of Leon's utter suffering as he searches for a way to turn his best friend back into human, so people stop thinking he's crazy whenever he tells his sword to shut up. I would love to see him reunite with Crestoria’s main cast and getting annoyed at how chaotic they are. Or running into Sorey again. Honestly, I would love seeing him interact with pretty much anyone, and grumpily helping them kill monsters/do charity/etc. Or exploring Stahn’s and Leon’s past. I would love to see their childhood and how they grew to be such a good friends.

I haven’t played Destiny, so please give me context if you want to include any elements that aren’t in Crestoria.

Velvet Crowe/Milla Maxwell

I thrive on the twisted codependency those two have in Crestoria. I will take both good, tragic and/or ambiguous ends for this relationship. Whether Velvet decides to forgive Milla or kill her it will be great. Give me all those twisted emotions, the hesitation, and pain both of them are carrying.

For straightforward approach, maybe the two of them stop in a town while chasing the last Incarnation and Milla decides to throw a party (because it’s some sort of festival, or maybe she found out it’s Velvet’s or Laphicet’s birthday and wants to make some amends however small). Or maybe one of them gets hurt during the fight with an Incarnation and the other ends up nursing them to health.

For some more levity, maybe Velvet and Milla ran out of money and pick up some side-job to have enough money for an inn. Maybe they work as waitresses and are both great and terrible at it at the same time. Or they have to take care of kids. Any other amusing job is also good.

AUs and ships

I’m fine with any AUs, though for Stahn&Leon request I still want Stahn to be the sword. I’m okay with Stahn turning human (or from human to sword) in the course of the story or being human when showing his past with Leon.

I don’t want Velvet or Milla paired with anyone else or Asbel/Cheria. Other than that there’s too much ships. Please inquire through the mods about specific ones.

FATE/GRAND ORDER

WB: Any

Please only include NA content, I want to avoid JP spoilers

I would love to explore any part of the setting really. I especially love the various interesting connections Servant have with each other that might not be obvious at first glance (like the fact that Iskander is also a pharaoh). I’m just fascinated by all the intricate historical connections. I would also love to see how some Servants would react if they were taken to Singularity/Lostbelt/Event they weren’t a part of. 

Alternatively I would love to see exploration on how different the protagonists upbringing is from other mages especially given how bad they are at magic. We get some of it with Crypters (I loved how frustrated Kadoc was at the fact that the protagonist is even worse at magic than him), but I would love to see more of it. Maybe some Servants try to teach protagonist magic or prepare them for interactions with Clock Tower mages.

I'm fine with both male and female protagonist. Feel free to do anything from a serious character exploration to zany antics. I love both moods FGO jumps between, you can't go wrong with that. Historical context always welcome. I'm fine for any usual suspects when it comes to plot ideas: be it training simulator shenanigans, "oh no we lost comms and are stuck in Singularity", Moriarty scheming, to someone wanting to make Master happy in their own special, dysfunstional and/or possibly destructive ways

Some of the characters I enjoy: Gilgamesh (any), Mordred, Karna, Medea, Saint Martha, Ereshikigal, Danzo, Jeanne D'Arc Alter, Mysterious Heroine XX, Sitonai, Moriarty, Goredolf, any character from pairings section solo. Though honestly I love pretty much everyone in Chaldea except Columbus.

AUs and ships

Obviously, no setting changes AUs, but feel free to Canon Divergence

Pairings: Amakusa/Semiramis, Izou/Ryouma, Kintoki/Fuuma, Romani/Merlin, Romani/protagonist. Also feel free to assume protagonist/everyone (except the "child" Servants). Feel free to ask about other pairings through mods, I’m definitely missing some

[thornedrose44]

Ends of the Earth (Part 2)

Part One or read on AO3

“Lena?” 

That was her first word, unsurprisingly, when she woke up after fending off the Children of the Earth. It was the only word she would ever speak as she drifted in and out of consciousness following her exposure to kryptonite over the course of three weeks. That in-and-out existence consisted of little more than fragmented memories of disjointed conversations and dodged questions overshadowed by the ever-present pain of her body healing itself after being pushed past its limits.

“Hey, hey, there… how are you feeling?” Alex soothed coming slowly into view as Kara’s eyes adjusted to the bright lights of the sunlamps for maybe the second or was it third… or maybe even fifth time...

“Thirsty…” Kara croaked out through dry lips. “And… pain…” Kara admitted, everything aching in a way it never had before.

“Here.” A straw was gently pressed against her lips, and she felt blissful water coat her mouth and throat. Kara was pretty sure it was the greatest drink of water she had ever had.

“Lena? Where’s Lena?” Kara repeated, her voice stronger now.

“Just rest for now, okay?” Alex requested, plumping the pillows behind Kara before ducking her head and fiddling with the machine at the side of the bed to increase Kara’s dose of analgesic which was effective at rapidly lulling the kryptonian back to dreamless, painless sleep.

The day eventually came where Kara was awake longer than a couple of minutes, where the ache was more of a residual hum than anything else and Kara’s mind was sharp enough to push for answers instead of being deterred by Alex and Eliza’s methods of dodging.

When the day came and Kara was given the truth, she would reflect back fleetingly on those three weeks of constant pain and recovery where she had little grasp of her own reality and wish, wish with everything she had, to go back to that state of being. Because this… the pain Kara felt on that day when she was presented with her new reality obliterated every other pain she had ever experienced, rendering them little more than stubbed toes in comparison.

*

“The portal wasn’t stable… you know that the power stabilisers weren’t in place yet; it required active management to prevent it going critical.”

“She stayed behind… she kept the portal open so that we… Kara, I’m so sorry...”

“It was unstable, it's… it’s very likely the portal exploded and… It would have been quick...”

“She said… she said… to tell you to be happy… Kara, she also… she also said something about looking forward to a sunset... Kara?”

“Kara? Say something, please…”

“Kara?”

“Kara?”

*

She stopped then. It was as if she ceased to exist. 

How could she exist when she no longer had a heart in her chest? 

Here she was on a whole new planet, and Kara couldn’t find the strength to get up and go see it.

She lived in her mind, going relentlessly over her memories of Lena, lost to a past she would do anything to change with absolutely no interest in building a future.

*

She would do things differently if she could. (So many things.) 

Kara sometimes wondered if she counted - her regrets versus the choices she would make again - which way the scales would tip…

There was a reason she never counted.

Kara knew that she was rather young to have so many regrets, so much weight on her shoulders and experiences that would scar her for the rest of her life. 

But, if she had to pick… if someone came to her and said there was one thing in her life she could change… it would be Lena. 

The problem, however, was that she didn’t know what specific choice or moment to change… there were too many options. So many of her snap decisions and cowardly actions had inflicted wounds on the youngest Luthor that would haunt Kara far worse than any of her own trauma could ever hope to.

She’d seen the story play out differently thanks to Mxyzptlk - but she doubted those versions, especially now after seeing how the future was more liquid than solid, able to change, fluctuate and bend around your fingers with only the smallest shift. Mxyzptlk had shown her some potential outcomes of different choices but that didn’t make them the only outcomes.

The obvious history rewrite would be to have told Lena her true identity far earlier but if Kara was honest with herself as she tried to be in all matters related to Lena - because Kara refused to sully a single memory or thought she had of Lena with falsehoods - telling Lena about Supergirl wasn’t what Kara thought about most whilst she laid there in bed rejecting her new reality. 

Her daydreams and fantasies didn’t centre around Supergirl. 

Kara refused to boil everything between her and Lena down to Lena’s relationship with only a single strand of her identity. It was Kara Zor-El and Lena that mattered, everything else was just decoration atop that foundation. 

The change Kara would enact, if given the chance, could have taken place at any time, during any one of her interactions with Lena.

If Kara could do everything again… she would make sure that this time around she told Lena that she loved her. (Explicitly stated it rather than hint around it with pretty words.)

Truly and deeply loved her. 

That Kara’s heart hadn’t been beating correctly in her chest, didn’t know what its actual purpose was other than to pump blood through her veins, until she met Lena. That there were parts of herself that only Lena could access, parts of herself that only Lena would ever see. 

*

She knew that declaring her love for Lena during their very first meeting would be too soon, too intense but she should have at least realised what the fluttering of her heart really meant, instead of presuming it was anxiety about meeting a Luthor. She should have known what was really happening and acted on it as her friendship with Lena blossomed, instead of assuming the butterflies in her stomach were nerves about lying. She should have seen Lena’s early romantic gestures (flowers and galas with potstickers) for what they really were, rather than running towards a man, that whilst good and kind, didn’t make her heart swell as it struggled to comprehend everything Lena made her feel.

By the time Kara actually realised what her heart had been screaming and begging for her to understand, she was trapped and tied up around a web of lies so thick and all consuming that she didn’t know how to get out from under them. 

But then, inevitably, came the truth, (far, far, far too late) and the subsequent loss of Lena.

That hurt. 

It wounded Kara in a way she’d never been wounded before. And with any injury you’d never experienced, Kara - likewise - didn't know how to treat it. Didn’t realise how she poked and prodded at it merely made it bleed even more fervently. She then tried to erase it, rid herself of the organ (her heart) in its entirety - the ‘villain’ serving as a scalpel designed to free herself of the wound that refused to heal. 

When her heart returned to her, it was beaten, withdrawn, and Kara didn’t know how to accept it back, how to fit it back inside of her chest. 

It was awkward between her and Lena now. In a way it had never been before.

It was Kelly that put it all into perspective, helped Kara see the damage wrought on her heart, helped slot it back into place, though it now had jagged edges that kept catching and digging with every movement. It was Kelly that explained abuse victims, how they sadly returned to their abusers, how Lena had done just that after finding out that her attempt at escape had merely led her back to the same pain the Luthors had inflicted over and over again. Lena’s second escape, second show of strength was incredible and should be admired, not punished.

Kara and the Superfriends had hung their heads in shame.

Brainy was the first to bridge the gap, him and Lena having always shared an understanding that no one else could touch. Two souls, told to fear themselves but constantly striving to prove themselves worthy.

Kara would hover nearby, struggling with the desire to reach out but the guilt of harm already inflicted keeping her away and then… then…

It was the end of the world and Kara told herself that everything else could wait.

That they could wait.

*

It never should have been soon, or later, or almost…

It should have been now…

This moment, right now!

Why did they keep fucking waiting?

All it did was result in missed opportunity after missed opportunity until there were no more ‘soon’s to come, and there would be no more ‘now’s to seize… all that was left was too late.

Too fucking late.

*

There were some memories that stood out more than others, the ones where they planned their future, the ones where Lena had bared herself to Kara in a way that made Kara feel so privileged, the ones where they had been so, so, so close to crossing that final gap between them and formally gifting each other their hearts wrapped lovingly and addressed solely to one another. It was those memories that Kara played on endless repeat as Alex shook her, screamed for her to come back, to snap out of her catatonic shell…

“On the coast.” Lena had replied when Kara had asked where she wanted to live when they arrived at their new home.

“I didn’t think you liked the beach?” Kara murmured, shuffling closer and closer until Lena’s back was pressed right against Kara’s front, Kara’s arms moving to wrap around Lena’s middle, just wanting to hold her close as she continued to work tirelessly.

“I didn’t say beach…” Lena hummed, glancing back over her shoulder with a teasing twinkle in her green eyes that had Kara bending her head down to bury her nose in long black hair that smelled of citrus - the generic shampoo that had been given out to everyone in the bunker. “I lived on the coast in Ireland…” Lena revealed, after a beat, her voice turning soft and sombre as it always did when she spoke of her mother and her life before the Luthors, causing Kara’s arms to gently squeeze Lena closer. “There were shingle beaches and cliffs… I just liked being able to hear the sound of the ocean. The waves hitting the shore… it was comforting.”

“Then a house on the coast you shall have.” Kara promised sincerely.

Lena laughed at that, “Oh, really? Are you going to build one for me?”

“No...” Kara replied, placing a quick kiss to the side of Lena’s head, “I’m going to build one for the both of us.” Lena stilled in her arms, her fingers moving away from the keyboard she had been typing on so that she could lay them over the top of Kara’s hands.

“Do you really want that?” Lena asked, quiet and disbelieving.

“Look at us, at this moment.” Kara requested, fingers flexing so that they interlaced with Lena’s easily. “I just want to be wherever you are.”

“Me too.” Lena replied, turning her head so that she could rest her forehead against Kara’s jaw, both of their eyes fluttering closed as they relished those rare few minutes that they could actually give solely to each other.

*

“It’s too much, sometimes…” Lena muttered, her hands shaking, after another long day, as she tried and failed to undo the buttons of her shirt so that she could finally slip into bed and sleep for a mere handful of hours before duty required her blood, sweat and tears all over again.

“I know.” Kara soothed, moving to kneel in front of Lena so that her own hands could reach out and gently take over the task. Kara’s fingers moved slowly, undoing each button with as much care as possible, her blue eyes politely averted as pale skin steadily became more and more visible. 

“It shouldn’t be me.” Lena whispered into the stillness, green eyes boring into blue as Kara tucked her fingers underneath the shoulders of Lena’s crisp white shirt to push it off and down her arms. “I get that they need my mind and my intelligence, I get that, I do… but they are looking at me to…” Lena trailed off, gaze going distant.

“To?” Kara prompted, folding the shirt with precise movements before retrieving her soft Midvale High School shirt that Lena had taken to sleeping in, holding it up for Lena to push her arms tiredly through.

“Inspire…” Lena huffed as she pushed her head through the neck-hole. “Me. The most cynical person alive.”

“That’s not true.” Kara asserted earning her a disbelieving eyebrow raise that had her shaking her head ruefully. “Okay, it’s somewhat true.” Kara admitted earning her a giggle of amusement that warmed Kara’s heart as she shifted to lay down on her side of the cot, opening her arms for Lena to fall into. 

“But it's not a bad thing. Not by a long shot.” Kara insisted seriously. “If it wasn’t for you, we would still be trying to fix the sun and billions of lives would have been lost whilst we accepted that we had to find another way. You’re not a cynic, though. I’ve watched you encounter stumbling block after stumbling block and you still…” Kara’s eyes roved over Lena’s fatigued, yet ever beautiful face, with wonder in her eyes. “Keep going… keep searching for a solution. A cynic wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. You keep yourself grounded but you keep your eyes skywards. You inspire but you don’t lie. That’s what they did on Krypton, they liked sweet lies more than the harsh truth. You’re a balance of both.”

“Such tender words.” Lena remarked as a solitary index finger moved to tap affectionately against Kara’s lips.

“True words.” Kara corrected, puckering her lips to press something resembling a kiss to Lena’s finger, “If I was still leading... we would still be on the surface, my blind hope damning us all…”

Lena shook her head at that, harsh and firm, her hand moving to fully cup Kara’s face, “You’re wrong. So wrong.” 

“How so?”

“Firstly, that’s not what it is…” Lena explained, her legs tangling with Kara’s as Kara pulled the blanket over the both of them, “blind hope...”

“What is it, then?”

Lena pursed her lips thoughtfully as the hand on Kara’s cheek moved to comb through blonde hair, “Faith.”

“Faith?” Kara repeated, signature crease appearing between her brows at the term.

“Yes and it's a beautiful thing.” Lena breathed reverently, “It's probably the best thing about you.”

“I thought that was my blue eyes and handsome good looks.” Kara smirked, knowing if she leant into the moment they had created (sincere and loving), she wouldn’t be able to wait anymore… that soon wasn’t going to cut it.

“That’s second and third place, respectively.” Lena shot back immediately, fingers stilling for only a second before continuing their endless movement through Kara’s hair.

“It’s still blind.” Kara said, returning to the topic, now more confident that she could rein in her desire for the time being. “Just as likely to lead to a miracle as it would off a cliff.”

“Maybe.” Lena agreed, “But faith, in the face of insurmountable odds, is when the impossible happens.” Lena countered as she settled further into Kara’s warm embrace, cold nose pressed against a spot just underneath Kara’s jaw. “I would have given up if it wasn’t for you, a long time ago.”

“I’m glad my ability to make the perfect coffee has paid off in some way.” Kara joked.

“Don’t do that. Don’t minimise yourself.” Lena said, tone hard and serious, making Kara tense for a fleeting moment. “The only reason I keep going after each stumbling block is because of you. Because you believe that I can do it.” Lena revealed, her voice rising an octave to keep back the sting of tears. “Your unshakeable faith in me, gives me the strength to make the impossible happen. Don’t you dare ridicule it. Because I need it, Kara.” Lena declared, lifting her head so that Kara could see the watery sheen magnifying vibrant green eyes. “I need you to have faith in me because most days it's the only thing keeping me going.”

*

Kara sat up for the first time then, head ringing with the memory of Lena’s words.

Lena is alive and she is waiting.

Kara just had to have faith. And if there was one thing that Kara had more faith in than anything else in the universe, it was Lena. 

Lena is alive and she is waiting.

Kara whispered the mantra to herself over and over again as she staggered to her feet. Repeated it endlessly until it tattooed itself onto the walls of the empty chasm where her heart should be.

Lena is alive and she is waiting.

The words fuelled her faith and her faith fuelled the words like an endless repeating cycle as she walked out of her room and got to work.

*

“Lena is alive and she’s waiting.” Kara declared to Brainy, who blinked at her rapidly in surprise at the statement and her unexpected appearance after being unresponsive for over a month.

“How can you be sure?” Brainy questioned, choosing to ignore the multitude of questions related to Kara’s sudden revival.

“I can’t, but I am.” Kara replied, falling into the chair opposite humanity’s new chief scientist. “How do we save her?”

Brainy pursed his lips and remained silent for a long time, clearly trying to decide if he should push back against Kara’s assertion before nodding once in acceptance. “Short answer, I don’t know.” Brainy answered honestly. “Long answer, another transmat portal.”

“Okay, then let’s build one.” Kara demanded, banging a clenched fist against an open palm.

“If only it was that easy.” Brainy laughed drily, shaking his head in resignation.

Kara’s jaw clenched in determination, “Tell me what the problems are.”

“Kara, I don’t think-” Brainy started softly, beginning the gentle deterrence and refusal that Kara was now intimately familiar with, having come straight from meeting the leaders of humanity (which had now formed an official government - The Terran Coalition).

“Now, Brainy.” Kara ordered coldly, her expression darkening.

Brainy flinched in shock at the tone and command, but recovered quickly, getting to his feet to write on a nearby whiteboard. The first word he wrote in big block capitals was ‘MATERIALS’. 

“Firstly, we don’t have the materials to construct another transmat portal. We depleted our supply of a number of rare elements and compounds that were present on Earth but we don’t know if they are here on Terra Nova. If they’re not, we would need to fully re-design the portal from the ground up to take into consideration the impact of substitutions.” 

“Which brings us onto the next issue.” Brainy continued, adding another word just below the first one, ‘KNOWLEDGE’. “Lena knew the portals better than anyone, the rest of us understood the particular portal design that we used and different parts of the underlying theory but it was only Lena that truly understood the full picture. I, and the scientists that worked closely with Lena, have now been allocated to separate projects.” Brainy explained, gesturing around the lab they were currently sat in that had only one or two familiar faces that Kara recognised from all the time she spent at Lena’s side. “Projects to ensure we can safely make Terra Nova our home, projects that serve the whole of humanity.” Brainy grimaced as he stated a truth Kara was acutely aware of from her lengthy discussion with the Coalition that had resulted in neither her nor them walking away happy. “The leaders won’t allow time and resources to be pulled away to work on this. They just won’t. But let’s say you can create an entirely new portal from scratch with only a shoe-string budget and support… you then reach the biggest issue… One that even Lena never got around to solving.”

“What?” Kara prompted, blue eyes narrowing at this.

“Precision.” Brainy wrote it out in big, block letters adding it to the list. “For the portals we used, we were just aiming for a planet, even just the general vicinity of space around the planet. We didn’t have to ensure the portals adjusted to remain in a fixed location on the other side, we just had to make them not overlap. We shot the transports through and then let them finish off the journey. To get back to Lena and save her… you would need absolute precision. You would need to open it up within the bunker. You would need it to adjust to remain in that location, which would massively increase the amount of energy required to open it. Opening it anywhere else could put you and anyone that goes through in massive danger and there would be no way to get to Lena without putting her in danger either.” Brainy hung his head, capping his marker pen and moved forward to squeeze Kara’s shoulder comfortingly, “I’m sorry, Kara. But even if-”

“Materials. Knowledge. Precision.” Kara repeated firmly, gaze fixed with steely determination on the words scrawled across the board. Three words stopping her from getting Lena back. Three herculean tasks that Kara was ready to dedicate herself to mind, body and soul.

