Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was the summer of 1987 when Hope arrived in San Junipero for the first time. She remembered vividly that it was dark outside, cloudy and damp, like it had just rained or that it was going to rain soon. She’d heard a lot about the town, the place where the streets were paved with neon and every night was a celebration. Heaven on earth. When her naturally curious mindset got the best of her, she decided to visit for herself. She would end up visiting the city seven times before she died, but she didn’t know that at the time.

Her first venture into the fabled city of dreams, she hadn’t yet taken more than five steps down the sidewalk when she saw her- the first person she’d seen in San Junipero, and quite possibly the most beautiful person she’d ever seen in her limited life. The girl was wearing an odd, large purple coat, covered in beads, a pair of the tightest black skinny jeans she’d ever seen in her life, and heeled boots. Her neck was heavy with chains and necklaces, and her hair was tied into two half-up, half-down blonde pigtails. Her hair looked soft. Hope had a sudden, strange urge to touch it.

This blonde girl was being tailed down the sidewalk by another woman, one with dark hair who was also very beautiful, but in a soft, round way, whereas the blonde was beautiful in a sharper way. What was it with gorgeous people here? Hope stuttered to a stop by a bank of TVs and listened in.

“Can you please stop it?!” Her voice drifted over to Hope on the evening wind, low and sarcastic. “I just wanna have some fun, okay?” She crossed the street towards a disco on the corner, Tucker’s, and the brunette followed.

“C’mon, Lizzie!” she pleaded. Now Hope had a name to the face. Lizzie . Short for something, presumably. Hopefully it was Lesbian. 

Lizzie threw up her hands in surrender. “I’m still walking, Penelope!” 

Indeed she was, but the brunette, Penelope, didn’t seem to care. She had caught up to Lizzie and they were now shoulder to shoulder. “But we’ve only got a couple hours left, so, ah, let’s use it.” She shimmied her hips in a way that was trying to come across as sexy, but ended up being more dorky. It worked for her. Somehow.

“I am using it,” Lizzie protested. The two of them, still bickering, disappeared into the bar.

Hope glanced around, and, deciding she really had nothing to lose but her dignity, headed towards Tucker’s.

The place was loud with music and the yells of teens and young adults dancing. All the kids wore pink and blue and other pastels, with lots of puffy hairstyles and hoop earrings on men and women alike. A conga line wound its way across the dance floor. Hope wove through the bouncing crowd, the girl disappearing from her mind as she saw something she recognized: arcade games. She reached into her pocket, grinning as she pulled out a single quarter and fed it into the Bubble Bobble machine, her favorite since she was a kid.

The thing Hope missed the most was video games. She loved the feeling of clearing a level, the accomplishment and the relief, and she loved the escape. She loved to get lost in a world where her biggest problems were how far to back up so she could reach the next jump, or how to save the princess from the newest big baddie in her way.

Just when she was getting lost in the game, a voice broke into her reverie. “Hey.”

Hope glanced up quickly to catch a glimpse of wavy caramel-brown hair and dark eyes before refocusing back on her game. She didn’t want to lose her score on account of a girl.

After a pause, she continued awkwardly, “You’re good at this.” Hope smiled tightly, irritated. “It’s got different endings, depending on whether you’re in one or two player mode,” the girl offered. Hope answered with a small, uncomfortable laugh. Didn’t she know she was distracting her with her yammering? “It was kind of the first game to do tha-“

Her character ran into one of the baddies onscreen and dropped dead. She thumped the console in frustration. “Ugh! Damn it!” Now she was going to have to waste another quarter because this girl couldn’t read social cues. 

As Hope dug through her pocket for a coin, the girl walked behind her and gestured at another arcade game, one she hadn’t seen before. “Wanna play Top Speed ?”

Hope looked at it curiously. It seemed to be some sort of racing game, and she was intrigued, but then the little onscreen car ran into a building and wrecked spectacularly. She felt a shiver of anxiety go through her chest and she flinched away. “Oh. Uh- no. Thank you.” She gestured vaguely at the dance floor. “Just wanna get my bearings a bit.”

The wavy-haired girl nodded sadly, seeming to finally take the hint. “Oh, okay. See you around.”

Hope escaped the game room and grabbed a soda from the bar, finding an empty, comfortable booth to sit and observe the crowd. She took a sip of the pop- it was so much more refreshing and fizzy than it was at home. Even if she wasn’t the most, let’s say, social person around, she loved San Junipero already. 

