Archive of Our Own

It’s the fall of 8990 and Sapnap is about to be late.

Footsteps dash through crunching snow hurriedly, but alas the huge vehicle had already zoomed towards the horizon, unhearing of Sapnap’s desperate calls. 

Huffing beratingly under his truncated breath, he draws the thick, woolen sweater closer to his body, making sure to secure it around the neck of the small body kept close in his chest. The temperature is lower than he’d expected at noon — making every attempt to regain air more painful for his struggling lungs — but he should have known better than to test the weather now that the sun has died.

Died — not technically, but it might as well be when Sapnap raises his head and sees that the sun is nothing more than what it truly is — a star, a mere speck in the grand scheme of the sky. 

With the weight of his hefty backpack behind him and the sleeping figure safely enclosed in his arms, Sapnap proceeds to walk the barren streets of the desolate city with hurried trepidation. The telltales of the recent blizzard scrunch mutely under the heels of his heavy boots, nose red and fingers stiff, his warm breath dissipating into the grey bleak fog permeating through the abandoned urban jungle. None the elite predators filled with greed and easy hustle, none the desperate prey struggling to earn the bare minimum. 

They’ve all left. 

This city, this country, this world — is nothing but the inconsolable ruins of what once was, evident in the forlorn buildings with their hardened glasses broken and mighty walls collapsed, street lights flickering along with the last traces of hope from humanity — the sidewalks unwalked, the roads uncrossed, the once-bustling hassles of life unlived. 

When Sapnap was young, he had been taught that all things come to an end at some point.

The dragging days of tiresome school bid goodbye in the form of excited giggles from young kids screaming that it’s finally high time for summer. Proceedingly so, the eternal glow of summer nights fade away into the bitter unsaid farewells held in the crevice of a soft boyish grin from a promised love that got broken and never came back.

All things end. All things fade. 

And like this, the Earth alike. 

“Baby,” Sapnap gently calls, “Baby, are you cold?” 

He receives a small incoherent sound of reply, the tiny bundle of life in his arms shifting before a cold nose gets pressed into the undercurve of Sapnap’s jaw. Cursing internally to himself, he tightens his arms around the child and tries to walk faster without jostling too much. 

Scientists and poets have long asked this question: Will the universe end in fire or in ice? 

No one ever expected a reply — because a reply has the capability of limitless implications — and yet, as if it heard, the universe had answered. 

The Big Freeze. The heat death of the universe. 

It has been theorized for so long that it is one of the plausible reasons as to how this cosmos would meet its demise. The universe expands, we knew this. What we didn’t expect however is for the expansion to accelerate exponentially. The universe thins, straining gasses, preventing sparks, and with more than ample separation, for the first time since the first spark, the universe is unable to give birth to stars.

In the last two decades alone, the heat death had already stretched the universe far enough that Earth had lost its optimal distance to the sun, farther than we could have ever imagined. We have drifted away from the primary reason that we were able to exist in the first place. Warmth. 

And without warmth, things die. 

When the first wave of the sun’s estranged displacement took its toll, people had the illusion that they were prepared. They weren’t. Because life could only go so far without sunlight. Plants died, polarities shifted, animals weakened. The ecosystem failed, bringing society along with it. Man-made thermal energy is no match for the deathly cold of space and it only took a few months before the realization finally settled in. Life on Earth was screwed.

Billions of people got hit with hundreds of new types of fatal diseases, research labs and hospitals overwhelmed with unidentified cases every day. The world population, in the simplest terms, got decimated. Just a year down the line and half of humanity was gone with the Cold. Half of the remaining half dying because of it. 

The ground shakes slightly under Sapnap’s feet but even before he gets the chance to find out where it came from, a car pulls up on the concrete beside him. 

Out comes a man in equally heavy winter clothes.

“Nick?” A reacquainted lilt of a honey-soft timber hits his cotton-muffled ears, and when he turns around, the face that greets him isn’t what he ever expected to see. A far greater surprise than the sun dying. 

“Karl?” Sapnap breathes quietly —whether in fear of waking the sleeping form in his arms or in fear of dissipating the fragile mirage that seemingly appeared in front of him — although the reason for his careful exhale is uncertain, either way, it echoes in the eerie white silence of the dreary metropolitan wasteland.

It’s ironic, Sapnap thinks, that they’ve been told that all the stars are on the brink of being extinct, and yet his first star — he who used to shine the brightest, he who taught Sapnap that galaxies could be found in storm-brewed eyes — stands in front of him, something Sapnap had thought he lost a long time ago, something he never fathomed to find again. 

There is no way that he is not hallucinating. 

But then — “Hi.” 

A familiar smile. Warmth. 

— And here it is. 

Here is the once eternal glow of Sapnap’s summer nights. The love that never came back. The promise that got broken. The same boyish grin. 

“Long time no see, right? How long has it been?” Age lines seemed to have left their mark on the boy- man’s face, and yet the crevice of his mouth appears to still hold the words that they both left in the grand thesaurus of everything that was once them. 

“Two decades.” Sapnap supplies, not that he keeps track, not that he doesn’t ever think about it in the wide expanse of his empty bed, regardless of where he had moved to after leaving their tiny town, regardless of the countless pillows he tried to fill the gap with. The other side had always remained empty, but no. Sapnap has never kept track. 

“Already?” Karl giggles lightly, a hand going up to cover his mouth, but then his laughter waters down when he seems to remember their reality. “I didn’t know you’re still here?” The brunet then asks.

“You too.” Sapnap replies, with more weight than he intended. The translation isn’t lost on the other. 

Strong wind hollows through the intricacies of the offset concrete, howling and roaring in Sapnap’s ears. He pulls the body in his arms closer, almost protective. Even without pulling out his phone to check the time, he knows he should really get going, and yet he finds his feet unwarrantedly molding with the icy pavement. Either that or the sight of his first love makes even the end of the world stop.

Whatever shock that they had going on for formality had long since fallen to the ground because of the gravitating words, leaving the air between them with nothing but reawakened animosity. Then, Karl clears his throat. 

“Are you headed to the last ship?” He questions. 

The last ship.

Life on Earth was screwed but humanity is tenacious. It's the reason why we have survived for this long, the reason why even before the heat death, the world was already ruined anyway - in the mercy of our instinctual need to conquer. And so we were persistent. Desperate for survival. The World Nations, or what's left of it, had pitched together a plan for relocation. We have researched enough to know that our world is not alone, there are others like it. The only problem is how to get to it. Possibly for the first time in the entire course of history, the world had united. Pitched in with all the resources they could provide and after years of hard work, hope was fabricated by the very calloused hands of man. Hope came in the form of spacecrafts, vast getaway transits off to voyage the boundless frontiers of the ever-expanding space, set to find a new home.

Sixteen huge ships. Each sets off every quarter of a year. The fifteenth one took off about three months ago.

Sapnap nods in agreement. “You?”

“Yes.” Karl confirms, his eyes move to the huge lump behind Sapnap, and then to the front. It seems like he’s only realizing now that the lump in front of Sapnap is alive and moving because he inclines his head as if looking for a face. “Were you gonna walk to it?”

“No, we were gonna catch the shuttle but something came up so we missed it. I was going to walk to the next nearest stop and wait for it there.” Sapnap clarifies. 

“Well, you’re not gonna be there on time if you’re going to walk through all this snow.” Karl deadpans, gesturing to the treacherous path ahead of them. Sapnap follows his gaze and then his eyes travel down, towards the winter tires of the other’s car.  

And then, with a familiar tilt of his head and the familiar lilt of his voice, with Sapnap’s insides twisting into all kinds of forms and veneering into something ugly and tangible,  Karl offers. “Need a ride?” 

Sapnap’s gaze hovers in the skies. It doesn’t take him more than a second to agree.

The lock clicks decidedly and not a minute later, the engine is roaring back into life. Warmth from the heater feels foreign to Sapnap’s skin, embracing him in alien comfort but he takes it all with a grateful heart, glad that they are finally out of the icy deathtrap outside. 

“Seatbelt.” Karl advised. Wordlessly, Sapnap pulls the metal hook and clips it to the other end, glancing at the rearview mirror to make sure he did the same earlier. Reaching back, he waves a hand towards another heater and checks if it emits heat as well. It does, just like the first three times he checked not even two minutes ago. His eyes flicker to the person in the back seat. She’s still asleep, head leaning in Sapnap's backpack. Tucking a piece of stray hair from under her beanie, he lays a warm hand on her cheek before sighing softly to himself and pulling away.

When he settled back into the shotgun, the vehicle had already moved forward, Karl turning around the block. 

Inside, it’s quiet. Tense. Awkward.

Without the howling wind and the crunch of snow beneath hurrying footsteps, the silence is unbearably loud for Sapnap. Not even the quiet hum of the engine nor the low rumble of the car as it passes through frozen asphalt is enough to disperse the muted rancor saturating their tiny atmosphere.

But then, Sapnap breaks from the pressure. 

“What brought you to this side of the city?” is what he asks, and not one of the pre-conceived questions he repeatedly mulled in his head a thousand times over on empty nights in empty beds, nor the accusing words teetering to spill free from the back of his tongue. 

“Well I wanted to avoid traffic on the highway since it’s the last trip and all,” Karl explains, eyes on the navigation app showing brightly on his upright phone by the console, before he’s taking his eyes back on the road. “So I wanted to take a reroute in the outskirts.”

“Ah.” Sapnap nods. And then conversation fails him. Shifting his eyes to the window beside him, he watches the snow fall in a diagonal slope as it floats away along with the dust they leave behind. Karl clears his throat, before Sapnap hears the radio come alive, the grainy voice of the host permeating inside the vehicle. The volume gets lowered down so that it doesn't wake the sleeping figure on the backseat in consideration but loud enough in a way that the engine isn't the only one making an effort to fight off the suspended air. 

" Now, I'm sure a lot of us are on the way to the last ship, and if not, you might as well listen to some tunes. As we prepare to join the voyagers for the last time and get ready to leave our planet behind and go into the great unknown, here are some of Earth's greatest hits."

Ironically, Take Me Home, Country Roads starts playing.

“How about you?” Karl attempts to rekindle the flame of the exchange after the first chorus rolled in.

“I live around here.” Sapnap answers, glancing at Karl at the wrong moment because that’s when Karl turns to look at him back. Eyes avert faster than it takes to take a shaky breath. 

“Right.” Karl clears his throat again, shifting in his seat. Sapnap looks at the rearview mirror at random intervals, trying to ignore the suffocating hostility. Right. Suffocating. That’s the best word for it. Not even John Denver could have dissipated it.

When photosynthesis and oxygen production thinned because of the departing sun, it probably didn’t expect to be beaten by decades-long silences and broken promises pitched together inside a cramped car when it came to stealing one’s breath away. 

In biology class, they’ve taught Sapnap that in order for a person to take a deep breath, it takes three fundamental things; the lungs, the diaphragm, and the alveoli. 

But they’ve never taught him that the lungs meant its spongy texture will take in anything when it is desperate, even if the oxygen he inhales is riddled with the plethora of unsaid allegations of angry bitter tinges. Nor did they tell him that the constrictions of the diaphragm when your lungs fill up with encompassing acrimony hurts more than withdrawing, hurts more than holding, hurts more than persevering. 

He hasn’t been told that it constricts and squeezes every other positive emotion out of your system until all that is left is the havoc caused by a storm in the form of a boy who had grown into a man after two decades but left behind a broken heart and a broken boy who never grew up because of said heartbreak. Sapnap would have followed Karl wherever he went and the thought that that statement might still be true up to this day scares him. 