Lena had told her once that she could make Kara an expert in ten years.

Kara intended to prove that wrong - she would do it quicker than that, she had to.

Whilst she might not have Lena to teach her, she did have one hell of an incentive.

*

Terra Nova was without a doubt a beautiful planet. Lush forests, snow peaked mountains, tropical jungles and enticing black-sand beaches. It lacked a desert but the majority of people weren't too disappointed to find that particular biome missing.

The first city of Terra Nova was named after humanity's saviour, as it should be. The Coalition had approached Kara about it, wise enough to know that any slight, accidental or otherwise, against the (presumed deceased) youngest Luthor would provoke the retired hero. They were originally planning something like Luthorton but Kara had shot that down, point blank telling them that if they wanted to honour Lena it should be Lena's name that was remembered and not the family that had betrayed her.

Lenacity (pronounced like tenacity) would forever be known as the first city of Terra Nova, to forever serve as a beacon of hope to humanity. There was even a statue in Lena's honour erected in the very centre of the city.

Not that Kara had ever seen it, nor did she attend the dedication ceremony; she barely even read the announcement proclaiming the city's name.

Humanity built itself a new home, creating infrastructure and cities. Rebuilding themselves anew and making this planet truly theirs in a far more sustainable manner than on Earth - they now knew the pitfalls of industrialization and the Coalition made sure to avoid them this time around with scientists like Briany serving as their guide.

Kara, though, only had a vague awareness of the world being built up around her. She moved from her bed in the makeshift hospital to a back-room in Brainy’s lab to, eventually, her own lab inside Lenacity University - the Coalition arranging her a workspace and position as a thank you for her service during the end of the Earth.

Kara had a purpose, a purpose driven by seven words that Kara would mutter under her breath whenever her head began to ache as she struggled her way through textbooks and theorems…

Lena is alive and she is waiting.

Kara's life revolved around this one goal to the exclusion of all else. She barely ate and she only slept when her mind simply could not go on.

She was weaker here, on Terra Nova. And not just in the figurative sense (her soul and mind torn asunder at the loss of her heart). She still had her powers but they weren’t the same as they were on Earth. The atmosphere and Sun on Terra Nova was different to Earth so it wasn’t completely unexpected. 

She was still stronger than a human being, could still lift a car but not a bus.

She was faster than a human being, but not faster than a bullet.

Her hearing was still enhanced; she could hear the heartbeats of people in the room but it took considerable concentration now, and anything more than a street away was near impossible.

Heat vision was still there but attenuated; she could still heat up a coffee after it had gone cold but she wasn’t going to be destroying a space-ship anytime soon.

Flight was the biggest loss. It was still there but it was tiring now. It used to be easy, seamless but flying a considerable distance was like running a half-marathon after only minimal prep. 

There were other effects of her powers being diminished, her golden complexion and hair lost their sun-kissed experience - hair turning a darker blonde and skin slightly paler.

Whilst Kara never did anything physically demanding, nothing of interest on this planet to prompt her to move, at least in those early years (later years spent seeking the exact right materials for her plans exposed her to a number of wondrous sights that had little impact on the hero focused on her singular task), she was not taking care of herself.

She now understood what Lena went through during those two years, why it was so hard to get her to stop and just take care of herself.

Stopping to eat, sleep or relax in anyway required justification. Justifying time that could be spent helping someone else - saving someone else - on an activity that felt selfish. 

It was probably something Kara should have experienced more of during her time as Supergirl, but she had never struggled to put distance between herself and that role. Had never really hesitated to accept invitations to karaoke and sister nights. It was different now, though, now Kara was no longer justifying the time delay to some unknown randomer who may or may not need saving… now she was justifying it to Lena. 

Lena, who was trapped in a bleak bunker all alone.

Lena, who probably thought no one was coming to save her.

The weight fell off Kara, her muscles steadily eaten away, dark bags under her eyes becoming a permanent feature and her hair hastily cut short and jagged to minimise the care she had to give it.

The only thing that saved Kara from the damage she was slowly inflicting on herself was Alex.

*

That first year, Alex kept her distance - accepting Kara’s casual dismissals without push-back and her usual assertiveness. It wasn’t just Kara that had been changed by their permanent departure from Earth. The fire in Alex’s eyes had dimmed, her assertiveness tempered and her overall demeanour more quiet and withdrawn. Kara sympathised (distantly), knowing what it was like to leave her home behind but feeling that Kelly, Eliza and the other Superfriends would be a much more effective support system compared to anything Kara could offer at that time.

Alex would stop by every now and again, hands clasped behind her back, hovering timidly in the doorway, making her various pleas, “Kara, you need to eat.”

“I can’t right now, why don’t you go have lunch with Kelly?” That was Kara’s go to rejection, figuring it would at least encourage Alex to live her life, she deserved to. No point dragging Alex down with her.

Alex would nod once and hesitantly walk away, popping back up a week later with a plate of food in her hands that she would place in a rare empty space on Kara’s desk

“Hey-”, Alex would begin, seeking to break through Kara’s focus.

“Not now.” Kara would reply simply, no sharpness or venom to it, just a simple refusal. 

Kara couldn’t be what Alex needed. She had no heart in her chest and she didn’t want to expose Alex to the coldness that now resided in the space it once occupied. 

Kara had to get Lena back. Once she got Lena back, she could be herself again. Could feel and support like she always did before. 

“Alex, just… leave me alone.” Kara requested before Alex even had a chance to say a word.

It was a year of this. Kara retreating further and further into herself and her work; Alex on the outside, uncertain of how to reach her. Tentative and nervous when her relationship with Kara had been the one she was most certain of.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology was new and managed to get Kara to cast a curious glance over her shoulder to see Alex, head dropped, red hair forming a barrier to her expression and hands curled into painful fists at her sides as she trembled in the doorway.

“Alex, I don’t really have time for this-” Kara began, already turning away when...

“I know you blame me…” Alex whispered, her voice cracking in a way that Kara had never heard before.

That jerked Kara back, brought her momentarily back to her own body, out of her half-life existence as she turned back round to actually look at her sister for the first time in… months. She looked distraught. Brown eyes broken and crying, lips bitten and raw, her complexion pale and her entire being exuding exhaustion.

“Blame you? Blame you for what?” Kara questioned in total confusion, moving towards her sister without conscious thought.

“For Lena.” Alex gasped, wrapping her arms tightly around own body protectively, “I… I failed her and I failed you.”

Kara’s jaw dropped, her stomach sinking like lead through the floor as the realisation punched her squarely in the gut. Alex hadn’t been grieving for Earth, she had been punishing herself. Punishing herself for Lena and by extension what Kara had turned into. 

“Alex… no… I don’t…” Kara stammered, reaching out with shy fingers that had forgotten what it was like to make contact with another being. “Is that what you think?”

“You can barely look at me.” Alex cried, cringing in shame and guilt… and that… 

It’s awful to admit, but it was the first time Kara felt something other than hollow. After a year of deadened emotion, Kara remembered how to feel. Felt the barrier she had unknowingly crafted around herself cracking open just a slither. Just enough for her to remember her sister. Her solid ground and most trusted ally. The person who she could always depend on.  

“I can barely look at myself.” Alex continued, unaware how her own breakdown was reviving her sister back from her empty shell. “You love her so much and I... I couldn’t save her for you. You’ve lost so much and I now understand a fraction of that, just a tiny fraction and… I should have saved her. She was my friend, too. And she… she didn’t even… she gave so much and I couldn’t…”

“Alex, oh Rao, no… no… no…”  Kara murmured, finally stepping forward to wrap her arms around her sister that she had been hurting without realising. Everytime she had pushed Alex away in a bid to shield her from her emptiness, she had merely been reinforcing to Alex the misconception that she was to blame. “Come here. It wasn’t your fault, okay? It was mine. I left her side…”

“No! Kara!” Alex rejected loudly, even as her arms wrapped tightly around Kara in return. “No. You left her side because of me. Because I asked for Supergirl-”

“How long have you been carrying this?” Kara asked sadly, “How long?”

“Since we went through the portal.” Alex admitted, burying her face into Kara’s shoulder.

“Is that why… you thought I hated you?” Kara whispered as the sheer awfulness of it all threatened to overwhelm her.

“I would, if I was you…” Alex murmured.

“No, Alex never…” Kara refuted, not believing Alex’s statement in the slightest. She pulled back from the hug (the first hug Kara had since landing on Terra Nova), and wiped the tears off her sister’s cheeks with a brush of her thumb. “I love you, I just I… didn’t think… I didn’t think I could help you… I didn’t think I could give you what you needed…” Kara revealed, shaking her head dismally at her continued failures.

“I didn’t want you to give me anything… I just wanted my sister…” Alex confessed, causing the walls where Kara’s heart should be to clench reliving the phantom pain of being broken. “I’m sorry, too. You needed me as well.” Alex said softly, her gaze taking in Kara’s appearance.

“I’ve been busy,” Kara muttered, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot under the scrutiny.

“Kara, you’re not doing well.” Alex stated bluntly.

Kara knew that she had let certain things slide about herself but they were meaningless in the grand scheme of things. “I need to do this. Lena is alive and she’s waiting.”

“Kara-” Alex began gently.

“Don’t! Don’t tell me I’m wrong!” Kara demanded, stepping back and lifting her chin in defiance. “If you’re not going to help me, fine. But don’t say she’s dead. At least not to my face.”

“I wasn’t.” Alex replied, jaw dropping in shock at Kara’s sudden emotional shift which instead of scaring Alex away only made her brown eyes sharpen with even deeper concern. “I wasn’t, Kara. But you need to look after yourself.” 

Kara’s gaze dropped to the floor, frowning harshly but holding her tongue, not wanting to inflict any further hurt on her sister.

“Listen… okay, listen to me.” Alex pleaded. It was her turn now to reach out to Kara, hands rubbing up and down Kara’s biceps to provide comfort, to bridge the gap between them. “You want to save Lena, right? How do you expect to do that if you’re not looking after yourself? You need to eat and sleep. You need to be at your best because that’s what she deserves.” Kara’s head tilted to the side at that, listening attentively. “You need to take time for yourself because… because when you save Lena… you should give her something strong and stable to lean onto, because she’ll need that. You need to look after yourself and your life so that when it's time... you can look after Lena.” Alex bent down catching clouded over blue eyes, deep in thought. “Okay?”

Kara didn’t reply for a long time, her mind whirring with this new perspective. She glanced at her hands that were trembling, remembered how Lena’s hands had shook under the insurmountable pressure and strain thrown on her. Lena deserved steady hands. Someone who didn’t swing from one emotional extreme to another. Someone who was ready for their heart to be returned.

“Okay… for Lena.” Kara breathed out.

Alex smiled at her, warm and tremulous, “Okay… Let’s get you something to eat.”

*

Kara became an oddity, something people whispered about with those pitiful gazes, like there was something wrong with her that could never be made right. She was a mascot, a joke, a piece of gossip shared and exaggerated, a tall tale told to children to warn them of the dangers of not letting go. 

The students at the university would creep to the edge of her lab to get a glimpse of her like it was a rite of passage. Every citizen knew her story. Knew Kara Danvers and Supergirl were one and the same, Kara Zor-El. Knew of the love she held for their Saviour, Lena Luthor. Knew that her sacrifice had destroyed Supergirl and left behind a changed woman that spent her days chasing fairytales.

The kind ones called her eccentric, felt she had more than earned her time away from the spotlight and didn’t judge her for not donning her cape again - Terra Nova didn’t need superheroes anyway.

The cruel ones, who had never suffered hardship or had suffered far too much of it (it was always one extreme or the other) called her delusional and callous for leaving humanity to rebuild on their own without their red-blue hero.  

She was no longer Supergirl. No longer Kara Danvers either. To everyone else, she was merely known as a woman trying to get back to Earth to save a ghost. A cautionary tale of a woman who had lost herself believing in something that was impossible.

The Tinman brought to life, seeking his heart that Dorothy had taken back to Kansas with her.

She left her lab now, after that first year of sheer self-destruction, understanding that in her pursuit of a ghost she couldn’t allow herself to become one either, because if Lena was there, waiting and Kara did manage to bring her home, then Kara wanted to have a home ready for her. She wanted to be ready for her.

So Kara leant into the support of her friends, ensured she was there for them, listened to them and gave them time and consideration. In turn, they didn’t pull her away from her work, planned around her experiments and happily came and sat in her lab, filling the air with conversation whilst Kara’s hands worked on pieces of equipment.

Kara’s years went by divided into three sectors, each uneven fraction dedicated to the tasks identified by Brainy at the very start. It took Kara two and a half years to get her knowledge to a decent enough level to truly comprehend the underpinning science and workings of the transmat portal technology. The largest chunk was next, five years on materials. 

Whilst Kara’s knowledge had reached a basic level that meant she could stand shoulder to shoulder with Lena’s previous team; re-designing the portal to account for materials no longer accessible required Kara to become an expert and pioneer. No longer memorising the work of others but forging her own path. 

Thankfully, her life wasn’t solely anchored by her scientific pursuits, in no small part due to Alex and the Superfriends. 

The years were also hallmarked by Kara’s loved ones own lives and their achievements.

Alex and Kelly were married during that second year post arrival on Terra Nova. Alex had been delaying the event until her and Kara were back on the same page. Kara stood as Alex’s maid of honour, the couple were wed on a black sand beach that was as close to Midvale-esque as they were ever going to get.

Following the wedding, Alex, after spending a couple of years providing tactical support to the Coalition, decided to return to medicine in a research-based capacity. The change provided a simpler routine that was more conducive to building a family and Alex (after the loss of her home planet) wanted to feel like she was putting something positive into the world and not just removing the negatives. 

The third year saw Brainy and Nia’s engagement. Yet again, Kara stood as maid of honour, for Nia this time - Brainy chose to stand alone, everyone knowing that it would have been Lena standing by his side in that moment and that any substitution would not have measured up to his best friend.

The fourth year was when Alex finally approached Kara about her living situation. There were plenty of houses now, people having settled into their own communities, having staked their claim on their own piece of land. Kara was rich, Lena having left her considerable wealth to Kara that had been translated into the Terra Novan Currency (TNC) - no one was going to deny the saviour their fortune. The Coalition had repeatedly made it clear that Kara would be granted approval for a residence more or less anywhere she pleased. She had yet to take them up on the offer. 

She was happy with the small, barely used apartment near the university that she only visited whenever Alex came to inform her she was well overdue a shower. 

“You need a home, Kara.” Alex had insisted, putting her foot down when Kara had yet again hosted sister’s night in her lab, having still not furnished her flat with anything resembling a couch. Kara had grumbled and groaned until Alex had pulled out her trump card. “Lena needs a home. When you bring her back, are you really going to make her crash in your lab?”

Kara applied for a piece of land near the coast, an hour’s journey from the city (only a twenty-five minute flight). Building a house there on the cliff where you could hear the water crashing against the rocks became a bonding activity amongst the Superfriends, an activity to bring them all together and away from their demanding jobs. It was the only time Kara felt something close to happiness… contentment. Sitting there on a bench, listening to the waves around a bonfire, sipping a beer with Alex, Kelly, Brainy and Nia (they were occasionally joined by Barry and Iris) talking about everything and nothing. 

Lena was a topic that could only be approached when they could tell Kara was settled and hopeful, it was never something to talk about when Kara started to grow morose and restless. They all spoke about the sights they wanted to show Lena, all the stories they would tell her.

 They would talk about what Lena might be upto in the bunker, how with all this time she had probably become fluent in nearly every language, mastered the violin, built herself a robot dog, finally got around to watching crappy reality television (that she had promised she would never watch). The suggestions were only ever light and happy. They were all aware that if Lena was alive down there, shut off from the light without hope of being saved, the psychological damage would be severe. 

That was the other thing… if…

Kara knew it was only her that truly believed Lena was still alive. Alex was the next most convinced purely because Kara needed her to believe. Brainy and Nia were doubtful but too kind to openly declare their doubts. Kelly played her cards close to her chest, it was hard to tell what she actually believed when it came to Lena’s fate. Her main concern, without a doubt, was Kara’s mental health.

Kara had put all of herself into saving Lena. The only thing keeping her going was saving the youngest Luthor, the only thing that could make Kara look after herself was by linking it to Lena in some way. 

Kara knew it wasn’t healthy, knew that if Lena wasn’t alive… she would most likely return to that catatonic state. It was just… she had lost so much… so, so, so much… and losing Lena was just the straw (entire barn of hay) that broke the camel’s back. 

It was Kelly that picked Kara up once a week and frog-marched her to see a psychiatrist who was attempting to get Kara to steadily start living for herself and not just for Lena. It was in vain but Kara took onboard the lessons as much as she could.

By the end of the fifth year, Kara’s house (built for her and Lena) was complete. Kara forced herself to fly back there every night, wanting the place to feel warm and lived in and a home.

By the sixth year, Kelly was pregnant and Kara was set to be an aunt any day now.

“I’ll be there, I promise.” Kara reassured her sister for the fourth time. Alex was on speakerphone providing company from afar as Kara ran an experiment with some of the new materials she had recently collected to assess their suitability. They were having a distanced sister’s night, what with Alex wanting to stay at home to look after Kelly, who was set to go into labour any day now. Alex’s nervousness was manifesting itself in her over-preparedness, regularly checking that the route to the hospital was free of traffic every fifteen minutes, that their to-go bag was prepped and that Kara wasn’t running off anywhere on another materials expedition anytime soon.

“Thanks, Kara.” Alex breathed in relief.

“Have you decided on a name yet?” Kara questioned.

“No,” Alex sighed defeatedly, “we keep going back and forth. I think we'll know when we meet her, you know? At least I hope so.”

“I’m sure you will.” Kara reassured, peering through a microscope, nimble fingers adjusting the magnification.

“Hey…” Alex said slowly, her tone shy and awkward enough that it earned Kara’s full attention. 

“What?”

“Did you and Lena ever…” Alex began softly, her voice trailing off as if the rest of the sentence wasn’t necessary. Kara stayed quiet, eyeing the phone warily, waiting her sister out. She heard the inhale of breath her sister took as if to suck in courage as well as air for what she was about to say next, “Did you and Lena ever talk about kids?”

Kara pursed her lips, and crossed her arms, gaze dropping to the floor, “Lena and I weren’t together.”

“I know…” Alex murmured back, there was a beat, before a whisper, “but did you?”

Kara swallowed thickly, blinking rapidly to dispel the tears and ease the phantom pain in her chest, “Yeah… yeah, we did.”

*

“Ugh… another five minutes.” Kara grumbled, pulling Lena, who was attempting to get up out of their small cot, closer into her body. 

“See, I knew your chirpy morning personality was a lie.” Lena chuckled, and Kara’s slumbering heart ached at how exhausted she sounded before the day had even begun.

“You caught me.” Kara whispered, smiling as she nuzzled into Lena’s back. “Sleep is glorious and there is nothing that should interrupt it.”

Kara didn’t need to look at the youngest Luthor’s face to know she was rolling her eyes. “And here I thought you wanted children at some point in the future...”

“Children that respect the sanctity of a good night’s sleep.” Kara replied, letting out a sleepy huff that caused Lena to shiver. 

“Good luck with that.” Lena teased, her hands moving to cover Kara’s that were wrapped around her waist. “Your children will be blue-eyed devils.”

“Luke and Lori.” Kara yawned without thinking.

“Hmm?”

“The blue-eyed devils.” Kara explained.

“You’ve already picked out the names?” Lena asked quietly, mildly surprised.

“Not hard, limited options.”

“How so?” Lena laughed, twisting round so that they were nose to nose.

Kara’s closed eyes fluttered upon feeling Lena’s warm breath against her face, she hid her reaction to it with a helpless shrug, “Had to both start with L.”

“L?” Lena scoffed, “Why would they-”

Lena’s voice cut out, realising the answer without needing to ask the question.

Kara opened one eye, catching sight of the shocked, awestruck expression on Lena’s face. “It’s tradition, isn’t it?” Kara murmured shyly.

“Yeah… yeah, it is.” Lena breathed, a tentative smile lighting up her face as she reached out to tuck a lock of golden hair behind Kara’s ear. “I like the names Lori and Luke.”

“You do?” Kara beamed, blue eyes opening fully and twinkling.

“Yeah, they’re the perfect names for our little blue-eyed devils.”

*

“I can do it.” Kara announced, landing hard and panting heavily causing her group of friends who were gathered around the bonfire outside Kara’s home to jump to their feet.

“Kara, what-” Alex began, holding little Amelia closer to her chest as the toddler reached out with grabby hands for her favourite aunt.