Her gaze caught on somebody ducking through the crowd- the girl who was chasing Lizzie outside. Penelope. When she glanced to the other side of the room, she locked eyes with Lizzie and froze like a deer in headlights. She’s looking at me, Oh God. She saw Penelope. This is gonna be messy. And now… she’s walking over? The brunette caught sight of Lizzie and beelined toward her, and it was a race between the two of them- whether Lizzie would reach Hope first or Penelope would reach Lizzie first. The former won.

Lizzie slid into the booth beside her and muttered, “Go along with whatever I say.”

As her brain filled with sheer gay panic, all Hope could squeak out was “Sorry?”

“Whatever I say, go along with it!” Lizzie looked at her pleadingly, then realized Penelope had just walked up, so she let out a long-suffering sigh. “Okay, Pen, you’re just pestering now. Do I really have to red-light you?” Her elbow, up on the seat back, brushed against Hope’s shoulder, and Hope inhaled slightly. Walk Like An Egyptian by The Bangles was playing. Hope normally hated that song, but if she could sit in this moment until the end of time with Lizzie touching her shoulder, she’d suffer through it for eternity.

Penelope tapped her watch, raising an eyebrow. “Thirty-five. There’s not much time left.”

“Penelope- you’re cool, but last week was last week.” Lizzie gestured to Hope. “Look, I need to talk with my friend here, okay? Haven’t seen her in a while.” Penelope scoffed and rolled her eyes, and Lizzie leaned towards her, narrowing her eyes, as if to tell her a secret. She really was a good actor. “Pen, she’s sick. Like, six months to live sick.” This was an obviously untrue fact, but Penelope didn’t know that. It was a smart play. Hope suddenly had an idea that she thought might win her points with Mysterious Party Girl Lizzie.

“Five, actually,” Hope piped up boldly.

Lizzie gave her an appreciative glance that seemed to last much longer than it actually did, and turned back to Penelope. “I need to catch up with her. Private time.”

“Okay,” Penelope relented. Then, directed at Hope, “I’m sorry.”

Hope shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. She wasn’t sure if it worked. “Hey, it happens.”

“See you guys around?”

“Sure,” said Lizzie, obviously not meaning it. As soon as she was sure Penelope was out of earshot, she sighed in relief and leaned her head back on the seat. “Sorry for killing you,” she joked, looking at Hope with her eyes crinkled in mirth. “The whole six months to live thing? Sorry, five,” she corrected herself. “Five was a nice touch.” Hope smiled at the praise, and Lizzie stuck out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth. Lizzie.” 

So, not short for Lesbian, then. Hope shook her hand. “Hope.”

“Hope? Like peace, love, hope?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the prettiest name I’ve ever heard,” said Lizzie.

Hope was grateful for the pink lights, so Lizzie didn’t see her blush. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of names.”

“I have.” Lizzie raised a cheeky eyebrow at her. “Yours is just the prettiest. It’s very… hopeful.” She looked ahead, and Hope followed her gaze to see Penelope drinking at the bar. “She’s not a bad person. I feel kinda bad.” She shrugged. “Met her at the Quagmire, though, so-“

“What’s the Quagmire?” interrupted Hope.

Lizzie glanced at her incredulously. “If you don’t already know what the Quagmire is, you probably don’t want to know.”

“No?” asked Hope, confused at the sudden seriousness, but it was soon gone.

Lizzie nodded at Hope’s cola. “You want another one?” 

“Oh, no, I-“

“Yeah, you do, come on!” Lizzie took her hand and lifted her to her feet. They walked to the bar, and Lizzie didn’t let go of her hand until they sat down. Penelope was nowhere to be seen. “Hey, blondie,” she said to the bartender, leaning forward.

He pointed at himself incredulously. “I’m blondie? Seriously?”

“Yeah, you.” She tapped the table twice. “Jack and coke times two.”

Hope winced. “Oh, mine was just a co-”

“Times two ,” Lizzie interrupted, stressing the last word. The bartender grinned and turned to fix their drinks, and Lizzie looked Hope up and down strangely, resting her chin in her hand. Hope had never had anyone look at her like that before. She kind of liked it.

“What are you doing?” asked Hope, giggling slightly.

“I’m…” Lizzie thought for a moment. “I’m regarding you.”

“I feel like I’m being analyzed,” Hope joked.

Lizzie put a finger to Hope’s lips teasingly, causing her to go red. “Shush.” She dropped her hand and seemed to reach a conclusion. “Why the glasses?” Hope touched her glasses, slightly self-conscious. “I mean, I like them, they totally work on you, but do you need them?”

