To: @8lotuses​

From: @pomegranate-belle​

Happy holidays, 8lotuses! I ended up getting a little carried away, I think, but that just means there’s more for you to read, right? This is mainly to fill your alternate ZTD ending prompt, but I threw some Phi/Maria in too. Hope you like it!

AO3 link

What We Make of It/MK-END: 1

Everything is… wrong. Everything is too much. Forward, or backward? Through time? Through space. No, that isn’t right either. It’s like… A book. With all the pages out of order. Or trying to swim to the surface when you don’t know which way is up anymore. If there ever was an up. A swift jerk to the left, or the right. It’s hard to tell. Last time you didn’t press the button, but this time you have to.

“You have two choices.”

Live, or die. Live, or…

Die.

You have to die. Again. Again. Just to see what will happen, just to see what will happen, just to s—

(Hello? Is… Someone there…?)

The voice is jolting. A static shock. Familiar.

I know that voice. But… Who is it? And… Who am I?

“Maria! Miss Serezo! Please don’t move! You’ve only just woken up again—!”

Maria…? That’s… Me.

Then everything tilts sideways, everything changes, and she’s sliding backwards down a long, dark tunnel. There’s blinding whiteness and a chemical smell that itches at her brain. A hospital room. Familiar hands grasp at the with sheets of the bed. Every sense feels layered with a tinny ringing noise.

“I need to get up,” says her voice. “It’s been two weeks. I can’t wait any longer. I have to go.”

But she’s not the one saying it.

“You need to stay here, Maria. We still have to make sure you’re all right. You know we can’t discharge you yet.”

The nurse is saying this. He looks troubled. The features of his face shift a few times before settling into a stable image. She is not controlling the movement of her eyes, but Maria still feels them haze and water.

“You don’t understand.” Maria’s voice is filled with an anger, frustration, that isn’t hers. “My family’s in danger. I need to leave.”

But then. But then… The images, thought, minds, decisions, that had sucked her under as surely as an ocean tide start to bubble back up to the surface and the voice-that-is-not-her is right. Carlos is in danger. He’s already died once. Twice. Five ti—No. No. He’s alive and he needs her help. Carlos—

Maria squeezes her eyes shut, clutches her head in pain, and this time it’s her to do it. Conflicting timelines don’t fit well inside a human body, but she pushes past the pain.

“I’m sure your family is just fine,” the nurse says soothingly.

(Maria…?)

Yes? She asks the encroaching mind. Who are you?

(My name is… Kyle. I need your help.)

She knows she’s heard that name. She knows she’s been that name.

Kyle… Klim…?

(Yes! That’s me!)

“We have to go,” Maria says aloud, but whether it’s to Kyle or the nurse she isn’t sure. “We have to save Carlos.”

(And my father.)

“Him too.”

Maria moves to get out of the hospital bed, but the nurse grabs her arm. The hold is gentle, and on the arm without the IV drip.

“Maria,” he tells her, “you need to lie back down. Carlos is fine, he’s volunteered for a social experiment, and he won’t be in contact for a while, that’s all. Please. You’ve been making so much progress.”

But Maria shakes her head.

“I can’t lie back down. I have to go now. It might already be too late.”

And it hurts to say that. But it’s the truth. She doesn’t know what day it is, or what time. She doesn’t know how far she is from Carlos.

“You’ve only been out for twelve hours now,” the nurse explains, voice placating. “It’s 8:00AM on New Year’s Eve. Whatever it is, it can wait a little longer.”

But he’s wrong. It can’t wait. New Year’s Eve means it’s the final day. Means she has less than 24 hours to save her brother.

“I understand,” her mouth says without her permission, and she’s thrown back into the corner of her own mind.

It’s terrifying and wrong – until she realizes that it’s Kyle. His mind, hand in hand with hers, telling her that this is how things have to be done. And if ‘Maria’ has been awake for a while, that means he’s had more time to acclimate to this hospital environment than she has. They lie back down, but Maria firmly seizes control of the body back, holding the reins tightly.

We still have to get out. Get unhooked and get out.

(I don’t suppose you could possess him) Kyle says, and it’s not really a question.

The idea is ludicrous.

I’m not a ghost! We’ll have to think of something else.

Maria can attach herself to other consciousnesses, certainly, but only those of ESPers or SHIFTers or whatever they’re being called now. More than that, her requirements are the same as the others’ – danger. There is none here, except the danger of being too late to save their families.

(Tell him you’re tired. You want to rest more. Something to get him out of the room.)

“I think,” Maria says numbly, “I want to rest a little more.”

The nurse looks at her, understanding and concerned.

“Ok. Just push the alert button if you need me, for any reason.”

Maria nods.

“I will.”

The nurse leaves, and she and Kyle are finally alone.

“Now what?” Maria demands.

Kyle’s uncertainty on that topic is not at all reassuring.

(I don’t… We need to get out of the IV if we want to go anywhere. I know where they keep the supplies to bandage your arm, but we’ll have to get up to get them.)

“But the IV…”

(We have to carry the bag.)

Maria shakes her head. Everything is still strange and tinny. Her balance is not something Maria wants to test, not while carrying something that’s stuck into her vein.

“I don’t think I can do that,” she admits.

 (But I can. Just for now. You’ll… Have to give me back control of the body, though.)

She doesn’t like that idea. Having been so long divorced from her body, she’s worried to let it go again. But it’s the only plan either of them can think of, and the people they’re trying to save are too important. She gives her consent.

Going is slow with only one good hand, and though she’s not completely connected to the body anymore, Maria can still feel Kyle’s exhaustion, having to hold the IV bag up in the air. Still, he makes it across the room in good time. He removes the top off the jar full of cotton balls and grabs one. Then, with her final two fingers pressing it to her palm, he opens a cupboard and pulls out a roll of bandages. Both hands full now, he shambles to the bed and hooks the IV bag back in place over it.

The second her back hits the hospital bed, Maria is in control again.

Kyle?

(I’m fine. It’s your body, I know it’s uncomfortable for you to have me in charge of it.)

Thank you.

But she doesn’t know what’s next. The theory of it is easy enough to imagine, but in practice…

(We just have to carefully pull out the IV, then put pressure on it – cotton ball, then bandage over the top. Simple.)

“Maybe,” Maria mutters.

Her stomach is already flopping as she gently pries the tape from her skin.

(Turn off the IV before you pull it out.)

“How do I do that…?” she asks.

He guides her through shutting off the flow of IV fluid, and then she’s back at the part she doesn’t want to deal with. Maria takes a slow, deep breath, lets it out, and pulls. There’s a slight pinch, and then she begins to feel sick. There’s not much blood slipping down her arm, but it is, and that’s what matters. It takes a second, two, to fumble for the cotton ball but finally Maria has it against her skin.

“There,” she murmurs to herself. “There.”

Except, she can’t seem to make her thumb press the cotton ball hard enough against her arm. Blood dribbles past it, and Maria begins to feel faint.

“Kyle,” she gasps. “I can’t, I can’t—”

Maria’s hand tingles strangely. Then, the pressure increases. Her hand is no longer her own. The rest of her is still… Her. But the hand is Kyle, now.

Is that even possible?

A soft laugh echoes around in her skull.

(I’ve learned to stop asking questions like that.)

Slowly, carefully, Kyle wraps up her arm. The wooziness eases, although Maria still can’t bring herself to look at the discarded IV tube. It’s strange, not paying attention to what her arm is doing, but she trusts Kyle with the body they share. He taps the fingers of the hand he controls against the back of their other hand, drawing Maria’s attention back to her arm. The puncture wound has been safely bound and the spilled blood wiped away.