And yet, still, Sapnap is aware that it’s in the alveoli where the wonder really takes place. Exchange of oxygen to carbon dioxide, air filling up spongy bittered lungs, the diaphragm relaxing, the body supplied with the things it desperately needs. 

A previously held breath is released and the exchange does something more than transpose two chemical compounds. It also switches resentment into something heavier, something more apparent, something more real. Longing. 

Maybe Karl had taken Sapnap’s breath away. Maybe he hasn’t returned it ever since. 

Because their next words are proof that even if all things are about to end and fade and die, there are some things that are still left unfinished. 

“I didn’t know you had a daughter.” / “I didn’t know you were still alive.”

They say simultaneously. Karl purses his lips, expression dancing between the lines of hesitance and vigilance. 

“I am.” He answers when Sapnap keeps mum. And when he still says nothing back, Karl’s confession tumbles out between them like a tiny pebble in a deep ravine. 

“Nick,” Karl starts, unaware of how it sounds so much like dripping acid making Sapnap’s ears bleed. There was a time when Karl said his name and it sounded like music. There was a time when it didn’t grate his hearing with so much gritting dissonance. “I’m sorry I left.” 

The words are almost drowned out by the playing radio, quietly whispered — either in reverence or in anguish, Sapnap isn’t certain — but he understands them nonetheless. Maybe they are words he had long wished to hear ever since and so his ears are adept at listening in at the first notes of redemption. 

But that was before. That was before he stopped asking. Before he stopped looking. Before he stopped hoping. Now, he realizes with rancid disappointment, the words mean nothing. He knows Karl isn’t truly sorry for leaving. 

But then, Karl adds. “I’m sorry I broke my promise. I’m sorry I never came back.”

And suddenly it’s the summer of 8971 and they are both seventeen and Karl is leaving for college. 

“Do you really have to go?” Sapnap had whispered, his forehead laid atop his best friend’s shoulder contentedly, ignoring the sweat that had accumulated in his temples from the sweltering heat, or the slight discomfort from laying his head on the jut of Karl’s bony frame. 

“Would you want me to lie to you?” Karl whispered back, sticky fingers from melted blueberry popsicle edging closer to Sapnap’s strawberry-stained ones. By the convenience store outdoor bench, the two boys watched as the sun set on the distant horizon. By the convenience store outdoor bench, Sapnap had watched Karl watch the sunset. He had watched his golden boy glow on par with the sun. He watched as he rivalled its shine.  

“I want you to tell me the truth.” Sapnap then exhaled. 

Stormy eyes met oaken ones, and a breath got caught in his throat. Sapnap had always thought that Karl was beautiful. He was beautiful that one spring day on the playground when Sapnap had just moved into the neighborhood, a purple sleeved hand offered towards the small boy who had tripped over his untied shoelaces. Beautiful when he would beam at Sapnap from across the corridors of all the schools they went to together, sitting beside him at lunch, going home together, doing everything together. Beautiful when he finally gave Sapnap a mixtape of his long unspoken feelings, shy words muttered under a shaky breath, unstable hands firm on a playlist made with recurrent thoughts. 

Beautiful when he was a stranger, beautiful when he was a friend, beautiful when he was a lover. Beautiful then. 

“I love you.” Karl whispered, words breathed out like a confession, tone delivered like a promise. Sapnap grinned softly, their noses bumping together. 

Love. What an intimidating word. Weren’t they too young to know what it meant?

He sighed softly, before allowing himself to place his pink-tinged lips on top of Karl’s for a split, tiny second. 

His eyes fluttered. 

I love you, too.

His heart stuttered.

At that moment, when Karl kissed back, Sapnap had wished for time to stop. 

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Sapnap teased when he pulled back, looking at Karl with drowsy, hooded eyes. Karl scoffed and grinned at him fondly. Fingers curved under Sapnap’s jaw and the sweat that had dripped down there burned when Karl’s hands caressed it softly. 

Sapnap got pulled closer, carefully, reverently, as if the golden halo from the golden boy wrapped him in the same glowing outline, encasing them in a bubble of faux eternity and breathtaking possibilities. A soft peck lands on the tip of his nose. In the middle of his forehead. At the peak of his cheeks. And finally, at the corner of his lips, purposefully missing. Karl makes him feel weak.

"They told me that the city is nice." Karl said, letters pressed on the crevice of Sapnap's neck. It's way too hot for them to be this close but Sapnap clung onto their proximity tightly. He liked it like this. Like them. And yet it's the words that set him alight, reawakening the intrusive thoughts that he had spent countless nights tossing and turning away from, rendering him unable to sleep, whispers of insecurities becoming louder and louder until they reach the edge of consuming him entirely. 

“That it might do me good.” Karl continued. Sapnap’s eyes fell close. The constant ache ever since he heard the news of Karl’s move had never felt so heavy until then. Maybe if he shut his eyes, then the ever-present smile on Karl’s face wouldn’t seem like a goodbye. 

“What if you like it too much?” Sapnap had whispered in spontaneous bravery.

Karl sat straight at this, pulling away from Sapnap’s neck to give him an incredulous look. His lips bordered on a teasing grin. “I don’t think I’ll ever like anything as much as I like you.” He professed.

Sapnap had rolled his eyes but he would be lying if he told anyone that his heart didn’t sing in praise at his best friend’s— lover’s words. And just like that, any other fear he had felt the days prior to that melts away along with the setting sun. 

“You’re lying.” Sapnap defied playfully. Karl was quick to shake his head, crossing his arms in front of him. “Nuh-uh, it’s only the truth, Nick.” And then he beamed, “And besides, I know that you don’t like it when I lie.”

Sapnap huffed, proud that Karl knew. “Okay,” he decided then, sticking out his pinky finger. “Promise me then.”

“What? Is this the marriage thing again? I told you that we’re fiances already. There’s no need to propose to me twice, nimrod. You’re the only person I would ever want to marry.” Karl had reassured, making Sapnap flush brighter than the pink clouds littering across the darkening sky.

“Oh my god, that’s not—” Sapnap groaned. “Okay, besides that.”

Karl smiled from ear to ear, sighing to himself before shaking his head. “Tell me.”

With an intense gaze, Sapnap tried to hold Karl’s eyes. Karl didn’t waver and met his stare with the same magnitude. 

“I want you to promise me you’ll come back for me.”

Vulnerability bled from all the fissures of his wounded sentence. Sapnap has spilled enough blood to know it stained everything he thought perfection would be— love is nowhere near being a perfect emotion, and theirs is not one to be the exception. 

Nonetheless, a pinky finger came up and locked with Sapnap’s, and just like that, it was sealed. 

“I promise I’ll come back for you.”

Vulnerability bled from fissures. Wounded sentences got patched up in equal resonance. Love is nowhere near being perfect nor is theirs an exception but Sapnap believed they could try. 

Karl would come back for him. Karl would go to college in the city and he would come back for Sapnap. Karl promised he would. 

Sapnap grinned at the words, rest assured.

“I’ll wait for you, then.” He laughed, heart soaring at the endless possibilities waiting ahead of them. 

Karl promised to come back for him. 

And Sapnap believed it. Like a fool. 

“The world is ending, Karl.” Sapnap brings himself back. He turns towards the other, eyes holding a fiery pit of unbridled betrayal. The accusation trickling from his tone is succinct, but he finds that after so long, he’s finally honest with himself. “Your apology doesn’t matter.” He dismisses. Agreeing to hitch a ride was a mistake. Meeting Karl again, plausibly for the last time, was a mistake.

Hurt flashes in Karl’s expression but as if it was never there, it fades along with the slant of the snow falling on the window beside him. He’s gripping the steering wheel a little too tight, Sapnap notices, knuckles white, eyes hard on the road. Jaw set, he stays quiet, either focused on keeping his emotions at bay or careful at navigating through the city, Sapnap isn’t certain. It’s mid wondering which is which when Sapnap realizes that he’s watching Karl again. Like all those years ago, he’s watching Karl again. He moves his eyes away. 

“It matters to me,” Karl murmurs after a while when Sapnap all but already drowned in what once was. “I’m really, truly sorry. Even if the world is ending, I’m still sorry.” Karl twists his head so that he’s looking directly at Sapnap. There is a raw truthfulness in his eyes, as if the dark clouds overhanging the storm in them finally cleared up. His voice is equally as tender as his words. “ Because the world is ending, I’m sorry.” 

The air is suspended with bated breaths, and they just exist there, at that moment, in the cramped car, not even a second passing and yet it seems like the years built around their history flash beneath their eyes, nostalgia, regret, longing, hiraeth, the old, familiar feeling of craving for something more as it gets inevitably lost in the strain of time and distance, all mixing in the puddle of an already lost love. 

This was a mistake.

Admittedly, hitching a ride with your ex-boyfriend just when the world was ending is never a good idea. Not when it’s been two decades since you last saw each other. Not when you have a daughter. Not when you don’t see a wedding ring on his fourth finger.

“There’s no point, Karl.” Sapnap sighs, trying not to linger on his latest observation. His empty ring finger stares back at him.  “You still never came back.” Even though you promised you would.

At this point, he doesn’t really care. It’s in the past now and whatever sort of anger left in his heart had all but faded and dimmed due to the fact that the world is dying. The sun is getting farther away and the world is ending and Sapnap doesn’t really care if Karl left him two decades ago. He cares about getting to that last ship and Karl had willingly offered help. 

Sapnap had accepted it even if he didn't really know why Karl would do such a thing — why Karl would stop at the road because of the mere sight of his ex-boyfriend walking the icy streets in the outskirts of a city. 

He could have kept going, drove past, and Sapnap wouldn't have known what he missed because Karl wasn't in his mind when he woke up today and readied himself for his last day on Earth. 

So why did Karl call for him? Is it compassion? Or is it sheer humanity? Or is it regret and the desire to make it up to him? He hopes it isn’t the last one. He doesn’t want to owe Karl anything. Because Karl used to owe him something and look at how that turned out.

And yet, by some cruel twist of fate, it’s as if the universe wants to give proper closure, a proper end for things that seemingly never did, a chance for consolation, even in the simplest sense, that it willed for them to meet again. 

He’s not angry now, tired perhaps. Karl’s not tired. 

“And you told me you’d wait.” Karl taunted right back, gaze flitting to the rearview mirror Sapnap had kept glancing at. "You told me you'd wait for me."

Karl's voice rings in his ears. I didn't know you had a daughter.

Alright, now that’s unfair. His daughter is a different story, although connected, it's not what Karl probably thinks it is.

His mouth opens as if to say something but it clamps shut when he realizes all of them are either excuses or accusations again. "It's been two decades. What did you expect me to do?" Sapnap still ended up saying with equal spiteful vigor. He wants to regret saying it. He wants to. He doesn't.

A side glance at Karl proves to Sapnap that the line struck. It hit.

They stay quiet, individual thoughts buzzing within the confines of their own minds. The sun dips even further into the horizon. It doesn’t make Karl glow anymore.

“Andrea.” Sapnap says when it’s been half an hour with nothing but the radio blasting Coldplay and pin-drop silence between them inside the car.

Karl turns to him momentarily, eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

Sapnap clears his throat. “Her name is Andrea.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder, pertaining to his daughter. “But she likes to be called ‘Andy’.”

“Andy.” Karl says, as if testing how it feels in his tongue. And then, his eyes flicker to her serene face, stray auburn strands framing her rounded freckled cheeks, long eyelashes curled atop, soft pout jutting out as she snores quietly. The huge cream scarf and fluffy tan parka jacket swallowing her entire body along with the red beanie and white woolen ear muffs snug in her head makes her look small. That’s because she is, Sapnap thinks fondly, although her personality proves otherwise. 

