Chapter Text
12th Day of the 6th Lunar Rotation, 1131st Year of the Skaian Era
Twenty.
"Jade." Hal's voice comes over the intercom that's in the gardens. Jade pulls a face - she hates that she can't avoid him anywhere on this ship. "It seems you are depressed."
Jade flips him off.
"Now, that's not very princess-like, Jade."
"I'll be princess-like when you finally decide to move this ship back to civilization," Jade tells him. They've had this conversation before - she can almost recite his response by heart. I can't do that. It's not in my programming.
"You know I can't do that, Jade. It is simply not in my programming."
"But it's in your programming to be an asswipe?" she asks, glaring up at the little beeping light that serves as Hal's "face."
"I am based on the neural imprint of Dirk Strider," Hal reports faithfully. "So yes, it is an integral part of my programming that I am an asswipe."
"When I get back to Skaia, I am firing Dirk, and I am going to tell him it's all your fault," Jade says.
She doesn't really mean that, and it's only half because she's worried she's never going back to Skaia. If she sees Dirk again, it would be such a relief just to see a human face again that she would forgive him for just about anything.
For now, she just wants Hal to leave her alone, so she stands up and begins to march off down the hallways. It doesn't actually do anything to walk away from him, since he's got access to every system on the ship, but he usually gives her some space when she gets frustrated enough to leave the room.
At first, Jade heads towards the kitchen, but then she decides that she doesn't want to encounter Nanna, who likes to pretend to cook there, so she redirects herself to the viewing deck.
"Jade." She hears Hal's voice from a speaker in the hallway, and Jade walks faster.
"I don't want to talk to you, Hal!" she says. "I want some alone time!"
"We both know that is the opposite of what you want," Hal says. His voice is coming from the next speaker up in the hallway; Jade glares at it. He has a way with rubbing salt into the wound. "But that is not what I am trying to talk to you about."
"Don't care!" Jade says, walking faster. She knows she can't outrun him, but she's going to try, because at least it's something to do. She rounds the corner.
"Jade, this is actually important," Hal insists. His voice almost sounds genuine, but Jade knows better by now than to actually believe him. When he gets bored, he sometimes likes to fake emergencies. He claims it keeps her on her toes, but at this point, she knows not to even bother. If there is an emergency, she's resolved to just go down with the ship.
"Then you should focus on handling that instead of talking to me about how sad I obviously am!" Jade says. She presses the button to the viewing deck doors, and they slide open to reveal the vast emptiness of space.
"Jade-"
Only it's not empty. Jade's eyes go wide as something moves out there. Her breath catches in her throat and she nearly trips over her own feet as she rushes to press herself up against the glass. There's a ship coming right towards her, though it's too far away for her to tell if it's Skaian or Alternian.
"We have company."
Jade looks up at the blinking light of Hal's consciousness. "Who is it?" she asks, all previous antagonism toward him forgotten. "Are they hostile?"
"I am attempting to initiate contact," Hal says. "The ship is not one logged in my database."
"Your database is twenty years old," Jade reminds him, daring to feel hope. "Could it be..."
"Connection initiated. Patching you through."
A voice crackles over the other end of the line, and even though it's been two decades, even though she's hearing it through the static of the intercom, Jade knows exactly who it is.
"Ship designation H3-LL4 requesting docking access to the Gold Ship."
Jade's heart clenches. She has so many burning questions she wants to ask. Why did it take him so long? Is Skaia still safe? Is Alternia gone? But she can ask all of those face to face, once he's finally in front of her again.
"Request granted!"
"Fuck, it's good to hear your voice again." Jade swears she can hear the smile on his voice before he cuts the connection. She runs as fast as her feet will carry her to the loading zone of the ship - a place she rarely goes, since there's often so little reason for it to be used. Her heart threatens to burst out of her chest as she watches the achingly slow process of his ship moving to lock in with hers. It's slow on purpose - the consequences of a mistake are too deadly - but knowing he's so close makes every passing second without him all the harder to bear.
Finally, she hears the familiar hiss of the decompression chamber, and she watches as a man walks onto the loading dock of her ship. Her heart flips.
"Dave?" she asks. "Is it you? Is it really you? I'm not dreaming again, right?"
The man standing before her looks like the Dave she remembers. He's the right height, has the same jawline, the same texture of hair. There are also stark differences. He's older, of course. His frame is a little lighter, and the way he holds himself feels so much different, like he's trying to hide away. The most notable things, though, are the giant orange wings that are folded behind him, and the soft golden glow of his eyes from behind the shades he's always worn. They feel like something pulled from a dream.
