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Karkat's already dead by the time you get back.
Which is alright, because that means you have one less chump to deal with, one less loser who can't deal with the fact that you won, that you're the hero, the saviour of goddamn everything. Well. Except for him. From the corners of your mind that aren't fogged by endorphins, you hear a voice break through, in stereo but out of sync; he's telling you to curl up quietly in a web and wait to die, and as you look down at the mess he's made (god, he was always such a runt, how the hell did he have that much blood in him?) you silently mouth along to the echo of your own reply.
Nobody has to die. Everything's under control. You are, for a spectacularly dull moment, almost sorry to see him sprawled out like that. If your lusus were still alive, you think you'd leave him lying where he is regardless, flesh on his bones going to waste. A hero can't be a true hero without some measure of tragedy unfurling around them, and Karkat should be happy to have proven himself a true leader, finally; he's gone down with his ship. Asteroid. Floaty space rock in the incandescent dark.
Whatever.
Next to him, Terezi's been knocked out. You put your sword down on what is possibly the only slither of floor that doesn't look like it's been the victim of an accident at a grubsauce factory, and make your way over to her. Red boots step in red blood with a squelch, squelch, and you imagine that you're walking on the surface of the ocean, immortal saviour of the fucking universe that you are. The sweet stench of red on red should be enough to rouse Terezi. Any moment now, she'll be sitting up, trying to lick at your feet. And so she should. She should prostrate herself before you to obliterate her past transgressions, her utter abandonment of you, because did you mention that you're the Hero of Everything now, and that you've saved them all?
You jab Terezi in the side with your toes. When she refuses to budge of her own accord, you step on her arm. The pattern of your sole leaves a bright red spider web against her arm, just below the elbow. Pretty cool, you think. Again, Terezi doesn't move, and you know she's just being stubborn now. She's probably doing all of this to screw with you. You bend your knees, scooping up her cane, and absent-mindedly wipe its length against your thigh. A parody of a bruise is left in splotches of bright red and teal across the fabric of your pants.
Gross. You'll have to see if Kanaya can make you a new pair.
Terezi's lucky you have the patience of a saint. You're not entirely sure whether someone can be a god and a saint at the same time, because the only parts of religion you ever paid attention to involved doomsdays prophecies and the machines you built in their honour, but if anyone can, it has to be you. Anyone else would've become tired of watching her lounge around in the comfort of her own unconscious mind, and yet there you are, endlessly gracious, willing to make the effort to bring her back to her senses.
Fingertips stretched out at your sides, you crouch down next to her, keeping a firm hold on your balance. You heave a long-suffering sigh, and promptly begin poking Terezi with her own cane. Her shirt does absolutely nothing to make her soft and squidgy; even through the fabric, you feel the cane jolt in your grasp as you run it along the side of her ribcage. You grin to yourself, and a cut you didn't even realise was on your lip splits open, raw in the cold, still air. Terezi is your personal xylophone, all jutting bones and offensive angles, and if she doesn't wake up soon, you're going to make a güiro out of the mountain range that is her spine.
You think you see her face scrunch up, but it could just be a trick of the light. You're throwing unsteady shadows all over her. Playing her like a percussion instrument becomes almost instantly boring, and so you toss her cane over your shoulder, and decide that you've had quite enough of her self-centred lazing around, her unwillingness to hear you out. You plant both hands against the side of her arm, and dig the heels of your palm in, trying to roll her over.
She slides a few miserable inches on a shiny teal-red puddle, and then slumps onto her back. Her body has as much rigidity as one of her scalemates left in it, but before you can get around to worrying, her head lolls back, hitting the floor with an empty lock. Like a glockenspiel. Your eyes remain trained on her face. You've little doubt that there's a rather large stain on her chest, but you don't concern yourself with that now. Can't concern yourself with it, because her glasses have come off, and Jegus, they're going to get trodden on if she isn't careful. Gaze not leaving the corner of her mouth, you lean across her body, pick up her glasses, and wipe the lenses off with your thumbs.
“I did it, Pyrope,” you say, sliding her glasses onto the bridge of her nose. Your voice comes out a little shaky, but only because you've exerted yourself today, being the hero and all. You speak because no one else does, certain that she'll at least be able to appreciate the smell of your words, if not the distinct meaning behind each one. “You made the right choice, letting me go! Now you all know what I'm capable of.”