“Thanks.”

(It’s no problem.)

With that done, Maria simply has to get back out of bed. Which is more of a struggle than she’s happy with, but she’s determined to do it. Kyle doesn’t argue the point, since they are now free of the IV. Thankfully, the hospital bed is one of the kinds with a small railing, and Maria is able to lean on that to steady her balance. Goal number one is clear – there’s a pile of clothing and other items across the room that she needs to get to. There are counters and chairs to assist her movement, but Maria starts to wonder if maybe she’ll have to commandeer a wheelchair. It makes her heart twist to think of stealing equipment from the hospital, from people who probably need it, but her brother’s life is on the line. The lives of the entire world are, in fact, but his is especially.

(Focus.)

Maria shakes herself free from the spiral of worry and guilt.

Right.

As she reaches the counter her clothes are on, Maria is again hit with the fact that she’s been in a coma for ten years. The jeans and blouse she’d worn into the hospital are laughably small. But, settled next to them, pristine and with the tags still on, are things that might actually fit her. And, beneath them, articles of clothing that slowly decrease in size. Emotion clogs Maria’s throat for a moment, thinking about Carlos buying these clothes, all of these clothes, for ten years, in the hopes that she might wake up and need them. She clutches the purple plaid button-up at the top of the pile to her chest, and rolls her gaze to the ceiling in an attempt to force her tears back down before they can fall.

She still has one hand white-knuckling the edge of the counter.

(Maria.)

Right. Sorry. Right.

With her free hand, Maria reaches around behind her to untie the hospital gown. The sting in her shoulder as she stretches her arm too far is almost comforting. A reminder that she is back in her own body. She keeps her gaze trained upward, for both their sakes, as the gown falls away to pool at her feet. The flannel is unbuttoned so she slings it on and lets it hang open as she grabs a pair of jeans. Alternately looking away and with her eyes closed, Maria dresses herself. She’s steadier on her feet now, doesn’t need to lean on the counter anymore.

But it’s still weird – to have woken up in a woman’s body. Her own body, fully through the turbulence and changes of puberty. Well, to be more specific, it feels weird to button her shirt over a full chest instead of a flat one.

(For both of us, trust me) Kyle jumps in, reminding her that the absent drift of her consciousness is not private.

I hadn’t thought of that.

Dressed, she moves on to the items sitting next to her clothes, which look to be miscellaneous possessions. Her eyes drift over them, recognizing one or the other, and then stop on something unfamiliar.

There’s a bus ticket sitting on the pile of her personal effects – sandwiched between her decade-old smart phone and her small blue coin purse. And despite the fact that everything else is from her life prior to the fire… As Maria picks it up, she can see the bus ticket is dated for the current day. New Year’s Eve, 2028. It’s for a line that runs straight from Sacramento to Las Vegas.

“Kyle,” she breathes, giddy and disbelieving and still a little dizzy from removing the IV. “This is it! This will get us to Nevada!”

(That’s too much of a coincidence.)

But it isn’t a condemnation, not the way he thinks it. Kyle’s wary, but the ticket is something they can’t afford to pass up, not when they’re so far away from where they need to be. And so, Maria tucks the ticket into the pink drawstring bag at the bottom of the pile, along with her coin purse, her probably useless phone, and a couple of trinkets she can’t bear to leave behind.

“Ready?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer.

Kyle humors her.

(Ready.)

They wander the halls of the hospital, trying to look inconspicuous. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to find a wheelchair, and they can finally rest Maria’s overtaxed legs. Then it’s just a matter of slipping out of the hospital itself before anyone realizes she’s missing. It’s a lot easier than she would have expected.  Perhaps that’s because she’s in everyday clothes, and perhaps it’s because she has Kyle helping her watch for anyone who might catch them. He’s not a second pair of eyes in the most literal sense – he can only see what’s in her field of vision – but they notice different things.

Once they’re several blocks from the hospital, Maria stops and pulls out the bus ticket. The station isn’t one she recognizes, but it’s named for a street that she does vaguely recall. And so, they make their way there. By the time they reach the station, it’s 8:45, and the bus is set to leave at 9:00.

We made it.

(Thanks to you. I’d have been completely lost.)

Well, you did the wheeling for most of it, so you’ve gotta take half the credit Maria says, and finds that while she is sincere she is also teasing him.

It’s a moment of levity before a storm of anxiety. The wheelchair lift rises slowly. Every second she worries that she will be found out. That the ticket will be fake, that it’s all a trap, that something will go horribly wrong.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, she is escorted to a space designated for a wheelchair, and the bus begins to move.

Across the aisle and ten rows up, Light Field taps away at his smartphone, eyes closed and listening carefully through earphones.

“Are you telling the others?” asks his sister, who is herself in the middle of texting Alice.

Light shrugs his shoulders and continues to type. He makes a mental note to download a VoiceOver app with a less grating voice.

“Yes,” he says after another minute. “But I think they’ll be able to feel her anyway. We did.”

Clover pauses, and frowns.

“You mean… She’s not projecting on purpose?”

With a laugh, Light shakes his head.

“Doubtful. It’s loud but there’s no finesse to it. I don’t think she even realizes she’s sending out what amounts to a giant distress beacon.”

Kyle and Maria are able to distract themselves for a few hours just watching the scenery go by. So much has changed in ten years that Maria can hardly recognize the world around her. For Kyle, it’s all brand new.

(There’s so much color. I’ve seen pictures, movies, but… This is still…)

Maria nods, to herself and to him.

I know what you mean.

Anything would be overwhelming after the stark metal and neon of Rhizome-9. Is overwhelming. She’s come from there too, from Rhizome-9 and from the Mars Mission Test Site. And so together they while away the morning marveling over the world they see around them now, new and different and alive with so many people.

Before they realize it, the bus has stopped at a large rest area so that its passengers can get lunch. There are a number of selections, of course, but one immediately draws Maria’s eye – a burger joint.

Oh, yes.

She’s wheeling to it the second the lift lets her down, but her roommate has some complaints.

(I don’t think that’s a good idea.)

“I haven’t had a cheeseburger in ten years, Kyle. Nothing you say will stop me from getting one now.”

(You have not had anything in ten years! You’re just going to make yourself sick and then it will take us even longer to reach the Test Site.)

Maria groans.

“I hate it when you’re right,” she mumbles, rubbing a $5 bill between her thumb and index finger. “Fine, Doctor Kyle, what would you suggest? I can’t just not eat.”

(Something soft or liquid, and bland. Soup, maybe?)

And so they end up with hot broth – barely thick enough to be called soup at all, but cheap – inside a three-dollar convenience store thermos. It’s better than nothing. And it warms Maria’s hands, which are chilled with anxiety as her mind turns to the second half of their journey.

(We’re fine.)

There isn’t a trace of a lie in his thoughts.

How do you know that…?

(I can still feel him, his mind, through the morphogenetic field. My father. Sigma Klim is alive.)

They wheel slowly back onto the bus. But Kyle’s reassurances aren’t helping much.

I can’t feel anything.

(You’re not used to searching for other people through the field) Kyle explains. (That’s all. I’ve been getting other blips, too, one of them is surely your brother.)

Maria desperately hopes he’s right.

“But why…”

She stares down at the thermos and shakes her head, then finishes the question, mumbling under her breath.