“She’s adorable.” Karl says, sincerity bleeding in his tone. Something gentle blooms in Sapnap’s chest despite the thin waft of uneasiness between them. How do strangers who turned into friends who turned into lovers who turned back into strangers again even act around each other? 

“Well, she clearly got that from me.” He can’t help but joke. The small smile that tugs on Karl’s lips eases Sapnap, even just a bit. 

“Wait, if you’re headed to the last ship, where is her mothe—” And as if on cue, Karl is cut off by a small voice.

“Daddy?” Rustling can be heard from the back seat, and when Sapnap turns, his daughter has shifted forward, fur boots on the floor of the car, her small, gloved hand already reaching towards Sapnap.

Removing his own gloves and placing them on the dashboard, Sapnap reaches back, caressing her frail wrist to check her temperature. She’s relatively warm, which assures him to no end. 

“Good morning, baby. Slept well?” He greets, fixing her ear muffs back into place when it got skewed from her rubbing her eyes groggily. 

“Mhm.” She pouts, eyes blinking slowly, head rotating slightly as if to look around. “Wh’re ‘re we?”

“We are in my—” Sapnap glances at Karl. “We’re in Karl’s car. He’s a friend and he’s helping us get to the launch pad. We’re going on that trip I told you earlier, honey. Remember that big ship that’s going to take us to a better place?” Sapnap explains.

“Hi, Karl.” She waves absentmindedly as if she isn’t fully awake yet, before she’s facing back towards her father, nodding in agreement. “Uh huh. Somewhere warmer.” She says, words slurring but tone certain, repeating what Sapnap had told her earlier.

Sapnap smiles at her answer. “That’s right, baby. Somewhere warmer. Are you cold right now?” He asks.

“No,” Shaking her head, her hands moved to her scarf and pulled it closer to herself. “Warm.” She confirms from behind the wool. And then she turns around, eyes flitting from Sapnap’s backpack to the other side of the seat, as if in search of something. “Daddy, where’s Luna?” 

At his daughter’s words, Sapnap can’t help the tiny muttered curse under his breath. 

“Luna?” Karl, who Sapnap momentarily forgot was even there, inquires.

Sparing a desperate glance at him, Sapnap whispers, “Her favorite stuffed toy.”

“My best friend!” She exclaims upon hearing Karl’s question that wasn’t even directed towards her. It seems like the mere mention of her best friend injects her with so much energy, because she starts talking about how Luna is her favorite friend because she has two cute bunny ears that go down when she’s sad and a cute button nose and she has great talking skills and amazing tea time manners — all in which Karl listens to with rapt attention, smiling and laughing to engage Andy in the conversation, all the while Sapnap battles with himself as he tries to come up with how he’s going to bring the unfortunate news to his daughter. 

“Andy,” Sapnap starts when Andy finishes telling Karl about Luna’s birthday party two weeks ago. “Princess, I have something to tell you.”

“Yes, daddy?” Her innocent grin gets redirected back at Sapnap. Guilt swims in huge waves inside his stomach, but he gulps it down and tries to deliver the message as gently as possible. “Luna was still sleeping on the couch when it was time for us to leave. I didn’t wanna wake her up. so...” He trails off. 

When his daughter’s smile fell, Sapnap felt a huge lump of guilt in his throat. 

“You left her?” She tilts her head, expression breaking. I forgot teeters at the tip of his tongue, but he doesn't want to let his daughter down. Although with the flow of conversation now, it seems impossible.

Before Sapnap can even think of an excuse to that, tears have already broken past Andy's eyes, flowing freely down her cheeks.

Beginning to panic, Sapnap unhooks his seatbelt and without a second thought, steps over the gear stick and cramps himself through the narrow opening, probably elbowing Karl in the process, before pulling his entire body through to be able to seat at the backseat, hands immediately flitting all over his daughter's face. He wipes her tears away but new ones keep coming.

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry." He starts, removing her ear muffs and beanie, placing them down on top of his backpack, before he's brushing her auburn locks in a soothing manner. 

"I wish we could go back and get her. But we can't because we'll be late for the takeoff if we do." He knows he's trying to explain, but his daughter seems to not be hearing him because she's just quietly sobbing. It breaks Sapnap's heart. 

The thing with Andy is, she never cries loudly. She's silent when she cries, unmoving when she's in pain. She doesn't ever tell Sapnap if her stomach hurts or if she's a little too cold or if she tripped and sprained her ankle while playing outside when there's no heavy snowstorm to stop her. She hides her pain, in a way, which is why Sapnap is so adept in constantly checking her, because if he doesn't ask, he knows she's not gonna say anything. It's one of the two things she got from her mother. And it frustrates Sapnap to no end.

Admittedly, he doesn't know what to do. Typically he would do everything to make her stop crying, but today he can't. He can't go back to make up for his carelessness because then it would affect their trip and he really wants to catch that ship. He wants to be able to raise his daughter in a better place than here, where warmth would be sufficient enough besides his struggling hands and his shaky breaths. Sapnap wants Andy to feel warmth, just like how Andy makes him feel. It's a simple dream, but one that he holds on to for dear life. 

So he knows he can't ask Karl to stop the car and turn back, because he's not gonna drag Karl along for his mistake. But he also so desperately wants to because Sapnap would do everything for his daughter. In short, he doesn't really know what to do. 

It's then that Karl comes in and saves the day.

"Hey," he calls, albeit quietly. "Hey, Andy, do you know where we're going?" Karl tries again. 

Andy raises her head quietly at that, but her tears still haven't stopped. With tentative hands, Sapnap cradles her so that she's on his lap, her back flat on his chest and she's facing forward, eyes meeting Karl's from the rearview mirror.

Andy sniffles weakly. "Somewhere warmer." She answers mechanically, voice broken. Sapnap hugs her closer and lets Karl do whatever he's planning to do.

"And do you know where that is?" Karl asks.

"No." Andy answers.

"We're going to the moon!" Karl says in mild wonder, turning back briefly to give Andy a huge smile.

Andy sniffs, hands absentmindedly grabbing Sapnap's forearm. "The moon?" 

"Yep!" Karl says cheerfully. "How old are you, Andy?"

"I'm…" She turns back to her father, eyes round with tears and hesitance. Sapnap gives her an encouraging smile. She nods at that, shifting her gaze back to Karl. Bringing two hands up, she folds both of them into a four, before folding his right index finger down. “seven.” She says, showing Karl her upright fingers.

“Seven!” Karl says, as if amazed, but his eyes hold a different kind of weight when they meet Sapnap’s in the mirror. He’s probably doing the math in his head. Sapnap averts his eyes. 

“That’s an interesting way to count.” Karl beams at the child. 

Without any sort of awareness whatsoever, Andy, surprisingly, giggles at that. “Daddy taught me.” She says proudly, sniffling in between. Sapnap noticed her tears had stopped.

“Oh, did he?” 

“Yep!” 

“What else did he teach you?”

“Everything!” Andy says gleefully. “Well, everything besides the moon!” Sapnap would have defied her statement, about to say that he did teach her about it but she was busy playing tea party with Luna and all her other toys to fully pay attention, but he bites back the words when he sees the excited gleam in her eyes. “Tell me more, Karl, please?”

“Of course, sweetheart.” The term of endearment isn’t lost in Sapnap’s ears. “But first, wanna be promoted to shotgun? Your father just kinda forced himself out of the wonderful position.” Karl teases lightly which makes Sapnap roll his eyes but Andy is already standing up with an excited ‘Yes!’. Sapnap quickly brings a hand up to prevent her from bumping her head on the roof of the car, and he carefully guides it down when she hops over the console to sit on his previous seat. 

“Alright, hmm,” Karl starts. “You’re seven and you still don’t know what the moon is. Did you know I was able to see the moon when I was two?”

As Sapnap leans over and secures her with the seatbelt, he sees Andy gasp excitedly, eyes turning towards Karl in admiration. “Two?”

Her eyes widened. Karl laughs at her reaction, eyes scrunching up at the corners. Sapnap watches the two of them from the backseat with a heavy unnamed feeling. 

“Yes! My mom bought me a telescope as a gift when I was two and since then, every night I would look at the moon and the stars and the sky.” Bitterly, Sapnap knows what telescope he’s talking about, because they used to do that together. “Did you know that the moon is this—” Karl makes a wide circle with his hands, before placing them back on the steering wheel. “big when you look at it through that?”

Sapnap’s daughter gasps again, hands clasped together. “No way.” She whispers in wonder.

“Yes way! It would shine so bright at night you could never get lost.”

“And we’re going there? To the moon?” Andy asks innocently.

“Yes we are!” Karl lies. 

“I want to go to the moon!” Andy declares. “Is it warm there?” She asks with a hopeful smile on her face.

Sapnap sees Karl gulp, meeting his eyes hesitantly, but Sapnap shakes his head, as if to tell him, yeah, it’s fine. White lies are fine. Sapnap would rather have Andy believe in hope, regardless of its credibility, instead of scare her that neither Karl nor Sapnap know where they’re going. They just know anywhere is better than here. 

“It’s very warm there.” Karl answers through his teeth, “It borrows light from the sun, and the sun makes you feel the warmest.” It’s not the truth, but it’s half of it. 

“When we get to the ship, we can probably see it a whole lot closer even before getting there. You’ll finally get to see the moon! How exciting is that?”

“Very!” Andy smiles from ear to ear, even going as far as raising her hand in giddiness. “Will the cap- captain and uhm, other people let us see it?” 

Karl nods. “Surely. Just show them your ticket and your prettiest smile and I’m certain they’ll even let you guide the ship.” Karl kids. 

Andy tilts her head at that. “Ti… ticket? What’s that?” 

“Oh.” Sapnap breathes out, breaking out of his stupor from watching them interact when Karl turns to glare at him sharply.

“Andy,” Karl says evenly, “Do you not have a ticket?” 

Without any awareness whatsoever of what she just did, she shakes her head honestly. “Daddy never said anything about a ticket.” And then she twists her head to look at her father. “Daddy, what’s a ticket?”

“Yeah, Nick, what’s a ticket?” Karl says sarcastically.

“It's what we need in order for them to let us in the ship, baby." Sapnap explains to his daughter. "The shuttle was going to take us to the airport where we can get them before taking us to the launchpad but we've had a change of plans and now we're going there with Karl." Sapnap continues, but his eyes flick to Karl's as if waiting for silent approval. If Karl declines, then Sapnap would just have to figure it out. 

Sighing defeatedly and checking the time on his propped-up phone, Karl nods an affirmative towards Sapnap. "Of course. We have time before the launch. It's easy to get them anyway so it definitely won't take long and we can arrive at the pad in time for takeoff."

Andy claps excitedly at that, gloves creating dull thudding noises. 

"Why only claim your tickets now, though?" Karl can't help but ask, giving Sapnap a curious look.

Sapnap is quiet for a while, uncertain of what to even say. "Because—"

"Daddy," Andy says then, saving Sapnap as she crosses her arms before huffing through her nose, "are you gonna say the word again?"

"What word?" Karl asks amusedly, allowing himself to stray from the topic.

"There's a word daddy always uses when he explains stuff to me!" Andy professes, "It's, uhm, s-somp...somp… cop… copmil…" She stutters over her syllables frustratedly, making Sapnap grin in fondness, Karl in equal admiration. "Somplicated!" She exclaims finally, as if she said the word right.

"Complicated." Sapnap provides softly.

"Yeah! What I said!" She giggles. "It's the magic word, Karl! It explains everything!"

Embarrassment floods Sapnap's cheeks when Karl gives him a dirty glare. 

"I'm sure it does, Andy." 

Karl mouths a wordless 'You're an idiot.' to Sapnap — to which he just shrugs in return. It always works, what can he do?