*
You sleep for days.
The adrenaline seeps out of your system, leaving you tired beyond all reason. You prop yourself up against the wall, never once losing awareness of just how uncomfortable it all is. You wish you had a nice web to curl up in. Even gods need time to rest, to dream, and while nothing you see in your sleep is anything short of harrowing, it is not worth remembering, either. You wake, and any and all recollection slowly filters away, leaving you with nothing but a bad taste in your mouth.
And that might just be your own blood, anyway.
You bring a bloody hand to the side of your head, rubbing at your temple. Quickly enough you realise you didn't wake up because sleep had ran its course, but because there was someone there with you, someone walking around. About goddamn time. The sound of their footfalls are what stirred you from your dreams, and you grunt, blinking your eyes into focus, staring up at them.
Well, look at that. It's Aradia. You raise your eyebrows, wondering what the hell's going on with her. One moment she's alive, the next she's dead, then she's a ghost, no, sorry, a frog, actually, forget that, she's a robot, now she's exploded, shit, wait, scratch that all. Now she's a god. Now she's a god with wings just like yours. (If yours had been left out in the rain to rust.) They twitch, betraying just how much relief she truly feels at seeing you, and before you get the chance to grumble out a greeting that likely wouldn't consist of good morning, she's knelt by your side.
“You're alive!” she states brightly. God, that's grating. You're already missing the hollowness of her words.
“Of course I'm alive,” you say, straightening yourself up against the wall. Your spine protests a little as you turn your back on slouching, but you're not about to let Aradia see you wince. “These god tier hoodies aren't just for show, you know!”
Aradia might frown, but the nod she give says that yes, she does know that; she knows it very well indeed. She places a hand to your arm, fingertips digging in at the hollow of your elbow, and you go with the motion, letting her guide you to your feet. You stand up, but your stomach decides to stay exactly where it is, until it's forced to snap up, right into your throat. Knees buckling but not quite giving way, you rake your nails against the wall, and vomit at your feet for no less than eight consecutive minutes.
With your shoulders hunched, Aradia holds your hair back, and that just makes the whole experience so much more unsettling.
“Get off,” you grumble when you finally get a break between heaves, shoulders rolling back. “Go help someone else.”
Oh, that's right, you realise dully; Aradia doesn't know what you are yet. You haven't told her about how you've saved the day, and every day that'll come after your initial victory, so she doesn't know that her time will be better spent elsewhere. As you've been throwing up, she's been mumbling reassuring things in your ear, telling you that it might feel like hell now, but it's not going to be the end of you. It's not until you finally speak that she falls silent.
You tense, breathing in deeply. The back of your hand wipes your chin clean, and then she's got both arms wrapped around your shoulders. Moron. Doesn't she know how filthy your front is?
“Oh, Vriska,” she murmurs softly, “I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”
*
Aradia is the Hero of Time. You see no point in counting minutes around her, in collecting hours as if the days they amount to mean anything at all. You do wonder, at points, how long Aradia's been back with you; how long it's been since you saved the universe, and left it as it is now.
The best you can come up with is a while. Long enough to have become used to Aradia's presence, though, honestly, she doesn't bother you as much as she could. As much as she probably should, considering the way she beat you to death with her bare hands, leaving you trapped in your own body until your heart had the decency to give out and stop. You sit shoulder-to-shoulder with her, because it is very, very dark on the asteroid, and you can at least imagine a glow dripping down from her wings.
Your hands fidget, both restless and feeling as if they've been worked to the bone all at once. You pat your palms against the front of your shirt, all the way down to your knees, dry blood encrusted in there. Teal, you think. It feels like teal. You wonder how long you crouched there, arms around Terezi, before you let her go, before you let her fall back down to the cold, hard floor.
Probably not long enough.
You take a deep breath, and the sound of your own shaky inhalation is the first thing you remember hearing in forever. You tilt your head back, trying to clear your mind, trying to ignore the way that your stomach twists and aches, stripped completely bare. You're hungry, starving, almost, and your mind spins, but you know that you aren't going to die from a little malnutrition. Which is almost a shame.
“She used to be my sister,” you say aloud to no one in particular. Aradia just so happens to be there to listen. “She used to be my sister, and that must have meant something to her, because she didn't even have the guts to stab me in the back.”