“Why did you choose me?”

He’s had time, if what the nurse said is anything to go by, to acclimate to her body. But why bother? Why not SHIFT to someone much more convenient? If he was sharing a body anyway, why not with Sigma?

(I’ve been awake in your body for two weeks now. It’s been… A struggle) admits Kyle. (But you weren’t… Chosen. I didn’t realize the body I was jumping to would be yours. I don’t think anyone did. We weren’t sure who or what you were, just that you interfered in the AB Project – helped it to be successful. We knew that you changed it, broke us out of a loop of failures. That you were a powerful SHIFTer who could SHIFT to bodies other than your own, and we needed someone of that caliber because I don’t exist yet in 2028.)

“So my mind is powerful. But my body…”

Is that of a decade-long coma patient. In other words, useless.

Her hands are shaking, trembling. Maria almost drops the thermos, can already feel the burns to come, all over her chest and legs. Kyle takes over and the shaking stops immediately. It’s as though a great weight has been taken off her, although Maria doesn’t know why.

(I’m more used to it, right now) Kyle answers as he takes gentle sips of soup from the thermos. (Controlling this body.)

Maria can feel the warm glow of heat as he drinks, but nothing more concrete. The gestures and body language he adopts are not hers. It’s a strange feeling.

They are both silent for some time, snatches of incoherent though drifting past them both, unexamined and undiscussed.

(What did you see in there?) Kyle asks at last. (In the Test Site?)

The images flash before the eyes they share, unbidden, at his question. Things Maria would have eased into gently, had she been speaking. The coin toss. The plague doctor mask. Carlos’ deaths. Junpei, scattered into pieces, the creeping gory realization, knowing they would find his head sitting on that shelf before she knew anything else. A chainsaw. An axe. Two gunshots – one for Sigma, one for Diana. Phi’s face through the incinerator window. A pin atop a pile of ash. Two babies, swaddled, and placed in separate pods, with names written on their tiny feet. A sinking feeling, an awful question – whose eyes had she been watching from…? An aged face, eyes covered with red-tinted glasses. Death. Death. Death.

Kyle almost drops the thermos. Maria’s fingers are trembling under his control but not for the same reasons they had been before he took over.

I’m… I’m so sorry, Kyle.

(No, it’s not. Not your fault. You couldn’t control it.)

They’re your siblings, you know. Both of them, Phi and Brother. Delta.

Kyle begins to understand it, then, the feeling of rightness he gets when he thinks about Phi. Because she, too, is part of his family. But the idea that the villain they’ve been fighting against all this time is his own brother is… It’s crushing. He can only imagine what his father feels, will feel, when he finds out.

They fall silent. Neither wants to think about it, about the bonds or family or what Brother’s true identity means for both of them. Instead, they focus on the soup, on the physical needs of the body they share. Nourishment is important, and they’ll need strength to save everyone at the Mars Mission Test Facility. Because that’s still their mission, their goal. No matter what, no matter the revelations they make, they won’t give up on that.

Half an hour after finishing the thermos of soup, another physical need presents itself. That is, Maria finds she really, really has to use the restroom.

Can you maybe… Turn off?

Kyle’s sigh from inside her brain is almost audible.

(You do know I’m not a robot, right?)

Or close your eyes or… I don’t know! Just stop watching! I really have to go to the bathroom!

(I’ve been going to the bathroom as you for two weeks) Kyle points out.

And it’s weird!

(I know.)

But even as his tone is wry and argumentative, Kyle’s presence fades until it’s just a faint haze at the back of her mind. Relieved, Maria wheels herself to the unfortunate bus toilet and hauls herself up to go inside. There are, thankfully, plenty of walls in easy reach to hold on to in such a cramped place, and Maria finishes up her business quickly, washes her hands as best she can, and stumbles back out into her wheelchair.

“Whew.”

As she leans her head back and sighs, Kyle rebounds to become an equal presence in their shared head.

(Good?)

Yeah. I’m good.

(You have no idea how glad I am that you’re here to do that now.)

That startles a small giggle out of Maria as she maneuvers the wheelchair back to their ‘seat’. The two of them, once again, spend time staring out the window, but after only a few short minutes Maria can feel her eyes drooping. A yawn drifts past her lips.

If I sleep…

The worries are myriad, sparking around in their shared brain like a thundercloud. Will I drift away? Will you? Is there a way we can both sleep, to try not to overtax the body? What if I leave again? What if I can never come back?

(It’ll be fine) Kyle reassures her. (All of it. I promise.)

Thank you, Kyle. I… I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you too.

(But we have each other. That’s enough. Between us, we’re strong enough.)

And she believes him. They don’t know what they’re doing, not really. There’s no big plan, nothing but stopping Delta and saving their families, but she knows he’s right. They’re going to do this. That surety allows Maria to close her eyes and drift away. It’s as though there’s a hand in hers.

When Maria wakes up, there’s a crick in her neck and the sleepy buzz of Kyle’s mind next to hers. The bus rolls to a stop soon after, when the two of them are blinking at the shimmering lights of Vegas. Not as vibrant as they would be after the set of the sun, of course, but there’s no time to wait around and find out.

They’re lowered down on the wheelchair ramp, and that’s the end of their guidance. It would be simple if their location was within the city. Well, not simple, really, but simpler. Instead, they need to find transportation to take them to the Test Site. And there’s no bus line running out there.

(Our best bet is a car, but we’d have to steal it. You don’t have enough in that coin purse to rent one.)

It’s true. There’s no way for them to legally get a car, not on the remains of a twelve-year-old’s pocket money. They roll their way down the street, considering. Trying to think of any other way. They’ve broken out of a hospital and used a very suspicious bus ticket, but they haven’t done anything outright illegal yet, and both are hesitant to resort to it. Still, after forty-five minutes have been wasted away, they both concede there’s nothing else to do.

“We need to get out into the desert,” Maria says. “So, something… Off-roady.”

(There’s a jeep off your two) Kyle points out helpfully.

“That works.”

It’s a struggle to wheel up to the jeep, but the end of the world isn’t going to wait for her body to recover. Thankfully, the door is unlocked. Maria thinks she remembers that being common – for a car like that with soft windows and a soft roof, locking the doors only leads to more property damage if it’s stolen.

Gripping the car for dear life, Maria stands. She opens the door. She knows she doesn’t have the strength to lift the wheelchair into the back of the car, even if it would fit, which she isn’t sure it would. They’ll have to leave it behind. She’ll have to do without it for the rest of their journey. The thought is terrifying, even with Kyle’s own musings warming her with the knowledge that her legs have at least had a good amount of rest on the bus trip. So Maria pulls herself inside the car and settles in the driver’s seat, clicks the seatbelt, and places her hands on the wheel.

But she doesn’t have a key.

There’s a sound in her head like the clearing of a throat.

(I can fix that.)

Meanwhile, in a café across the street, a stylish Japanese woman in a green dress has just sit down to drink bubble tea with her bookish girlfriend.

“Um… Nona…?”

She blinks, glancing back at her date instead of through the café window.

“Hm?”

“Um. Did… Wasn’t that your jeep? Did… Did that girl in the wheelchair just jack your car?”

Nona just smiles an attractive, mysterious smile – one that makes her girlfriend inhale sharply and almost choke on a tapioca pearl.

“Everything’s fine,” she says quietly, checking the time on her phone instead of directly answering the question. “Right on time.”

Pulling up her text messages, she taps out two words – ‘you’re up’ and hits send before returning to her date.