"You're not dreaming," he starts. He takes a hesitant step forward and makes a move as though he's going to reach out for her, but then he thinks better of it. Jade feels like he's denying her air - it's been so long since she's touched him. Since she's touched anybody. "But- I'm not the Dave you know."
Jade frowns. "What do you mean?"
She can see it on his face. He's trying to keep a straight face like he always does, but he still has those same tells - the way that the corners of his lips draw downwards, just a little bit. The small furrow in his brow.
"It's a long story," he says. "Really fucking long story."
"Then let's sit down and talk." Jade reaches out for his hand. Once again, he hesitates, but at least this time he takes it. It's warm. She'd forgotten how warm other people were.
She leads him through the golden hallways, and though she can see the red light of Hal's consciousness blinking out of the corner of her eye, he thankfully stays quiet. She thinks she might finally find a way to rip the computer systems out of the wall if he tried to interrupt this moment.
She brings the winged man to the rarely used living room, settling on the couch that she has never shared with anybody else. She rubs her thumb across his knuckles, trying to re-memorize those parts of him that had once been so familiar to her. As much as she'd like to sit here and simply exist with him, his words are haunting her.
"What do you mean? You're not the Dave I know?"
She looks up at his eyes, but he can't meet hers. "I'm- My parents- well, you know how my mom was always interested in exploring genetic engineering in addition to the normal engineering? Genesplicing, ectobiology, all that stuff?"
Jade frowns. Where is this going? "Yeah, of course I do. My cousin was always pestering her to teach him."
"And you know how my dad was working on the neural imprint technology?"
"Of course I do," she says. "His own neural imprint has been driving me crazy for twenty years! But what does this have to do with you?"
His wings draw closer into his body. "I guess- with the war, and all. My folks didn't want to leave shit to chance. Built me and Rose backup bodies, with some extra genetic quirks I guess Mom wanted to play with. They got backed up with our memories every night- meant to activate in case one of us ever died."
Jade is starting to feel sick to her stomach as the pieces fall into place. "Dave..."
"Dave Strider is dead."
Jade feels like she's going to be sick. This feels like some sort of cruel joke. She is here, holding his hand, and he's telling her that he's dead? She doesn't realize she's crying until he reaches up to brush her cheek.
"I'm sorry, Jade," he says softly. "I- he wanted to come back to you. So fucking bad."
"What happened?" she chokes out. "What happened to you?"
It takes him a moment to answer, and she can't help but lean her cheek against his hand, seeking out any kind of comfort he'll offer. "He was fighting for you," he says. "The whole fucking time. He knew you were stuck here by yourself, but the war just kept going and going. He wanted to bring you back, but he couldn't get away from his duties on the front line. Too many people were dying, and he didn't want to run the risk of anybody else dying under his command."
"What happened?" Jade repeats.
The man wearing Dave's face, or Dave's clone, or whoever this is heaves a sigh. "He got sick of waiting, so he decided to go right for the jugular. Suicide mission, basically. Him and Rose. Both of them hijacked the head ship of the Batterwitch's fleet. Fought their way on board and cornered the fish empress herself."
Jade feels like her heart is crumbling into pieces. She remembers nights as teenagers, of Dave admitting that he never felt like he would never be able to accomplish the heroic acts that his position might demand from him. Now she's hearing that he did every heroic thing that he could have been asked to do, apparently all in her name. But...
"You died?" she asks. "So- we lost?
The man shrugs, his wings bouncing with the motion. "Yes," he says, "and no. Accounts are kinda hard to come by. Only people who could've told the full story are gone now. Dave Strider's dead. Rose Lalonde's dead. And the Condescension herself is fucking shish kabob. The war's over."
Jade lets out a little sound that she can't identify. It hurts. It hurts to know that Dave sacrificed himself for their kingdom. For her, the way that this man with his face tells it. She knows that she should be thrilled that the war came to an end, but did it have to come at the cost of his life?
She rubs her eyes with the palms of her hands, sniffling to try and get herself in control again. "And where do you come in?" she asks. "Dirk woke you up when Dave died?"
She pulls her hands away from her eyes so that she can see his reaction. He looks so much like Dave. Every mannerism is Dave's, even with that startling new eye color. She can see the way his jaw tightens a little, like he knows he has to say something unpleasant. She can still read him so clearly - how is she supposed to believe that the man sitting in front of her is anybody but her fiance?