There's a long pause before Aradia says anything. Both of her arms wrap around one of yours, and she rests her head against your shoulder. Either godhood did a great deal to make her needlessly affectionate, or she just needs someone, something, to cling onto. You've already stopped trying to shake her off.
“It wasn't your fault,” Aradia eventually settles on, once again stating the obvious. Of course it wasn't your fault! You did what you had to. You did the only thing you could; you went out and fought, and not only did you face your demon, but you won, too. You seized victory for all of them, and it's not your problem that they were too goddamn selfish to be alive to appreciate it once you got back.
But right now, that isn't what you're concerned with. You are so far from caring about whether you were right or wrong that your mind drifts in and out of coherence when you replay the scenario in your mind for the eight hundredth time.
You squint through the darkness, at your sister, still laid out on her back, wrapped in Karkat's blood.
“I don't think she liked me very much,” you say, and it's not until the words are out that you become aware you were even thinking them in the first place. You mouth a silent, surprised oh to punchuate your statement.
Eyes closed, Aradia turns towards you, forehead resting against your temple. The great spiral of her right horn tangles in your hair, and you feel her warm breath on your skin.
“You were sisters,” she reminds you, neither confirming nor denying your initial assertion. “I think that's enough.”
*
It takes you a long, long time to come to grips with the fact that Aradia is there, and that she isn't some ghost that you've conjured up using one of the rustier cogs in your head that's still managing to turn, in spite of any pistons that fail to fire. Aradia is real; she is solid, she is warm, and she talks to you, even when you don't talk back. Even when you try to cut her voice out, because if you're going to be trapped in an empty husk of a universe, then you want to relish in the spoils of your victory alone. You don't need Aradia there, reminding you of what the world could be filled with.
She speaks, and all you hear is the silence of a thousand voices that will never sound again. She wraps her hands around your wrists, places her palms on your shoulders, and you think of fingers, rigid, unmoving. As cold as stone.
When you can no longer tolerate the overwhelming nothingness laid all around you, you begin cleaning up. Much of the blood has dried, staining the stone forever, so at least there's no longer a slipping hazard. You work around the bodies, pointedly ignoring all of the inelegance that death grants them, and they are as black spots in your vision.
Until Aradia reaches out, trying to prop up Terezi's corpse.
You move in a flash, tearing Aradia away from her, because how dare she, how dare she even lay her hands on Terezi, as if they were ever part of the same team. Before either one of you can comprehend what's happening, you have your hands around her throat, lips at her ear. You hiss and she sinks back, forgetting all about her divinity.
“What the hell are you doing, Megido?” you demand to know, but then make answering all the more difficult for her by lifting her a few inches from the ground.
“They're—” Aradia chokes out, and then presses her fingertips to the backs of your wrists, blunt nails forming crescents in your skin. Your arms drop, just enough for her toes to meet the ground, because you will not do her the favour of stopping her from explaining herself. “They're not going to last long, Vriska. We need to do something with them.”
You've been ignoring the smell for days, and you're going to continue ignoring it, even as it settles into the back of your throat.
“We could have a corpse party,” Aradia continues, and you don't know what the hell she's getting at, but you don't like it. You shake her. Her head is thrown back, but she recovers quickly enough, bringing her forehead against yours, hard. Your hold on her loosens, and you step back, trying to blink the sparks out of your vision. “Death doesn't have to be a bad thing, Vriska. There's still plenty we can do to respect our friends, and they'd want to know that our lives weren't stopping just because of this!”
Just because of this. Just because of the end of all mortal life in the universe.
Fuck embracing death. Fucking seeing a silver lining, and fuck accepting any of this. You might be a hero, but you haven't won yet; your victory against Jack was only the first hurdle of many, and this is a temporary set-back. It's another thing to overcome, and then, and only then, will you be able to show the others that of course they're saved, of course everything is alright. You were fighting for them all along.
“You're the Hero of Time,” you tell her, calmed by the revelation you've just had. Unsettlingly calm, apparently, because Aradia seems to become smaller as soon as you speak. “Do something to stop the process. Don't let them rot.”