They drive for a few miles, the urban jungle breaking away to idyllic snowy plains, barren of anything alive. The roads are clear of thick snow though letting them glide through the highway without a hitch.

Andy asks 'What was the sun like?' at one point, and the question makes Sapnap's heart ache a total of two times. First, because she doesn't know, and second, because Karl does and he tells her. 

He tells her stories of summers and sunburns, of warm beaches and green trees, of small hummingbirds and shiny carps. He tells her of sweat so salty when it hits your lips and the sweet, sweet burning in your lungs when you pedal too fast on a downhill and your friends struggle to catch up with you. 

Sapnap realizes then, that maybe for Karl, the sun meant youth. 

The sun means that tiny life fraction of their most beautiful seconds, a glimpse of a time when everything was possible because everything was theirs to conquer.  

And when Karl tells Andy of stories about their youth, of short baths on sun-kissed creaks and running through waist-high meadows, of melted popsicles and children's games that meant everything when victory was theirs to take home, maybe, just maybe, for Karl, at some point, the sun meant Sapnap —  and Sapnap allows himself to believe this in that tiny second.

The withdrawing sun melts into darkness and when the roads are too dim for the headlights to overcome, they stop.

The gas station is empty along with the convenience store behind it with rows of supposed goods absent leaving nothing but metal racks and vacant cashiers. It's not much, in fact nowhere near enough, but the solid concrete on either side of the gasoline pump blocks out the harsh wind from the icy windstorms that usually patrol the planet at night. And it's only an hour away from the airport so it's a good place to stop and rest for a while.

"Okay, we can stay here for three hours or until the storm calms down and then we can get back on the road." Karl says once they're all inside the shop, shaking off snow in their coats. Sapnap closes the door behind him and places Andy down, patting her face free of cold rain. 

A small hand stops him, putting it away gently. "It's fine, daddy, I can do this by myself now." And then, she's tightening her scarf and digging into her coat pockets, fetching the flashlight Sapnap put there this morning. Carefully, she navigates through the shop, and not a minute later, the lights flicker on. 

"She's really smart for someone her age." Karl comments, opening his own backpack he fetched from his car's trunk. He pulls out a stove and three packets of ramen by the counter. 

"Yeah. She's lovely." Sapnap proudly admits. "Don't really know where I'd be right now without her." And it sounds cheesy for a grown man to admit his truth to his childhood friend, his ex-lover, but Sapnap's love for his daughter surpasses any other emotion he's been capable of feeling. He'd give her the world if she wants it. He'd take her to a new one just as she deserves.

"Give yourself more credit," Karl says softly, eyes on the bottles of water he pulls out of his bag. "She looks up to you. Even I can see that." When Karl looks at him, the rawness in his expression leaves Sapnap breathless. 

Sapnap clears his throat. "Well, uhh, electricity works so I'll see if they have a heater here somewhere."

After dinner, they opted to turn off the lights and direct all the generator's electricity towards the heater Sapnap found in the storage room. The flashlight Andy had been carrying earlier gets inserted over a tall slushie cup and turned over, creating a mini lamp that illuminates their tiny bubble of nested coats and blankets. It's warm enough to be comforting.

Sapnap and Andy are playing a random game of rock, paper, scissors (first who loses three times in a row gets flicked on the forehead, and Sapnap has lost enough times for his skin to remember just how hard his daughter can hit for a child her size) when Karl, who had been previously typing something in his phone, suddenly exclaims.

"Andy, look up, look up!" He says excitedly, scrambling to get up from his seat and running towards the glass windows of the convenience store, a couple of feet from their spot. His notes app stays open and Sapnap had read today's date on the top line before he averted his eyes to respect Karl's privacy.

Andy follows Karl to the window and when she looks outside to where Karl is pointing at, her eyes widened in typical childlike wonder much like the expression on Karl’s face right now. 

Sapnap does nothing to calm the raging affection rupturing from his heart at the sight, quiet fondness spreading through his lungs, letting it absorb everything greedily, letting it exchange the cold of the night into something higher, something redder, something warmer.

When he follows their lines of sight, a breath gets caught in his throat.

Because there is neither light pollution nor manmade interruption anymore, outside, the night sky paints a wonderfully created graveyard of space fireflies, the death march of unborn stars, splatters of bursting stardust in the ever-expanding blank canvas of the cosmos. 

The galaxy looks vivid tonight.

From under his breath, Karl then hums a familiar tune. It’s a timeless song that sings of stars and wonder and longing, to exist and be and burn bright enough to leave an impact after detonating to oblivion, fulfilling the dream of every faraway sun, to twinkle. 

That’s how Andy falls asleep — to Karl’s soothing humming, sung again and again under his breath as he stares at the galaxy above them until Sapnap’s daughter’s head is lolling gently to the side. Before he even takes a step to catch her, Karl already has her in his arms. 

They bring her back towards their tiny warmth circle, tucking a coat under her head to serve as her pillow. Sapnap thought she was already asleep, but a small hand grabs his wrist when he tucks her in a thick blanket brought from the car.

“‘ddy?” She slurs. 

“Hmm?”

Her eyes try to flutter open but Sapnap guesses she’s too sleepy to fully commit to it. Instead, she gestures with her hand and so Sapnap follows and leans in. “What is it, princess? Are you cold?” 

A light shake of the head. "Hmm, no," Then, sighing softly, she says, “I l‘ve you.”

Sapnap smiles fondly. Placing a small kiss in the middle of her forehead, he whispers, “I love you, too.”

“Mmkay,” she snuggles deeper into the comforter, “G’night.”

“Goodnight, baby. When you wake up feeling too cold, don’t hesitate to wake me up and tell me, alright?” Sapnap reminds her, like every other night. 

And like every other night, Andy answers with, “Are ya callin’ in y’r favor now?”

And like every other night, Sapnap laughs tenderly at this. “You wish,” he replies. 

Andy grumbles for the last time before her breathing evens out.

Sapnap pulls away, eyes warm, before it shifts to Karl who’s looking at both of them with an indiscernible gaze.

“A favor?” He whispered, careful. Then, he’s nodding to the opposite side of the lopsided circle, far enough from Andy so she wouldn’t be bothered by their hushed voices, but near enough the heater so they wouldn’t feel the biting cold that seeped in from the slight crevice of the glass entrance.

Sapnap follows him and sits on his side, a respectable amount of distance between them. He nods as confirmation to Karl’s prior question.

“Isn’t she too young to know what that means?” Karl asks, eyes straight ahead on the empty road and the spanning galaxy. 

Sapnap grins, shifting his gaze from Andy's sleeping form to Karl's side profile. "Back home, Andy and I had this habit of taking turns in switching the lights off when we go to bed." Sapnap starts explaining, a small smile on his lips as he remembers the fond memory. "One day, she had a fever, nothing serious but it was enough for her to be bedridden for a couple of days. Andy, she—" Sapnap can't help but to chuckle lightly, "she asked me, ' daddy, can you please do me a favor and turn off the lights for me?'"  

Karl grins at this, shaking his head in amazement. 

"It was supposedly her turn that night. Either way, I would have turned it off, but she was persistent. Now, I don't know where she even picked up the word or that it meant something someone can hold above someone's head, at least in a concept that she understands, but every time I ask her something, she asks me if I'm calling in the return of her favor now.”

Fond gazes watch over Andy’s serene state and Sapnap shudders not from the cold but from gentle devotion. 

“She doesn’t like owing anything to anyone, it seems like.” Sapnap finishes.

That makes Karl laugh. “I wonder who she takes after.” Karl teases.

With a light scoff, Sapnap bumps shoulders with Karl. “Yeah, yeah.” 

The comfortable silence settles and the wind howls its rampant hollow tune, invisible record spinning along with the rotation of the Earth. When Sapnap breaks his soft gaze on his daughter, he admits quietly, “She’s all I’ve got, you know.”

Sapnap thought Karl fell asleep, with his head on his crossed arms on top of his knees, but a few beats later, he hums. “That’s nice.” he starts, voice small. “To have someone.”

“Yeah,” Sapnap sighs. “Did you?”

“What?”

“Have someone.”

Karl is still for a while. And then, “my mom.” he says, tone vulnerable.

The memory of Karl’s mother vaguely flashes in Sapnap’s mind. She was the kindest woman Sapnap knew. “Where… How is she?” he asks carefully. 

“Finally peaceful.” Karl shrugs, shoulders restrained from his position. The light that emits from the heater and the bright galaxy outside casts a mix of amber and grey hues on his golden skin, making the sight of him nothing less than breathtaking.

Beautiful when he was a stranger, beautiful when he was a friend, beautiful when he was a lover. Beautiful now. 

“She’s actually the reason why I’m taking the last trip.”

Sapnap furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?” 

“She… died last month.” Karl drops.

A long pause.

“Oh,” Sapnap breathes when it finally sinks in. Death is not rare in their point of history, with the population decimated to barely 0.000231% of humanity left, but somehow the news somehow still shocks Sapnap. “I’m sorry, Karl.” he sympathizes.

“No, it’s fine,” Karl shakes his head, a sad smile on his lips, “well, it isn’t actually, but she’s suffered long enough that I like to think it was the best for her to not… wake up in this icy hellhole anymore. At least, that’s what I tell myself in order to cope.”

Sapnap purses his lips.

“She had the Cold,” Karl confides. “And she was old, so even if I tried to convince her to come aboard, she said ‘No’ no matter how many times I asked her. I started asking since the second voyage; she never said ‘Yes’ once. Said she’d like to die where she came from.”

Karl takes a deep breath.

“And I just— I just couldn’t leave her alone, you know? Like Andy to you, she’s all I’ve got. Used to.” Karl hugs himself closer, making himself appear smaller, more vulnerable. Sapnap resists the urge to put his arms around him and pull him to his chest.

“You know, she’d ask me ‘how’s your day?’ every single day and she would require me to tell her all about it, even the most mundane things. She would listen to every stupid thing I retell her. I could tell her anything.” Karl smiles softly. “I think that’s my favorite thing about her. How she’s my best friend.”

“Is that… Is that what you were doing earlier? On your phone?” Sapnap asks tentatively.

Karl nods. “Yeah, I was journaling. Typing what happened today. It’s a habit I can’t seem to break even if she’s…” He trails off.

“She’ll like it.” Sapnap says confidently. “That you still think of her.”

Karl gives him a tight smile at that. “I hope so. I hope that she’s happy wherever she is.”

“She misses you, you know?” Karl turns to Sapnap. “Because of the symptoms, sometimes she forgets the concept of time and she would ask me if I just got home from school, as in middle school, and ask me if you were out waiting in the backyard, waiting for me to get changed so we could head to the old train station.”

The specific memory resurfaces beneath Sapnap’s eyelids, remembering the scent of rusty railroad tracks and spray paint as if it’s at the tip of his nose. 

“I never knew what to tell her.” Karl laughs to himself. And then he adds as an afterthought, “I miss her laugh the most.”

“I’ve always thought that she laughs like you,” Sapnap admits, “or that you laugh like her, whichever came first.”

His words make Karl giggle lightly.

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. But when I used to come over and hear you guys just talk the way you do, I just— I thought it was nice. I liked hearing it more than the shouting in my house.”

Karl nods at that. If anyone knew about Sapnap’s family, it was Karl.

They turn quiet for a few minutes, basking in the sea of memories that Sapnap knows they both share. It’s odd, drowning with a stranger.

“How about Andy?” Karl then asks.

“Hm?” Sapnap prompts.

“What’s her mom like?”

Sapnap thinks about it for a while.

“Bright.” is what he settles for saying. Karl looks at him in honest curiosity, as if urging him to continue.

Sapnap does. “She was bright. Her laugh was this weird kind of snort, but it’s really contagious so you’d laugh along with her.” The ghost of her laugh echoes in Sapnap’s ears.