Though he says nothing aloud, Kyle’s internal monologue as they drive down the street is a mantra of ‘oh god’s. There’s no shake in her hands, so maybe someone on the outside wouldn’t be able to tell, but it’s very clear to Maria that Kyle has very little idea what he’s doing.

You know how to hotwire a car but you don’t know how to drive?!

“I lived on the moon,” he reminds her in her own voice. “In a rhizome! Why would I have ever learned?”

Oh jeez—give me the wheel, Kyle, you’re going to get us killed!

“But you don’t know where we’re going!” retorts Kyle, making a shaky and terrifyingly fast left turn. “You can’t feel the other SHIFTers!”

You can navigate from the back seat, moon boy!

Maria’s hands are white-knuckling the steering wheel and she isn’t sure which of them is doing that. However, actually fighting him for control of the body sounds like a perfect recipe for a car accident, so she refrains.

“It’s not like you can drive either!” he cuts back defensively, forgetting to signal as he changes lanes and by some miracle not getting them killed with his negligence. “You’ve been in a coma since you were twelve!”

Oh yeah? Well I at least know how to work the brake pedal and the turn signal, so I’m years ahead of you, buster!

That’s right around the moment that they realize the gas tank is almost empty. Because of course it is, of course they chose the one car with an almost empty tank. Thankfully, Kyle spots a gas station. They pull in, going too far past the nozzles and having to reverse.

I don’t have a credit card Maria points out.

“Can you pay inside, in cash? That’s something you can do, right?”

I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?

Properly chastened, Kyle relinquishes control of the body. Either that or he’s chickening out, which Maria doesn’t entirely blame him for. It’s not like she relishes going into the gas station’s convenience store and admitting she has no idea what she’s doing.

But the situation calls for it, so that’s exactly what she does.

“Y-yeah, um… I need… Like… Ten gallons…?”

With sweaty hands, Maria dumps the small pile of crumpled bills which are the last of her money on the counter. The cashier gives her an odd look, but he also seems too bored and underpaid to take his suspicion any farther than that.

“That’s barely enough for six,” he informs her after sorting through the money.

“Here,” interrupts a guy standing behind her in line, gesturing with his KitKat. “I’ve got it. Just put it on my card. However much it takes to fill her tank.”

Maria turns to stare, unsure what to think. Part of her is wary, wanting to know why he would do that for her. Another part of her – one she’s having trouble distinguishing from Kyle – is urging her not to question her good fortune. Because… And she’s not sure if the thought is hers or Kyle’s, but KitKat guy looks… Familiar.

“What?” he mutters, scuffing a hand through a mess of white hair. “Can’t a person do something nice?”

Maria shakes her head, slowly.

“No. I. Er. Thank you.”

She steps aside, and he swipes his card. While KitKat guy and the cashier are talking, Maria’s legs begin to shake. She grips the counter as subtly as she can. Kyle snatches control of her legs, steadying them a little through force of will. By the time they’re settled, KitKat guy is heading towards the door. They follow after him.

KitKat guy’s car is small, generic, and blue. It’s parked at the next pump over from the jeep.

“I was gonna pick up some family,” he admits to Maria as he unhooks the nozzle and twists off the jeep’s gas cap. “But I think I’ll need something bigger, now. Forgot how many distant relatives will be there.”

Maria just nods, not sure what to make of him.

(I swear, I swear, I’ve seen him somewhere. Maybe Ms. Kurashiki or my father had a picture of him…? Agh. I can’t recall…)

The frustration is shared. KitKat guy is like a word on the tip of their tongue.

“New Year’s party?” asks Maria, bringing herself and Kyle back to the conversation.

KitKat guy barks out a laugh.

“You could say that.”

His response seems to end the conversation, because neither Maria nor Kyle can think of a fitting way to reply. And so they’re silent as gas flows into the jeep, until a loud click is heard. KitKat guy removes the nozzle and puts it back. Only then does Maria realize that he did all the work for them. Which is probably strange, but she’s too grateful to care. She and Kyle have no idea what they’re doing, so if someone else is willing to do it for them, that’s great.

Maria puts on the gas cap and shuts it away. KitKat guy is already heading for his own car.

“Is… Is that it?” Maria asks softly.

(I suppose…?)

Whether it is or not, they get back in the jeep, start it up, and drive. This time, Kyle relinquishes the wheel to Maria. She has about as much experience as he does – that is to say, none – but she’s a much more careful driver. Soon, they make it to the edge of the desert, and realize they’re going to have to pull off the road. There is no path to the Test Site, not a paved one, anyway.

(It’ll be easier) Kyle suggests, hopeful. (No traffic.)

There are reasons it will probably be harder, but neither of them wants to think about that. Slowly, ever so slowly, Maria maneuvers the jeep off the road. It’s almost therapeutic, driving across the desert. There’s no speed limit, no other vehicles. No turn lanes or red lights or honking horns.

Maria is just beginning to enjoy it when her vision starts going wonky. At first it’s just a stray spot of red here and there, which she attributes to the brightness of the sun. But then the hallucination begins to take over more and more of her field of vision and her grasp on the world wavers.

“Take the wheel,” she mumbles, a little hysterically.

All she can see are red spiders flickering across her vision and that’s less than helpful for avoiding cacti and other desert debris. Her fingers and the left sides of her hands have gone numb, and she can’t seem to build up the leg strength to push the gas pedal as far as she needs to. But Kyle’s hold on her body is less tenuous than her own, as wrong as that seems.

(I’m sorry. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We’re pushing your body to the limit right now, and I…)

“As long as we save Carlos and the others… As long as we do that, I don’t care what happens to me.”

She recedes and he takes over, free of her visual hallucinations, and they speed across the desert leaving a dusty trail behind them.

As they race against time he speaks in her voice about things she could have never known, and it’s soothing. Stories of the rhizome. They can be lonely, and strange, and sad. But there’s a wealth of love inside Kyle that defies his circumstances.

“I understand now, fully,” he says. “The world my father was fighting for. And Ms. Kurashiki too. This is it. The air and the grass and the sand, and the people. People like you.”

And you.

There’s a long and wavering pause.

“Yeah,” Kyle says at last, softly. “Me too.”

It’s half an hour later when the knowledge hits.

Maria can feel it under her skin, an itch between bone and muscle. It’s so deep and so horrifying that she jolts into her body all at once. Her foot slams on the brakes and the jeep skids to a stop, fishtailing in the sand.

“I know what timeline we’re in,” she says, her mouth dry.

The one where Brother is about to blow them all up. The one where everyone dies. A shiver runs down her spine but it’s actually Kyle’s, as he hears, sees the track they’re following. Desperate, Maria slams her foot on the gas. They have no time. If they’re late… If they’re late, everything they love goes up in flames.

There’s no more time.

Everything until they reach the facility is a blur of fear, of potential fire licking at their peripherals until it’s almost too much to stand. But when they reach it and the walls are still standing, when Kyle can still feel the steady pulse of his father’s mind through the morphogenetic field, they both heave a sigh of relief through Maria’s lungs.

They stumble out the driver’s side of the car, not bothering to close the door behind them, and approach the entrance to the Test Site. It’s locked, of course. Maria reaches out, as if she’s going to press her palm flat to the metal doors. The heat beaming down on her makes her think twice about the action. She drops her hand, and sighs.

We have to get in there. We have to stop the detonation, reprogram the Force Quit Box. And I don’t know how.