“I- no, they’re fake,” Hope confessed.

Lizzie pumped a fist. “Knew it.”

Hope chuckled softly. “Yeah, I’ve been wearing them since school. They’re more of a comfort thing now than anything.” 

“Makes sense.” Lizzie leaned back in her seat. “I figured that they were a fashion statement-”

“Really?”

“-but then the rest of your outfit is just… not,” she finished bluntly.

“Oh.” Hope tugged at her khaki shorts.

“Don’t take that wrong!” Lizzie grabbed her shoulder frantically, sending sparks zinging all across her body. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s what you’re comfortable in, so it works on you. Besides, it’s refreshing to see someone who doesn’t care that much about what people think of them.” She gestured at the other partygoers. “Look at them, trying so hard to fit in. It’s high school all over again, copying whatever they see in films. But these…” Lizzie took her hand off of Hope’s shoulder and raised it to her glasses, touching them softly. Hope flinched away slightly, but let her hand stay.  “They’re authentic. Authentically you.”

Hope shrugged, shy but flattered. “To be honest, I think I wear them for something to hide behind.”

“Something transparent to hide behind?” Lizzie joked, and Hope let out a loud, genuine laugh, surprising even herself. “Look at you, you’re cooler already and you don’t even have any alcohol in you yet. I bet you’re absolutely insane after a few drinks.”

“I- I’ve never-” Hope stuttered. Just then, as if summoned, the bartender slid their finished drinks across the table. She took a sip and coughed, the tang of the Jack overwhelming her senses momentarily. “Whew.”

Lizzie raised an eyebrow. “What, you never tasted it before?” It was a joke, but for some reason Hope didn’t want Lizzie to know how truthful it really was. She didn’t want to seem like too much of a baby, even if she did have the experience of one.

“No, I just haven’t had it in a while.” Hope shook her head and awkwardly took another small sip, hiding her automatic reaction to choke. “It’s good.”

Lizzie seemed to buy it and went back to ‘regarding’ her. “Do you live here?”

“No, but-”

“A tourist, then?”

Hope shrugged helplessly.

“We’ll go with tourist.” Lizzie took another drink. “So, you’re new?”

“First night,” Hope admitted, smiling.

“First night!” whooped Lizzie. “Well, okay.” She holds up her glass in a toast, and Hope obliged, clinking them together. “To beginnings!”

The song changed to an upbeat Janet Jackson tune. “Oh my God! Ha!” Lizzie shimmied her shoulders in a way that was so silly it was almost hot. “We have to dance to this.”

Hope blinked in shock. “With… with each other?” Wouldn’t people stare? It had been a long time since she’d danced.

“No, I’m gonna dance all by myself and just leave you here alone.” Lizzie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Of course with you. Come on!”

“Well, uh, dance floors aren’t really my thing,” Hope stuttered out.

Lizzie hopped to the floor and took her hand, surprisingly gentle. “Oh, let’s not limit ourselves.” She tilted her head, a twinkle in her eye. “Dare you. Just follow my lead.”

Hope allowed herself to be dragged into the mass of seething bodies. Lizzie began to dance, all grace and style, eyes closed and not giving two shits about the people around her. Hope nodded along to the beat, but she was mostly watching the tall blonde (who was much taller than she’d realized), who seemed to drag everything towards her with the gravitational pull of a black hole. She was truly mesmerizing, especially when she grinned at Hope and her nose scrunched up all cute like that. Hope began to copy Lizzie, slowly feeling more comfortable until they were almost dancing together.

Every time Lizzie brushed against Hope, she felt like someone had ignited her, like she was a match and Lizzie’s shoulder or arm or hand was the matchbox, striking her until she was about ready to explode. It had been a long time since Hope had felt like this; a long time since she’d felt so alive .

Then Lizzie grabbed her hand and spun her, and she was floating, but as she turned, she saw the crowd around her for the first time. They were watching the scene with amusement and interest, and Hope knew in her heart of hearts it wasn’t malicious, but it seemed like they were leering at her, damning her for feeling like this. All of a sudden, it just became too much, and that ready-to-explode feeling came back, except this time it was bad and she ran, just like she always did. Just like that night so many long years ago, the night when it all went wrong.

Hope burst out the back door and stood there for a few seconds, chest heaving, before realizing it was raining and scrambling under an overhang.

“Hey.” Hope whirled to see Lizzie standing in the doorway, eyes squinted against the streetlights. “Why’d you go? The people were loving us!” 