Her eyes widen, and as you look at her, you wish that she'd despise you. You wish that she'd hate you for all that you've done, and more than that, you wish that she'd make her contempt known for all that you haven't done. But instead there's a soft melancholy under the surface of her expression, an inexplicable tenderness that makes you want to fall to your knees and wilt. Aradia nods shallowly, and turns to face the bodies again very, very slowly, lest you think she's up to something untoward and lash out against her.
You watch as she lifts her hands, and you feel gears turning, see a glimmer of something beyond sight before you. Something shifts around the corpses, but your life is neither any longer nor shorter because of it.
*
“Remember that time I said I was going to tear my heart out for you, and slam it down so that you could feel something by association?” you ask, staring over the edge of the asteroid. Staring into the same darkness you'll breathe in each and every moment for the rest of your life that will, at this rate, last forever. “God, I was such an idiot back then! How over dramatic can you get?”
You sound oddly upbeat today. You don't feel it.
From behind you, Aradia wraps her arms around your waist. It's a difficult position to pull off, what with your wings, but being blessed with godhood as she is, she understands where not to place too much pressure.
“I remember,” she says, and likely has to dip into memories of another life to do so. “Why?”
You shake your head.
“No reason.”
You're not being facetious. You're not avoiding the truth behind the matter, because that's all there is to it. It's not that you're offering her your heart now; you're simply reminiscing, because recollections of the past are all the two of you have to share between you anymore.
You turn, shoulder blades jutting back, wings stretching out. Arms wrapping around her waist, you think it's funny that she's all you have left in this entire universe. You never would've chosen her to be stranded on the brink of non-existence with, but when she tightens her hold on you, the two of you fit together in a way that almost makes sense.
*
You cup Feferi's face between your hands.
All you need to do is fix her, and then everything else will follow. You can't believe that it's taken you this long for it to occur to you, because she's the Witch of Life. You bring her back, you fix up her battered body, and everything falls into place. Trying to smile at her, you brush your thumbs in half-circles below her eyes, and then grit your teeth as blood tries to seep out from between them.
(You drove your sword through your cerulean guts about eight minutes ago now. You're not certain how you're still standing.)
From behind you, Aradia places a hand against your shoulder. When her fingertips brush against the side of your neck, your eyes burn, and you have to remove a hand from Feferi's cheek to slap against your own, wiping the tears away. Feferi's head tumbles from your grasp in the process, rolls across the floor, and bumps against your feet. What good is trying to fix her when you've yet to figure out where her body is resting?
You part your lips, trying to speak. It comes out as a gurgle, and you stumble backwards. Aradia tries to catch you but doesn't move quickly enough, and you clatter against the floor. The tip of the blade scrapes against stone, and the sword is driven out of your torso the same way it came in.
“It's okay, Vriska,” Aradia mumbles, pulling your head into her lap, brushing your eyes dry. Two fingers fumble for your pulse, and she keeps them there as it dies down. “We'll get out of here soon. Together.”
Her words become incoherent, melding into the ringing that pierces right through your skull. Your vision splutters, fails, and the darkness takes hold; but the relief lasts no longer than a handful of salvaged seconds. Before you know it, you're alive and breathing again, wound closed over.
There's nothing heroic or just about trying to leave Aradia alone in an empty universe, it seems.
*
Aradia's fingers are entwined with your own. Deep down, the two of you know that there's no chance of you being able to navigate the depths of the furthest ring in a thousand years. It's probably a good thing that you've got longer than that to try finding your way, to avoid coming back on yourself, going backwards when you mean to move forwards. And even when you escape the darkness, what then? You consider entwining yourself with Aradia in other ways, consider filling buckets with her, but that would do no good; it'd just be slop with no mother grub to make use of it.
Before leaving, you gathered up all the corpses, uniting bodies with heads, like a executioner at the guillotine, forced to clean up when the day was finally done. You put them in a pile, lifeless arms holding lifeless arms, and made certain that Terezi's glasses didn't slip from her nose. Later, Pyrope, you'd said, flicked her forehead, and then turned from her for once and for all.
Leaning towards you, Aradia kisses your cheek, but neither one of you say a word. Nothing resounds across the asteroid but the hum of your wings buzzing in union, feet slowly leaving the ground beneath you. You've no destination in mind, nowhere you want to be, but that's alright; that's the funny thing about doomed timelines.
They're not doomed until they are.
You'll know where you're going once you get there.