Kara ignored everyone and marched right up to Brainy, declaring wide-eyed and frantic, “I solved all three problems. I can save her.”

Brainy’s expression went slack, his eyes darting around the group which had fallen conspicuously silent. “Kara, I…” He began nervously.

“I know none of you believe me.” Kara said bluntly, finally pointing out the large elephant that was always in attendance whenever Kara interacted with them. “I know that.” Kara sighed, looking around her loved ones with a sad, understanding smile. “I especially know you’re afraid of what happens when that portal opens and I find out that Lena-” Kara shook her head - she had held onto her faith for over nine years now, she was not going to forsake it when she was in the final stretch. “I’m going, regardless. I can have the portal built in a month…” Kara revealed before looking back at Brainy pleadingly, “two weeks if you help me. I know you don’t believe me and I’m not going to ask you to. But I am going to ask you to help me.” Kara’s shoulders caved forwards, as she wrung her hands together on the precipice of actually begging. “Please, please help me…”

Brainy blinked once, let out a shuddering breath and then, “Okay…”

“We’ll all help…” Alex announced stepping forward to squeeze Kara’s shoulder. 

*

“Is that-” Kara started to ask as Brainy stepped forward holding out a familiar red and blue outfit Kara hadn’t laid eyes on for years, hadn’t worn for even longer.

The portal was ready, they were just waiting for the Coalition to divert the required power supply they needed. The Coalition had originally refused to give Kara the increased power she required since they, and the rest of humanity, fully believed Lena to be dead and that Kara’s obsession could only result in disaster - Brainy and Eliza had been the ones to convince them, leveraging their positions as Chief Scientist and Chief Medical Officer to gain their agreement.

“I figured… it was a special occasion.” Brainy murmured, smiling wanely at her. 

He and the rest of the Superfriends, including Eliza, had taken two weeks of holiday from their respective jobs so that they could help in whatever they could to get the portal active. 

“Thanks, Brainy.” Kara replied sincerely, accepting the familiar outfit and going to get changed.

It didn’t fit as well as it used to. 

She was thinner so it hung off in places, and the dark shadows to her face made the colours just that little bit less vibrant than Kara remembered them being. She was glad to be wearing it though. It was what she had worn the last day she had seen Lena over nine years ago. It felt right that she should be wearing it nine years later when they finally reunited.

“You have to promise me something.” Alex said as she stepped up to stand by Kara’s side as Brainy checked over the final calibrations Kara had made, before they turned the portal on. “If she’s… gone… you still need to come back, okay?” Alex demanded; Kara stared at her sister’s profile to see that her expression had hardened in an attempt to hold back a wave of emotion but the tremble to her bottom lip belied how futile the fight was. “I need my sister. I need you. So… no matter what you find… you come back and we’ll figure out the next step together.” Alex glanced over at Kara revealing watery brown eyes. “Promise me. I need you to say it.”

Kara hesitated for a long moment but the thought of inflicting the pain she had experienced after losing Lena on Alex… on little Amelia, gave her the strength to nod once, firm and sure. “I promise, no matter what I’ll come back through.”

“Okay,” Alex breathed out a shuddering breath before pulling Kara into a tight hug and muttering, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Kara replied, wrapping her arms tightly around her sister and knowing that in an hour or so, she would be different.

She would either have her heart back or know, without a doubt, that it had been lost forever.

When she stepped through the portal, a metal wire connecting her to her lab in Terra Nova, she waved once at her family and friends. None of them waved back, all just nodded mournfully.

They were all convinced that Kara would find nothing good on the other side. Convinced that they would lose this tinman version of Kara to something far worse. 

They didn’t wave because... who waves at a funeral?

Kara, though, gripped tighter onto her faith. 

Lena is alive and she is waiting.

And now… now… she was literally mere steps away.

Absence supposedly makes the heart grow fonder, but that wasn’t true in Kara’s case. Her heart had been in stasis, countless lightyears away. Her love was paused. Ready to unfurl and grow the second her heart was returned to her.

*

“Okay, I got the angle slightly wrong…” Kara admitted with a wince, nowhere near as invincible as she used to be - kryptonite no longer required to inflict damage that a particularly powerful gun or explosion could do.

“You fell face first, didn’t you?” Alex’s voice sassed over the comms line as Kara let out a pained groan.

“Yep, face planted…” Kara lifted her head, disappointed to find herself staring down a dim corridor. She had forgotten how cold the concrete walls of the bunker were after all this time (the bunker had always been warm to Kara, mostly because of how close she always stood to Lena). It was then that Kara noticed the tiny marks carved into the concrete wall; they filled nearly all of the available wall space and ran down the length of the corridor.

“You know you can fly, right?” Alex reminded her, trying far too hard to keep their conversation light, to keep Kara light...

“I know I can fly but I wasn’t thinking about flying and didn’t react in time…” Kara huffed struggling to her knees; turning her head to see if the marks continued down the other side of the corridor, “and-” 

The rest of her sentence died right there, turning to ash as she saw a figure at the other end of the corridor watching her.

“Kara, is everything okay? What’s happening?”

Kara knew the scenes in medical dramas where they shocked someone back to life were unrealistic and played for drama more than for accuracy, but… it was the closest description Kara could think of to explain what she went through in that moment. 

Her heart was thrown back into her chest and shocked to life. 

Lena was standing in front of her. 

Lena was alive and she had been waiting.

She looked… looked like a miracle to Kara. 

She was even paler now, no regular exposure to sunlight to keep a healthy complexion but other than that… she looked good. She was thinner but not in the same way as Kara. Her curves had receded to be replaced by muscles, her dark hair was still long but tied back in a practical ponytail, white hairs dotted here and there like stylish highlights rather than markers of growing old. 

Her green eyes, however, were dimmed and her fingers kept tapping away awkwardly and uncoordinated in a blatant display of a nervous tic. She was wearing a heavily faded Midvale High School shirt, doc martens, worn-out jeans with a heavy duty belt from which various random tools and pieces of machinery were clipped to. 

“You’re here… You’re really here…” Kara breathed out, her blue eyes drinking in the sight of Lena shifting shyly from foot to foot as she stroked the smooth metal surface of a piece of machinery standing as sentinel by her side for comfort. 

“Lena?! She’s alive!” 

Kara barely even registered the exclamation from her ear piece, her full focus entirely on the woman before her.

“Kara.” Lena murmured and oh, Rao… if hearing her name fall from Lena’s lips wasn’t the single greatest sound in the universe.

“Lena, you’re here…” Kara whispered totally awestruck, getting to her feet and taking slow, careful steps towards Lena, her fingers instinctively reaching out for the raven-haired woman.

“I don’t under-... this isn’t real… you’re not real… you can’t be real…” Lena stammered, shuffling backwards and away from Kara.

Kara couldn’t help the gasp of pain, her heart so close to being fully returned only to back away from her. It wasn’t even Lena putting space between them after so, so, so long apart… it was the fear and confusion in those green eyes that Kara had dreamt about every night that inflicted the true hurt.

The gasp of pain also came with the realisation that Lena wasn’t quite the same, that being alone and isolated had left its indelible mark… That Kara hadn’t saved all of her and that Lena hadn’t believed Kara would save her… and that… that broke Kara.

“Did I answer the knock? Is this a dream? Milo analyse the surroundings and conditions.” Lena ordered, dropping her gaze to her tablet as she tapped frantically against the screen, mumbling her every thought out loud. “Hallucination, most likely… potential causes… sleep deprivation? Unlikely, I have a set sleep schedule. Radioactivity has finally penetrated the bunker and has caused a multitude of health problems. Possible, though I take regular readings of-”

“Lena! Please, stop…” Kara cried, collapsing to her knees in front of Lena. “I’m here, okay? I’m really here!”

“No! No!” Lena shouted in return, “This isn’t real! Because… because… You’re meant to be married! You’re meant to be happy! You’re not meant to be here…” Lena’s breaths came out sharp and panicky, so obviously overwhelmed and Kara just wanted to soothe her.

If it was nine years ago Kara would know exactly how to do that. Back then Lena needed a grounding touch, needed to feel like she wasn’t alone, that someone was there to hold her and support her through it…

But would this Lena want that?

Would Lena jerk away from her touch? 

Barbed wire had curled around Kara’s heart making her wary of getting too close until she had tenderly uncoiled every piece of twisted metal that had been threaded through it.

Here’s the thing though… The barbed wire hurt Kara to touch but Lena, her heart, was living with it, had endured the wire being inserted and had learnt to survive its constant barbs, now here Kara was disturbing it all. Anything Kara did would inevitably hurt Lena in some small way - confusion, panic and uncertainty - the very least she could do is hold Lena closer, if that's what she wanted, and share the pain.

Kara’s fingers reached out, and made gentle contact. It was the softest that Kara had ever touched anything, because this… Lena… deserved everything to be soft and tender and beautiful….

She wanted to pull Lena’s hands away from her face but she didn’t want to force Lena in any way, she just wanted her to know that Kara was really there and was not going anywhere.  

Thankfully, miraculously… Lena leaned into her rather than away and Kara was gifted the scent of citrus with a hint of oil as Lena rested her forehead on Kara’s shoulder, accepting Kara’s support.

Her Lena was definitely still there and the barbed wire was not as copious as Kara had initially feared.

“Lena, how could I be happy without you?” Kara whispered, her fingers moving ever so carefully from Lena’s biceps, round to her back… so tenderly wrapping Lena up in her arms, finally, finally able to breathe after years of holding her breath. “Let me take you home, please, please Lena… let me take you away from here, please…” Kara begged, pressing featherlight lips against Lena’s forehead. “Let’s go see that sunset, yeah?”

Lena pulled away and before Kara had a chance to feel hurt about the distance, the kryptonian felt calloused, wonderful palms cupping her face and wiping away the tears that Kara hadn’t even realised she was shedding until Lena’s thumbs wiped them away. “You still want to? Even after all this time?”

Kara barely resisted the urge to laugh at the sheer preposterousness of the question. 

“It’s all I’ve thought about.” Kara confessed and she felt her face ache with the size of the smile trying to take over her face. 

And if Kara thought that seeing Lena, being reunited with her heart, couldn’t get any better she was about to be proven totally wrong because green eyes dipped down and honed in with intent. For the first time in nearly a decade Kara’s stomach swooped with that heady mixture of arousal and nerves that only Lena could evoke.

Kara breathed in sharply and leaned forward when-

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la, music play, do what the music say, you wanna kiss the girl.” Kara’s head whipped around to see a… a… robot dog singing????

Kara’s eyebrows shot up as the greyhound-shaped piece of metal with glowing green LED eyes, banged its tail excitedly on the floor as it moved its shiny head from Lena to Kara and back again.

“Thanks, Milo.” Lena chuckled wetly; Kara had forgotten what Lena’s throaty laugh sounded like and she could feel her whole body lighten up after hearing it that she had to will herself not to start hovering off the floor. “I have a robot dog, now.” Lena explained needlessly, cheeks turning an embarrassed pink that made Kara truly have faith that everything would be okay between them regardless of whatever came next.

“I can see that.” Kara replied with a laugh, her hand reaching out to brush through Lena’s dark hair, as she asked her voice brimming with hope, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am…” Lena admitted with a fervent nod of her head before pressing a delicate kiss to Kara’s cheek. “I want to see that sunset.”

[grahamcarmen]

Hi, so I just finished the new season today! I have so many thoughts, the last few episodes felt kind of rushed? I wished they had gone about the whole situation between Gray and Carm at the end differently. More so on seeing them reunited. My biggest question, is why was he so quick on going back to VILE? He knew what they were capable of yes, was it to feed his criminal impulses? Why did ever want to steal in the first place? What led him to that conclusion and how did he learn of VILE? I was keen on seeing more of his backstory, and still need time to let the story simmer so I can analyze it more. It's just confusing. I guess it's just because the show ended that I feel so bittersweet y'know. What do you think Carmen would've done after they all disbanded? How could she leave them so quickly after she just got back to Team Carmen in the end? Besides wanting to see her mother. I was hoping they'd at least stay together.

i think that more than a few people feel that ( the knee jerk incredulity at her just leaving them a note and yeeting was real)

like disclaimer again: i do love carmen and this season this is just expanding on some little ??’s

on gray and “thinking gray.”: I was also feeling the lackluster on the payoff motivation wise for gray returning to VILE ( which was definitely needed as he was the secret weapon needed to finally get evil carmen back and at least partially inevitable due to ownership of the choices yadadadada )but like when he finally got his memories back he just repeated some things that i never really doubted. that gray did this of his own free will, he probably is of a lower empathy in general (which does not mean incapable of caring and doing the right thing. just that..~~~), that he regretted hurting carmen. in s1 he says his primary motivation as making more money and i was like”mmhmm fits.” being a thief and all and why not since they hadn’t introduced the big “needs to be able to tie up loose ends.” as a operative qualifier to anyone, including some of the recruits there. the only newer thing was his video that he seeked them out. which is interesting and all but sets him up as a go-getter so its so confusing that he’d choose to return to VILE ...a place where he was hurt and is so freaking selfish with what capers they choose to pursue. i kinda went on a tangent on another post that there is a theme of using a false sense of bonding to give them a little more loyalty which is like really heavy considering that means offering a “home” to what looks like operatives who might all be orphans but i don’t think it was highlighted enough to say “HEY YO” even tho GRAY LOOKS SO TIRED TO LEARN ABOUT HIS PAST WITH VILE

its really interesting because of the 3 people who had access to him/nature we got; carmen who only encouraged his desire to help (for the kiddos, for her safety, for assuring her that they were in...whatever... together, and make sure that they weren’t being secret spy jerks) ACME who got like...0 usefulness (riperonis ma guys), and VILE with maelstrom just hammering home all his shadier deeds with  “YEAH THIS IS YOU.”  AND HIM JUST ACCEPTING IT AFTER SITTING FOR A LONG AF TIME ALONE.

and when this was happening I was thinking about this analysis from another fandom about characters who resign to the law of the strong which could have been a reason for why gray doesn’t seem to hold the consequences for his failure against VILE even though he really should. (if they bothered but listen-)

its something that happens when characters choose to live in worlds they know are unfair, know that they choose to lie and steal and cheat, and thus should not be surprised or hurt when it happens to them in return. which of course lead to them not knowing where to draw the line on what happens to them...and i mean this in like some narratives usually go (hahaha no thats messed up please gtfo being treated like that is not ok and in allowing others to define your limits you are whittling yourself away). and they decide to live in resignation that. i am capable of bad... so i AM bad. (I am that guy. i’ve always been that guy) and makes them absolutely ripe for the (but you’ve been good . you can choose to be better.  it won’t erase the wrongs of the past but it will make for a better future)

but that still leaves exploration of “WHY WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE BY THE LAW OF THE STRONG??” and you know...not having anyone to rely on, poverty, or what was simple rebelliousness turning to darker and darker paths, are some easy reasons to put a spotlight on maybe our operatives having depth and like..arcs. especially any of those reasons combined. ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY’RE WHAT VILE CONSISTENTLY IS SHOWN OFFERING. (shadowsan really is their s-tier character huh)

which i really thought this show would go for when a shivering brunt who is loyal and protective asked if she was really going to be left behind or remember how unsympathetic most of them seemed to see carmen chloroformed because “she did interrupt our heist.” meaning that they understand this world. probably have understood it for longer than anyone should. (antonio being content as a “pawn” is the tenant in my head today) and why shouldn’t more money be important. or honestly how simple it was to accept that someone would just need more money.

with gray they introduced that he could be good and he could be bad but like leaned into “no all that niceness was fake and he’s bad.” due to the hyper specificity of the mind wipe apparently? which also leans into really flat interpretation of evil!carmen (i just mean that there is a lot there ...) meaning theres no really exploration of him and more of a judgment (even though he’s shown to be kind, snarky, and upfront, as himself without a mind wipe.) and then we wait...

the pacing of the last 2 episodes: adrenaline bebe!!! but also there were so many concepts being introduced and resolved and skimmed past so that it is a little confusing at some conclusions. like the scene you’re talking about where carmen just leaves a note and ghosts is like 30 seconds and thats a lot to unpack because ?? i’m really thinking that it might have been insinuating that carmen left them the pen specifically to give them a new home to wait for her because she was going on that little break like she planned (and they knew was the endgoal) because it was behind her note and presumably placed by her but because i was focusing on the letter goodbye like ??? i thought for some reason that it was zack saying he would now like to try ACME because HE thought of it and i was like ??when did you consider this?? and 3rd watch i was finally “ahhh ok ok i think i get it.”

another bitten off scene i think might have been when gray in his first mission is already exhibiting signs of going...”huh this is not good.”

from stopping carmen from unprofessionalism to seeing that new carmen is willing to up and leave the group for mental gymnastics instead of relying on them 100% to going to the ferris wheel where he DEFINITELY SAW HER TRYING TO KILL A CIVILIAN since it showed his reaction after ivy’s. and then it turn to team red because how they feel about it definately matters more than gray but its also so easy to miss that choosing to have gray witness that as the start of what makes him turn himself in (maybe this is just a possible interpretation and its midnight ok)

evil carmen! lost her empathy. ok. so then like thats a static judgment about how they’re gonna make her do bad stuff and she still absolutely cares about her history and VILE still needed to enforce bonding and giving her memories that they comforted her and gave her her coat so thats why she cares about it and her anger at betrayal and sense of loss that she still throws right in shadowsans face when “evil”

carmen thought she crossed a personal line?? like jeeeeeez that’s 6 months of crossing lines and the most recent and horrifying one happened like not even a minute ago and then 5 seconds later we get chief and her reconciling because yes it needed to happen so we’re not gonna address how traumatizing it was or

VILE JUST WENT ALL THE WAY DOWN HUH??

and all these things are important and have the groundwork for happening but man they just happen one after the other and its like

before moving on to the next thing and like let me breathe omg

and yeah that means that so many people were left confused because the show about family (carmen’s family that SHE built ) seemed to disband for carmen to go to see her mother at last alone, shadowsan to go to his brother and a heartbroken pair of red heads to join ACME

and we get a time gap before reuniting but only a few seconds to decide if reuniting was the plan all along(the pressure point)

and there is a lot of actual IN TIME that is broad strokes that many people have already picked whats going to haunt them that wasn’t explored more...

TLDR; i get it on both counts (gray and rushed)! glad there was some sweet in your bittersweet and since canon definitely had team red in the same place they absolutely reunited and moved back into the shop and carmen talked to them about how great her mom is and planned a dinner

[zeppelin-and-unicorns]

15 and 18

15 - If you write OC’s, how do you decide on their names?

Just answered that one here!

18 - Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Oh my God, I have so many!! Beware, this is going to be a very long answer. Click on the thingy to read more!

Last year, back when I first started writing fanfiction, I had a lot going on in my mind, and at one moment I had to choose which stories I would actually work on, and which ones I would have to drop it for now. There were five stories in total, and I dropped three of them.

Two of those five stories evolved and they became When The Levee Breaks and Map of the Problematique, the other three are still unnamed and undeveloped.

I'll give you the main summary of them, because why the hell not?

The first story is a pretty fluffy one, I've abandoned it because there are already a few stories like these in the fandom and because I got too invested writing my other stories. Also, a huge chunk of it is written in the first person, because I started writing it at the beginning of the last year, and I've learned that I don't really like writing in first person anymore... Writing WTLB is hard enough already lol.

This story would narrate the beginning of Jackie and Hyde's relationship while Donna and Kelso were still in California, but there are a few twists: Eric doesn't mope around in his room most of the time, and he develops a really nice friendship with Jackie (that friendship would turn into a small crush later), and Eric and Donna would not be endgame.

There's a lot going on at first, in this story, Hyde actually plans on "wooing" Jackie once he's sure she's over Kelso, they flirt a lot and he's aware that he's going to make a move on his best friend's ex. Jackie's also very interested in Hyde, but for a while, she thinks he'd never be interested in her.

Their flirting wouldn't last long though, I had planned on making them get together at the beginning of the story (I think it was in chapter five?), the rest of the story would narrate them hiding their relationship from their friends and how close they are getting to Eric and Fez.

I've planned on writing lots of sweet friendly moments between Jackie, Hyde, Eric, and Fez. In fact, there are quite a few scenes written out already, and in one of them they're all in a circle and it's the first time Eric realizes that Jackie's not as bitchy as he thought she was. Here's one of the circle scenes I've written:

"You know what?" Jackie announced, ignoring Fez's sobs and passing the joint to Hyde, thanking God that he was probably too high to notice how goosebumps rose all over her body when his fingers brushed against hers "I hope Michael gets syphilis from a random beach whore and goes blind."