"No," he admits. "Both of my- I mean, Dave's folks are dead. From my perspective, I went to bed the night before the suicide mission. Woke up with a pair of wings in a vat of life support goop in an underground part of Mom's lab that nobody even knew existed. Well- she knew it was there, but I don't think she shared with anyone else. Took me and Rose reading through her old research notes to figure out what had happened."
"Rose is- there's a clone of her, too?"
He nods. "Woke up outta the goop the same time that I did. Had to burst out of vats together. She got the cat girl treatment, though."
"Does anybody else know about you?" Jade asks.
He shakes his head. "We got out of the old lab and managed to get back to Prospit. There were celebrations going on like crazy. Alternia's forces retreated, and it sounds like their next in line isn't as big on the idea of galactic conquest. I don't know who's handling the diplomacy stuff now."
Jade feels a pang in her chest. She'd known this was likely the case after so long, but... "So Grandpa is...?"
He gives her a look that answers the question for her. Jade lets out a shaky sigh. She had known all this time that nothing good could possibly be happening with the war, or else Dave would have come for her much sooner. This is probably close to the best case scenario. Skaia won, and that means that her people should be safe from another attack. Not only that, but with Alternia's seemingly eternal leader now dead, it's not just her own people that are safe, but possibly countless other civilizations...
But it feels so hollow and empty. So many people she cares about are gone, and Dave is...
She feels the winged man squeeze her hand, and she looks up to meet his eyes, glowing that unnatural gold behind his shades. "I'm sorry," he says. "I wish I could have come here with better news. Well- I wish it wasn't me coming here to begin with. Wish you could've had the real Dave."
"It's okay," Jade assures him, even though she doesn't think that it is. "You still came to get me."
His brow furrows a little, and she can see his eyes soften a little, just behind his glasses. "Jade- I know this is a lot to ask. Fuck, I mean here I am, barging in on your ship after twenty years, but- do you think you'd be willing to give me a chance?"
"What do you mean?"
"Could- could you fall in love with me again?" He stammers the words out, just like she remembers Dave stammering out his first I love you a quarter of a century ago. "I know I'm not the man you agreed to marry. I don't have all the same scars that Dave did. I know I'm built different, with the wings and all. Don't even have the same eye color. You've never kissed this body before. I'm not the hero who went and sacrificed himself to make sure you could come home. I didn't do any of the heroic shit he's being celebrated over. But- I dunno, is there a chance?"
Jade stares, unsure what to say. She must stare for too long, because he continues talking.
"You don't have to answer now. Sorry. You got a lot to process." She sees his wings fold behind him, and he turns away, unable to look at her anymore. "We can focus on getting you back to Prospit, find a safe place to get you settled while all this political shit is blowing over-"
Jade cuts him off. "How did you know to find me here?"
The man pauses mid-sentence, mouth hanging open before he answers, "I memorized the coordinates. Just like I said I would."
Jade takes the time to breathe, lingering on the way he answered the question. Despite what he's saying...
"Well- thank you for coming to get me," Jade says, brushing away the last of the tears still on her face. There will be time to mourn the people she's lost later - for now, she needs to know. "I assume we're going back on your ship - the ship computer won't activate this ship's warp drive. Dirk hard coded it to keep me here under any circumstance. Can you help me pack?"
She sees the red of Hal's light blinking out of the corner of her eye, but she shoots it a look, willing him not to speak. Thankfully, for once in his digital life, Hal manages to keep his mouth shut. She'll thank him later.
The winged man perks up - he likes being helpful. She knows he does. "Yeah," he says. "I can help. I thought we'd be able to take this ship back, but the one I took has some juice left in it."
"Thank you." Jade gives him an earnest smile and stands, taking his hand. "Follow me - my bedroom is just down this hall."
Her bedroom doesn't have much in it that Dave didn't help her bring over the first time. The same plushies are there, though they're showing their age. She hasn't been allowed to outgrow them, staying on this ship as she has been. He lets out a deep sigh when he sees her room. "Alright," he says, reaching out carefully for the plushie of Bec. "Just grab everything out of the room and load it onto the ship?"
"That's right!" Jade says, starting to pull out her clothing from her wardrobe. The winged man treats the plushies like they're sacred objects as he moves them onto the bed, getting them all into one spot. Jade acts as though she's focused on the act of packing, but she keeps him in her peripheral vision, waiting...
She sees him go for the trunk, bending down to pick it up. Her heart jumps into her throat. "Oh- you can leave that here," she says.
He pauses, frozen in place. Several seconds pass before he lets out a strangled, "What?"