But the response she receives from Kyle is a wave of overwhelming confidence.

(That’s what I’m here for, remember?)

A smile spreads across Maria’s face, and it’s shared between them.

Go for it.

Kyle flexes their hands a few times and laughs.

The elevator is locked, and there’s no way out. They’re all going to die. Lights flash above them, lighting everything in crimson. Gab is dead. And Delta, calm as ever, is sitting placidly on the floor with a shotgun to his face, about to tell them what the second ‘good’ thing is.

But then, the flashing stops. The lights return to incandescent yellow-white, instead of emergency red. Delta’s already gaunt face tightens.

“Self-destruct aborted,” says a feminine computer voice, slightly garbled.

For a few moments, no one can think of anything to say. Eric’s arms drop, and the shotgun hangs limply at his side. They all wait, with bated breath, for a few more seconds. But the Force Quit does not start up again. Tension begins to fall from shoulders all around the room. Delta stands, brushing off his sleeves.

“Technical difficulties?” Junpei mocks.

“You could say that.”

But the answering voice does not belong to Delta. Everyone turns, as one, to see a haggard young woman standing triumphantly in the open doors of the elevator. Carlos is the first to find his voice, although it’s hoarse.

“Maria…?”

She manages an exhausted smile in return.

“Hey there, brother mine,” she says.

“How… How did you get here…?”

Carlos stumbles forward a step but doesn’t move closer than that. Maria can feel Kyle straining in the back of her mind so she turns her eyes away from Carlos’ shocked expression to run them across D Team. The warmth of his relief is overpowering. She understands.

“Kyle and I,” Maria answers, letting her eyes linger on Diana so Kyle can study her, “we woke up and… Made our way here. I, I saw it. I mean, all of it, all the timelines, I was following all of you and I couldn’t, I had to…”

Sigma mouths, cannot seem to say aloud, ‘Kyle’. With a dip of her head, Maria tries to convey the truth. When Kyle looks up through her eyes, she can see that Sigma understands. Then Delta shakes his head slowly and it draws Maria’s—no, still Kyle’s, reluctant gaze.

“No, this is… Impossible,” Delta insists, as though he’s trying to make himself believe what he’s saying.

Maria cocks her head to the side and plants a hand on her hip.

“I like to think of it more as… Highly improbable.”

“You, you cannot be—The consciousness I was channeling was not merely human.”

Delta all but spits the words, his hands and shoulders tight with tension. His insufferable calm, what she had seen after blinking herself away from his eyes, is melting away like snow. What’s left behind is vicious and disgusted.

“Well, we all make mistakes, don’t we?” mocks Maria.

Her chest is radiating cold, like all the life and warmth has drained out of it. She can feel Kyle trying to help, to stabilize her both mentally and physically, but it doesn’t help.

“It doesn’t matter,” decides Delta, and his mask of tranquility slides back across his face. “The true problem with this scenario is your presence here, in that body. You’re unraveling any good that could come from this entire history.”

“Me?” Maria demands. “This is somehow my fault?”

Delta has the gall to nod at her.

“I had everything planned,” he explains with a wave of his hand. “Down to the last detail, in order to ensure the safety of everyone in this facility and in the entire world.”

There’s a snarl, but it doesn’t come from Maria.

“You did this, all this death and destruction, that’s on you! Whether it was for us or not, it doesn’t matter!” Phi argues. “How can you even talk about ensuring anyone’s safety, you jackass!”

But even that doesn’t dissuade Delta from his cold surety.

“And yet despite all this supposed ‘death and destruction’ here you all are, alive. In fact, every creature in this facility would be alive, were we to continue as I had intended all along. No casualties. No injuries. No loss.”

He looks from the bar, which hides Gab’s corpse, to Maria as he speaks, and a shudder of rage ripples down her spine.

Oh he did not just say that!

(Um. Maria, I’m not sure you should—)

But her anger is mounting like a raging inferno.

“Get fucked, old man!” she shouts. “You killed Gab, that was your choice! Your pointless cruelty! And can preach all you want about your victimless future but Alice’s dad is dead because of you! That’s something that can’t be changed now!”

“Maria!”

The blonde jolts. And then slumps.

“… Sorry, bro.”

She apologizes, despite the fact that Carlos’ tone is more shocked than outright upset. And honestly she’s not really sorry, and she knows it. Everyone in the room probably knows it. But it’s also not the best way to express herself. Express what’s so monstrous about all of this, all the damage Delta has caused and refuses to admit to. All the memories, the horror she can feel crawling up her spine.

“What I mean is… For this world, the one you’re willing to discard as nothing. For myself. And for all the people I had to watch die because of you. Every single one…” Maria smothers the sob crawling up her throat, and shakes her head to ward off the tears. “I could never forgive you.”

Delta just tilts his head down to look at her over his tinted glasses and sighs. The action is condescending in a way that burns in the back of Maria’s throat.

“My motives are more complex than you can yet comprehend,” he says. “But this isn’t the time or place to continue sharing them. You’re the one who’s disrupted this Decision Game, and put that ideal future out of reach.”

“No.”

Delta jerks backward slightly at the rejection.

“Excuse me?” he demands.

And this time it’s both of them responding, Maria and Kyle together, one mouth full of too many angry voices.

“I said no,” they repeat, seething. “You’re wrong. A person like you doesn’t get to say which future is ideal! You wouldn’t know anything about it!”

“What I know,” argues Delta, “is that there is a religious fanatic out there somewhere who will destroy this world and everyone in it. What I know is that I did all of this, planned all of this, to stop it. Among all my other reasons, that is the final one.”

But they can see something, flickering, in his purple eyes.

“You’re lying,” Maria realizes slowly.

Her lips are numb, and she doesn’t quite know the meaning of what she’s seen, but it’s there. Something, huge, something he’s not telling them. She thinks it must be about Left, but she’s never been able to learn enough about him or about Free the Soul to be able to determine now what Delta’s motives truly are.

“Am I?”

But Maria shakes her head.

“Even if you weren’t, you can’t get away with all of this!” she insists.

“You would rather a world where everyone is dead? You would rather sabotage a world without casualties in order to punish me now?”

“But you can’t know that!” Maria insists. “There’s no way! You can’t SHIFT, you’ve admitted it, so it isn’t like you’ve been to that future! How would you ever find out about it? How would you know? You say it’s a religious fanatic that starts all of this, but you’re the one who created a sect of religious fanatics! Even if it is true, who’s to say you didn’t set it all in motion? Beyond that, how did you know you were part of a bootstrap paradox in the first place? How would you know to create the Decision Game at all? It doesn’t make any sense!”

Delta does not respond to these accusations. He just… Smiles? Grimaces? The corners of his mouth are tight and his eyes are narrowed. But Maria can’t tell if that means she got it right or if she was completely wrong. Kyle can’t seem to tell either.

(His eyes… It’s like… It’s as though I…)

Just like the man at the gas station, they both feel as if they’re missing something important. But then, they’ve forgotten that they aren’t the only people in the room.

“You did this to us! Made us play this sick game! Killed Gab! Tried to blow us all up! You deserve to die!”

Eric is raising the rifle in his hands. Perhaps he doesn’t really intend to shoot it – to Maria, he’s been an unpredictable loose cannon, and she knows it makes him feel safe to threaten anyone he sees as an enemy. But the final memory etched into Maria’s skull tells both her and Kyle that Eric’s intentions are negligible. Delta’s grimace widens into a terrifying smile.

“No!”