“She was kind. Warm.”

Closing his eyes shut, Sapnap ignores how in all of those words, Andy’s mother isn’t the first person that comes to mind. When he opens his eyes again and Karl’s steady gaze is on his’, he tries to ignore it better. 

“Anna.” Sapnap introduces. “I met her in my office, back when I used to work a nine-to-five as an analyst. She was the secretary and she would always bring me coffee even though we weren’t on the same floor. She kept flirting with me and at some point, I guess I did, too.” Sapnap doesn’t tell Karl that he did it to forget him. 

Karl is staring at him, but it’s too dark to discern the expression on his face.

“And then there was a company party and we were tipsy and I took her home. It was consensual, of course, but I— I never knew something came about that night. She never told me and I never noticed because she didn’t go to work the next week and then timingly the heat death lockdown happened and the temperature started dropping and ships started to be made and depart and with the world ending and everything, I guess I just kinda forgot.” Sapnap explains as Karl listens without interruption.

“After eight years, she suddenly showed up in front of my door, dying. She had the Cold, too. Behind her was a kid I never saw before. But the kid’s eyes,” Sapnap remembers it like it was yesterday, “It felt— It felt like I was looking at a mirror. So I knew. I knew she was mine.”

Sapnap’s gaze moves to his daughter, seeing that she had turned over in her sleep. 

“Her mom died a week later. That was two months ago. I still don’t know how Andy coped because she doesn’t ever mention her mom to me. I don’t even know if she remembers her. If her mind just chose to forget instead of dealing with trauma, you know?”

Sapnap sighs. “But if she ever does remember her, or mention it, or look for her mother at some point, I don’t know what I’d tell her. She has me, that much I’m sure of. I just hope that would be enough for her.” 

“Andy loves you.” Karl assures him, voice dripping of sincerity, eyes on equal par.

Sapnap smiles at his words. “I know,” he says, “She reminds me every day.”

“She’s been raised wonderfully. Her mom did a great job.” 

“She did.” Sapnap acknowledges, “I just wish I could have known earlier.”

“Why?”

“So that I could have tried to be a better father. So that she could have had a father.” Sapnap answers vaguely, uncertain if Karl gets it. But Karl nods, and then he’s shaking his head.

“You are her father. And I can see that you’re doing a great job at it.”

Sapnap says nothing after that. He wishes to believe it. Because with Andy, he doesn’t know if he’s enough.

As if he’s been considering whether to do it or not, Karl then asks him hesitantly, “Did you love her?”

His voice is low, tone cautious, vulnerable eyes looking somewhere else. By then, Sapnap knows Karl is talking about Andy’s mother.

Sapnap thinks about it for a while. How bright she was. How selfless. How kind. How warm. And then, he looks back at Karl.

“She wasn’t you.” Sapnap breathes. 

He thinks about it. How bright Karl is. How selfless, how kind, how warm. He thinks about the striking similarities and apparent differences between them and thinks: she wasn’t you.

Regardless of which way Karl had interpreted it, he seems content with Sapnap’s answer as he just sighs softly to himself. Sapnap doesn’t know when the distance between them lessened, but when Karl leans his head sideways on his crossed arms, his curled ebony hair tickles the exposed part of Sapnap’s forearms from where it’s perched on top of his knees.

It seems like the battery from the flashlight had run out because their improvised lamp had dimmed down, overlaying the air with more darkness than ever.

And then, Karl gasps softly. “Oh,” He shifts, legs unfolding in front of him as he rummages through his bag behind him before he’s pulling out a handful of long, thin objects and showing them to Sapnap. “Look what I found behind the register earlier.”

Sapnap squints his eyes, unable to tell what they are in the dark. 

Fetching his phone from his pocket, he wakes it and the dim light it gives is enough for Sapnap to finally identify what it was.

“Are those…?” 

“Firecrackers, yeah.” Karl grins. “I have no idea what firecrackers are doing in an abandoned gas station but when I saw them, it reminded me of back then.”

Sapnap grins back. “Yeah?” The sight of the long, red rods with printed paper decorating the handle brings Sapnap back to a distant memory of two dumb teenagers sneaking into their old school’s rooftop and watching the lit firecrackers burn and dissipate into the night sky.

“Wanna light it up?” Karl asks, a huge smile plastered on his face.

Sapnap’s eyes widen at the offer. “Are you serious?”

Karl shrugs. “Yeah, why not? It’ll be fun.”

Sapnap blinks. “We’re not kids anymore, Karl.”

"We were, once.” Karl murmurs.

Ah.

Sapnap stares at him for a few beats, at Karl’s youthful expression and then he’s sighing, cursing under his breath. “Alright, fuck it, come on. Let’s be quick.”

Karl beams at him widely.

After ensuring that Andy is asleep and warm, they shrug on their coats and put on their gloves, their quiet, hurried whispers going back and forth as they brave the cold once they’re outside of the convenience store. They cross the icy road carefully with their phones’ flashlights guiding the way and when they think they’re a safe distance away from the gas pump, Sapnap pulls out a lighter from his back pocket.

It flickers twice before dying out, but with the help of both their bodies blocking off the wind, they successfully manage to light up the firecrackers.

A small spark, but then after three long seconds of Sapnap starting to feel the cold seep in his fingers, the smell of charcoal and sulfur hits his nose, grey smoke illuminated by the thin, yellow, blazing tendrils flying off the burning stick.

Karl laughs, voice echoing into the dead of the night as he brings his hand up, drawing loose eights with the fluid flick of his wrist. Sapnap does the same, grinning at the nostalgic sight. 

The firecrackers last for no longer than thirty seconds so they ignite a couple again, and again, and again until they have two left. 

When they light up the last ones, hand raised above their heads, it’s then that Karl speaks up, a soft smile on his face as his eyes shine bright, looking at the sparks flying around in quiet adoration.

“They’re still pretty like how I remember them to be,” Karl confesses.

Sapnap inhales. “Yeah,” he exhales, eyes on Karl. “Still are.”

Karl laughs, unaware, voice full of tireless youth as if youth wasn't two decades ago, as if the sun isn't getting farther away, as if the world isn't dying. Like this, Sapnap thinks he's beautiful. 

"Okay well, we are literally going to freeze our ass off so I suggest we go back." Sapnap mutters after a few seconds, teeth already chattering from the cold. 

Karl agrees easily and when they've covered the spent firecrackers in snow to assure that it won't burn anymore and spark an accident in an old gas station, they head back.

Sapnap suggests Karl to at least take a nap before they have to get going a couple of hours from now and Karl tells him he should do the same. Proceedingly, Sapnap then offers to drive the next morning to the airport and to the launch pad, to make up for the bother Sapnap had caused Karl.

"Stop feeling like you owe me, I'm glad to help." Karl chides. 

"Stop shouldering everything, I'd be glad to help." Sapnap chides back, using the other's words against him. "I'll let you drive the next time we go on a road trip, just let me do it tomorrow."

With that, it's settled, a whispered agreement that Sapnap would drive the remaining parts of their time on the road. After setting up an alarm, Sapnap watches Andy sleep peacefully and then Karl who seems to be already dozing off to dreamland. Sapnap places a light but protective arm over his daughter, pulling her closer subconsciously before he's finally allowing himself to sleep. 

It's warm.

The sound of three pairs of boots clacks across the hard tiled floors, echoing in the vast, empty space of the airport.

It's void and barren, like every other place is, that even a minuscule sigh would resound across the unmoving escalators and ramps decorating the intricacies of the huge place that should be accomodating thousands of people on a daily basis. Yet, there is no one here. 

In all likelihood, it’s definitely not frequented by anyone recently judging from the decaying roots and dead algae that crept from the ground up to the broken glass roof refracting dim sunlight that illuminates the architecture. The wind howls, creating a haunting cacophony with the small drops of water dripping from the large icicles down to the pooling puddle of water that sloshes beneath their feet when they've reached the sunken part of the flooring. 

Kenopsia is an ancient word Karl had learned a long time ago. If anything, this is probably it.

The morning provides some sort of comfort to the trio because if they would have gone here at night, it would definitely be terrifying.

Sapnap, as per agreement, drove all the way here, to which Karl begrudgingly just ended up accepting. He couldn't sleep well the night before, plagued with Sapnap's words and everything else that they've talked about. Admittedly, he's confused about everything but his head primarily swirls around the phrase next time .

"Alright, change of plans." Sapnap turns around decidedly, making Karl and Andy stop in their tracks. 

"What?" They both said. 

"See those icicles?" Sapnap points at the large pointy things in the far ceiling, the ones Karl had looked at accusingly earlier.

"That side of the airport is where the Ticket Station is and I doubt that the icicles would fall but I don't want to risk it. I suggest you guys go back to the car and I'll just go alone."

"What? No!" Karl and Andy say at the same time again. 

"Okay, stop being in sync, that creeps me out more." Sapnap tries to joke but it falls on deaf ears.

"Nick, you aren't going alone." Karl defies.

"Karl, it's the safer option. Less footsteps means less echo means less vibration means less risk of the ice breaking and falling." Sapnap explains. "Can you just watch Andy for me?"

Karl sighs out of frustration, about to argue, but he sees the assuring expression on Sapnap's face, making him sigh again. This time out of resignation. 

"Alright, that makes sense. Are you sure you wanna go alone?" 

"Yes, you said it's easy to get tickets, right?" 

Karl nods. "Yes, just hand them your legal IDs and they should give you the free tickets reserved for everyone with no problem." 

Karl reaffirms, remembering the process he did just a few days ago. He claimed his' from the city but he doubts it's any different in another Station.

"Alright, so I'll be quick. Go back to the car before Andy gets cold." Sapnap advises which earns a nod from Karl, as he watches Sapnap pull out a passport (presumably his) and a school ID  (presumably Andy’s) as if to check before pocketing them once again, patting them twice for good measure. "Call me when anything happens, okay?" 

Huh , Karl thinks offhandedly. It's been years since their last phone call. Instead of saying that and being uncertain of the reaction he'll receive, he opted for nodding. 

"Okay," Karl agrees, "You too."

"What?" Sapnap had the confidence to give him a teasing grin. 

With a roll of his eyes and a light punch to Sapnap's shoulder, Karl says, "Call me when anything happens too, idiot. Just take care and don't slip or something."

Sapnap grins. "Tell me something I don't know."

Karl can't help but bite his bottom lip at the sudden burst of nostalgia spreading through his system at the sound of the familiar line.

I love you.

Tell me something I don't know.

"Just go. We'll wait for you in the car." Karl dismisses, shaking his head to himself. 

Sapnap gives him a final salute after he kisses the top of Andy's head, whispering a quiet I love you to her out of habit and giving her a few quiet instructions to which his daughter had solemnly nodded.

With a quick worried glance back to where Sapnap was headed, Karl averts his eyes and coaxes Andy gently by the hand, taking them back to the warm comfort of his car.

They wait for Sapnap in patient agony, with Karl seated at the driver's seat and Andy on shotgun again, the vehicle facing the entrance of the airport so they could immediately see when Sapnap comes back.

It's after half an hour of showing Andy pictures Karl has on his phone and telling her random stories to which she surprisingly pays attention that the airport entrance doors finally open again. 

The sight of Sapnap finally coming out of the wretched place assures Karl to no end and evident on the bright grin Andy has on her face, Karl is certain that Sapnap’s daughter shares the sentiment regardless if she understood the gravity of the situation or not. 

When Sapnap reaches the car, he opens the door to the front seat, with Andy immediately standing up and squeezing her way towards the back over the console. The car falls into suspended anticipation, the roaring wind suddenly stopping when Sapnap pulls the door shut. 