"Odds are pretty good of that happening." Hyde nodded as he took another hit "Of him getting an STD, I'm not so sure about becoming blind, but I'm sure once he gets back to Wisconsin we can convince him to stare at the sun long enough for that to happen"

Eric snickered "Yeah... I hope Donna just... Never comes back, I hate her... Yeah..."

"No, you don't," Jackie said flatly to him "You'll probably marry her if she ever does come back."

Eric stared at Jackie for a few seconds before sighing dejectedly "... yeah, you're right..."

"But, hey, we can bash on Michael some more if you like, it's fun!"

"You're right, it is fun! " Eric nodded, smiling at the petite girl sitting next to him on the couch and wondering when did he start to actually enjoy her presence.

The whole google doc for this story has over 7k words of random dialogues and random moments I came up with. I'm not going to lie, it has potential, lots of it actually, but I don't have the time to work on it now.

The story would be overall a light read, it would've been M-rated because I did start to write a sex scene, but it would be overall something funny and cute. For example, one of my favorite moments is this one where Eric almost catches Hyde and Jackie:

"Oh my God…" Eric muttered in awe, glancing at the two very guilty-looking people sitting on the couch.

Hyde and Jackie exchanged a look, they were caught. Crap.

"Is this what I think it is?" Eric said

"Look, Eric…" Jackie started to explain, but stopped when she saw the huge grin forming on Eric's face. She looked at Hyde and apparently he was just as confused as she was.

"You're watching Star Wars!" Eric said in glee "You're geeks!"

"What?!" Hyde protested and looked at the TV, where he could clearly see Leia and Luke kissing on the bridge "We're not geeks, you're crazy"

"Steven, stop," Jackie said "Fine Eric, you caught us, we like Star Wars"

This story would end in a nice place, but... well, there would be a lot of changes.

Here's the thing, I was kind of really hating Kelso (and Donna too, a little bit) when I started writing this, so I chose to write something that might be a little weird for a few people. In this story, Donna and Kelso would have a fling in California, and Eric would catch them on the spot when he arrives to get Donna back.

It's not something Eric would be able to forgive. And even after a lot of talking, he wouldn't be able to get back together with Donna after seeing her with Kelso.

Coming back to Point Place, Eric would try to make a move on Jackie, he would kiss her for like, two seconds, and she would've pushed him away and blurted out that she's in love with Hyde. Hyde would arrive at the basement a few moments after that, and Eric would be completely freaking out. It's a funny scene lol.

Things would get messy for a while, but in the end, Jackie and Hyde would go public and have the happily ever after they deserve, Eric, Fez, Hyde, and Jackie would continue their friendship, Donna would move to California for good, and Kelso wouldn't hang out with them anymore.

There are a few stories that are somewhat similar to this one, like Summer Lovin' by leoasc, One Difference: Donna and Kelso Have a Fling by MistyMountainHop, OPERATION: REBOUND by ShanghaiLily, and there are probably a few more that I can't remember the names right now.

The second story is a heavy one, like, really heavy.

I got the idea of writing this story when I was watching a Grey’s Anatomy episode, so yeah, its a dramatic one lol.

The episode that inspired this story is the one where Richard is in between life and death, and Meredith is the one he chose as his next of kin. Which means that she’s the one the doctors report to, and she’s the one who decided how he was going to be treated. Meredith took some risky decisions and they’re literally the reason why Richard is alive.

I remember that when I saw this episode, I was also reading a fanfic... Being more specific, I was reading The Right Road Lost by zpplnchick, and an idea just popped into my mind... What if Jackie was the one with the memory loss? How would Hyde deal with that in a post s8 universe?

I know there are a few fics that deal with that subject, like Steven Who? by kezztip and Redemption Road by SkittlezLvr79, but believe me, my story would’ve been waaay different than these ones.

Here’s the main plot: Jackie and Hyde talk things out, and Hyde asks Jackie if she could ever take him back, promising her that he would never, ever give up on her again. She says no, because y’know, she’s a freaking self-respecting woman, but this talk would make her think, a lot, because she can see that he actually meant it every word, and she has never seen him this determined before.

As she was driving home, she would crash her car, and things would get pretty serious pretty quickly.

Her situation would be very critical, I planned on making Hyde suffer a lot in this, guys. I’m just downright cruel to him, because I believe that nothing would hurt him more than seeing the person he loves the most going through absolute hell.

Decisions would have to be made, and that’s when they find out that Jackie’s next of kin is no one other than Hyde. After her mother left her and her father went to prison, Jackie asked her father’s lawyer to provide her with a few papers that put Hyde in charge of her well-being if something ever happened to her. She forgot about it after they broke up, and well... She is going to be very thankful for that later.

Hyde’s shocked, but very pleased to find out that he’s responsible for her, especially since everyone seems to think that her death is inevitable and that they shouldn’t prolong her suffering.

After a very enlightening conversation with Mrs. Forman, Hyde decides that he’s not going to let anyone tell him what to do, and that he’s going to follow his gut.

The next few months would be complete hell, Jackie’s situation is very critical, she would go through a lot of complications and Hyde would’ve been a complete mess. He would watch quietly as Donna, Kelso and Fez stopped showing up to see Jackie, disgusted at how quickly they just gave up on her. He would listen as Donna rambled about how what he was doing to Jackie was torture, and that he must really hate her if he’s not willing to just let her go (which would end up causing a major fallout between Donna and Hyde), but he would never question his decisions. He just knew that he was doing the right thing, and no one but the Forman’s seemed to understand that. 

Hyde showed up to see her at the hospital every single day for months. The whole hospital staff knew him as “the Sleeping Beauty’s prince”, and he hardly ever left Jackie’s side.

After a few months, she wakes up, and he’s right next to her when that happens. It’s honestly a pretty touching scene, he’s just so happy and so relieved to see her awake after everything she went through, and they have a beautiful moment.

Seriously, I cried hard when I wrote that.

They would both cry, share “I love yous” and a few kisses, and it would’ve been beautiful, but the magic’s killed when Hyde realizes that Jackie thinks that they’re in 1978. She doesn't remember the nurse, the “get off my boyfriend” incident, Chicago or Sam. The last thing she remembers is him driving her home after they emptied her family’s ski cabin.

Hyde is divided between telling her the truth and losing her, or not telling her and being with her again.

He would let her think things were okay between them for a couple of days, until Eric shoves some sense into his head and he comes clean about everything. After telling her everything that happened, he also tells her that he loves her and he wants to be with her, but that he completely understands if she never wants to see his face again.

It’s safe to say that Jackie’s absolutely crushed. This breaks her, but she had the Forman’s by her side to help her go through everything, and Hyde also never leaves her. Sure, he gives her some space, but he doesn’t stop checking up on her, and slowly, they begin to form a nice friendship.

He takes her to her physical therapy appointments, and her doctors appointments, he helps her in every possible way he can, and she falls in love with him all over again.

The story would end with her making a full recovery and giving them another chance.

I've abandoned this story for three reasons, reason number one being: I was at a point where I really disliked Donna, and her character is not a nice person at all in this. Now that I understand Donna's character better, I refuse to publish a story where she behaves the way she did in this one. I could've changed her behavior, but the whole point of the story is "Hyde is the only one who hasn't given up", and having Donna acting like herself (nice and supportive) would kind of kill part of the plot.

Reason number two is: There’s already too much drama in Map of the Problematique, working on this story along with WTLB and my other WIP’s would drive me nuts.

And the last reason is... I didn’t know if people would like reading a story like this. I was afraid that some people might think that all of this determination is extremely OOC for Hyde, and I can kind of see why they would think this way. 

The third story would’ve been an angsty one, and I started writing it after I finished watching the first episode of season 6. You guys can probably already guess why I was inspired to write an angsty story after that episode...

Here’s the thing: I absolutely HATE the way Hyde treated Jackie in the first two episodes of season 6. I hate that he cheated on her and had the audacity to be offended that she didn’t take him back right away. I wanted to kick his ass for acting the way he did, it was truly disgusting of him and he did not deserve to be with her again after everything he’d done.

I do like that Kelso was the one that brought them back together, but the rest of that storyline is just... yuck. I truly hate it.

I wanted to fix that. I wanted to give Jackie a very girlboss moment, and I wanted to see Hyde groveling to get her back, so well... I came up with a story idea.

The story would be a short one, it would have 10 chapters, 15 if I got too inspired, and it would consist of Hyde groveling while Jackie didn’t give him the time of her day.

Sure, Jackie and Hyde would be endgame, because it’s me and I would never write a story without a happy ending, but Hyde would have to fight for it, a lot.

@snookstheallmighty is currently writing a story that is very similar to the one I was working on. It’s called “Friday I’ll Be Over You”, and it’s pretty great! You should totally check it out later! I’ve sent her a few parts of my story draft a while ago, and I gave her full permission to use it on her story!

I think this is pretty much it... I have plenty of story ideas and many, many google docs with random drafts and dialogues that popped up in my mind out of nowhere, but these are the ones I’ve fully abandoned and will probably never work on again.

[misssunflowersandsangria]

Thread

Hello my sparkling Suns!  Suna Family Fluff #2 here! Todays’ ficlet features Temari and Gaara.  I took creative liberties with this one and kind of put more years between Tem and Gaara.  Hope you enjoy it! 

*

**

Temari stepped into the nursery on light feet.  She knew that if anyone found her there she’d be in a lot of trouble.  She peered over the crib to look at the little baby.  He was so tiny.  He’d grown only a little bit from when he’d first been born but he was still so small.

Her father had forbidden anyone from coming into contact with him but it seemed unlikely that something so small could hurt anyone.  

Her mother had passed and while her heart had been completely shattered she didn’t have time to mourn the loss.  Temari’s father told her that she needed to be strong.  That tears weren’t allowed in the desert.  So she choked back her sadness and pushed forward.  She needed to be there for Kankurou and now Gaara.  At least she and Kankurou had some memories of their mother.  Gaara had none.  If she knew her father he’d inevitably blame her death solely on his shoulders. 

Gaara looked up curiously at his sister, his tiny hands moving up towards her.  Temari grinned, taking his small fist in her hands.  

“Hi Gaara, I’m Temari, your big sister.  You’re a lot cuter than Kankurou was as a baby.”  She teased him playing with the baby soft red hair.  Her fingers lightly traced over the symbol on his forehead.  He giggled and smiled at the affectionate touch and her heart melted. 

“I don’t understand father.  You seem very sweet.”  She began to imagine them older, the three sand siblings taking on the world.  

“I don’t know exactly what is going on but your big sister will always be there for you.  Kankuro too but I know that I will be your favorite.  Mama isn’t around anymore....so we need to stick together okay.”  The small smile on his face let her know that at least on some level he understood. 

“Let me show you a cool trick I learned!”  The wind began to kick up in the room moving the mobile above the crib.  Gaara starred up enchanted by the moving objects and colors being reflected throughout the room.

“I still have to work on it but I’m going to be a master wind user.  I wonder what kind of jutsu you’ll use?”  His small hands clapped together, amused and excited.  

“I have to go before they find me there but I’ll be back okay.“  She felt incredibly sad leaving him alone in that room knowing that other than caring for his basic needs no one else would be allowed in there.  He was a baby.  How could they treat him this way?  Regardless, she would be there for him no matter what. 

Temari was able to continue her secret visits for a few weeks.  She’d visit him late at night this need to check on him and to make sure that he was safe pulling her in.  She would sing familiar Suna lullabies, move things around using her wind jutsu, or simply talk to him.  They were wonderful, precious, and quiet moments shared before she was caught and severely reprimanded for doing something so dangerous.  From then on she was constantly under surveillance and had to stop her secret missions.  All she wanted was to spend time with her baby brother.  Why was that so wrong?

For years things only became progressively worse.  Her father had done well to instill in her and Kankuro a profound fear.  They both struggled with being afraid of their younger brother while wanting to draw him in close and protect him.  So they toed that line.  They eventually became his bodyguards as unnecessary as it might have been but also knew to be very careful around him.  It was hard for her to reconcile the Gaara she’d grown up with and the baby that she’d sometimes hold in her arms and dance around with.  Despite what seemed like miles between them she felt an invisible thread that kept them together.   

Temari couldn’t have been more grateful for the events in their lives that allowed Gaara to heal and changed the paradigm of their relationship as siblings.   

When Gaara had informed her that he’d adopted a child she rushed to Suna needing to see this for herself.  

Shinki was a stern and serious child.  Utterly unimpressed by Shikadai’s attempts to befriend him.  Still, he was respectful and it was clear how much he adored his father and was proud of his adopted bloodline.

Seeing Gaara as a father made Temari reflect on their childhood.  “Gaara...I’m so sorry.”

He looked at her curiously.  “Why?”

“For how we treated you when we were younger.  So many times I just wanted to reach out to you but father...well you know the rest.”  She’d carried this guilt for years and now that they were both in this new chapter in their lives it felt like the right time to address it. 

He took her hand in his and it reminded her of when she’d first held his once tiny hand.  “Temari.  None of that was your fault.  You and Kankuro were children.  Honestly, the fear was warranted.  At the time I probably would have really hurt or killed either of you.  So I apologize as well.”

She shook her head.  “Wow, we had a really traumatic childhood huh?”

“Yes, so I am hopeful that we are able to give Shinki and Shikadai a far better one than we experienced.”

“He’s lucky to have you.”

“I feel the same.  I know that we weren’t allowed to be close as children but I always had a feeling that you were there.  That you were watching over me.”  Temari couldn’t help the tears that appeared in her eyes feeling the crushing weight of their past lifted from her shoulders.  He pulled her in close that invisible thread keeping them together.  

Her brothers, their family, it was proof that beautiful things could grow in the desert. 

*

**

I can’t help but cry at the idea of Tem holding baby Gaara!!!  I’d like to believe that despite everything Temari really did try to be there for her brothers.  I hope that you all enjoyed it.  If you haven’t seen it my story with her and Kankuro, “Strings” is on my Tumblr or here

 :D Okay my Suns I love you and please continue to take care of yourselves! 

[lnarizakis]

if ghosts could even love

masterlist

pairing: yamaguchi tadashi x fem!reader x tsukishima kei

foreword: hi! this piece was definitely out of my comfort zone, but really fun to write! this is an angsty guardian angel au. it is another attempt at angst since the only thing i’m pretty much decent at is fluff. so here i am, continuing to practice angst! this is also one of my first attempts at “aesthetic formatting,” so please go easy on me, hahah. thank you to @doughnuts-5ever for beta-reading! i hope you enjoy!!

word count: 1.6k

look out for: themes referring to death, mentions of suicide and manga spoilers, unrequited love, angst

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Warm air hit his face, and he was instantly met with a blinding light that shines even through his eyelids that he has to squeeze his eyes more shut than they already were. He couldn’t breathe, but he felt as free as an angel flying in the sky. Perhaps he was one. It seemed like a dream—to be up in the heavens, lying on the clouds; but when he opened his eyes ever so slowly, the pink and white and purple and yellow surrounding him like a flurry made him realize that he most definitely was not on Earth, but maybe, just maybe, he was in Heaven.

“Welcome to Heaven,” a voice boomed in his head, but it didn’t ring in his ears, shaking his being like all his mortal fears did when he was still alive. He’s...dead? But his soul felt so alive, he couldn’t possibly fathom that he was actually dead.

“Your good intentions on Earth did not go unnoticed,” the voice rang again. He looked around for the source of the message, but all he could find within the vast space of clouds and sky was himself— or, at least, what he thought was himself. He attempted to look down at his feet, but there were no feet in sight. It was just his soul, the empty ghost of what was once a former pinch server, captain, student, and best friend. “You are allowed to look over one person on earth for the rest of their life. You must have choose wisely; you are to watch over this person for the rest of your life. Who shall you choose?”

Without hesitation, he spoke out loud (if ghosts could even talk), “My best friend, Tsukishima Kei.”

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

A flurry of bright colors covered his entire vision, and they turned darker and darker as they mixed with one another. The blizzard vanished before him, and he stood in front of his best friend, who sat at the edge of his bed. The lights of his bedroom were turned off, and through the closed blinds of the single window he could see that it was nighttime.

The ghost of a former friend leapt towards Tsukishima, in an attempt to hug him, but passed through his body like the spirit he was. There was certainly no way he could make contact with him at all. Tsukishima leaned forward, hands covering his face to mask his pained expression. As he groaned into his palms, the door to his bedroom slowly creaked open, revealing the shadowed figure of his older brother.

“Kei, are you okay?” He made his way towards his younger brother, only to be stopped by a stern “Leave.” Kei didn’t even turn around to look at his brother’s retreating figure.

“Tsukki, I’m right here,” the ghost called out. He was met with no reply—he was only a soul, after all. Tsukishima coudn’t possibly hear him. From behind his bedroom door, both Kei and the ghost could hear the older brother tell Kei that Tadashi’s—whoever that was—family had planned for his funeral to be the following week. A funeral? The soul made his way to reside next to Tsukishima’s hunched form, comforting him in any way he could.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

On the day of the funeral, Tsukishima showed up in a loose black suit and a tie. His head hung low, not wanting to partake in any second of this moment. The ghost thought he looked nice. As he made his way towards his best friend’s grave, Tsukishima made eye contact with a girl around his age whose tears for the deceased had already stained her cheeks for everyone to see. She turned towards Tsukishima, and the spirit who accompanied him felt a pang of familiarity in all the corners of his otherworldly body. Something about her just looked so, so familiar. Her name was on the tip of his tongue (if ghosts could even have tongues). There was no way for him to remember who she was.

“Hi, (L/N),” Tsukishima said, walking towards the girl. She wrapped her arms around his torso, but he made no movement of hugging her back. She sobbed into his chest, heaving out words she didn’t know she was saying. From behind the tear-stained girl, the mother of whom the ghost suspected was Tadashi joined the two and held out an envelope in front of Tsukishima.

“It’s for you,” she commented, as Tsukishima accepted the letter. The girl, whose name the ghost learned was (L/N), let go of her hold on Tsukishima and stood by him, watching him open the letter. He pulled out a sheet of paper that looked like it was impulsively ripped out of a math notebook on a lonely Thursday night. The handwriting looked familiar to the ghost, as if he had written out the message himself, but he had no memory of writing out a depressing suicide note like that. Tsukishima’s eyes slowly scanned the letter in front of him, but it was hard to read the ink towards the bottom of the paper that began to mix with the salty tears that dropped from his chin.

(L/N) held out her own letter, telling Tsukishima that she received one from him as well. She allowed him to read it, and the contents of it shocked him. His eyes widened, not believing a single thing Tadashi had written or her. The ghost’s best friend turned towards (L/N), who still looked ethereal as ever despite her puffy eyes and ruined makeup. She choked back a sob as she nodded, squeezing her eyes shut to keep more tears from letting out. Tsukishima looked at the ground, mumbling out, “I never knew.”

She said it was okay.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Several days later, it seemed like Tsukishima’s life returned to normal. In fact, it seemed livelier than usual, like an array of colors lit up his whole world. Maybe it was because he started dating (L/N), whom the ghost had come to know as (Y/N), brightening up his darkened canvas with the new warm colors in his life. Maybe dating her was his way of coping with his loss.

It hurt the ghost terribly, for her beauty had stirred his ghostly heart to begin beating once again. The ghost could see the way her laugh brought shades of yellow into Tsukishima’s life, and how her smile shined a pure white wherever she went. Whenever she hugged Tsukishima from behind to surprise him, or whenever she grabbed both of his hands to show him her support, shades of pink and red were splattered onto the canvas of his life. It seemed to the ghost that because of his death, a new beginning came for Tsukishima.

New feelings (if ghosts could even produce the merest of feelings) also rose within the ghost himself as he too began to fall in love with (Y/N). These feelings, though, were so familiar despite only having known her for several days; it was like he had been in love with her before. He felt so at home with these feelings—it was like falling in love with her was what he had always wanted; what he had longed for as an empty soul.

What the ghost had come to realize was that he was Tadashi and that he used to love (Y/N) while he was alive. He didn’t know what to do with this new information—or perhaps old information, and that he was to inevitably learn this—but he knew what to make of it. Tadashi had to understand that he never told (Y/N) how he felt, resulting in these feelings of his still burning alive even after his death on Earth.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

(Y/N) clung to Tsukishima’s side just like how a similar someone did to him while he was still alive. It was almost like she was a replacement for him. She was so constantly around him that it seemed like Tadashi was not only watching over Tsukishima, but also (Y/N). He observed her every quirk and learned all of her expressions. Tadashi knew just how in love with Tsukishima (Y/N) was, but the boyfriend himself couldn’t see it.