There’s an explosion of sound – it rips through the air of the lounge and Maria finds herself on the ground, clutching her hands over her ears. She’s afraid to open her eyes, but then, it wasn’t her who closed them in the first place. Kyle uncurls from their defensive crouch. A quick glance around proves there’s no blood. Instead, Eric has been tackled to the ground – by Carlos, Junpei, and Sigma, who apparently all had the same idea.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Junpei snarls, shoving Eric’s shoulder further into the floor.

The rifle has spun across the room, to Diana’s feet. She picks it up slowly and Maria has a terrible feeling. Again, the rifle is pointed at Delta. But this time, there’s a terrified look in the potential shooter’s eyes. Diana is struggling to point the gun away, but she can’t.

There’s a split second where Maria knows what she has to do, and desperately doesn’t want to.

And then she slingshots forward into Delta’s brain. He can feel the intrusion and tries to push her out, but that means he no longer has the energy to ‘mind hack’ Diana. Through Delta’s eyes, she can see Diana drop the rifle. Phi picks it up and smashes it against the wall. But then, as much as he had been trying to get rid of her, when Maria tries to return to her own body Delta snatches on to her. The feeling is like a hand grabbing the ankle of her consciousness. Panic begins to set in, watching her body move through another person’s eyes. The fear she’d had, that she would never be able to return.

Then there’s a harsh thunk, a sharp pain at the base of Delta’s skull that jars them both. Phi is looking into Delta’s purple eyes with a rage that burns like acid. And then, there’s a cool, reassuring presence reaching out to Maria.

Kyle…

Taking a chance, Maria flings herself back into her own body. Her ears are ringing and her head aches – an echo of Delta’s pain, but Kyle relinquishes control of the body to her immediately.

Kyle, I…

(It’s fine. Really. Thank you… For helping her.)

Because in some way, Diana is his mother. The mother he should have had. The two of them, aching, sit on the floor of the lounge and let the others handle everything else for a while. Delta is restrained. Diana and Sean find a cloth to wrap Gab’s body in, and move him away from the bar. Sigma, Akane, and Carlos begin to discuss what their plans should be – both in the short and long term.

“We need to find some way to call my brother,” Akane insists. “He’ll be able to gather the resources to get us all out of the desert together.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything we can use,” says Carlos, looking troubled. “And I don’t know how long Maria can afford to wait here, she needs to get back to the hospital. I think you should take whatever it was that got her here and go back with her. It’ll be easier to call your brother from a city, and the rest of us can afford to wait a little longer.”

“I’m fine,” Maria says when she hears that, struggling to her feet. “We’re fine.”

The last is said to Sigma, who nods his head subtly. Maria doesn’t want to separate, to leave her family, and Kyle feels the same. They need the tangible proof of their success within reach. It was, in many ways, too close a call for them both.

“Maria…” murmurs Carlos.

“Kyle and I are both…” Maria casts around for the word. “We’re doing our best to…”

(Stabilize?)

That works.

“We’re both working to keep my body stable,” she concludes. “Even if I can’t handle it, he SHIFTed into my body two weeks ago, so he knows how to handle this. And, we have a jeep outside. I don’t know how many people it’ll hold, or how much gas it has, but… I don’t want to separate if we don’t have to.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Sigma concludes. “Right?”

Carlos and Akane share a long look, and then nod.

“We’ll probably need water,” suggests Akane.

“And there might be more gasoline somewhere in here, just in case,” Carlos adds.

“And there’s our plan,” says Sigma, grinning slightly.

Maria heads to the bar area, although the sight of the bloodstain on the floor makes her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. But it’s the most likely place to find water, even if most of what she sees is clearly alcoholic. She doesn’t know much about it, but Kyle says he recognizes a few brands from the lounge in the rhizome. Maria had never had the time to study them while dogging Sigma’s consciousness. The two of them are distracted, discussing the topic. So they’re both startled into a jump when someone else speaks.

“So. You’re Maria, huh?”

The thing is, most of Maria’s time following these people around has been overridden with stress. With trying to keep them all alive, or following them to every eventuality in a desperate gambit to learn more. So she’s never seen Phi’s piercing gaze locked on her and only her, has never had the extra capacity in her mind to process it. Not until this very moment.

Oh no, she’s hot.

There is immediate protest from her ghostly roommate.

(That’s my sister!)

Maria purses her lips.

Dude, you didn’t even know she was your sister until I told you.

“Something wrong?” Phi asks.

Her expression has morphed into something on the line between amused and sanity-questioning.

“N-no, it’s… er. Just, Kyle said something. It’s not important.”

Phi quirks a single eyebrow above the frame of her glasses, but does not question it further. Kyle and Maria are both endlessly grateful for that. And then Maria realizes she hasn’t answered the question.

“Yes, I… I’m Maria,” she stammers out. “I mean. Well. Mostly. Kyle’s… In here too.”  She taps her right temple with a finger. “Obviously. Because I, I already told you that, didn’t I. Um. So.”

She goes back to digging through cupboards, looking for water. Phi sighs and joins her. For a few minutes, they’re silent.

“You were there, then,” Phi says quietly. “In 2074?”

“I was,” admits Maria. “Kyle… Well, he was here, with me. My body. I mean… He’d already SHIFTed to 2028.”

Phi nods, tossing aside a stack of paper plates.

“Because Akane was in the armor that time.”

“Exactly.”

The two of them end up reaching for the same cupboard door and their hands brush. Maria jolts her hand back, embarrassed. Inside is a case of bottled water. Together, they haul it out and set it on the bar.

And then Sigma is standing before her. Studying her.

“So… It really was you that whole time,” he says. “Guiding my hand.”

For a moment she doesn’t understand what he means. She’s never met Dr. Klim, only his 22-year-old counterpart. Except…

“Of course… Kyle said the AB Game was a closed loop, until I entered the equation. Which makes you the ‘young Sigma’ I was following that whole time.”

After all, the younger Sigma she had followed had ended up in the timeline leading to the AB Game. The man who was already Dr. Klim at that time failed at Dcom. She hadn’t been there for that, she had been inhabiting Kyle’s body, the way he had inhabited hers for the past two weeks.

Sigma holds out a hand, and Maria shakes it. His grip is warm and reminds her of her brother’s.

“Nice to meet you,” Sigma says.

Which just so happens to be the precise moment that Maria’s overtaxed legs give out.

“Whoa…! Hold on, we’ve got you.”

Sigma is steadying her from the front, his hands cupped beneath her elbows to keep her from pitching forward. But there’s also a pair of arms looped around her ribs, holding her steady from behind.

“Why didn’t you just say something?” Phi mutters, and her warm breath hits Maria’s right ear in a way that makes it difficult to try to regain her balance or breathe or focus. “We’ve got a couch right there, you know.”

“I did know,” Maria croaks back.

She’s pretty sure her suddenly dry throat has nothing to do with her hospitalization. Slowly, Phi and Sigma maneuver Maria’s uncooperative body over to the couch, and lay her down on it. Carlos is at her side immediately, smoothing her hair with a hand. His face is starting to swell, and the bruises are only getting darker. Maria’s heart squeezes in her chest at the thought. If they’d just gone through with Brother—with Delta’s scheme, Carlos wouldn’t be hurt. Gab would be alive. But…

(You made the right choice, you know. We did.)

Maria searches her brother’s green eyes and finds pride in them along with overwhelming concern.

I hope so.