The silence doesn’t last for long because Karl is turning to Sapnap in unbridled, giddy expectation, eyes flitting all over the man. 

“Did you get it?” He asks, gaze landing on the familiar sight firm on Sapnap’s hands.

Sapnap gives him a tight smile. “Yep.” he answers, waving the small card holder in his hands that Karl knows holds their trip tickets, pretty much identical to the folded piece of hard leather that sits inside Karl’s coat pocket. 

“What took so long, then?” Karl inquires, already starting the ignition. 

Sapnap is silent for a while. And then, he’s shrugging, as if he’s trying hard to make it look nonchalant. “Line was long.”

Surprised, Karl’s eyebrows raise at that. “There’s a line?”

“Yeah, they came through from the other gates. Come on, let’s switch seats and I’ll drive us to the launch pad.” Sapnap declares decisively.

The considering stare Karl gives Sapnap is unwarranted but deserved all the same, inciting a curious look of confusion from Karl himself. 

“Are you sure? I have no problem driving the rest of the way.” Karl observes, in lieu of the words he actually wanted to say. He would have said more but he can’t quite place a definition of what he’s seeing yet to put them into verbatim.

“No, it’s just—” Sapnap starts and it frightens Karl how he can’t read the expression in the other’s face right now. He can see how Sapnap’s once youthful face is inevitably etched with age, jaw more defined than ever, light beard framing his rugged but still handsome features, the bags under his eyes seemingly heavier than it was the night before. 

But no, there is not a trace of emotion painting his face right now, void of any expression. It sparks a tiny flame of frustration within Karl but then Sapnap is shaking his head lightly, allowing a small smile to grace his lips. 

“I’m just cold.” He reasons, “And I heard that there’s hot chocolate in the takeoff campsite so we better hurry before they run out.”

Defeatedly, Karl just smiles right back. After switching seats and revving the car again, with Sapnap in the driver’s seat, Karl decidingly sat at the back with Andy, they are travelling on the road again.

The thing with the sun getting farther away is that it means the days are getting shorter. Approximate twelve hours a day means that everything is already half-swallowed by darkness when the first sight of the huge ship in the far horizon — for now it’s nothing more than a tiny speck in the distance — enters their field of vision.

It’s been silent in the car the entire three hour drive, with Andy’s sleeping form curled around the entirety of the back seat, her head on top of Karl’s lap, but Karl feels something unidentifiable stir in his chest at the surprisingly tense quiet. 

The stirring intensifies when the first car zooms past them. And then a second one, and then another, and before he knew it, the huge ship looms in front of them and they’re caught in traffic.

Traffic.

The disbelieving laugh tumbles out of him even before he gets the chance to stop it.

With Andy shifting slightly, Sapnap spares him a curious look thrown into the rearview mirror. Karl shakes his head dismissively, hand clamping his mouth shut so as to not wake the sleeping child leaning on to him. 

“Sorry, I just think it’s funny that we’re literally caught in traffic right now.” Karl’s statement is punctuated by silent giggles. Through the mirror, Karl sees that there is a small smile on Sapnap’s lips. 

“You don’t see anyone for miles and suddenly we’re all here.” Sapnap retorts. “I guess it’s just human nature to hustle.”

Red lights and loud honks blare through Karl’s visual and auditory senses, a displeasing dissonance permeating through the cold air that would cause anyone a headache, but Karl takes it in in desperate longing. 

Everything now is so alive . 

He realizes he craves the undeniable rush of discordant coexistence, and it’s in moments like this that he understands why, even though he probably can’t put it into coherent words. 

The launch pad is huge, three spacious football arenas built around a massive ship made of dark aluminium, titanium and solidified carbon frames, its vastness nothing short of a breathtaking sight to see.

Contradictorily, with uniforms of pristine white bodysuits, the ship's staff litter the place like snow specks spread out in random throughout the heightening number of people.

It's loud, if anything. 

Chattering of thousands of people in a condensed location, even though it's an open-roofed arena, is not something one should underestimate when it comes to the level of noise it could create. Everything is so loud, like a night market's white noise but exponentially multiplied and played on top of each other all at the same time, and Karl who typically hates crowded places when he was young realizes that somehow at the back of his mind he had been craving sonder.

A waiting lounge, if Karl were to put it in simple terms, as he tried to take in everything in his line of vision and beyond. They went to Arena C, sitted adjacently from Arena A and Arena B, to which all the newly arrived had been guided towards. 

Belatedly, Karl realizes they should have expected this — the amount of people here, seeing as it's the last trip.The last trip means these thousands of people are probably the last of humanity. 

The open space in the middle of the arena is lined with hundreds of food stalls and medical booths, staff manning the counters handing people warm food and drinks and blankets. People then settle on the thousands of plastic chairs in the elevating outline of the center, thermal heaters placed methodically in intervals on the stairs to keep people from the cold.

It's literally heaven on Earth and Karl can't help the excited squeal he lets out as he pulls Andy along to try out the stuff Karl guesses she's never tried before.

They go around the booths in giddy indulgence, eating delicacies from around the world in paper plates and plastic forks, hot chocolate in styrofoam cups, as Sapnap trails behind them, probably watching them with a small smile.

When Karl and Andy are full and sated, they've taken to finding seats in the bleachers with the purpose of settling down before takeoff.

They found a place on the second to the top floor, significantly less crowded but more prone to the random burst of cold wind surging from outside the open arena. It's beside the large heater though so it's not too much of a bother. Seated beside them is a family of three, two fathers speaking within themselves as their child quietly plays with a small toy in between them. 

Bad and Skeppy are how the fathers introduce themselves when Karl approaches them conversationally. Calla is the name of their son, a quiet little kid that gives Andy a hostile stare when she tries to talk to him. 

They are good people, as Karl begins to learn, telling stories of what they used to be before the heat death (they used to run a bakery together) and how they came from the south, having been here for days now so as to avoid missing the ship. Their kid, as all people seemingly do, inevitably warms up to Andy and he lets her borrow a small airplane and they play with the tiny pieces of plastic as Andy makes up a story and Calla makes random quiet noises as if to imitate the mini vehicles.

And before they knew it, it was almost time for takeoff. A loud static sounds from the speakers all around the arena, and then a  monotonous female voice is permeating through the air.

" Good evening, everyone. We have T-minus 90 minutes before ship lockdown and takeoff. You are allowed to board the ship now and explore for this will be your new home in the indefinite future. Ticket admissions are open on entrances A1 to A16 so please fall in line in an orderly manner. You are advised to not bring anything but yourselves to the ship, seeing as we cannot afford any unnecessary weight. You will be provided inside with everything you need so everything you carry to the entrance will be asked to be dropped off. Thank you for your compliance. This is Ship Sixteenth EVF, your new home. Welcome aboard!"

Excited whoops fill the atmosphere and a lot of people are already heading to the ship for admittance.

"Shall we go?" Bad asks them politely, already standing up.

Karl was about to give confirmation when Sapnap suddenly spoke.

"Let's…" When he clears his throat, Karl realized then that Sapnap hasn't spoken the entire time that they've been seated there. Maybe even earlier, when they've just arrived in the launch pad.

"Let's stay back for a while." Sapnap says, looking at Karl and Andy, before giving an apologetic smile towards Bad and his family. "You can go ahead," he says to them. "I'm not yet ready to say goodbye." 

"Oh!" Bad claps his hands at that as if in realization before settling back into his seat. "It's alright. I get it. It's our last day on Earth, it is hard to say goodbye to the only place we've ever known. We can stay with you guys, right Skeppy?" 

His husband shrugs, kind eyes directed towards Sapnap. "Sure. I get it as well. Not once in my life have I ever imagined I'd leave Earth behind." 

With a grateful heart, Karl smiles at them before giving a quick worried glance at Sapnap. He understands though, the tragedy of leaving, so he just grips Sapnap's forearm softly as a silent form of comfort to which Sapnap gives him a gentle grin in return.

It's when Sapnap declines Karl's offers to board the ship three times that Karl begins to worry.

" T-minus 60 minutes before ship lockdown and takeoff. Please head to the nearest entrance for admittance."

"I'm not ready yet." is what Sapnap says as he stares towards the middle of the arena, the people lessening and lessening.

" T-minus 45 minutes before ship lockdown and takeoff. Please head to the nearest entrance for admittance." 

"Just a little bit more." he reasons, eyes on the huge ship.

"T-minus 30 minutes before ship lockdown and takeoff. We advise you to head to the nearest entrance for admittance."

" Not yet," he pleads.

"T-minus 15 minutes before ship lockdown and takeoff."

The arena is empty now. Bad and Skeppy are talking amidst themselves, but the subtle concerned glances they keep throwing Sapnap is not unnoticed by Karl. 

"Nick," he calls, "I think we should go now."

Surprisingly, Sapnap nods. "Alright." 

They leave behind their backpacks, pocketing only their IDs and tickets before they're heading towards the ship. 

A long ramp spans a few meters from the cold hard dirt all the way towards the pristine entrance. Bright blue lights line the sign A15, two guards in the same white bodysuit accepting a short queue of passengers. Karl can see that they stamp both the tickets and the passengers' wrist before allowing them inside, light conversation flitting in between. He can't hear them but he assumes they're talking about the planet, seeing as the woman had gestured towards the snowy wasteland. 

"I don't think there'd be swimming pools in there, Skeppy." Karl replies teasingly towards the man, as they all walk towards the ramp ten minutes before takeoff.

Bad laughs, scolding his husband playfully as Calla plays with his hair from where the child is perched on his father's arms.

"Hey Andy," Karl hears Sapnap call. "Would you mind going with Bad just for the ramp? I just have a little something to talk about with Karl."

"Okay, daddy! But be quick please!" Andy requests, giggling when Sapnap boops her nose and kisses her affectionately on the cheeks.

"Of course, baby." 

Karl watches her run off to Bad, who brushes her hair out of her face fondly, before he places Calla down, letting them play among themselves. Bad and Skeppy gives them worried glances to which Karl returns with a weary smile. He's confused with Sapnap’s sudden change of demeanor today. 

Sapnap, on the other hand, is nervous. His hands had started shaking when they walked the stairs down the arena and even throughout the short walk to the ship, they hadn't stopped feeling so frail in the small pockets of his winter coat.

“What’s this about, Nick? Can’t this wait until we’re inside?” Karl asks him once they were face to face, a few distance away from their new friends. 

“It can’t.” Sapnap admits quietly, willing his voice not to shake.

Karl’s expression falls. “Why?” 

“Anna,” Sapnap starts, trying to sort his thoughts and find the words he had been mulling over since coming from the airport. “She didn’t sign up.” He says.

“What?” Karl’s expression is unreadable.

Sapnap gulps. “In the Station earlier, when it was my turn, they told me that every child born after the year 8980 is unaccounted for which means that they should be signed up for board accommodation the moment they were born.”

“I don’t…” Karl trails off.

A cold blast of wind then hollows the space between them, piercing through the silence Sapnap does not necessarily want to fill. When it subsides, he finally drops the truth. “Andy’s name wasn’t on the list.” His voice breaks. “I only have one ticket.”

“What?” Karl’s voice is merely a whisper. 

“I didn't tell you everything last night.” Sapnap confesses, eyes everywhere but on Karl’s. He doesn’t want to see his expression. He’ll break. 

“Before she died— before Anna died, she told me she wanted to… drop Andy.” Sapnap grits his teeth. “That she didn’t really want the child to begin with. But then when she saw Andy’s face the first time, Anna said she reminded her of me. That she realized Andrea was the only thing that was truly ever hers of mine.” He raises his eyes to meet Karl’s. “Because she knew my heart already belonged to someone else.”