Tadashi could vividly remember one rainy Thursday afternoon, an instance in which he was so pained to be so in love yet so out of reach for (Y/N). Through the open blinds of the one window of his bedroom he could probably count each rain droplet that was stuck to the glass in the time the two were cuddled up on Tsukishima’s bed. He was fast asleep, tired out of his mind from the busy morning he had. (Y/N), though, was awake but slowly falling into a deep slumber in the warmth of his arms. Tadashi could remember her eyes—oh, her eyes—that were so in love with the boy in front of her, and he knows that if he were still alive he could give her the same kind of affection that she gave him. It hurt knowing, and it hurt that he could only imagine.

It hurt Tadashi’s soul seeing (Y/N) so in love with Tsukishima. It hurt knowing that he was in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. It hurt how he could never tell (Y/N) he loved her (if ghosts could even fall in love). Even while he was still alive. Oh, how he loved her while hew as alive. She made him feel as free as a bird up in the sky and as alive as a raging fire whose sparks crackled and flamed up in the night. It was so ironic how now, as an angel so free up in the heavens, he felt trapped inside a cage. Trapped, because he could never escape the longing he felt of livign someone who could never love him back, and the suffocation he felt knowing that he could definitely treat her better.

Tadashi laughed (if ghosts could even laugh). How selfish.

[cereusblue]

Out of all the things that could happen in a year, even the things you know are coming, you’ll still never be fully prepared for them. However, I find it kind of suiting that something I’ve known to be on the way happens but two weeks after the death of Unus Annus.

TW for mentions of death but..

To start this, I’ve always had a really strange relationship with death. I’ve never really feared it and even now I don’t fear it but I’ve always hid and ran away from the concept because I’ve always been aware that it is an inevitable. But that doesn’t mean it made accepting it when it came time any easier.

My grandmother is currently on her way out and even though we can’t see the exact timer, we know it’s there. The timer ticks with the loss of motor controls. It ticks with the failing in her ability to recognizing her eldest daughter. It ticks when she foregoes saying anything else to my grandfather when he calls to merely say, “I want to come home to die.” I’ve watched this 82 yr old woman fight stage four cancer for damn near twelve years and seeing it take the ticking clock by the hand to catch up with her just hurts a whole lot more.

And if I’m to be honest? I have no idea how I would be handling this if this was two weeks prior or even a month prior. I just want to extend my thanks to @markiplier and @crankgameplays and everyone who worked on Unus Annus for all they’ve done because I’ve just been going through memories and memories stashed away to try and cope with what’s happening. While I’m still sad it’s gone I’m glad it happened. But Idk man, I still wish I could go back even just for a moment to hear to these two goobers tell me it’s going to be alright. Because even if things are never going to actually be alright again, it’s going to okay.

But we can’t go back. We can never go back in time because time waits for no one.. But let’s just take a moment to play with hypotheticals because it’s a concept and if time is my enemy right now and it’s just a concept too, why not? If I was asked what I would change if I could restart this year I’d have to say one thing.. Pictures. Take more pictures. Even though the clock is working against you, you can still hoard your collection of images that can always bring you back to a time and place and even for just a moment everything can be alright. If you don’t have those pictures and videos that you always subtly wished you’d taken then you’re going to regret more than anything that you didn’t take more when the timer is running out. Even if you didn’t get along the greatest with the person who’s leaving.. Just, fuck, dude take the fucking picture. Make them smile a little. You should smile a little more. Capture those moments because they’re fleeting and you’ll need them. The only way you can fight that damn timer is if you steal moments from time that it can never wretch from your fingers.

Just.. I don’t know how to close this off, I’ve just been crying and I’m tired and I just wish I’d taken more pictures and I’d watched Hamilton with her like she wanted. I wish she’d taught me how to make cornbread the way she always made it and how to make turkey dumplings. I still wish she’d treated me better but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to miss her when she’s gone. At the beginning of 2020, I knew all we had was one year left and that she’d never see Christmas again. When I was told she was spiraling I still am trying to come home and I’m just.. I’m not there early enough and we’re out of time. My bank accounts nearly empty but I was set to come home in one week but she won’t make it till then and it hurts. And there’s nothing else I can do except come to peace with the fact it’s happening.

Idk who all read to the end but I hope you all are having a better holiday season. Please, please be careful out there in the pandemic as even just your contribution to stopping the spread can help open hospitals for families to see their loved ones before they go. And my biggest request is that you all start taking more pictures.

[balancingthewind]

returning

Why do I practice yoga?

Because, as much as my triggers would have me do otherwise, I need to spend time listening to my body. Because, when I don’t, I experience pain physically and mentally. Pain that is avoidable through Yoga.

Yoga is not just a blending of fanciful movements that make you acrobatically strong and flexible. Sure, those can be outcomes if they are your aims, but the heart of the practice is learning how to do the most simple of movements - sitting, standing, walking - with stability and fluidity, a fully embodied person. The Yoga poses you see are only the most superficial layer of the asana practice; what is happening in the unseen, felt sense, is the most profound gift of Yoga.

Not only does the intelligent use of our bodies bring physical alignment and grace, but longevity and health also lie in our abilities to focus our minds acutely on any subject, to quieten the chaos noise of the world and the narrating mind to see any one thing clearly. As we narrow our focus to the subtle workings of our inner bodies, we also strengthen our ability to concentrate without distraction to achieve any goal.

As a person who deals with complex trauma and its companions, dissociation and anxiety, this level of embodiment has clarified my path to mental health. Symptoms like depression and shame tug at my frays, looking for a hole through which to pull me from my body, soothing terror with waking sleep. With one-pointed focus I can feel my feet, check in with my senses, and make my way back to presence. Post-traumatic stress can bring about an overload of stress hormones, throwing my body and mind into a fight/flight/freeze response… to which, I breathe, hush the mental chatter, address the trauma on a physical level, and diffuse it. When looking at everyday, practical self-regulating tools, Yoga provides some that can directly combat both numbing and panic.

Yoga has given me the tools to cope with the past year, too - although at first glance that may be hard to see. To be perfectly honest, I was not one of the lucky ones who remained buoyant, giddily occupied in their homes. The year prior had held some pretty huge losses for me and I was dealing with insecurity on several levels when the pandemic hit, and so I fell back into my familiar coping mechanisms - checking out, smoking cigarettes, and generally not holding myself accountable for how I was treating myself and the ones I loved. On a day-to-day basis, checking in to the senses can prevent absolute neurosis, but once I built a sensitivity to my body’s need to communicate, I felt and now am paying for the long duration of silence.

I also sustained a few injuries in 2019 and 2020, altering my practice as far as removing any pose involving weight-bearing in the hands, and causing mild-to-severe constant pain in my neck and shoulder, so my relationship to my body has changed drastically, and approaching a flow (my typical mode of personal practice) isn’t really possible anymore in the way my mind isn’t able to sink completely into movement and has to stay thinking about how I need to modify the next pose, which made practicing altogether less enjoyable.

I quit teaching when studios shut down right at the beginning, and today, I am teaching my first one back (so long as anyone signs up). I have some nervousness about this, but I’m using some methods I learned in an Alexander Technique workshop to deal with this in the sense of being able to follow through with showing up.

Because that’s really been the issue. Showing up. For the past year, every time I tried to get back to health, it started with a morning Yoga asana practice, and the message at the end of the practice from inside was always, “I can do this.” Eat a good breakfast, great. But then, the day would pass, the inevitable fatigue would set in, and I would end my day with mind numbing activities until I was too tired to keep my eyes open so that I could avoid the real responsibility of acknowledging my day on a physical level, diffusing it, and getting myself to a place where I could sleep. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll ever get up for a 5am Yoga practice if I’ve been up until 1am playing Sims or watching the Great British Bake-Off. Just isn’t happening.

Even being in a yoga teacher training that started the same month as the pandemic hit Kentucky hasn’t stopped me from falling from the path for a little while. Luckily I can still use what I’ve been taught now, but there’s a little shame and remorse in letting yet another opportunity go under-fulfilled.

So yeah. In all honesty, this year has been straining and traumatizing for everyone. From some perspectives, the outlook is pretty fucking dark too. My partner and I are sinking deeper into the Great American Pit of Medical Debt as we speak, and it’s hard not to get angsty just thinking about the fact that so much of the suffering the world endures could be avoided in an alternate but feasible reality.

However, despite this apparent loss of hope, Yoga was still there for me. As someone who will probably always deal with the darkest corners of depression for life, I need a light to counter the darkness, lest it becomes too much to handle. Yoga - not in the sense of poses or breathing, but in the experience of unadulterated union between mind, body, and spirit - is that light. Whether distant, in memory, or present, Yoga is one of those things you “can’t unsee”. To remain in that state requires practice, but if you can’t practice, you at least can know that Yoga is there for you when you’re ready to return.

So, here I am, returning. Letting go of the shame of thinking I need to have had it all together, allowing ME to be good enough while honoring the responsibility of being a teacher. I’ve been practicing Yoga asana (poses), pranayama (breathwork), nidra (resting yoga) and meditation of various sorts multiple times a day for a couple weeks now. I’ve quit smoking cigarettes (again) and am working with a doctor to find medication to help stabilize my depression until the Yoga has done its work.

These are things I require of myself to be able to show up to teach: to be doing everything I can to get myself healthy, making decisions that contribute to my health, remaining diligent to my tendencies and looking for places I can implement what I’ve learned kinesthetically and philosophically to my life. In this way, I can come to the mat with a clear mind and hold space for anyone who may need Yoga in the same way I do.

So, I guess this all begs the question, why do I teach yoga?

Because I want people like me to feel safe in a Yoga class. Because I know I'm different from many in that my gauge of excellence is metered by stability and comfort, rather than physical exceptionalism, as the absence of suffering in myself and others is my highest goal. And I think I could access people who really need that, given my understanding of complex trauma and experience with and love for so many kinds of people. I want badly to create culture in my city and even farther, focused around health and community, sharing and creation. I know we can do this. It's hard work, but it can be made easier when your environment reflects positive ideals, and that is something almost everyone has control over to some extent.

If you’re interested in a trauma-informed, research-based, gentle Yoga practice for physical and mental longevity, please join me. Literally everyone is welcome, and I can modify almost all poses to be done from a chair. I’m teaching virtually on Tuesdays at 6pm and in person at Centered Holistic Health on Saturdays at 11am.

Be humble and blessed <3

[marie-dufresne]

@exsiliumductoris

Stepping out of the train station and into the city, Marie felt oddly out of place. It could have been because she was in the same outfit she’d been wearing for the past five or so months (when she was even wearing clothes. At some point it had become more practical to wrap up in a fur and leave it at that), worn down to practically threads by her standards, yet ballet flats that were practically brand new.

She had no makeup on to speak of (in public of all places) and was, despite her now tighter fitting clothing since being fed properly on a regular basis, also without a bra, the damned thing having split right into two halves and rendering itself useless.

At least she wouldn’t be recognized.

In the pocket of her jacket she had some money that Veld had given her and a piece of paper with a name and the number of someone who would get her a new identity and the proper paperwork to travel freely out of the country and into almost any of her choosing.

He owed Veld.

Make a good life for yourself, he’d told her before they parted.

Amidst the bustling of Prague she sighed, stepping out of the way and making herself small by a lamp post. She didn’t know what that meant.

What she did know was that she needed clothes and a hotel. Locating the shopping mall was simple. She practically had radar for the finer things in life and though she was eyed by the sales woman for her incredibly average appearance, Marie paid no mind, flipping over the tag of the dress she’d set out to purchase.

Her heart sank.

The dress alone cost almost half of what Veld had given her. There was no way she could provide herself with a new wardrobe here. With tears in her eyes, Marie dropped the tag and turned away, realizing how little she really knew about surviving on her own.

“You might try MY,” drawled the sales clerk, examining the diamonds on her fingers, “perhaps better suited for your….budget.”

Thanking her, Marie left the boutique, and, locating a directory, was pleased to find this ‘My’ was an anchor store and she wasn’t likely to get lost finding it.

The clothing selection, she found, was severely lacking in…well anything she cared for, really. But then again, she’d been living practically primitive for nearly half a year and had found herself quite happy in doing so, so purchasing a few bits of clothing she might have to share the style of the masses was not the most horrible thing she’d ever endured.

And to her surprise, they had everything. Undergarments, pajamas, hair accessories, makeup (bargain brand, but still), purses, shoes, and even a not-quite-awful and sort-of-formal-depending-on-her-hairstyle dress she might be able to wear should she choose to treat herself to a drink at a place more her scale.

She even found a new suitcase.

Leaving the mall she encountered a small tourist cart where she was able to pick up a few brochures and pamphlets in English and sought out a budget-friendly hotel. Family-friendly, it said. That was likely to be affordable enough without being questionable. She was right.

Feeling successful, she checked into the hotel and rolled her new suitcase containing her entire new life, into the little room and when she laid eyes on the shower, she let out a squeal and practically jumped from her clothes and underneath the running, hot water. Oh how such a simple pleasure was a luxury.

The towels and robe provided by the hotel may have been of moderate quality but to Marie, it was like entering the world again and when she flopped down on the bed, she smiled. Life could be good, if lived on her own terms.

She sat up, digging in her jacket pocket for the piece of paper Veld had given her, and scooted closer to the telephone, reading the name and numbers over and over again until she wasn’t reading them anymore, but simply…staring through the paper.

Mmm….maybe not tonight. She put the paper back in her pocket. Maybe she’d wait just…another day.

She didn’t sleep that night, the sounds of the city ringing through her ears and thundering in her head. They were loud, obnoxious, unnatural noises she’d forgotten about. Here there was no crackling of a dying evening fire, and no steady heartbeat of another person. It was screeching and yelling and music and she was overly aware of all of it.

The next morning, though she’d had little sleep, she was determined to have a good day. It was the last day she’d spend in Prague, she decided, and while she was there, she might as well do some touristing.

She had breakfast at a cafe, walked some fashionable streets, and when she found the library, she decided to see what they might offer by means of nearby attractions. There was a sign in the lobby she couldn’t quite read, but she recognized the wifi logo and the currency, and the image of a clock.

Maybe…just for a few moments she could rent some time on a computer. There was something she was curious about. Into the search engine went her name.

Gossip blogs had plenty to say about her death. None of it good, of course, but she brushed those aside, looking for an actual news article and found exactly one.

One.

“…where Californian heiress fell victim to the brutality of Czech mountain terrain. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Dufresne have refused to speak about the loss and wish to mourn in peace. No services will be held.”

She hadn’t even been named.

Angrily she clicked away, returning to the search and typing out Harold Davenport. Pages of articles of the great tragedy that befell the ‘philanthropist’ and ‘business guru’ assaulted her eyes and had she been one to make more a scene, she might have thrown the monitor from the table. Instead, she clicked out of everything and with angry tears in her eyes, stormed silently from the library.

Even in death she meant nothing to anyone.

On the steps of the library she sat off to the side, tucking her face into her knees and sobbed. The benefit of city folk was that they were city folk and had better things to do than bother with someone who may or may not be crying and she was left alone.

When she was calm enough to stand, she walked aimlessly, not knowing what exactly to do anymore. She’d lost interest in being a tourist. She needed to decide where to go from here. London and Paris were too obvious. She had too many connections in both places. Anywhere in the United States put her too close to Arthur.

Australia? New Zealand?

No, too many creepy crawlies that were beyond the appropriate size. Tahiti was a nice idea. It was her favourite place in the world, after all, but it was expensive and she wasn’t exactly equipped with the capital to set up residence there. It would be a great place to establish herself as a photographer though.

She sighed. But she didn’t have her camera. It was at the bottom of Veld’s boar pit. She wondered if it had survived. It was in its protective bag, inside of the suitcase. Well, it didn’t matter now. Still, she wondered if he’d look through her things. If he’d look at her photos. There were some of herself on that card, she remembered.

She wondered if he’d miss her. She grunted. “Probably not,” she whispered to herself as she walked, “useless burden.”

There was a pang in her heart as she thought about not being cared for by yet another person, but this pang was small and dull, as if she’d made it up to torment herself.  The greater pain came with remembering he wasn’t next to her in the bed when she’d tried to sleep.

Get over it, get over it.

Of course they’d grown close. Of course they’d grown intimate. Two people cooped up in a cabin for five months were bound to have sex eventually. That’s just how the world worked. It didn’t mean it meant anything.

Well, it had meant something to her. She wouldn’t deny it. She’d hold those memories close to her heart. She’d allowed him in. She’d chosen him, even if, admittedly, the options were limited, she had genuinely wanted him and he hadn’t paid a single penny for her.

She stopped at a deli for something in between lunch and dinner, a hot sandwich loaded with more meat than she’d ever been allowed outside the cabin before, having acquired the taste for it and finding herself craving it now.

Back in her hotel, she took to the complimentary pad of paper and pen, trying to decide where she might decide to live. Singapore was an enticing option, but like Paris and London, she knew far too many people who frequented the area and the circles of the rich and powerful were small. Crossing someone’s path was inevitable.

Both Ireland and Scotland were possibilities. There wasn’t anyone in either of those countries large enough for Arthur to deal with and they were English speaking lands. That was a plus. She thought some more, tapping the pen against the little desk in the room. Both of those options were a little…chilly for her tastes.

“Scotland, Ireland…Germa…no….Greeeeece?”

She put a question mark next to that one, then promptly scribbled it out. Lamb was too high on their list of favourite meats.

“Oh! Spain!”

She’d been to Spain several times and enjoyed the climate, the food, the people, and they were lovers of the arts. Almost too cultured for her family, truthfully, and it had only ever been a place clients had taken her to on their holidays. She favored Barcelona.

The Spanish were a passionate bunch too. Not that she wanted to take advantage of men exactly, but she didn’t see the harm in securing a temporary boyfriend for temporary lodgings while she got on her feet. She would even be honest about her reason for being in the city. A photographer making a name for herself—

She frowned. It would be hard to claim to be a photographer without equipment. She didn’t have money for all the equipment she needed. She didn’t even have money for the sort of camera she preferred and that was…one thing she simply wouldn’t budge on.

Sighing, her hand found her hair and she rested her elbow on the desk. Stupid money. If only there were some way to…

Her eyes fell on the little black dress hanging up on the back of the hotel door. She knew where the swankiest hotels were, and the lofty bars that sat below the rooms the visitors kept.

That evening found her at the bar, dressed and made up to entice, nursing a glass of white wine, her cheap lipstick leaving a kiss on the rim of her glass.  A man sat down beside her but she paid him no mind. They would come to her. They always had. Whether they left putting koruny in her purse or not was entirely up to them.

“You’re new.”

With no one else at the bar top, Marie turned, knowing she’d been addressed.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re new,” the man repeated, all knowing eyes and thick accent, “to this bar.”

“It’s a hotel,” she pointed out, “everyone is new.”

“Maybe this is true, yes, but you are working.”

Irritation rose up in her chest then. Was she so obvious? “I am waiting for someone,” she clarified instead.

The man chuckled. “Ah. Yes. I’m sure you are waiting for many someones. But here now, is only me.”

With slightly narrowed eyes, she studied him. Early ffities by the looks of it, well groomed, sporting a rolex and tailored suit; he had money. Then again, so did almost everyone else coming through the doors of this hotel. Everyone except her.

“You seem to think you know a lot about me,” she replied, taking a sip of her wine and fully intending to ignore him.

“Mmm,” he hummed, “maybe I assume but only a working girl who is new here would sit at this bar in costume jewelry and a hmmmm….” he waved his hand in the air a bit, calculating the currency in his head, “…sixty dollar dress.”

Well.

He had here there.

Now the question was: did he believe her cheap attire was a reflection of her skills? Did he think her out of her element and would be be unwilling to pay?

“Well,” she cooed, leaning over to him, “I don’t see the point in spending all my money on a dress that is going to spend the night on the floor.”

Her glass was at her lips again. “Besides, men usually don’t notice these sorts of things.”

“Ah.” He motioned for the bartender to bring her another glass. “Maybe not the boys you played with in…America, is it? Boston maybe. They will not know any better. But here in Prague…men, we know.”

She didn’t know what in her face changed, but he picked up on it, quirking a brow and giving her a smirk.

“You do know men,” he noted softly, “and yet here you are.”

Accepting the new glass, she straightened her back, looking over the rim through her lashes. She wasn’t accustomed to being read so easily by strangers and she was willing to admit her pride was hurt. She had been good at what she did, as involuntary as it had been.

“I took some time off,” she replied, lips turning up softly, “not by choice.”

The man beside her tended to his own drink for a moment, before his hand found her thigh and he leaned over.

“You will come with me and if I am satisfied, I will give you ten thousand dollars.”