She doesn’t want Carlos to ever be manipulated the way Delta intended. She doesn’t want him to have to make those kinds of impossible choices. Not for a man made of a paradox, not for a person built on lies and sacrificing others like they’re only toys. Carlos deserves better than that. Everyone deserves better than being manipulated like that.

“We’re going to have a talk about the curse words,” Carlos says suddenly, cutting into her thoughts. “Because I know I didn’t teach them to you.”

The smile on his face is mostly teasing. But there’s a small, wary cast to his eyes. He’s wondering what Maria’s been secretly wondering for half a day now – is she still herself? But really, what is ‘herself’? She’s been drowning in pasts and futures for an entire decade. Those experiences are hers, the same as her memories of watching the sunrise by a lighthouse with Carlos.

“I blame Dio,” Maria finds herself saying.

There’s a snort from across the room. Phi, standing between Diana and Akane, is covering her mouth. And honestly, seeing that, Maria can’t stop the goofy smile that spreads across her face.

(Not when I’m still here, please.)

The smile transforms into a laugh, one Carlos looks at her strangely for, but Maria can’t stop. They did it, they saved the day. She can afford to laugh and smile and relax now, and it feels good. She sighs and nestles back into the couch, and listens to the strains of conversation around her.

“We’ll need your expertise while you’re still here, you know,” Akane is pointing out. “We’ve captured Brother, but the rest of Free the Soul…”

“Of course,” agrees Sigma. “But you can’t rely on me forever. Soon, things will be back how they should be.”

Diana, standing next to him, clutches at Sigma’s arm, but can’t seem to bear meeting his eyes.

“But then I… I’ll never see you again. Will I?”

“Of course you will,” he answers softly, brushing his fingers across her cheek.

But Diana shakes off his comfort.

“Not like this,” she insists. “Not… Not this you, the one I…”

The word she wants is ‘love’, and Maria can feel Kyle’s anguish deep in her soul. The knowledge that he is meeting his mother only to lose her again immediately nearly crushes them both under its weight.

“I can’t stay,” Sigma says, once it’s clear that Diana won’t finish her plea.

“Then take me with you! Don’t you care at all?!” the redhead throws out an arm, pointing to the door that leads further into the facility. “We have the transporter! I could, I could…!”

Though her gestures become wild and angry, Sigma takes Diana into his arms as though he doesn’t even notice. The conversation he had been having with Akane has clearly dropped from his mind. Akane seems to understand, though, and steps off to the side to wait.

“Of course I care,” he soothes. “You know I do. But I’m an old man, Diana. And I… I couldn’t bear to lose you again. Not there in the rhizome, not the way I did before. I… I know it isn’t the same, but the Sigma who will return to this body is still me. He can still love you like I do.”

Diana pulls away, shaking her head. Sigma lets her go, although he looks pained as he does.

“It, it’s not the same,” insists Diana. “I’ve only just found you, we’ve only just made it out of this alive and you’re already leaving me!”

“I’ll stay a little longer,” Sigma says quietly. “I’ll be here until my younger self jumps into this body again. I’m not sure exactly when that will be.”

He takes a moment, breathes. Flexes the fingers that are and are not his own. The way he looks down, aside, is one Maria knows intimately because Kyle recognizes it as his own – a nervous tic to hide his fear of rejection.

“I understand,” Sigma continues with a slight hitch in his voice, “if you don’t want to risk being around for that.”

Diana says nothing. Perhaps there is nothing to say, or perhaps so much that it’s clogging her throat. Maria understands both. But, though there are no words, Diana twines her arms around Sigma and presses her face to his chest. At last, a single, muffled word emerges from her lips.

“No.”

Though he hugs her back without pause, Sigma sighs. His expression is one of slight amusement.

“No what?”

“Don’t leave, of course,” answers Diana as she tightens her hold on Sigma.

Watching them is painful for Kyle, but he doesn’t look away. This is a future that was never his, somewhere he has never belonged. The Akane Kurashiki here is not the woman he knows. Diana is the mother he had wanted, but she doesn’t know him. There are ways it’s less painful, certainly, but wasy it is more so, too. Like Delta’s supposed ideal future, this one is wrong for him. Or he’s wrong for it. So he feels, anyway, and Maria has no idea what to tell him, for all that they’ve been two halves of a single mind for what is probably the longest day of her life.

(I… I need to go.)

Go where? Maria asks him, though she already knows.

(Back. To my own… My own timeline. There’s someone I need to apologize to. Someone I need to see.)

The images he sends to her are not from his own memories, but hers. A woman with braided red hair and sad blue eyes. A memory of Maria’s own aching sadness on behalf of this woman, a memory of a feeling that is vast and terrible and untethered to any physical form. The tears of a ghost.

Oh.

(No one… No one needs to be alone anymore, and…)

And Luna’s your family too.

The truth hits them both pretty hard. And the impending feeling of an ending, of a goodbye, is… It’s hard, for Maria, whose whole life for ten years has been endings and goodbyes. Death, parting, and unacknowledged goodbyes from someone who could only spectate.

I’ll never see you again, will I?

(No, I expect not.)

This isn’t fair. We just saved the day together! Kyle—

(But what we expect isn’t always what comes to pass, you know.)

W-what…?

(If you ever meet Kyle Klim again… Will you do something for me?)

She doesn’t even need to stop and think about it.

Of course. Anything.

(Will you tell him, “welcome home, Kyle”? And if he says, “I’m home”… That’s how you’ll know it’s me.)

There’s a slight nudge, and Maria hands over control of their body to Kyle. He stands up from the couch. Then, with head high and shoulders back, he approaches Sigma, who has just finished speaking with Akane. Whether it’s the posture or the look in their eyes, Sigma seems to be able to tell who he’s talking to.

“Kyle?”

“I’m going now,” Kyle tells Sigma in her voice. “Back home.”

He knows, has to know, that she would let him stay however long Sigma is planning to. But just as he must know that, she knows in the same way that he wants to go. For a kaleidoscope of reasons both good and painful. They flit across her consciousness and she tries to ignore them for the sake of his privacy. All the same, his intense and tempestuous feelings of longing wash through her.

He doesn’t ask if Sigma really will follow. Because he doesn’t want to know, and because he can’t bear to ask in front of Diana. But the look in Sigma’s eyes says he already knows the question that hasn’t been asked.

“I’ll see you soon,” he promises, placing a hand on their shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Right. Of course.”

Kyle begins to turn away, to shrug off the hand that’s so warm on their shoulder. But Sigma’s voice draws him back.

“Kyle.”

They lock eyes.

“Yes?” Kyle asks softly.

“You know…” Sigma sighs and scuffs a hand through his hair. “Now that all of this is over, we don’t have to stay in the rhizome anymore. Or even on the moon. We… We can go anywhere. Do anything. Our work is finally over. So we can all be…”

Silence hangs between them, tremulous.

“A family…?” Kyle suggests.

A smile spreads across Sigma’s face.

“Yeah. A family.”

Kyle’s eyes draw over to Diana, and Maria suddenly knows that this moment is one that needs to be private. She focuses on a sort of mental retreat – a feeling like leaning back, away from her own vision – and allowing Kyle the ability to speak to Diana as no one but himself. What’s happening around her, around them, fades away, but she can feel soothing heat and sadness and an ache in their chest.

The moment Kyle leaves is…

To Maria, it feels like breathing in except all of the air is leaving her lungs even as she tries desperately to inhale. She collapses again, because whatever residual strength he had given her – two minds willing one atrophied body to work when it never should have – is gone. This time, it’s her brother who catches her, and he hauls her up into his arms like she’s still a child.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

Then, everyone begins moving for the elevators and up, up, back to the burning day.