"I said you can leave the trunk here. It's an old thing anyways. It's not worth much - I can get a new one once we're back in Skaia."
His wings flare out behind him dramatically as his shoulders hunch protectively. He fixes her with an expression that's a mix of heartbreak and anger rolled into one. "What do you mean, it's not worth much?" he asks. "Jade- that's where we had our first kiss. We used to sit and talk on that thing all the time. You said that was where you put all the copies of my music. We-"
He picks up the trunk anyways, turning it around so that he can show off the back of the trunk. There, carved into the wood, is a heart with their names carved into it. It's hard for Jade to keep a straight face, but she turns to face him. She needs to see him completely.
"We carved our names into this damn thing, back when we were kids and thought that was the height of romance. And now you wanna just- just leave it behind? Fuck- I know it's been a while, Jade, but doesn't that mean anything to you?"
The hurt in the man's voice is hard to hear, like standing on burning embers, but it's just what Jade was looking for. "You've been telling me over and over that you're not Dave," she says, stepping towards him. "That you're not the hero that Dave was. That you aren't the man I was going to marry."
She takes another step forward until they're inches away. She knows he must be able to see the glassy look to her eyes as she holds back tears, but she can't bring herself to care. She reaches up and takes the shades off of his face, fully exposing his eyes. They're a golden orange and glow - so unlike the Dave she knew, but it's such a superficial thing. She'll get used to it.
"I never told anybody about what this chest means. Don't you remember? We made up a fake story for our first kiss, because we were too scared about you getting in trouble for sneaking in." A look of confusion crosses his face, but she doesn't let it slow her down. "Even when we got older, we kept up the lie as an inside joke. There is only one other person in the entire universe who knows the story of this chest. There is only one other person who would care if I left it behind!"
Jade realizes that she's starting to shout, but she can't stop the rush of twenty years of loneliness from bursting the flood gates. If she doesn't keep shouting, she might just start crying, and that feels so much worse.
"The only other person who knows the story of this chest is Dave!" Jade's hands are clenched into fists, and her voice cracks as she says his name. "So since you know all about it, I guess that makes him you!"
Dave stares at her. Dave Strider, the man she was going to marry- is going to marry, stares at her with his new golden eyes but that same soft expression that he only reserves for her.
"Jade..."
"You asked if I would give you a chance," she says, managing to gentle her voice. "You don't need a chance, Dave. I already love you, and I'd fall in love with you again. I don't care how long it's been. I don't care if you're not the version of you that fought the batterwitch. You're still the version who came to get me. I don't care if you're not in the same body you used to be in. If I've never kissed this version of you before, then that just means I'll have to kiss you again! I'll love you anywhere, any time, any way."
She can feel the tears spill over her cheeks, but Jade keeps talking through them. She reaches out for Dave's hands - she needs to feel that he's real, that he's not just a dream.
"I've waited for you, Dave." Her voice cracks. "I've waited and waited and waited. I've been on this ship for twenty years, and all of that time I've been looking forward to seeing you again. I waited-" Her voice catches in her throat and she has to hold back a sob. "-and waited-" Another sob gets out this time, like her body is trying to physically expel the weight of twenty years of loneliness, "and waited-"
Dave pulls his hand from hers and steps forward to engulf her in a hug, and Jade finally, finally lets herself break down. She clings to his shirt like its a lifeline, letting the fabric get soaked with her tears. There doesn't seem to be an end to them, as though her body has been saving the tears up for all these years until the point where she can finally release them.
"I've got you," he says, his voice soft. She can feel the soft tickle of his feathers wrapping around the two of them, giving an extra layer to the hug. It's warm, and it lets her get even more ensconced in him. "I've got you."
Jade doesn't know how long they stand like this. She doesn't know how long it takes her to finally stop crying, but she doesn't break the hug even then. Dave doesn't break the hug either, letting her stay in his arms for as long as she needs to be there. She only eventually pulls back because she wants to see his face again.
"It's been so long," she says.
"Twenty years," Dave agrees.
Jade feels like her legs just might give out from under her, so she goes to sit down on the chest, tugging on Dave's hand to get him to join her. He settles down next to her, and she bumps his shoulder with hers. She finds that she already likes the soft feeling of his feathers brushing against her back.
"I love you," he admits softly, like he's worried he might get in trouble for admitting it out loud. Jade tilts her head up to look at him. He's different from how she remembers, but she's sure that she is too.
"I love you, too."
Jade leans in; so does Dave. They kiss for the first time all over again.