Marie’s eyes flicked to the side, then down to his hand. His drink hit the bar top, thumb and forefinger snapping up to take hold of her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“And you will return tomorrow looking like a woman who can afford to sit at my brother’s bar.”

These words were colder now, almost threatening and he squeezed, though not hard enough to bruise. “The fee to do business here is thirty percent.”

Marie nodded and for a month, she returned to what she knew. There was money to be made in the escort business, particularly when the fee was paid directly to her and not her father.

After a month, she met a trust fund baby on vacation with a bunch of his buddies. She didn’t care for orgies, but they were her age and not nearly smart enough to keep their money in their pockets. Easy targets. The whole weekend ended in one of them setting her up in a penthouse flat as he cancelled his return trip home, opting instead to stay in Prague with her, living the high life.

While she’d taken the name ‘Poppy’ for work, this boy toy of hers had opted instead to call her ‘Puppy’, a pouty little pet name he held for her when he wanted to get his way.

Marie had not touched the money Veld had given her. It didn’t seem right to spend it. This was not the ‘good life’ he’d meant for her to make for herself, and guilt ate at her whenever she thought about him. She had more money than she’d ever need. Both in cash and jewelry. Her boyfriend had bought her a luxury car she couldn’t drive. That alone could buy her a pleasant country cottage if she sold it.

She wasn’t pleased with herself. She wasn’t even particularly enjoying her life. As she nursed her sore cheek outside on the balcony, even that was a generous assessment.

She hated herself.

She’d found what she knew, what she was comfortable with, and like a coward had crawled back into its toxic embrace—a life of distraction, of pretending.

Her boyfriend didn’t love her. She didn’t even think he liked her all that much. He liked her body and he liked what she could do with it. He liked how powerful he felt when jealous stares of his peers followed him when she was on his arm, and he liked the power he had over her when he was putting her in her place. But her? No, she didn’t think he liked her. She’d asked him once if he would hold her hair back if she was sick. She didn’t know why she asked. The mood had soured immediately and he reminded her the rug was new and if she vomited on it, he’d rub her face in it so she’d know what she’d done.

Just like a puppy.

Rubbing at her cheek gingerly, she stood, palms flat on the marble railing as she overlooked the city. She’d asked to meet his family and he hit her.

She wasn’t his girlfriend, he’d sneered, she was his whore. Up until tonight, she hadn’t known he had a fiancee in London. Up until tonight, she had thought he was a reckless party boy with a bit of a temper.

He’d never called her a whore before. Not just ‘a’ whore, but his whore. He wasn’t name calling; he was stating the facts of their arrangement.

He was passed out in the bedroom now. The sun was flirting with the horizon and Marie looked directly to the street below, lifting one foot onto one of the little bistro chairs set up there. No one would have to see her. Someone would find her, but…there was no one about right now. If she jumped, no one would witness her death. No one would be traumatized. It was the least selfish thing she could do.

With her second leg up on the chair, she brought her knees up onto the stone and took a deep breath. With a sharp inhale, she looked up, taking in the view, pausing for a moment and savoring one last look. The bridges and beyond them, the shadow of the mountains. Was one of those mountains Veld’s mountain? Probably not. They were too close.

Her chin wobbled and she ducked her chin into her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, teetering where she knelt. He would have been disappointed in her. She didn’t imagine he’d look too favorably on rich girl suicide. He hadn’t been impressed with her drug addiction.

He’d held her hair back for her when she vomited. He’d cared for her as she detoxed. He nursed her back to health, a perfect stranger who had barrelled into his peaceful life.

She wobbled a bit at the memory, yelping and throwing herself back, back onto the balcony, back to safety. The chair clanged against the table as she fell and when she realized just what she’d almost done, she choked on her own guilt, sobbing onto the slate beneath her.

By the time the sun rose above the horizon, she was just picking herself up, throat raw and eyes swollen. Her arms and legs shook and she found that she couldn’t look down onto the street without the feeling of falling assaulting her.

As she stepped back into the penthouse, a new sense of clarity overcame her.

She wasn’t stuck. She wasn’t as trapped in this lifestyle as she pretended to be.

After a shower, she cleaned the apartment of all liquid assets she could fit in her purse and, cutting her credit card and fake identification card in half, she tossed them onto the bedside table beside the unconscious leech on society, and left.

She spent the earlier hours of the morning in a cafe, fueling herself and making a list of necessities. She bought a train ticket, and when the shops opened, she bought what she would need. She was on a mission. Whether it was clarity or mania was still yet to be seen and on the train, ‘out of sight, out of mind’, came into play. Her guilt and self loathing began to melt into excitement.

At the train station, a taxi took her to the small mountain village and for a little (lot) more than his fee, continued up the narrow mountain road until it became almost impossible to drive any further. This was fine.

She was sure the taxi driver thought she was insane as she hauled her much heavier duty suitcase, military grade duffle, and all season backpack out from his trunk but returned down the mountain without her after her insistence.

Traveling wasn’t much easier than it had been the first time almost a year ago, but knowing where she was going this time kept her motivated.

Her far more practical footwear helped immensely.

When finally Veld’s cabin came into view, she found muscles and speed she hadn’t previously been able to access, and several yards from the dwelling, abandoned her luggage, hastily throwing the backpack from her back as she sprinted forward, calling out his name.

Would he be happy to see her? God she hoped so. She felt that he might. Her months with him up here in this cabin had felt so real, so genuine.

Her new leather boots thudded up the few steps to the door and she froze before she could even knock, his name dying on her lips.

It was entirely boarded up. The door, the windows. In fact, it was so oddly still, there was no mistaking the lack of life in the tiny house that had held so much of it this past winter.

“…no….” She shook her head, backing away, eyes darting all over, “No!”

With her tiny fists, she pounded on the door, screaming for him. It couldn’t go like this. He couldn’t just be gone. It…it wasn’t fair.

Dropping to the porch, she cried into the wood of the door. She shouldn’t have left. She’d made the wrong choice, continued to make poor choices, and now she was paying the price for it.  

If she had just…stayed.

[late-to-the-sexy-party]

Solid Ground

A scene in which Rae and Finn hang out and some stuff comes up.

Takes place a while after S2 and I’m not really concerned about S3.

Also posted on AO3.

Thanks, Lil, as always.

Rae and Finn were sitting on his bedroom floor, drinking beer and thumbing through music mags when Rae popped her head up, “Finn?” She tried to make her voice high, lilting, but was pretty sure she sounded harsh and halting. Had he just flinched a little? She was so fucking bad at nonchalant.

From the cadence of that one syllable, Finn could tell he was in for it. Rae often got these ideas of things to ask him which inevitably made him squirm, like whether he ever fancied a teacher or had ever secretly wanted to kiss Archie or how old he was when he’d had his first erection. It had always given him a small thrill, because even though the questions were awkward, he liked the way she made him talk and the way she listened. That’s how they’d built their together world, question by question, answer by answer, a head curled into the other’s lap or legs stretched parallel up onto the wall. More recently, however, her questions had become less fun and more about the other girls he’d dated. He braced himself.

“What did ya like best about going out with Stacey?”

The thought that Finn had been with every hot lass in Lincolnshire made Rae cringe. However, since knowing was better than imagining, she and her diary had launched Operation Desensitization, an attempt to gather as much information as possible, to rake her eyes over the truth and, in theory, neutralize it. But she was growing edgy with this business of sounding casual in the face of what he might say.

The question about Stacey made Finn uncomfortable, but he thought he could manage it. “Dunno…she had a nice house I guess. And I liked her dog.”

Rae rolled her eyes and looked at Finn like he had a screw loose, “Her house? Her dog? Right! Neither of those things are really about Stacey!”

“You asked what I liked about going out with Stacey not what I liked about her.” Finn squinted and shifted in front of her.

“What are we in English class?” Rae responded, exasperated. “Fine! What did you like about HER?” She was regretting her tone, but she couldn’t modulate. He didn’t deserve this attitude, but her head was tensing and something inside her was slipping off its hook.

She was getting worked up and quickly, but Finn still thought he could navigate this. “Not much…she’s not a nice person. I broke up with her when I saw how badly she treated people.” He watched Rae’s face for clues of a misstep.

“Did she treat you badly?” Rae asked with genuine interest.

“Nah, but girls, her mates and stuff. She’s just mean. And, like, so boring.”

“Hmmm,” Rae nodded, searching, “but you…you still had sex with her?”

Finn pulled his lips into a thin line and briefly closed his eyes; there was the familiar feeling of everything shifting and his control slipping away. Over the past few weeks, Rae seemed to be daring herself to ask more and more questions about his past experiences; how he’d met girls, what kind of dates they went on, what they talked about, but this was the most explicit she had been so far. Finn corkscrewed his mouth to one side and looked toward the window as he slowly nodded.

Rae mirrored the gesture. Her mind was regularly plagued by thoughts of Finn with all the girls he’d sexed before. The images came stacked and staticky: a tangle of toned limbs, his tongue grazing a flat stomach, his hands removing a normal sized bra, two people humping in closets that were too small for Rae alone. “You’ve had sex with a lot of girls.”

“Dunno…” was all Finn could muster as he started fidgeting with his ear. He hated the insecurity that led to these questions when it was the opposite of what he loved about her. But he also knew she was trying to work something out, and he recognized the bravery of that. He wanted to be holding her now, kissing her and reassuring her, but he knew better. In moments like this, his touch made her flinch.

Rae knew he’d been with other girls. Beyond his reputation, it was obvious from the way he behaved in bed, something confident and matter-of-fact. But this had been the first actual acknowledgement. The skin on her neck and face felt taut and twitchy. The realness of the moment was hard but satisfying and strangely liberating. When she glanced up at Finn, she realized he looked like someone trying to gentle a spider off a window ledge into a cup, anxious that it might get away or get a leg cut off by the rim. She was sympathetic but undeterred.

“I know you think I’m trying to trap you into saying something you don’t want to say… but please tell me what that was like with Stacey.”

Finn shook his head and furrowed his brow. “Nah…why d’ya want to know all that?” I don’t want to hear about you gettin’ off with some other bloke!” He really didn’t and shouldn’t she find that flattering?

Her mind tucked away the compliment to think about later while her mouth bulldozed ahead. “Alright, fine! But I do want to know. Tell me SOMETHING!”

She was speaking not just with her mouth but with her eyes and her hands too. If he could just kiss her right now, this would all be a lot easier. Finn was at a loss for words, but they were going to have to come soon if Rae’s penetrating look was any indication. He took a deep breath and moved his lips, “Yeah…ok…ah…ahh…I..ayay…arr…Rae! This is weird!”

Rae softened at Finn’s tongue-tied attempt and began to laugh. She hadn’t meant to make him so uncomfortable and it was sweet how earnestly he was trying. In an effort to lighten the mood, she threw a pillow at him, yelling, “Man UP, Finley! Tell me about Stacey Stringfellow’s snatch!”

Finn was laughing too now. But he knew that Rae relied on jokes when she felt vulnerable and he never liked that, so he tried to settle down.

And then Rae couldn’t wait any longer to ask the real question on her mind; she twisted a long strand of hair around her finger, not fully convinced she was ready to know this. “Is it different with me?”

Finn looked down and then up at her, almost guiltily “…yeah?”

“And I don’t mean cuz you luuuv me,” she goaded him, “I’m serious. I want to know how it’s different…like…logistically.”

Finn bit his lower lip, was this what it had all been about? Was she just comparing herself to those other girls? He was shit with words, but this he could answer. He knew what he wanted to say, but it took a long minute to pull his thoughts together. “Look,” he finally started, “I’m not gonna tell you I hated sleeping with Stacey, that would be stupid. But it’s different with you and not just ‘cuz I luuuv you’ and ‘awww we both love Oasis and Morissey’ and ‘Oh Rae really gets me,’ but… I mean…it feels different.”

Rae shook her head in disgust, “Right! Cuz I’m huge, and I smother you.”

“No, I’m not sayin’ that,” Finn was frustrated but caught her darting eyes with his and held them until she focused. “Yeah, your body’s different than anyone else I’ve ever been with. It’s bigger… and softer… and dead sexier.”

Finn raised his eyebrows to emphasize those last two words and they zinged down Rae’s spine. It was new to hear him tell her this so frankly. She knew she turned him on, but… then another thought broadcast across her mind. “Finn? It’s not BECAUSE I’m big that you like me is it?”

Finn let out a small laugh at the no-winningness of this conversation. “No, Rae, I can honestly say that I’d like you no matter what size you were. All I know is your body turns me on like nothin’ else and I dunno…it’s like some kinda bonus.” His eyes had wandered off but now returned her gaze. “Do you remember the first time we did it? That time in your new room?”

Rae looked at him like he’d asked if she knew her own name.

“Right, well after making me wait for months, when I was finally all up inside ya… it was so intense, like I could feel you everywhere at once…in my toes and my knees and my ears. I was kinda lost in ya.”

“Really.” She said as she started to feel the truth of his words.

“Really.” Finn confirmed as he offered one of his most heartbreaking smiles.

Rae felt a warmth in her core from her heart to her ovaries, but she also felt suddenly exposed. She covered by teasing him, “Yeah, I guess that was KINDA obvious, since you came within the first ten seconds!”

“Oi! Girl! We did it like three more times that night. You came like fifteen times!”

“Seven,” she corrected him.

“Ohh only seven? You poor lass,” Finn feigned sympathy. “Seriously though, not bad for our first go. You were…impressive.”

“Aww thanks,” Rae said only half joking, “I had a lot of practice. I’d really built up my stamina.”

Finn almost spit out his beer. She still amused the crap out of him. He zoned out as his thoughts went back to that night. He recalled how after hours of fumbling, she finally taught him how to touch her, how she had dazzled him then with her capacity for pleasure and her appetite for it. Girls had always been so timid with him about what they wanted, acted like they mostly wanted to take care of him. It was so much hotter to watch Rae take what she needed and use him for it. It had been a revelation.

Rae was preoccupied by her own memory, how she’d eschewed Finn’s many attempts to drag her on top of him and then surprised herself by suggesting she straddle his hand. She had probably surprised both of them when she stopped holding back, when she stretched out prone above his whole arm while riding his index and middle fingers, had moved greedily along his hand to slide those fingers out of her and up to her clit, had directed him to stiffen them and alternate pressure between them until she was spasming uncontrollably and he was left with a tiny heartbeat pulsing against his fingertips. And then she did it again…and again… until he was lunging at her lips to catch every moan before it escaped.

Rae was smiling to herself as she reminded him of the aftermath. “I was so sore the next day and you had so many love bites, you looked like you’d been in a fight with a blowfish.”

Finn was laughing now, “Yeah, and I had to hide from your mum in the bathtub.”

“It was some night,” Rae mused.

“Yeah it was,” he confirmed, looking down, eyes twinkling. “And I’m still lost in ya.”

Rae blushed at that, “Well let’s just say I’m not sending out any search parties.”

“Oh yeah?” Finn raised a cheeky eyebrow at her, “Not even a sexy one?”

Rae smiled wide and gave a coy tilt of her head as she nodded, “Ok… maybe a sexy one.”

When Finn saw her teeth as she smiled, he had another familiar feeling, a sweep of relief as the floor leveled and walls realigned. He was next to her in a flash, scooping up her hand and pressing his nose into her shoulder.

He spoke quietly into the crook of her neck, “Rae, that first time…it wasn’t just my feet and my ears, it was like something inside me, like in my head…it wasn’t just your body…it was like everything altogether, ya know?”

Rae wondered again how this kind, thoughtful and gentle soul had found her, but all she said was, “yeah, I think so.” And she meant it, which was a lot.

[bubonickitten]

Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Chapter 3 is up! 

Chapter 1 (tumblr // AO3) | Chapter 2 (tumblr // AO3)

Full text + content warnings under the cut.

CW: brief claustrophobia; some grief and loss stuff; a few more instances of casual misgendering (not malicious; just some wrong pronouns here and there due to the speaking-in-statements thing, but thought I'd mention it just in case); a single LORGE spider. Also, Jon gets to do one (1) swear, as a treat. SPOILERS through MAG 169.

   Chapter 3: Rift

   Jon doesn’t remember the hill being this steep.

  Or maybe he’s just winded from the long trek through the wasteland. He’d had to pass through a long stretch of territory fought over by the Buried and the Vast. The ground there was practically a minefield, pockmarked with sinkholes. They would start out as quicksand traps and suffocating tunnel entrances, only to be hollowed out into yawning chasms and cenotes, then ultimately collapsed all over again by a retaliation-minded Choke. It was an endless cycle of petty rivalry and animosity, and passing so near their battlegrounds left Jon breathless with a discordant mix of claustrophobia and agoraphobia.

  Worse was when the Dark managed to sneak its way into the mix. Whether it was Too Close I Cannot Breathe or the Vast’s abyss, the Dark could always find a way to exploit subterranean spaces – and it could never resist reaching out to needle at an Avatar of the Eye, no matter how inadvisable it was to cross the Archive these days.

  As Jon drew closer to Hill Top Road, he left the warzone behind for a mostly featureless landscape punctuated with the occasional foxholes of the Slaughter and pockets of the Forsaken’s fog. Eventually those too gave way to a seemingly endless dust bowl of soot and ash – a sprawling domain claimed by the Lightless Flame.

  The house at Hill Top Road is the only thing still standing in the midst of kilometres of Desolation-scorched earth. The charred terrain stops abruptly at the foot of the hill, a stark line demarcating the boundary between the Blackened Earth and the territory that Annabelle Cane has staked out as her own. Jon had half-expected an invisible barrier to stop him there as well – the last time he was here, Annabelle had forbidden him from returning – but there had been no resistance when he stepped over the border.

  As he hikes up the incline now, he finds himself worrying over what that might mean. Is Annabelle expecting him, inviting him in? Is she simply tolerating his presence, curious to see what he’s up to? Could he be powerful enough now that even she cannot stop him? Or is he once again wrapped up in the Web’s machinations, doing exactly what the Mother of Puppets wants?

  He shakes his head. No. He and Martin talked about this. There’s no point in obsessing over the Web’s motivations, letting the memory of Annabelle’s statement paralyze him with indecision. Better to just… keep moving forward.

  And it’s not like he has anything left to lose. 

  Jon continues up the hill, increasingly winded, his bad leg throbbing angrily, and he thinks to himself again: he really, really doesn’t remember it being this steep.

   Before long, he’s standing at the threshold of the house at Hill Top Road. The dread permeating the place is just as palpable as he remembered.

  He waits for the Distortion’s inevitable appearance, determined not to let her startle him this time. As if on cue, a door creaks open on the ceiling above him.

  “Interesting.” Without preamble, Helen lands noiselessly on her feet beside Jon and peers around curiously. “I wondered whether Annabelle would let me in.”

  So did Jon. Maybe he should be concerned about – no. He shuts down that train of thought before it can pull out of the station.    

  “You still haven’t explained what exactly you plan on doing here.”

  Honestly, that’s mostly because Jon hasn’t figured it out yet, either. He only Knows that this is where he needs to be.

  The Eye wants things to change – as much as it can be said to want anything. Setting the question of its sentience or lack thereof aside, at the Panopticon he had been able to Know things that the Beholding had previously withheld from him. He might be stronger than the other Avatars and monsters lurking about the world, but he’s not arrogant enough to believe he could overpower any of the Fears themselves. If the Ceaseless Watcher gives him access to knowledge, it’s because his Knowing will facilitate – or at least not inhibit – its plans, which means that he must have the Eye’s… blessing, to be here? He shakes his head; he’s getting caught up on semantics again.

  Point is: he Asked a question and – as usual – he was given a scrap of an answer and left to puzzle the rest out for himself. All he Knows for certain is what he wants to happen, and that this is where he needs to be in order to make it happen.

  “Jonathan.” Helen says his name with a playful lilt and leans further into his personal space. “Are you going to share with the class?” 

  Without a word, he sidesteps around her and walks further into the house. In her statement, Anya Villette had mentioned a door under the stairs leading to the basement, but the last time Jon was here, it was nowhere to be seen. He hopes it’s there this time.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Jon drags one hand down his face and sighs. Having Helen tag along is like taking a road trip through hell with an easily bored and… well, deeply annoying child. Huh.   

  “I won’t be ignored, Jon –”  

  Jon bristles, redirects his gaze, and stares daggers at her with a few more eyes than strictly necessary. “Some magically appearing door.”  

  “You aren’t being very kind to me right now, you know.” She tries to sound wounded, but really she just sounds pleased to have gotten a reaction from him.

  Jon gives an irritated huff and continues forward through the entrance hall. He treads softly, all too aware of every subtle creak of a floorboard. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering muffling his footsteps. It doesn’t matter how quiet he is; Annabelle will know – probably already knows – that he’s here regardless. Still, there’s just something about the house that demands a certain amount of fearful reverence. Disturbing the silence just feels like a bad idea. 