As Maria is carried out into the sunlight, she has to blink a few times to adjust her eyes. And then she sees him. Standing there, arms crossed, with his hip leaning against the front of what looks like a military transport truck, is KitKat guy. Except, in this context, surrounded by these people, with just the remaining spark of Kyle’s memories, she knows him immediately as Aoi Kurashiki.

“Guess you did your job,” Aoi tells her, with a smile that’s slightly too manic to be anything but the sudden release of tension. “Would’ve been a waste to spend all that time calling in a favor with the SOIS just for everyone to blow up at the last minute.”

On the heels of her realization, Maria can’t think of anything to say. But that’s fine, because Aoi is immediately distracted by Akane flinging herself into his arms. Junpei follows in her footsteps slowly, with his hands in his pockets, but all the forced nonchalance in his movements can’t hide the intensity of whatever it is he’s feeling. He and Aoi nod at each other over Akane’s shoulder.

Then Maria is distracted by movement from the corner of her eye.

Alice steps out from behind the back of the truck and her eyes dart across the collected people. They fix on Eric and Mira for a second. Perhaps she’s just imagining it, but Maria thinks she sees Alice’s eyes harden. And then Alice has her full attention on Delta.

“So,” she says with a smile that would be more appropriate on a wolverine, “this is Brother, is it?”

Delta’s veneer of calm is back. He seems to be just going with the flow. Maria isn’t entirely convinced he actually is going with the flow, but he certainly seems that way. With his hands tied, literally, that’s really about all he can do. Well, he still has his bullshit mind hack powers, and Maria wonders if he’s going to try to use them on Alice, but she approaches and he does nothing. Perhaps he knows there’s nothing more to do. Not in this timeline, anyway, and he can’t SHIFT.

“We have a very special cell at SOIS headquarters just for you,” continues Alice.

She grabs Delta by the arm. It’s not gentle. But halfway back to the truck, she stops and turns. Everything in the body Maria and Kyle once shared tenses. But Alice’s gaze turns towards Mira again, and there is no panic in her eyes.

“And from what I’ve heard, you’re a serial killer, so if you’ll follow me to the back we’ll get you settled too,” she says calmly. “And don’t try to run, because I just had this manicure done yesterday and I’d really hate to ruin it.”

Mira and Eric look like they’re about to protest. Well, Eric does anyway. Maria isn’t sure how to categorize the expression on Mira’s face as she stares at Alice. Creepy, she decides. It’s really, really creepy. But whatever their issues are, Mira begins to shuffle to the back of the truck with Alice. Although, the look of anger and desperation on Eric’s face is telling.

He tries to make a break for it. To grab Mira’s hand and pull her towards the still-abandoned jeep.

Alice trips him with one of her long legs. Then a couple more people – SOIS agents, Maria assumes – hop out from behind the truck and usher Delta and Mira into the vehicle. There’s a clang like doors closing. Eric gets to his feet, wiping sand of his face, and begins to argue loudly with Alice.

“So,” Aoi says suddenly and loudly, drawing everyone’s attention away from the spectacle. “I guess we did it.”

Akane is actually grinning, joyously. The sight is disconcerting, but in a good sort of way.

“We did,” she says, brushing off her cream sweater and clapping her hands together. “It’s done.”

“What now?” asks Sigma. “Are we going to start a support group? SHIFTers Anonymous?”

Junpei, apparently, decides to play the quip straight.

“Sounds good to me,” he says with a shrug. “I could use some therapy after all this bullshit.”

Phi snorts.

“Same.”

A soft, weary wave of laughter washes through their group. Then, they all begin to pile into the front half of the truck. Aoi is explaining to the others how everything was orchestrated – catching hold of Kyle’s presence, Maria’s involuntary SOS, the incident going on at the Test Facility. But there’s something else that’s bothering Maria more, and she can’t bring herself to pay attention.

It’s Carlos who notices.

“Hey,” he says. “Are you ok?”

Even after ten years as someone, something else, she can’t lie to her big brother.

“I don’t know,” admits Maria. “I just keep thinking, about that future Delta talked about…”

“You said it yourself,” Carlos reminds her gently. “There’s no feasible way, even with SHIFTing or mind hacking, that he could have known about something like that.”

“What if I’m wrong, though?” she asks, and can’t meet his eyes. “What if he’s not lying? What if there really will be an attack?”

“Then we’ll deal with that when the time comes,” says Carlos. “But letting him loose just because he might be the lesser of two evils according to his own paradigm would be…”

She nods.

“Yeah. Right.”

With a soft sigh, Carlos ruffles her hair. Maria lets herself sink into enjoying that feeling, the feeling of home, instead of fretting. There’s nothing she can do for the moment. And Carlos is right. For now, she’s done enough. They’ve all done enough. Maria rests her head on her brother’s shoulder and sleeps.

Maria wakes up in her brother’s arms again. He’s settling her into a wheelchair, in a very familiar parking lot in Las Vegas. There are more people with them now, but Maria doesn’t recognize most of them. They all appear to be close to Akane and Aoi, though. Seeing Clover with them, Maria wonders if maybe these are the children of the 2018 Nonary Game. She blinks at them sleepily for a minute or two.

“Finally up, huh?”

But it isn’t Carlos who’s asking. It’s Phi. She’s standing next to the wheelchair, looking uncomfortable. Carlos has been dragged over to the larger group by Junpei and Akane. Sigma, Diana, and Sean are standing off to the side, talking. Sigma’s hand is on Sean’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Maria says slowly. “Finally up.”

The sun is either rising or setting, Maria can’t tell which. The atmosphere is dreamy, and warm. The two of them stay silent, watching the others, for several minutes. It’s a silence wavering on the line between comfortable and uncomfortable.

“You like coffee?” Phi asks suddenly, glancing away towards the horizon.

Maria can’t help it – a laugh spills from her mouth. It’s like everything is bright and warm and colorful. The whole world is ahead of them.

“I don’t know!” she admits with a huge grin, shaking her head. “But I’d be willing to find out with you.”

The tips of Phi’s ears go red against her snow-white hair. She clears her throat, grabs Maria’s offered hand, and says just one word.

“Good.”

~ 20 Years Later ~

“Kyle…?”

He blinks his eyes open, and they drift slowly from left to right, taking in a myriad of faces. The person who’s just spoken is a tall, muscular man whose messy black hair is streaked liberally with gray. Next to him stands a redheaded woman with deep, beautiful laugh lines and tears in her eyes. On her other side is a woman who might be her twin, except that she looks perhaps a few decades younger. To the right of her are two teenagers: a boy with long dark hair and a grim face, and a girl wearing teal-framed glasses who is flexing her hands nervously. They resemble the women left of them, somewhere around the eyes. And then, again, like bookends, there is a white-haired woman who looks exactly the same as the teenage girl except older. And holding her hand in a white-knuckled grip…

“Welcome home, Kyle.”

The blonde woman on the far right bites her lip after speaking. Her bright green eyes search his. Under her scrutiny, there is a squeezing sensation in Kyle’s chest, where his heart beats steadily. Although the room is crowded, for a moment it is just him and the blonde woman, just the two of them in the entire world. Kyle levers himself up to a sitting position. He wets his lips, and his heart squeezes again.

Then he speaks.

“I’m home, Maria.”