Hope shook her head. “Sorry- sorry. I said I’m not much of a dancer.”

“No shit.” She cocked a thumb back inside, where the party still raged. “Like a scared horse on a frozen lake back there.” She grinned, but it slowly melted off her face as she realized that Hope wasn’t in a laughing mood. “I’m kidding.” She darted out into the rain for a second before moving under the awning. It was small enough that the two girls were pressed together with not so much as an inch of space between them. “Sorry I pushed you into it. Saturday nights and only once a week, it’s like no time at all,” she sighed, looking up at the cloudy sky. “I get impatient.”

“It wasn’t that.” Hope pushed herself up onto the windowsill and stared down at her knees. Lizzie squeezed in next to her. “It’s just that everyone was looking.”

“Looking?” questioned Lizzie.

“You know. Two girls.” She gestured to Lizzie, then herself, then Lizzie again, back and forth. “Dancing. Together.”

“Oh, pshhh.” Lizzie waved a hand, startling Hope. “Folks are way less uptight than they used to be. This is a party town, no one’s judging! And, if they were staring, it’s only because-” she did a slightly ridiculous body roll. “-I. Am. Bodacious.”

Hope laughed, marveling at Lizzie’s strange, intuitive ability to make her feel better. “You’re stupid.”

Lizzie grinned cheerfully. “Why, thank you!” 

Silence slowly engulfed the two girls, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. “I’ve- I’ve never been on a dance floor before,” admitted Hope after a bit, breaking the lull.

Lizzie’s eyebrows shot straight up in surprise. “Never?! As in the whole time you’ve been alive never?” Hope nodded. “What are you, Amish? That’s one sheltered existence you’ve got there.” She nudged Hope gently in the side. “Well, I’m glad I got to take your dancing virginity. It’s an honor.”

“Dancing virginity? Okay.” Hope giggled, then quickly sobered. “As far as my family’s concerned, I can’t do anything.” She shrugged. “I might as well be Amish.”

“Well, no one knows about even half the shit I get up to.” Lizzie grinned mischievously at her before leaning back against the wall. “With your folks, though, it’s from a place of love, right? They worry.”

“Believe me, they don’t worry. Just the concept of me enjoying myself would absolutely blow their minds,” Hope chuckled bitterly. She kicked her feet absentmindedly against the wall, and Lizzie looked at her with a strange expression. Hope couldn’t quite figure out what it meant.

“What would you like to do that you’ve never done?” asked Lizzie, sidling in slightly.

“Oh…” Hope exhaled, looking up at the stars. “So many things.” From simple things, like riding a bike with no hands or getting drunk or marching in a protest, to deeper things like having a best friend or falling in love.

“Well, like I said, San Junipero’s a party town.” Lizzie made an expansive gesture. “All up for grabs.” She paused. “Midnight’s two hours away.” She was moving closer.

“That’s not long,” responded Hope shakily. She could feel the way Lizzie was looking at her, and it sent shivers up and down her spine.

Lizzie leaned forward and tucked a piece of Hope’s hair behind her ear, then leaned down and whispered, “Then why was time sitting here?” Her breath tickled the shell of her ear, and it made Hope feel things, things she shouldn’t-

Hope leaped up suddenly, startling Lizzie. “I- uh- I’m-” she stumbled over her words, struggling to form even a flustered sentence.

Lizzie wasn’t offended, she took the somewhat-rejection with good grace. “It’s okay.”

“No, I mean- ah, dammit.” Hope covered her burning red face with embarrassed hands. “Look, you’re- you seem-”

“Really, it’s okay,” Lizzie tried to reassure her. 

“No! I mean, you seem lovely- it’s just- I’m engaged. I have a fiance,” Hope rambled. Well, that much was true.

Lizzie raised an eyebrow, slightly amused. “At your age?”

“Yes. I know. Yes.” Hope’s mouth kept moving, but nothing else would come out until she said “He’s a good guy. He’s a nice guy.”

“Good guy nice guy-” Lizzie’s lips twitched. “Rootin’ tootin’ straight up guy-”

“Landon, he’s called Landon,” Hope interrupted.

“And is ‘Landon’-” Lizzie did air quotes around the name, like she was making him up. “-here?”

“No. He’s-” Hope made an expansive gesture. 

“Elsewhere?” finished Lizzie.

“Yeah.”

For a second Lizzie was quiet, before saying bluntly, “do you want to go to bed with me?”. She snapped her fingers. “We could be back at mine like that.”