  Helen doesn’t appear to have the same concerns. In fact, it almost seems like she’s going out of her way to announce their presence. Of course.

  Jon catches a glimpse of the staircase as he rounds the corner and – yes, there’s a door under the stairs. A plain, painted white door with a brass handle, otherwise unremarkable and entirely unassuming.

  And yet…

  As he tries to approach it, he finds himself rooted to the spot, overcome with a sense of trepidation. He feels his breath coming faster, shallower; feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Every one of the Archive’s eyes locks onto the doorknob and for a moment he swears he feels tiny, feather-light legs scurrying down his spine. He pulls his pack tight against him, using the physical weight of it to dampen the tactile hallucination.     

  “I hate it,” Helen says darkly. Jon jumps just slightly at the break in the silence, and a few of the Archive’s eyes suspend their rapt scrutiny of the door handle to glance in her direction. Her posture is tense where she stands, staring warily at the door as if it might lunge at them. Jon has never seen the Distortion look so… unsettled.    

  She’s right, though. The door is wrong. More than that, it’s the exact same flavor of wrongness that he felt the first time he saw A Guest for Mr. Spider, and again when he reached out to knock on the monster’s door.

  Back then, he hadn’t known that the concept of wrongness could be broken down into so many distinct subtypes: the uncanny disquietude of the Stranger feels fundamentally different from the compulsion of the coffin, the sensation of worms tunneling through flesh, the Distortion’s nonsensical corridors, the Lonely’s suffocating fog.

  The pull of the Web is in a class of its own, and the sight of the door in front of him drops him right back into the memory of the day he opened the book – the day he took the first step on the winding path that led him, inevitably, to this exact moment. It’s such a fitting parallel, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was orchestrated down to the finest detail. He knows the Web plays a long game, but precisely how much of what has happened was in perfect accordance with the Web’s plans? What even is the Web’s –

  No. Stop fixating on the Spider, he reprimands himself for the umpteenth time this… day? Whatever; it’s not important. He forces his legs to move.

  “You’re sticking your hand in a bear trap, I hope you know.” 

  “I knew opening the door was a stupid thing to do,” Jon says, nonchalant. “So I opened the door.”  

  Helen breathes a surprised laugh. “Was that a joke?”

  “The idea that this is all some grand cosmic joke,” Jon rattles off drily, “thousands of us running around spread horror and sabotaging each other pointlessly while these impossible unknowing things just lurk out there, feeding off the misery we caused –”  

  “Terrible.” Helen groans and puts her head in her hands. “Here I was, ready to compliment you on finally finding a sense of humor, and you have to ruin the moment with – with existentialist brooding.”

  Jon chuckles quietly to himself and takes another step forward.  

  “Wait.” Helen reaches one long-fingered hand in Jon’s direction, then falters and pulls back. For a moment, she seems to wrestle with whether or not to continue. “What’s behind the door?”

  “A scar in reality –”  

  “Yes, I know about the rift. What do you expect to find in it? An answer? An escape? A means of suicide?”

  “A metaphysical quirk of this new reality’s divorce from the traditional concept of time.”  

  Jon pauses, chewing on his bottom lip as he looks inward and browses through his catalog.

  “It bends and twists and returns to what it was,” he settles on eventually.  

  “I told you not to use my words.” Helen gives him a warning look, but it’s fleeting, because a moment later his meaning sinks in and she huffs out a short laugh of disbelief. “Wait – wait, wait, wait. You think you can… what, turn back time?”

  Jon grimaces and makes a noncommittal seesawing motion with one hand.

  “…could emerge back into the world that she remembered.”   

  Helen starts laughing in earnest now. “You think you can time travel?”

  Jon just shrugs, unashamed. He knows he should feel embarrassed – back when he first took the position as Head Archivist, he would have scoffed at anyone making such a suggestion – but at this point, is it any more or less unrealistic than anything else that’s happened?

  “Alright,” Helen says, stifling another giggle, “I’ll grant you that there’s a rift in space and time. People have traveled through it before.”

  Jon gives an enthusiastic nod. After her encounter with the crack in the house's foundation, Anya Villette had found herself temporally displaced. What would stop Jon from also –

  “However,” Helen continues, “what makes you think you’ll just rewind your position on this timeline? It could just take you to a parallel world, leaving this one behind to suffer and decay. Would you abandon what remains of humanity like that?”

  Seeing as Anya Villette appeared to have also been spatially displaced, Jon has already considered this possibility. Helen probably knows that, too – she’s well-acquainted with his tendency to overthink things. She’s just trying to tap into his chronic self-loathing, demoralize him, make him doubt his own perceptions. It’s a familiar pattern, one Jon used to submit to far too easily.

  “…better than staying here with this strange woman.”  

  “Ouch.” Helen brings a hand to her chest in mock offense. “You’re being awfully cruel today.”

  Jon flashes an entirely unapologetic smile.

  “I was being serious, you know.” A knowing mischief creeps into Helen’s eyes. “You’ve always been selfish, but would you really run away from your mistakes, save yourself and damn the rest?”

  Unfortunately for Helen, she’s arrived too late to this particular debate. Jon already spent the entire trip here berating himself and second-guessing his conclusions, and he’s just about gotten it out of his system for the time being. Self-recrimination as an inoculation against the Distortion’s manipulations – now there’s a concept, he thinks wryly.  

  “Do you honestly believe you deserve to escape an apocalypse that you brought about?”

  God, she’s persistent.

  “Now there’s only one thing I have left that I value,” he says simply. “That I love. And I cannot lose him.”  

  It’s the truth: the final deciding factor for him was, as it so often is, Martin.

  “You would potentially forsake this entire world just to reverse your own loss?”

  “There was nothing left to save.”  

  It never gets easier to admit it out loud, but that doesn’t change the truth of it. This world is already forsaken. Humanity is dying out, slowly but surely, and Jon harbors a guilty feeling of relief that their torment will not be eternal after all. As far as he can See, there’s no way for him to save the ones who remain. There never was.

  His power was never meant to help anyone. For a long time, the only action within his grasp was to hurt – and so, he went after those who deserved to be hurt, because the only other option was doing nothing at all. But seeking revenge never saved anyone, never even made himself feel any better. If anything, it only made him feel emptier, more and more alienated from whatever human part of him still lingered – and that was a very dangerous place to be.

  And when he and Martin decided together that he needed to slow down, to maintain some distance between himself and the Eye? Well… nothing substantial changed in the slightest. He didn’t get any worse, but he also didn’t get better. The world continued to suffer just as much as if he were to sit down and take no action at all. Nothing he did or did not do made any impact whatsoever.

  He Knows intimately that he cannot banish the Entities from this world as long as one person remains to feel fear. Once that last person dies, there will be no one left to save. Hell, depending on how human he still is by that time, he may very well be that last person, and the Dread Powers will just have to ration him. And why shouldn’t they? They’ve all had a taste of him more than once. He’s an unfinished meal. They could just resume hacking away at him, demanding their respective pounds of flesh one after the other until nothing remains – until finally, mercifully, the Fears themselves would wither and die as well. He just doesn’t want to consider how long that could take – no. Best not to dwell on it.   

  The point is, there is no future for this world. There is nothing left for him to do here. His only hope is to prevent all of this from coming to pass in the first place, and this… this is the only lead he has. And besides, Martin –

  “You do realize that you have a vanishingly small chance of seeing him again, don’t you?”

  “I decided to take a risk and try it anyway.”  

  Helen looks put out at his easy dismissal, but she really ought to know better by now, Jon thinks. He might be chronically plagued by self-hate and a visceral fear of being controlled, but Martin is his anchor in more ways than one. Their relationship is proof of Jon’s own capacity for free will, and his decision to go after Martin in the Lonely remains one of the only things he’s done where he’s never once wondered whether he made the right choice. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more confident about anything than he is about their love for each other, even if he doesn’t always feel like he deserves it. Helen really couldn’t pick a worse seed with which to sow self-doubt.

  When she sees that Jon isn’t taking the bait, she changes tack. 

  “And assuming this scheme somehow works as you hope it does, and doesn’t just get you shunted to some hellish pocket dimension – which it almost certainly will – you do realize that your little scene with Jonah Magnus will mean nothing, don’t you? This future will be erased, he will not suffer for eternity – he won’t even remember that it was ever a possibility.”

  “For all her anger, there was no thirst for revenge in the Archivist, only an eagerness to expunge an infection that had gone unnoticed for too long.”  

  “Then why bother confronting him? I know it wasn’t for closure – if you were at all capable of letting go or moving on, you would never have been a candidate for the Beholding in the first place, and we wouldn’t be here now.” Jon just barely manages to not flinch at that. Luckily, Helen doesn’t seem to notice that she struck a nerve, instead staring up at the ceiling in contemplation, as if trying to decipher Jon’s motivations on her own. “So, why? All those messy emotions it dredged up and for what – the drama of it all?”  

  “I live for the monologue,” he deadpans. 

  “Jonathan!” Helen gapes at him in exaggerated shock. “Was that another joke?”

  She could stand to tone down the condescension, Jon thinks. It isn’t his fault if people overlook his sense of humor just because they never think to listen for it.   

  “Are you certain about this, Archivist? You have a history of reaching these points of no return and choosing the worst imaginable path.”

  Even at the very end, the Distortion just can’t resist one last chance at undermining his confidence. Despite the cockiness underlying her taunt, Helen has a hungry, almost pleading look in her eye – desperate, like everything else in this place that feeds on fear, for scraps in the midst of a famine that will never be remedied.

  Jon reaches out and grips the doorknob with one hand.

  “Even the end of the world can’t stop you throwing yourself on a grenade. Can’t say I’m surprised. I’m not following you in there, though.”

  “Thank heaven for small mercies, I suppose.”   

  “I am trying to have a heartfelt goodbye, Jonathan,” Helen says, not sounding sincere in the slightest. “I doubt this will go as you hope it will, but I’m fairly certain that no matter what happens, I won’t be seeing you again. I won’t wish you luck, but… well, it will be interesting to see whether one of your half-assed plans might pan out for once – not that they ever have gone according to plan.” When Jon’s resolve remains strong, Helen sighs – and this time, her disappointment does sound genuine. “Well, if you’re sure…” She trails off, giving him one last hopeful look – once last chance to fall apart under her skillful denigrations – before her shoulders slump in resignation.

  Not content to leave it at that, though, she does offer one last parting shot: “Do say hello to the Spider for me, won’t you?”

  An involuntary shudder courses down Jon’s spine as he remembers Anya Villette’s statement – the massive spider legs reaching up to pull her into the crack in the foundation – and compares it with his own memory of the book, the door, and the monster lurking within. Helen breathes a contented sigh at his ripple of unease – basically a snack for her, at Jon’s expense. Fine. She can have that last little morsel of fear from him, as a parting gift.  

  “Sometimes you just have to leave,” Jon says firmly, turning the handle. “Even if what’s on the other side scares you.”  

  And, oh, it does.

  Miraculously, Helen allows him to have the last word. As he pushes open the door to the basement, he hears Helen’s door creak open in unison. By the time he’s staring down the stairs into the dark, her door has snapped shut and popped out of existence. 

   The staircase pitches down, down, down, stretching far deeper than it should. It’s too dark to see much of anything, and it takes a full minute of descent until he notices that there’s a slight curve to it. With every step, the air grows warmer and more stifling. The revolting sensation of walking through cobwebs becomes a constant, but any time he reaches up to brush away the web clinging to him, he feels nothing but his own bare skin.

  A few minutes in, his bad leg starts twinging again, and he holds on to the wall to steady himself. Before long, his mind begins to wander to the horrifying possibility that the staircase is interminable, and he’s overcome by an image of a funnel web spider waiting patiently for unsuspecting prey. He tries to push the thought away. Just keep moving.

  Between the lack of visibility and being lost in his own head, he doesn’t notice the sharp turn in the staircase until he plows right into the wall, a sharp pain erupting in his left shoulder from the collision. He throws one hand back to steady himself and only barely manages to stay on his feet, his bad leg protesting as he throws his weight into it. After briefly taking inventory of himself and experimentally putting weight on his leg again – painful, but not unbearable – he gropes blindly for the wall again and uses it to guide himself forward, more slowly this time. It isn’t long before the stone of the wall gives way to cool, damp earth, and he shivers with the memory of the Buried.

  After several more sharp, nearly 90-degree twists and turns, a faint glow starts to permeate the darkness. A few minutes later, the staircase opens up into a large, dimly-lit space, garlanded with spider silk. The ceiling, walls, and floor are composed of tightly-packed dirt, and Jon has to fight back a rush of claustrophobic panic at the thought of being surrounded on all sides by the crushing earth. It’s short-lived, as it’s crowded out by a much deeper, more primal fear when he sees the fissure in the ground ahead.

  It’s a repulsive, crooked thing, oozing with a pervasive, tangible feeling of wrongness. It should not be there. It cannot be there. And yet there it is, boldly existing where it has no right or reason to be, a gnawing, open, inflamed wound in the fabric of reality, pulling him toward it like a black hole. It’s a compulsion stronger than the coffin, an abomination more uncanny than the Stranger, a malice deeper than any Dark, an inevitability on par with Terminus itself.

  Jon hates it. At his first glimpse of it, every one of the Archive’s eyes fly open, greedily drinking in the oppressive presence of something so unfamiliar and anomalous, leeching off of Jon’s terror as he beholds it. The scrutiny is fleeting, though, as the sight of it turns corrosive and blistering; all at once, the eyes shrink away and retreat, like a school of fish spotting a bird of prey swooping down for a meal. It takes some of the edge off, having fewer eyes with which to see the thing, but it still weighs him down with dread and revulsion.

  Jon doesn’t know how long he’s stood there, staring unblinkingly at the fault line, before he senses a presence – something colossal and hungry and wrong, malevolence and foreboding given physical form – climbing inexorably toward him. He hears a faint rustling, the whisper of tiny avalanches of dirt scraped loose and sent sliding down the walls of the crevice. He knows exactly what to expect, and still he isn’t prepared when the first of the spider’s legs peeks up over the lip of the fissure.

     How is it that after a lifetime to process a childhood trauma, it still throttles his heart and squeezes the air from his lungs at the mere thought of it? How is it that, despite being the most formidable thing in this world outside of Fear itself, he feels as small and helpless now as he did on the day he met his first of many monsters? Why is he just standing here, letting those hairy, spindly limbs hover and curl around him like an enormous clawed hand, waiting for a fate that is as unknowable as it is inevitable?

  Focus, Jon thinks to himself. Listen to the quiet.

  He slowly reaches into his jacket and breathes a sigh of relief as his fingers close around the notebook safeguarded there. It’s Martin’s, full of poems and sketches and stream-of-consciousness journal entries. Jon has had it with him for a long time now, but he’s never been able to bring himself to look inside it. Martin would occasionally share its contents with him – mostly completed poems, and only occasionally works in progress, as he was always self-conscious about his creative process – but Jon doesn’t want to accidentally see something that Martin would have preferred to keep to himself. Martin might not be beside him right now, but he still deserves to have his privacy respected.

  Still, for Jon, just having it with him is a physical reminder of his anchor, and running his thumb over the cover grounds him in the present. He closes his eyes and looks inward.  

  The Archive gropes blindly for something solid amidst the noise, some elemental truth to serve as a starting point in the chaotic tangle choking this place. The edges of his mind brush against thread after thread and none of them are what he’s looking for. They stick to him, filling his head with cotton, making him sluggish and confused, obfuscating his sight. The Spider watches as he flails, becoming more and more snarled in the web.

  “I closed my eyes and remembered in as much detail and with as much love as I could muster in my despair,” he whispers to himself, anchoring himself in the truth of the statement. He swallows a terrified whimper as something coarse and fuzzy brushes against his face, and he weaves a command into his next words: “Eventually, I opened my eyes again –” 

  The Archive obeys, hundreds of eyes materializing on his skin and blinking open in the space around him, grotesque satellites of varying sizes all seizing on single question, and suddenly he can See –

  There.

  A single thread, out of place among the rest, pulled taut and leading down into the deep gloom of the chasm. He spares a brief thought as to its origin point – Is its anchor here, now, or do its roots begin on the other side? – before silencing it. It’s not a question that needs answering right now. The Beholding objects; Jon reflexively shuts it down and takes an aggravated swipe at the nearest cluster of eyes he can reach, like swatting at a swarm of mosquitoes. He doesn’t think it actually does anything concrete, but when they disperse it brings him a small measure of satisfaction all the same.

  He gives an experimental tug on the thread and – it feels right. That’s good, right? Well, he supposes it could be the Web trying to trick him into –

  God, he’s like a dog with a bone. He could be trapped in a burning building and find part of his mind wandering off to idly ponder the melting point of steel –

  …around 1370 °C for carbon steel; between 1400 and 1530°C for stainless steel, depending on the specific alloy and grade…

  – which, yes, he has done. It’s a good way to dissociate from a crisis. Unfortunately, it’s also a good way to get killed, and the giant spider is still there, Jonathan, focus.    

  He holds fast to the thread – make a path for yourself, tune it to the frequency you need –

  “Everything about being with him felt so natural that when he told me he loved me,” he tells himself, louder this time, “it only came as a surprise to realize that we hadn’t said it already.”  

  – and he follows it, stepping carefully around and between the spider’s legs. He has no idea why it isn’t attacking him – what if this is exactly what Annabelle – no. He shakes his head as if it will jostle the thought loose. Just be thankful for it and keep moving before the damn thing changes its mind.

  Moments or hours or perhaps days later, he’s standing at the precipice of the fissure and looking down. Several eyes are riveted on the massive hairy form poised above him, but most are staring into the unknowable darkness with a gnawing, longing fascination. He stands frozen in place, torn between an overwhelming urge to flee and an overpowering need to Know what’s down there: something new, something fresh, something different – any reprieve at all from the excruciating monotony of this nightmare world.

  The spider shifts above him. It’s now or never. He has nothing to lose, and if there’s any chance at all of changing this doomed future – of seeing Martin again…

  “Sometimes you just have to leave,” he reminds himself, shutting his human eyes tight, one hand clutching the notebook and the other clenching into a fist until the fingernails cut into the palm. “Even if what’s on the other side scares you.”  

  He takes one last deep breath, thinks of Martin – safe hands, warm eyes, gentle touch – and he takes a leap of faith.

   Jon can’t see anything. He can’t See, either. There is an incessant, high-pitched whine screaming in his ears and drowning out his thoughts. When he moves to put his hands over his ears, he realizes all at once that he can’t feel his body. He has no sense of up or down, no fingers to flex, no breath to hold, and – and he can’t See.

  It’s… terrifying. It’s liberating. It hurts, but in the same way that his first gulp of fresh air hurt after three days asphyxiating in the Buried.

  He doesn’t know how long he floats there in that near-senseless limbo, but between one moment and the next a blanket of fog drops over him and the shrill static is muffled. Through the haze, he can just barely make out a voice, coming from so far away – like he’s drowning, and someone is speaking to him from above the water’s surface. He drifts and listens in a daze as the voice cuts in and out.

  “– just – thought I’d – by. Check in – how you’re –”

  It’s a nice voice.

  “– really need you –”

  A safe voice.  

  “– Jon.”

  Wait.

  “– bad. I – how much longer we can –”

  Wait, it’s – that’s Martin’s voice.

  “We – I need you.”

  It’s Martin. Martin!

  Martin is here, he’s here – Jon doesn’t know where here is, but it doesn’t matter, because Martin is here, and – and Jon is so overwhelmed with euphoria that he isn’t actually processing what’s being said. Calm down, focus – focus on the words –    

  “And I – I know that you’re not –”

  Oh.

  “I know there’s no way to –”

  Oh, no.

  “But we need you, Jon.”

  All at once, Jon knows where – when he is.

  “Jon, please, just – please.”

  No. No, no, no, no –

  “If – if there’s anything left in you that can still see us, or –”

  Martin, I’m here! 

  “– or some power that you’ve still got, or –”

  I’m here, I’m here, I’m here –

  “– or, or something, anything, please! Please.”

  Martin’s voice breaks, and Jon’s heart fractures with it.

  “I – I can’t –”

  Jon can just barely make out the buzz of a phone and – oh.

  “I’m – I’m actually with him now.”

  Martin!  

  “You were right.” A pause, and a heavy sigh. “I – will they be safe?”

  Peter Lukas. It’s Peter Lukas. Peter Lukas is still alive, Peter Lukas is hunting Martin, Peter Lukas wants to feed him to the Lonely, Peter Lukas is –

  “Okay. Okay, I’ll do it.”