The unspoken implication tumbles between them and falls into the bottomless ravine of every other unsaid thing that has strained their relationship, or what it was once.

“So she raised her as her own. I’m guessing if she didn’t fall sick, she would never have told me.” Sapnap continues bitterly. 

Karl is quiet.

“If…” he then says after a few beats, “If Anna loved Andy, why did she never sign her up?”

Knuckles turning white, Sapnap shrugs stiffly. “I don’t know, Karl.” He wipes a frustrated hand over his face, willing his tears to stay back. “I don’t know. The point is, she’s gone and there’s no point asking. What’s up is that I have a ticket,” Sapnap feels something warm travel down his cheek. “And Andy doesn’t.”

Shaking his head in rapid motion, Karl’s equally shaking hand grips Sapnap’s wrist desperately, pulling. “No, no, come on, Nick, there must be something, right? Did you ask them for an extra? If not, we can talk to the staff. We can- We can plead! Andy is small, she can fit in your bunker. If not, she can fit in mine.” 

Sapnap closes his eyes, ridding himself of the sight of Karl looking so achingly broken. 

There’s no point. Everyone should be accounted for. Sapnap thinks. Instead he says, “Do you know why we were late to the shuttle yesterday, Karl?”

“I—” Sapnap hears Karl say, “You told me something came up.”

“It was because of me.” Sapnap takes a deep breath.  “I told you I don’t know where I’d be if not for Andy, right? That was a lie. I know where I’d be.” Sapnap opens his eyes, knowing full well it bleeds of vulnerability.

“At home. Waiting for death to come.”

Observantly, Karl’s mouth opens but no words come out. Sapnap takes the chance to continue.

“Before Andy came into my life, I never wanted to leave in the first place. ‘If this is how it ends, so be it.’ was what I thought. I never wanted to board the ship.” Sapnap confesses. “I never wanted to board the ship until yesterday morning.”

“Because,” Sapnap’s voice breaks, “Because I love Andy. I really, really do, even though I’ve only known her for a couple of months. She’s everything to me. And I couldn't do that to her, to live her life with a hopeless father. I want to give her everything she deserves and more. And so, I was going to wait for death on my ratted couch, rotting away with replays of old shows until they can’t function anymore in the cold and I die along with it, but then a news program interrupted my show saying it’s the last trip on Earth and that we’re headed to a new home. A new home , was what the news anchor said. A new home for Andy. Anywhere was better than here. So, that same exact morning, yesterday, I packed our bags and put her on the thickest coat and I ran towards the shuttle.”

“We were late and I was about to give up, but then your car pulled up beside me and I didn’t know what to feel. I’ve given up on you. I was so close to giving up on Andy. But it’s like the universe said No. No, here’s your chance. Take it. So I did. And then this . But I know what I have to do, Karl.” Sapnap breathes in. His hands stopped shaking, because he had long accepted his fate the moment he stepped out of the airport.

“What do you have to do?” Karl asks, tentative, words spitted out as if he didn’t really want to ask them in the first place.

“I told you I’d do anything for Andy. That wasn’t a lie.”

“What are you saying?”

Sapnap gives Karl a gentle smile, and then he’s taking a step, and another, and another, until their faces are barely a feet apart. A hand goes up to cup Karl’s cheek, warm and splayed and encompassing, clearing the tears that have stained his cold, reddened skin. When Sapnap takes a huge breath and releases it, he’s certain Karl feels it.

With tender eyes unmoving from Karl’s gaze, Sapnap brings his free hand to hold Karl’s, intertwining their fingers together. 

“You know I still haven’t forgiven you for breaking your promise.” Sapnap murmurs.

Karl’s lips wobble, expression breaking further. Fresh, silent tears etch their bitter path down his face, inconsolable even if Sapnap makes an effort to clear them away.

“Nick,” Karl’s voice is frail and watery. “What are you saying ?”

Taking a deep breath, Sapnap tilts his head, bringing his face forward. His eyes ask a silent question, and when Karl mutely nods, he brings their lips together softly. Unbridled tears meet at clashing cheeks, hearts syncing after being dissonant for decades, both humming the same, familiar, and nostalgic tune, baring the cold of a dying universe. 

When their lips separate, Sapnap lays their foreheads together. 

“Make it up to me, Karl.” He whispers. “Promise me this.” 

And then he’s letting go of Karl’s face and pulling the cardholder that contains the single ticket out of his coat pocket, placing it firmly on the palm of Karl’s hands. With a quick glance at Andy who’s mutedly laughing with Calla in the distance, Sapnap takes his eyes back to Karl, sincerity dripping from his expression, heart about to burst at the seams in sheer earnesty.

He whispers, “Take her to the moon for me.”

Karl breaks. 

His sobs are quiet, but puncturing nonetheless, gaze moving from Sapnap towards the small piece of folded hard leather in his fingers. He grips it tight, biting his lips before he’s nodding as confirmation towards Sapnap. 

“Hey, baby, hi.” Sapnap greets when he kneels down in front of Andy, him and Karl having walked the ramp in silent despair,  just a few feet away from the ship entrance. 

“Hi, daddy! Did you and Karl fight?” Andy questions, eyes flitting to Karl who is quietly crying as he comes to stand in front of Bad and Skeppy and Calla. When Karl shows the two adults what’s inside the cardholder, silent understanding settles on their faces, and the startled sob Bad lets out gets swallowed back down when he covers his mouth with a hand, turning away from Andy’s confused stare.

“What?” Sapnap follows Andy’s gaze, heart aching at the sight, before he’s holding Andy by the shoulders and making her turn back to him. “No, of course not.”

“Then why is Karl crying?”

“He just got something in his eyes, that’s all.”  Sapnap lies. “Hey, Andy, I need you to do something for me, okay?” Sapnap starts, the patient curve of his lips falling by the second. 

“I’d like to use my favor now.” He declares.

His daughter beams wide at this. 

“Really?” She smiles brightly. Sapnap’s heart aches. Maybe this is the last time he’ll see his daughter smile.

“What is it, daddy?” She asks excitedly.

“I want you to go inside with Karl, okay? I just…” He inhales heavily, plastering on a convincing smile, “Daddy just forgot something at home. You know Luna?”

Andy nods giddy at this. Sapnap nods back.

“Daddy will just come back to get her.”

Tilting her head, Andy looks confused at her father’s words. “Why?  I thought we couldn’t come back for her?” She asks.

Sapnap bites his tongue. “Well, I don’t want you to be lonely.”

Andy shakes her head. “But I’m not lonely?” She says decidedly, before she’s laughing softly, small hands booping Sapnap’s nose as an imitation to her father’s habit when he’s scolding her lightly. “I’m not lonely, Daddy.” She reassures him, as if Sapnap is being silly. “I have you, right?”

“Yeah,” Sapnap’s voice breaks before pulling Andy to his chest so she can’t see the tears spilling freely from his eyes. “Of course. You’ll always have me.”

Sneakily, he wipes the tears on his cheeks, and pulls away to lean down to his daughter’s eye level. “But I want to take her with us so she’s not lonely. I’ll be quick, okay?” Sapnap smiles convincingly. “Hmm, I’ll be back before you can even say the word ‘complicated’, how about that?”

Andy opens her mouth as if to try, but Sapnap places a gentle finger on top of her lips. “Well, don’t say it now.” Sapnap teases.

His daughter giggles innocently before nodding. “Okay, daddy! But be quick please!”

"Of course, baby." Sapnap nods back, a mirror to their earlier conversation, and then his eyes meet Karl’s. He withdraws a deep breath, taking Andy’s small hands in his’ tightly.

“So stay with Karl for a while. Hold his hand, don’t let him leave your sight. He’s a sneaky one, so watch him for me too, yeah?” Sapnap kids lightheartedly. Karl rolls his eyes playfully but his slight chuckle is watery.

Sapnap turns back to Andy. “He’ll take care of you for the time being, so be nice to him, okay?” 

Andy pouts. “I like Karl.” 

Sapnap smiles. “Me too, baby. Me too.”

“ T-minus sixty seconds before ship lockdown. Please take a seat and fasten your seatbelts. We will have a total of 180 seconds before takeoff. It is advised that you stay in your seats until we have safely exited Earth’s atmosphere. I repeat, we will have a total of…”

The resounding female voice echoes all around the vicinity and Karl sees Sapnap close his eyes at their final reminder. 

Placing one final kiss in the middle of Andy’s forehead, Sapnap whispers, “I love you.” 

Andy ignorantly beams — too young to understand the concept of leaving yet — and hugs his father tightly. “I love you, too! Hurry up, daddy, we’re going to the moon!” 

“That we are.” Sapnap smiles for the last time.

Karl takes Andy’s hand and proceeds to the entrance, all five of them handing their tickets and feeling the solid press of the stamp marking their wrists. The ship goes into lockdown, the entrance doors closing and Andy innocently waves a lonely hand towards Sapnap on the other side. 

“See you later, daddy!” 

The doors close.

Karl feels like throwing up.

They get shown around the ship and its vicinity right after it was safe to walk around. The quarters are nice, bunk beds and fresh linen clothes in thousands of rooms littering systematic hives. The ship is huge, farther than Karl had been allowed to explore yet, the main hub a wide open space that contains almost all of the passengers as the huge screen on the far wall shows them the live preview of where they currently are. 

They have successfully exited Earth’s atmosphere by now. A few minutes and they'll get past the moon.

Karl feels numb. He goes through the entire process with empty eyes, not speaking even if spoken to by Bad and Skeppy, nor anyone else that tries to make conversation. His gaze moves to Andy constantly though, who is playing with Calla, along with a few other kids that are on the ship. 

Staring at the empty galaxy, Karl looks at the Earth in this distance. Far. Separate. Dead. Vaguely, he wonders if Sapnap is cold. 

Sapnap. 

After fifteen minutes — or maybe fifteen hours, Karl isn’t really sure — Andy approaches him.

“Karl?” She calls.

“Yes, Andy?” He answers.

“Where’s daddy?”

“He told you he’d get Luna, right?” Karl affirms.

Andy nods. And then, after a few beats, she asks again. “Karl, where’s daddy?”

Karl remains quiet.

Andy’s eyebrows furrow. “Karl?” She says after a while, standing innocently in front of Karl, as Karl sits on one of the benches around the hub. He can’t feel his legs. He can’t even feel his hands, even when he tries to grasp something to ground him. He feels like he’s floating, despite the fact that he actually is. Numb. He feels numb.

“Yes, Andy?” He answers again.

“Complicated.” She says simply. “Where’s daddy?”

The tears resurface. Karl is silent.

“Karl, where’s- where’s daddy?” She’s taken to holding his hands, but Karl is staring uselessly at her breaking expression.

“Karl- Karl, I said- I was able to say somp- sompil-” She shakes her head,  frustrated. “Karl, daddy told me he’d be back before I can say that.” She says desperately, slurring over her words. “Karl, where’s daddy?”

They are making a scene. A crowd gathers, as their eyes look at the little child in pity, and to Karl are accusing looks. Karl ignores them.

When Karl doesn’t answer, Andy turns around to the people surrounding them. 

“Does- does anyone know where my daddy is? He’s not- he’s not here. I think we left him behind. Can we go back and-” she hiccups, “can we go back and find him?”

“Please.” 

“Hello? Anyone, please. Can you— can we— please, my daddy, he’s alone. What if he’s alone, please. What if he’s cold because— because I’m not holding his hand? He told me he feels warm when he holds my hand.”

“Please, can we go back?”

A staff member approaches them, and perhaps upon a quick scan of the scene, he realizes Karl is the adult in charge, because he approaches him and tries to talk. Karl doesn’t even get to hear the staff’s words, ears muffled, too focused on Andy breaking down and too numb to do anything to stop it and assure her and hug her and tell her everything is going to be alright. 