Hope felt every system in her body stutter to a complete stop. She was a medical miracle: the first person to ever live with an unbeating heart. “I never… did anything like that,” she confessed lamely.

“All the more reason to,” said Lizzie.

Hope agonized for a moment. In the brief period she’d known Lizzie, she had felt more connected to her than anyone else in her dull life. She wanted to get to know her, in, like, a gay way. But what if she made a fool out of herself? Hope was nothing special. Maybe Lizzie would get to know her and realize she was naive, and boring, and anxious, and definitely not the kind of girl that a girl like Lizzie could like.

So in the end, her fear won out. “You’re nice, but… I- I can’t.” You’re nice? Oh, good God.

Lizzie shrugged. “Okay.”

“I just- I can’t,” Hope tried to explain, not knowing exactly what she was explaining, just trying her best not to sound pathetic.

“I get it.” Lizzie smiled at her. She was still unbothered.

“I have to go,” mumbled Hope, scooting off of the windowsill.

“In this?” Lizzie gestured out at the alley, where it was still furiously raining.

“It's been great to meet you.” Hope held out her hand to shake hands, which she immediately regretted. Yes, super cool and suave, Mikaelson. 

Lizzie looked at her hand, amused, then shook it. “Likewise.”

Before Hope could do anything else dumb, she turned and immediately began to walk quickly towards- well, she didn’t know where. She didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Should she go back? She really wanted to. Lizzie was the first girl she’d ever met who seemed to exude so much life , even in a place like this- vivacious and beautiful and kind. And she wanted Hope.

Hope stopped suddenly, in the middle of the street. Cars honked and swerved around her, but she didn’t pay them any mind. She was too busy squinting to see if Lizzie was still outside. She saw a flash of white blonde hair disappear through the door that Hope had come out of, and her heart sank.

Inside Tucker’s, the crowds of people danced, and the clock over the bar clicked to midnight.

ONE WEEK LATER

The next time Hope visited San Junipero, it was still 1987, and she was in a tiny shoebox apartment. Hope regarded her reflection. Her outfit, while similar to last week’s, didn’t feel right anymore. Panic by the Smiths played tinnily from her cassette player on the nightstand. 

She switched the tape to I Wanna Dance With Somebody . She slid on a wine-hued dress like Whitney Houston in the music video, and it clung to her every curve. It wasn’t her.

Next cassette, Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds, brought her to try on a pink dress, with hair tied back in a flouncy high pony, looking not unlike Ally Sheedy post-makeover. A doe-eyed vixen stared back at her when she looked in the mirror. Ew. Still not her.

The last tape, Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer. She put on a tight black dress, hair slicked back, face heavily made up. She looked odd, to say the least. Definitely not her.

In the end, Hope decided on some bermuda shorts, a pink shirt, and a cropped jean jacket. She slid on her glasses and nodded at her reflection, even trying out some finger guns. The outfit was more glam than her usual looks, but she felt good. Like a newer, more confident version of herself. Like maybe she could get the girl.

Somewhere across town, Lizzie slid into the driver’s seat of her Jeep and turned on the engine. Sign O’ The Times by Prince started playing and Lizzie tapped her fingers against the steering wheel to the beat, pulling out of the driveway behind her beach house and starting off down the road, feeling the breeze blow through her hair and smiling peacefully.

Suddenly, a figure darted in front of the car, and Lizzie shrieked and slammed on the brakes. The headlights dappling across her face revealed it was Penelope. It had only been two weeks and Lizzie was already bored of this game. She flipped Penelope the finger, gunned her engine, and drove off into the night.

She pulled into a parking spot outside of Tucker’s, ready to enjoy her night, when Penelope appeared again. Lizzie rolled her eyes. “What the hell, Penelope? You are like a lingering cough.” She slammed her Jeep’s door and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Penelope spread her hands, scurrying after Lizzie towards the bar, two girls doing the same, strange, deja-vu-inducing, cat-and-mouse dance as last week. “Look, okay, I know-”

Can’t this girl take a damn hint? She thought, pissed off, and this was the final straw. Lizzie whirled on her. “I’m red-lighting you, for real, I am!”

“No, don’t!” Penelope pleaded.

“Then stop this.” Lizzie crossed her arms.

“Just hear me out.”

Lizzie sighed. “How many girls do you think there are in San Junipero? Hundreds, thousands?”

