to it. None of us were meant to be. Let alone be together. And this whole thing?” I shake my head. “It’s not gonna work.”
“What’s not gonna work? What are you talking about?”
“I’m not going to get any answers here. I’m not going to come up with some genius plan. I’m not going to uncross us, or help ALCOR, or see Tray again. Or Draden. I’m not going to save you.” I pause and we just stare at each other. Her eyes are lit up bright now. Everything about her is healthy. She’s utterly beautiful and completely destructive. “And I’m really fucking sorry about that. If I had a way to do it? I would. I swear. I’m not a bad guy. I’m not. I care about them. All of them. The princesses. My brothers. The borgs and bots. The ships. I care about the whole damn station, I do. I have kept everyone alive for twenty-one years but none of that matters. Because the future and I, princess? We’re a sun-fucked collision course. ALCOR was right. There’s no such thing as a do-over. And it’s not like I didn’t believe him, I just didn’t understand what that meant. You can’t ever go back because it’s already happened. This.” I pan my arms wide. “Has already happened, girl. I don’t know what lies in store for you tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter. It’s already happened.”
I sigh.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the princess says.
“I know. I get it. And it’s time for me to go home and tell my brothers that it’s over. Our win means we lose and there’s nothing we can do about it. We have to do it just like ALCOR said or just… give up and die and let everyone lose. And what is the point in that?”
She squints her eyes at me.
“That’s just… selfish. Right? It’s just taking everyone down with me, isn’t it?”
“Who?”
“You. Well, not you. Corla. And Nyleena. Luck. Lyra. Serpint. Valor and Veila. Tray, and Jimmy, and Delphi. Draden and Booty. Lady Luck. Baby. Hell, even Asshole ALCOR. All of them. Including me. ALCOR Prime was right. I can let him save me and my brothers or we can all just die and start all over again. Trapped in this loop for yet another eternity. That’s it. That’s all there is to say.”
And then I can’t take her confused stare for one more second.
I walk away.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“I need to find my way back. I need to go back. ALCOR sent me here to learn this lesson myself. I get it. There is no sweet version for me.”
And then I just stop.
Because it’s fucking sad.
I’m fucking sad.
Because there is no happy ending.
There never was.
“Hold on,” the princess says. “Did you say… Jimmy?”
I look over at her. “What?”
“Jimmy. You said Jimmy. And I think—” But she wobbles. Unsteady on her feet. And I reach across the bar for her. Afraid she will fall down.
When my hand touches her skin, the whole station shakes and quakes.
The lights flicker and then…
It stops.
We’re still touching, but it just stops.
“What the hell was that?”
I hear my voice. It’s my regular voice. Except, in my head, it’s a different me.
It’s thirty-seven-years-ago me.
Sixteen-year-old me.
The girl looks over her shoulder. “Oh. That. They’re been rationing the power ever since… the incident.” Then she looks down at my hand and pulls her arm away. “I should go. They don’t keep track of me anymore. They just don’t care what I do or where I go, since the whole peace deal went awry. But with my luck, this will be the night they take an interest. And if they find me gone now, well.” She shrugs. “I’m trying not to make waves. I’m just going along and hoping for the best.”
“What incident? And what about Jimmy?”
Some of her renewed healthy glow diminishes. In fact, a lot of it diminishes. She’s not gray again, but it’s clear this girl is having luminous flux issues. “Jimmy. The spin node incident, remember? It started destabilizing last year, but now it’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
“Getting worse, how?”
“I don’t know. But all us princesses started changing color and now the jerks in charge of this place are afraid we’ll blow it up because we’re all destabilized, so they’re rationing the light. And if we don’t—”
“Wait.” I interrupt her. “Hold on. There are more of you?”
She smiles as she cocks her head at me. “What?”
“You said ‘all us princesses’. So there are more of