  Martin, don’t –

  “Yeah. Sure thing.”  

  Martin!

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jon tries to scream, to reach out, to do anything at all, but he doesn’t have a body and he doesn’t have a voice and he can’t See –

  “Goodbye, Jon.”

  Martin, look at me! Hear me, please - see me! 

  He tries to thread a command through the words, but the compulsion doesn't come through, and - 

  Jon hears the rustle of clothing as Martin stands to leave, followed by the soft click of the door as it closes behind him. 

  Fuck. 

   End Notes:

me: i could go into some long-winded exposition about the space-time continuum  also me: OR, alternatively, i can handwave it and say It's The Power Of Love, Don't Even Worry About It

anyway, my gay little heart knows what it's about.

 - Jon’s dialogue is taken from the statements in the following episodes: MAG 146; 054; 151; 139; 168; 101; 134; 010; 037; 008; 019; 167; 108; 103; 146; 048; 013; 146.

- Jon gets some original verbal dialogue starting next chapter. Thought I'd mention it just in case anyone is getting tired of the Archive-speak (though there will still be some of that). :P

- Psst, if you want to read a detour about Jon and Martin's talk about Annabelle and free will and Not Obsessing Over The Web, I wrote that here. (I'm linking it here because it actually originally started as part of this fic but I decided to make it its own thing because my ADHD brain ran with it and it was waaaaay too much of a tangent sdsdhshgh)

[starscheme]

Change My World

Chapter Twenty-One: Burning Affection

A few moments of peaceful silence passed by after Spinel agreed to stand by Steven down this strange new path. It was only when things turned quiet did Spinel realize how close they were.

A single blanket draped over their shoulders, their foreheads gently pressed together, and his hands rested at her shoulders. With barely any distance between them, Spinel was almost afraid to breath.

"St...Steven..." Spinel began, barely above a whisper.

"Sorry, I know," he replied quietly, pulling back just enough to see her face. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"I-It's not that..." admitted Spinel, unable to meet his eyes. Once again, she was the one feeling embarrassed while Steven seemed perfectly calm.

"Are you still cold?" asked Steven, daring to slide his left hand from her shoulder up along her neck to rest his palm against her cheek.

Spinels heart tightened up once more. How could she possibly feel cold? Rather, Spinel felt warmer by the second. She probably should have been honest, but if he thought she had warmed up, wouldn't he pull further away? "...I'm...still a little..." Spinel wanted to lie, but found herself feeling rather guilty over it. Steven had confessed to her not too long ago. Wasn't this unfair to him?

However, Spinel wasn't the only one feeling guilty. Steven felt like he was using this situation to his benefit. After what he saw, watching the light leave her eyes, feeling her body grow cold and limp in his arms, all he wanted was to stay close to her. Honestly, he was just glad Spinel wasn't pushing him away. Gently, he turned her face with his hand, urging Spinel to meet his eyes. "You know...I—-"

"—don't..." pleaded Spinel as if she knew what he was going to say. She couldn't hear it again.

Steven couldn't help feeling a little hurt, "why?"

Still making no attempts to move away, Spinel reached up and tenderly pressed her hand over his own while it rested against her cheek. "...just...please..." she whispered. Surely he would find this unfair. Spinel knew how selfish she was being. Wanting to be close to him despite the fact that she refused to truly accept his feelings. She didn't want him to love her, but she didn't want him to stop either.

Though it stung a bit that Spinel wouldn't hear him out, Steven decided to let it go. She was a stubborn person and he could tell how hard it was for her to trust people. However, she trusted him, didn't she? Respecting her request, Steven didn't say another word on the matter, instead, he leaned in a bit more and kissed her cheek.

"St-!" Spinel gasped out lightly, her heart skipping a beat the moment his lips touched her skin.

He may have surprised her, but he noticed she hadn't moved. Pushing his luck and forcing himself to be brave, Steven pulled away just enough to meet her eyes. "Can I?"

Spinels breath hitched at once, and it felt like her heart had actually stopped for a moment. He wasn't very specific, but somehow she knew what he was asking. It was clear that he was embarrassed even asking that much, but what was she supposed to say? It was a bad idea right now. She knew that. However, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the word out. Instead, she found herself nodding just a little.

Stevens heart began thumping wildly in his chest. He expected her to be far more stubborn. A part of him wanted to ask if he actually heard right, but he didn't want to ruin it. He took a moment to memorize Spinels sheepish expression before closing the distance between their lips.

Back at the inn, Steven barely had a moment to appreciate it when Spinel granted him a quick kiss. This time, he was determined to savor every second. It may not have shown completely, but he was so nervous to even ask, that he still couldn't believe this was happening. The soft feeling of his lips, the heat from her cheeks, the bashful sound of her voice, he wanted to burn it all into his memory.

Spinel was just the same. As Stevens lips brushed against her own, she found herself at a loss. Her heart had quickened its pace and her mind had followed suit. This was nothing like the kiss she'd given him at first. Stevens kiss was tender and sweet. As always, he treated her so gently. Honestly, it made her heart ache. How could she be so selfish? Wouldn't this just make things harder for the both of them? Especially Steven, who might be mistaking his feelings? Still, no matter how apprehensive she was, she couldn't bring herself to stop him. In fact, Spinel was becoming greedier every second, returning his kiss in earnest.

Steven could hardly contain his joy, a smile laced his lips when Spinel returned his kiss. He slid his hand from her cheek, to the back of her neck, grazing her skin with his fingers. Regardless of the danger they were in, the mystery that plagued his mind, or the inevitable goodbye they may have to face...he'd never been so happy. His heart did back flips and a sweet shiver ran up his back, allowing himself to get lost in the moment.

"...Steven..?" breathed Spinel nervously, reaching over and gripping his shirt gently. Her cheeks were on fire, her heart was racing, and she had no idea how to handle this situation. In all her 6,000 years, this was her first time sharing a kiss with someone. Mermaids didn't really place priority on romance. It just wasn't important. What was she supposed to do next? She didn't want to embarrass herself. However, while Spinel was worried about how to proceed, she panicked when she felt Stevens tongue graze her lips.

With a gasp, Spinel flinched and Steven pulled back with a blush across his face. "S-sorry!" He exclaimed quickly, worried that he'd pushed his luck when he heard her gasp. I-I didn't-I wasn't tryin—I mean—-I got a little..." he stammered in a flustered frenzy. He had been so happy and when she whispered his name he all but lost his mind. If she hadn't reacted with shock like that, he may not have been able to stop.

Spinel stared up at Steven while he frantically tried to explain himself. Perhaps he thought she was angry with him? "It-it's okay," insisted Spinel finally. "I...was just surprised..." she muttered, placing her fingers to her lips as she glanced down at her lap.

"It's okay?" Steven repeated in surprise. Did that mean he could try again? He shook his head, trying to keep thoughts like that from taking over right now. He had to make sure he didn't lose control and scare her.

"...have you...done this before?" asked Spinel, trying to cool down her face by pressing her hands to her cheeks.

"Huh? Oh, uh...no. I...you're the first girl I've ever..." his voice trailed off, remembering the kiss he shared with the other Spinel in those images he saw.

Spinel smiled a bit, secretly pleased that Steven hadn't kissed another girl. Again, it was selfish of her, but she didn't want to think about sharing him. "Good..." she mumbled. Still embarrassed, Spinel pushed herself forward to lean against his chest. "I-I'm getting sleepy...and it will be cold if we sleep alone. So...this will have to do." Spinel didn't think she could look him in the eye right now. If she did, who know what she might say or do. It was just too embarrassing to admit to herself and to Steven, that she wanted to continue.

Steven was surprised Spinel would suggest sleeping like this, but he wasn't about to refuse. At the risk of pushing his luck once again, Steven wrapped his arms around Spinel and pulled her into a soft embrace. Though she was a little surprised, Spinel sighed and simply closed her eyes as she listened to Stevens heartbeat against her ear. The sound was so calming that it was almost hypnotic in slowly lulling Spinel to sleep. She was so comfortable in his arms, warmed by his embrace and the blanket, she couldn't think of a more suitable way to fall asleep.

As Spinel began to drift off, Steven leaned his back against the cave wall and adjusted the blanket to cover them both. He was glad Spinel felt comfortable enough with him to fall asleep like this, but he was certain he wouldn't be getting much himself. How could he when the girl he loved was in his arms like this? She was asleep, but he still felt nervous and his heart just wouldn't calm down. Especially after kissing her like that. Steven was grateful that even though Spinel wouldn't really accept his feelings, she wasn't completely rejecting him either. Did that mean he had a chance? Or was it just that she didn't want to hurt him? Honestly, he really didn't want to think about that while Spinel was sleeping in his arms. Instead, Steven closed his eyes and tried his best to fall asleep as well.

"Steven! Steven, wake up!"

With a start, Steven jolted from his sleep, realizing at once that he was no longer in the cave. He was back in the Garden and chaos surrounded them. Steven was sitting on the grass, Spinel kneeling by his side and taking his arm to try and force him to his feet. Once again, Spinel looked a little different, but at least she was alive. However, her dress had been torn in several places and she was patched with dirt. Everyone fighting around them looked like faceless, black shadows to Steven as Spinel pulled him along to run with her through the madness.

"Spinel?! What's—-"

"—-don't worry! We just need a little more time," she interrupted, focused on getting Steven away from the worst of it.

"Spinel, this way!" A faceless girl shouted as she waved them over while using a long whip to keep the others away.

Though Steven ran with Spinel, he was trying hard to identify anyone he could, but no matter how hard he tried, their faces had been scribbled out. Why was Spinel the only one he could recognize?

Finally, Spinel stopped at the edge of a small pond surrounded by pink roses, though some had been splattered with blood.

"Spinel, what's going on?! You have to tell me this time! I need to know what all this is," insisted Steven.

Without answering him, everything went silent and the faceless people all vanished, leaving Spinel and Steven alone as the Garden disappeared around them.

"This is all that's left," Spinel said quietly, keeping her back to him as she spoke.

"Left of what?" asked Steven, making sure not to move. "Is this a memory? Or just...some weird dream?"

"...I wanted to keep you safe. ...in the end...I couldn't really do anything for you."

"Spinel...please," tried Steven again. "What is all this?"

Turning to face him now, Spinel smiled sadly, revealing a large a gaping wound in her stomach that was slowly bleeding out. Tears streamed down her cheeks and blood trickled from the side of her mouth. "They found out. ...they knew what we were planning to do. Steven...don't let them use you again. Your power is growing, you can fight back this time."

Stevens heart nearly stopped the moment he saw her. Though he reminded himself that this was just a dream, seeing Spinel wounded and crying; it tore at his heart. He forced himself to stay still, though his fists trembled lightly. "...wh-what do you mean...this time? Is this some...past life? Do you know who hurt you?"

Spinel held out her hands, showing Steven the large pink diamond that rested in her palms. "...you brought me back...but everyone else is the same. We wanted to change things. You have the power to change whatever you want. ...but I messed everything up. I died. ...instead of changing what we planned...you couldn't control your power. You changed the world for me. To bring me back, to change our fate, you changed everything."

So it was true. Spinel had died. However, the way she explained it, it didn't sound like they'd all been reborn. It sounded more like he had just reshaped the world in order to bring Spinel back. As if everything had reset somehow. Still, it hurt his head to even consider something like that. "How...how would I have that kind of power? Why am I the only one that's remembering this? Why isn't Spinel—"

Spinel simply stared up at Steven and continued to hold the pink Diamond out for him. "We can do it right this time."

Steven sighed a bit. Why did his mind have to be so vague? He just wanted a few straight answers. "You want me to change things again?"

"You promised me, Steven. Are you going to break your promise?"

"Of course I won't," he answered quickly, "but I need to know who hurt you! How do I change anything on my own? Who are the ones that are after me?"

"Return to the Capital..." whispered Spinel, stepping towards him and placing the Diamond in his hands. "...this power is yours. Don't let it control you. You brought me back...you can fix everything too. You can fix what I broke..."

The Diamond in his hands began to warm up, burning like fire against his skin. It felt the same way when she had died in his arms. An overwhelming surge of emotion came flooding back to him. That terrible emptiness he felt when she died, it was like a part of him had been ripped away. Tears spilled from his eyes as Spinel gently guided his hands to wrap around the burning Diamond. "Spinel...I..."

"I promised you something too, Steven," she added softly, a content smile on her face now. "Soon...I'll fulfill that promise."

As she spoke, the Diamond projected a bright light and Steven began to feel as though something was pulling him back. He started to panic, thinking this was ending without all the answers he needed. "W-Wait," he pleaded, "I still need to know how who hurt you!"

"Aren't you the one hurting me?" Spinel asked, glancing down between them.

Steven gasped and followed her gaze. His hand was inside of her stomach with the Diamond. He panicked and jerked his hand from her wound, stepping back in horror, the Diamond no longer in his hand that was now covered in her warm blood. "I-I didn't—" he choked out, his voice cracking from the lump in his throat while tears poured down from his eyes. "I couldn't—-!"

Spinel dropped to her knees as Steven edged away from her, the ground beginning to crack and sink beneath them. She hunched over and held her stomach, "it's burning me...Steven. You have to hurry. It's burning me..."

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Why I need Reylo to happen and Ben Solo to live in TROS:

I have two stories to tell that will hopefully explain why I’m not neutral about the ending of The Rise of Skywalker. I mean, I’d love to temper my expectations and say that I’ll be happy no matter how it ends, but that’s not true because this story has become intensely personal for me.

Most Reylos and even many members of the general audience agree that the Sequel Trilogy is being told from a feminine perspective. Maybe you hate it and can’t stop whinging about Kathleen Kennedy’s “man-hating agenda” *eyeroll* or maybe your reaction is more F*CKING FINALLY, but either way, the centering of a female protagonist and the fact that Leia is the only surviving member of the OT trio going into TROS clearly demonstrate that it is their hopes and dreams that are driving the story. We have to ask ourselves, what does Rey want, and will she get it? What does Leia want, and will she get it?

**Major trigger warnings for abandonment, loss of parents, terminal illness, suicide mention, and loss of child. Please take care of yourself and skip this post if need be.**

Rey, we know, is an abandoned child. Left alone on a barren planet to pick through the bones of the fallen Empire, she had to fend for herself when she was at her most vulnerable, with no one to comfort her and only the delusional belief that her family would return for her to keep her going despite the intense loneliness. She did find friends in BB-8, Finn, and Han, but Han was quickly snatched away and she left poor Finn in a coma to go find Luke Skywalker. Her story was clearly unfinished by the end of The Force Awakens, her loneliness unassuaged and her growth merely beginning. If friendship were truly all she needed to be whole, then her story would have been over then.

I have a friend, whom let’s call E, an only child whose mother died of cancer when she was a teenager. Now that she is in her 30s, E’s father just passed away as well. She now finds herself orphaned, except everyone treats her like it’s not as big a deal because she’s an adult. But she has no partner, no children, no siblings, not even a roommate, and even her cat has recently passed away. The remaining family she does have is distant and seems mostly to judge her or to want her to conform to their idea of who she should be, how she should grieve, etc. E does have a few good friends, but they are all married and/or have children and this is a constant and painful reminder to E that she does NOT have a family like this. She suffers daily, furious that people act like she should be content with just friends. She tries to explain over and over that there is nothing that compares to a partner, someone with whom she could share the deepest physical and spiritual intimacy, who would choose her and be devoted to her, and into whom she could pour all of the love she has to give. She tries further to explain that even if she puts her friends first, they can’t put HER first because she is not their spouse nor their children; there is no one on earth for whom SHE comes first. E is on medication for depression and anxiety, and has had to back out of her friends’ weddings when they triggered a panic attack. As her friend, I feel powerless to help her in her bottomless loneliness, because I know I can’t give her the one thing she needs, which is the companionship of a romantic partner.

This is Rey. Scarred by the loss of her family and a lifetime without intimate companionship, she cannot be healed by friendship alone when those friends will still inevitably have families who come first. She can’t find intimacy with people who don’t relate to her infinite loneliness and feelings of worthlessness. She shouldn’t HAVE to hold parts of herself back, to give her heart but not her body, or her powers but not her soul. Rey, as the hero of the story, deserves to have what she wants most, and what she wants is a family. As an orphaned adult, the only way she will have a family is to find a soulmate, someone who will be bound to her in every way, who can give her children and hope for the future. Not every woman wants this, but many do and Rey certainly does. Rey’s journey constantly centers around LIFE and CONNECTION: she is overwhelmed by the verdant green of Takodana, and surrounded always by life-giving, feminine water. She has connections to every person she meets, but especially to Ben Solo, whom she can touch even across space and time, PHYSICALLY touch because that has meaning, more than simply seeing one another. As a character, Rey is written to experience the fullness of life with an intimate romantic partner, and there is only one person in the story who is her equal. Reylo has to happen for Rey’s journey to reach a satisfying conclusion, and for Star Wars to remain true to its message of hope.

Then there is Leia. Throughout the entire saga, she is the symbol of hope. When Padme lies dying, her children become her hope for the future. Years later, Leia carries the hope of the Rebellion as she escapes Scarif with the Death Star plans. She brings hope to her brother Luke. Her hope helps her rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, and then again help the Rebellion to victory on Endor. Her hope helps build the new Republic, found the Resistance, search for Luke, beg Han to reach their son, and continue leading the Resistance even when they are beaten and dwindling.

And through it all, Leia has suffered loss after loss.... after loss. Her parents, childhood friends, home, everything and everyone she ever knew or loved.... were snuffed out in an instant when Alderaan was destroyed. That’s honestly a loss on a scale that is unimaginable. It’s like being made an orphan a thousand times over, because everything that might have been a happy memory is gone. She suffered repeated losses throughout the Galactic Civil War, and saw many soldiers go to their deaths. Her son was lost to the Dark Side, her brother abandoned her, her husband left, and then her son killed her husband. Next, she lost more loyal soldiers, and when Luke suddenly returned, he passed away, too. Given all of that, what does Leia still want? What COULD she still want?

For years, I have followed a blogger on social media. Let’s call her L. Like E, her life has been marked by loss: she never knew her father, had an absent and abusive mother, became pregnant at a young age by a man who did not stay with her, and so was a single teenaged mother of a baby boy by the time she was seventeen. L experienced failed romances, had more children, stepchildren, and grandchildren, and experienced several of those children pulling away from her. Finally, her beloved aunt and uncle, who had cared for her throughout her difficult childhood and were more like parents to her, passed away within the same year. Only a few months later, her eldest son, now a young man, committed suicide at home.

Many people choose to grieve privately. L did not, and her pain.... there really aren’t words. I felt that I could not turn away, that I had to witness what she shared and know, even a little bit, the depths of human suffering. I have a young son, and as I watched L share pictures of her little boy around a similar age.... I could only think that none of us is immune from such loss. At any moment, our children could be snatched away in the cruelest of ways, and what would we not do to bring them back? Worse, if possible, for L was acknowledging the historic family cycles of trauma that had contributed to her son’s despair. She found herself asking if she shared any responsibility for his death, and wondering if she had failed him as a mother. She knew on a conscious level that his choices were his own, but still the doubt and guilt gnawed at her. Agony upon agony, sorrow upon sorrow, a horrible unending night.

L is very religious. Understandably, she had a crisis of faith after her son’s death, not least because she did not know if his suicide meant they would be separated even in eternity. She studied, prayed, and consulted with spiritual advisors for years, and eventually concluded that his soul is not in her hands, and so all she can do is hope. She will pray and hope that he is waiting for her in heaven, and live her life in such a way that she will be reunited with him after death. L still has doubts and moments of deep darkness, especially as she sees the painful ripples from her son’s loss spread into her marriage, her children’s lives, her grandchildren’s lives. But she survives with hope for reunion, and I believe in a benevolent God who will give her her heart’s desire.

Star Wars MUST give Princess Leia Organa, its avatar of hope, the one remaining wish of her heart. When everything and everyone else in the galaxy whom she has loved has been taken from her, she MUST have this one thing. Her hope for her beloved son Ben must not be in vain. The Force has to reward Leia with everything she desires for Ben: his return to the Light, his return to life, the joy and love which every mother wishes for her child. For all that the Skywalker family has suffered in their long darkness, their last son must live the full life they have all been denied. And Leia - Daughter, Princess, Leader, Lover, Mother - must have the ultimate victory. Nothing else will satisfy.

I know this all sounds very melodramatic but I don’t give a damn. E and L deserve the fantasy wish fulfillment that may not be granted them in this life. Star Wars, at its best, can do this, and that’s why I love it.