He knows it isn’t true. 

He knows that Sapnap is gone. 

He’s left alone on Earth because there’s only one ticket left for him and his daughter and he loves his daughter and he saved his daughter and Karl did nothing to help him. Karl did nothing to help him.

Suddenly, Karl’s phone rings.

Everything turns quiet except the ringtone blasting from his pocket. With shaking hands, he fetches the device. A contact name he never thought would reach out to him again flashes on his screen.

Nick .

He stares at it for a while. It stares back.

Then, he swipes right.

A crackle of a sigh, then the sight of the inside of a dimly lit car.

“ God, I thought you changed your number.” Sapnap’s voice rings through the quiet ship, his sentence punctuated with a relieved laugh.

“Nick.” is all that Karl manages to say.

“ Hey, Karl,” his grin is visible in the video feedback. “ Where’s Andy?”

“Andy.” Karl calls and within a second, the child is beside him, grabbing the phone from his hands.

“Daddy!” Andy shouts. 

Sapnap smiles widely at the sight of his daughter. “ Hey, baby.” He greets.

“ How’s the ship? I’m on the way to Luna right now. I was gonna call when I have her here but I don’t think I can reach you when that happens. I’m not sure about reception.” Sapnap jokes offhandedly, his laughter cutting off once from the static.

Andy is still for a while. And then she whispers, “You lied.” Then, louder. “YOU LIED.”

Sapnap is quiet on the other line. 

“Complicated. Complicated. I can say it, daddy. Why are you not here? You lied. Why are you not back yet?” She says accusingly, hands shaking as it struggles to hold the phone up. 

Karl finally turns towards the staff.

“Please,” he doesn’t know what he’s begging for. “Can’t we go back?”

“I’m sorry.” The staff says. 

“It’s just. Just one person, he won’t be a bother. We can share rooms. They can share rooms. We can share food. Anything. Is there not anything we can do?” Karl pleads, hands grabbing the staff’s, but the staff just shakes his head, expression sympathetic.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have the power to do that.”

“Then who does?!” Karl lashes out, feet unstable beneath him as he tries to stand up. “Why is no one doing anything?! He’s out there! Alone on the launchpad, alone on Earth, and we left him and…” Karl sobs. “He’s probably cold.”

“I’m sorry.” The staff uselessly says.

“Please, he’s all I’ve…” Karl swallows. “He’s all she’s got.”

It’s then that Andy throws the phone down the bench, turning to Karl and hugging his legs. 

Karl sits back down, shifting so she’s on his lap protectively, before he’s picking the phone back up again. 

Gulping down the nasty bitter lump at the back of his throat, he braves himself to face Sapnap once more.

“You made her cry again.” He accuses.

Sapnap’s chuckle is frail, shaken by the widening distance between them. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He repeats his own words.

“I hate you.” Karl lies.

Sapnap grins at him. “ I thought you did.”

Karl shakes his head. “This isn’t funny, Nick.”

“Well—” Static echoes once again, and when Sapnap’s voice returns, he sounds more distant than ever. “ Karl, can you — for me?” 

“I—” Karl’s voice breaks, gripping the phone tighter. “I didn’t catch that.”  

“Can you show me Andy?”

Sapnap had told Karl yesterday that when Andy cries, she’s quiet, not letting anyone see her vulnerable. Walls already high up at such a young age. Maybe that’s why Karl feels his heart break a thousand times over when he hears Andy’s quiet sobs. She’s shaking in Karl’s lap, head buried on his shoulder.

When Karl tries to whisper to her about Sapnap’s request, she just buries herself deeper into Karl’s neck, her tears leaving a wet trail on Karl’s skin.

“I don’t think she wants to see you.” Karl says after a while.

A sigh can be heard from the other line. 

“ Can you tell her I’m sorry?” Sapnap requests. “ Can you tell her I’m sorry everyday?”

Karl is quiet, bringing a hand around Andy’s shaking frame and pulling her closer. Karl places his nose on top of her head, breathing in and letting her strawberry shampoo ground him.

“ Andy, I know you’re upset with daddy, but I love you, okay?” Sapnap says, then his eyes move to meet Karl’s. “ Can you tell her that everyday, too?”

He takes a deep breath. “You’re awfully asking a lot from me.” 

That makes Sapnap laugh. “ You’re all she’s got now.”

The staff tentatively makes his way towards Karl. “Hey, I just want to say that we’re past the moon. The signal is about to be gone any second now.” He informs them, voice quiet, but Sapnap hears it.

“ Would you — at that. You — kept your promise.” 

“This is unfair, you know that? You should have been here.”

Sapnap shakes his head. “ I hope she finally knows what warmth is. I hope she finds it in you too like — how - - did before.”

Karl bites his tongue, eyes stinging. “Nick, I can’t… I can’t hear you.”

“ You - - can. You’ve always - — been able to —-. That’s what I — — - about you.”

Static. The screen loads and a breath gets caught in Karl’s throat. No, no, no.

And then Sapnap moves again from the buffer. He’s looking at the screen with a tender expression on his face. “ Karl?” He calls.

“Nick?” Karl desperately calls back. 

“ I haven’t — - you - — last thing.” Sapnap had whispered. His video feedback is blurry now, voice barely comprehensible. 

“What is it?” Karl asks, fingers tight on the device, throat clogging up, vision obscured by the unstoppable tears.

Static. A sigh. Then, the laggy video catches Sapnap’s soft smile. His voice — buggy, distant, far, alone — sounds sincere when he says, “ You’re still as beautiful as ever.”

The line cuts off. 

It’s the third quarter of 9001 and Karl was just about to sleep.

Wild, rampant thoughts intrude his mind though, giving him the inability of finally falling into slumber after his dragging ten-hour shift. Tired would be one way to put it, exhausted would be the word he’d use the next day. Being a surgeon requires patience and for Karl, patience is paperthin except it renews every twelve hours and an ample amount of sleep and caffeine. Expectedly, the surgery went well after he successfully extracted a shrapnel from a staff’s skull due to a minor mishap below deck but it’s not as if Karl’s mind is already tired that it keeps being plagued by unwanted memories.

Admittedly, he knows they were triggered by one of today’s OR’s music playlist. When Chris Martin started singing a familiar tune just as Karl placed the tiny piece of metal on the tray, he bolted out of the room and let his team handle the rest. 

The pillow beneath his head sinks when Karl shifts from his uncomfortable position, huffing in silent frustration when he can’t seem to bring peace into his mind. Inevitably, he sighs and sits up, pulling open the bottom drawer beside his bed in his on-call cabin, fetching the device he hasn’t touched for so long. He clicks home and opens his notes app.

The white background stares at him, the vertical line blinking tauntingly. 

S-

He deletes it. 

I don’t think grief is linear. He writes. 

I remembered you again today. Karl sighs to himself, fingers tapping the screen in bone deep exhaustion. It’s been weeks since I last wrote here and I was actually beginning to feel proud of myself for not thinking about you. But then fucking Everglow started blasting in the OR and I know I had to run because I know how the song goes. We listened to it on the last day, didn’t we? 

Karl heaves a deep breath. To love — he starts typing, but his fingers hover over the keyboard. 

Oddly, he gets reminded of George. George is the staff member that day they left Earth, the one who told him the signal was going to be lost. They became friends after that, because he told Karl he had wanted to help but he couldn’t because he didn’t know how. Something about that resonated with Karl. 

George had a friend, Dream. Dream was a solo voyager, traversing space at a faster speed to scout it in order to find and list down information and observations. His purpose was to find a new planet to settle in. But when Dream heard about Karl’s plea, how there could possibly still be life on Earth, young kids who didn’t get registered and thus, left alone, Dream had taken it to himself to go back. George’s unsaid confession remains between his wistful sighs and longing stares into the void because Dream still hasn’t returned yet. Karl feels bad, and he says just as much towards his friend, but George gives him a comforting smile, telling him that Dream is the way that he is. Compassionate, if so, empathetic. It wasn’t Karl’s fault that Dream was human.

To love is not anything lonely — he continues, swallowing the bitter lump in his throat.

Flame. That’s what Sapnap is for Karl. Not fire, not the burning itself, but the physical manifestation of it. The kind that lasts. Traces of it in heartaches felt in the most random moments. On a song, in a star, in an orbit, on a familiar set of hazelnut eyes. 

The truth is, even without typing it out and backtracking every time, his name is in every word Karl writes and Karl’s heart is in the palm of a boy who stayed behind. 

To love is not anything lonely but it sure as hell hurts when it perseveres.

Right as Karl shuts his phone and decides that he’ll simply allow himself to be consumed by the memories until his brain can’t handle it just so he could fall asleep, his pager makes a sound.

It’s George.

‘Are you out?’ It reads.

‘Why?’ He replies.

‘Meet me at Deck 9. Now.’ comes the reply not even a second later.

Karl groans, before shrugging on his lab coat as part of protocol. 

“What do you want?” is what he says the first thing he sees George in the main square of Deck 9. The mission specialist looks like he just ran five miles, with his white uniform skewed round the neck and his hair a mess, but his eyes are determined as he pulls Karl by the wrist hurriedly.

It’s nor anything new because George always drags Karl all around the ship to hang out but Karl is in dire need of sleep right now. 

“George, where are we going? I’m literally going to drop dead, I’m so tired.” Karl complains, dragging his feet on the ground to be purposefully annoying.

“I know.” George huffs. “I accessed your schedule earlier and saw that you had an on-going surgery which means I’ve been waiting for three hours now.”

“What for?” They reach the elevator and George quickly presses D15 on the buttons panel.

George ignores him, wiping a shaky hand all over his face. Karl would be concerned but his next words confuses Karl.

“Alright, Andy was already there two hours ago but I got called back to the cockpit and I’m only taking my break now and I couldn’t get to you faster because we were on the opposite sides of the ship and you had a shift.” 

Karl’s eyebrows furrow at the mention of his daughter. “Andy? I know she’s supposed to be on a group project meeting right now so what is she doing all the way on Deck 15? Isn’t that only where solo voyagers dismount?”

Then, his eyes widened. Throat constricting, he voices out, “George, what are you telling me?”

George grins widely. “Dream is back.”

With Karl’s heart jumping out of his chest and teetering on spilling from his throat, he runs as soon as the elevator doors open, George following close behind him.

His shoes clack rapidly against the hard material of the floor, feet pushing one after the other, thoughts running faster than his legs.

When he gets to the aircrafts deck, he looks around in a quick turn, eager to find the familiar tall blond boy with freckles lining his cheeks. 

“Over here!” George shouts a few meters ahead of him. Karl runs, hope blooming in his chest.

When they get past another huge aircraft blocking the way, Karl catches the sight of Dream, taller than he’s ever been before, a light smile on his face as he gets surrounded by teenagers in ragged clothing, as if they are not from Ship Sixteenth EVF. 

Karl runs past them, ignoring Dream’s excited ‘Karl!’ because a few steps more and the sight in front of him makes him stop. 

Andy, grown into her own skin after a decade, beautiful as always, is currently hand in hand and talking with a man Karl had thought he lost a long time ago, someone he never fathomed to meet again the second time around.

He looks older than he’s ever been, and yet still shining, still blazing with so much compassion that makes Karl breathless after he hears him laugh at something Andy had said. Their eyes alike, both Karl finds comfort in, share the same look of joy as they gaze into each other, hands clasped together tightly as if they never let go in the first place. 

Here is the man that plagued Karl’s nightmares. The name in his every word ever written. The promise that came back.

“Nick.” Karl calls. 

Their eyes meet. 

“Hi.”

A familiar smile. Warmth.

— And here it is. 

Home.