“I don’t care,” the brunette whined. Lizzie took a long glance at the girl. She was pretty, sure, and their chemistry was red-hot, but she had promised herself she wasn’t going to do feelings in her time in San Junipero. Plus, she was a little needy for Lizzie’s tastes.

“I’m saying there are plenty of other girls for you, Pen. Ones you could actually settle down with,” said Lizzie.

“The locals, they’re like dead people-” a crowd of people pushed past them on the sidewalk, hollering and whooping, probably headed to a rave.

Lizzie gestured to the partygoers, straightfaced. “A little lively for dead people.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Penelope scoffed. “I don’t want some boring romance like, Jesus, put us in a retirement home deal-”

“-Well, if you want someone to fuck, hang out at the Quagmire!” interrupted Lizzie. “There’s options.”

Penelope held out her hands like she was trying to plead. “It wasn’t just sex.”

“It was just sex!” Lizzie exclaimed angrily. “I would know, I was there!”

“We had a connection.”

“Penelope.” She put her hands on Penelope’s shoulders and looked dead into her eyes. “It. Was. Just. Sex.”

Penelope shook her head, slightly wounded. “No…”

“I’m done with attachments,” Lizzie said, more a promise to herself than anything. “I went down that road for a long time. And it’s-” she let out a sigh. “I can’t do that again.” She nodded decisively. “No roots.”

Penelope’s mouth twisted with disappointment, and Lizzie cupped her cheek in her hand. “Hey. It was fun, you know? I’m sorry.” She leaned down and kissed her on the temple. “Enjoy the town, for God’s sake.”

Penelope knew she was beaten, and the two girls parted ways. Lizzie felt a little bad, but hey, that was what happened when you started to get feelings for a conquest. Penelope had to learn that sooner or later.

She entered Tucker’s to the sound of Living in a Box and sat at the bar, hoping to have some time to herself, before a mildly cute guy in a funky tuxedo sidled over to her. “Hey.”

Lizzie wasn’t too interested, but her mother didn’t raise her to be impolite. “Hey.”

He introduced himself as MG and asked if he could buy her a drink. Lizzie had never met anyone with a two-letter name that she liked. “Waiting for someone?” he asked.

“No, not really.” She kind of hoped she would see that girl again, the one from last week, the one with the pretty name. But she hadn’t caught her yet, so what was the harm?

Just a short distance away, Hope hunkered down in a booth. She wanted to go over and talk to Lizzie, but she was getting nervous again. Lizzie was in a conversation, and who was Hope to intrude? She was just some girl in a bar that Lizzie had met last week by chance, talked to for 30 minutes, who had then immediately rejected her.

This guy is just some guy she met in a bar too, though, Hope reminded herself. 

And so, for once, Hope didn’t run away.

She took a deep breath and began to walk over. As she got closer, she could hear the boy say conversationally, “So it was microsurgery, I guess, I mean, both my kneecaps were just kinda worn down…” Hope snickered to herself. She was awkward too, but she wasn’t that awkward. She began to move closer.

The chorus to Living in a Box started. Lizzie opened her mouth to mention how much she loved the song when MG interrupted, “Never quite got this song. It’s weird, to be honest.” That was when Lizzie started to look for a way out, and it presented itself in the girl from the week before that she thought she would never see again. 

“Gotta use the bathroom,” she said abruptly to MG, hoping Hope would take the hint and follow her, and shot the girl a look from under her lashes that would make a saint horny. It seemed to work because, a few moments after Lizzie stepped inside, Hope approached the counter next to her. There was no one else in the room with them, and for just a moment, there were no words either. Lizzie silently fluffed her hair in the mirror.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Hope blurted out, the sudden noise like a whip cutting through the air.

Lizzie pretended not to know what she was talking about. Even though she did, very well. “Do what?”

“This. Just help me. Can you just-?” Lizzie glanced at her, her blue eyes filling with kindness. “Show me what to do. Make this easy for me.”

Lizzie stepped forward and reached out, letting her hand drift down Hope’s cheek, and cupped the side of her face gently. Hope sucked in a breath: she was terrified, but not necessarily in a bad way. Each of her nerves felt like the ending of a live wire. “You want to go to my house?” asked Lizzie, and Hope nodded quickly.

She found herself in the passenger seat of Lizzie’s Jeep, the wind rifling through her red hair, and every muscle in her body tensed to the point of snapping. The road curved along the side of the rippling ocean, darting with color in the setting sun. Hope’s fingers dug into the soft skin of her thigh as Lizzie took a corner with reckless abandon, and Lizzie seemed to sense her discomfort. She slung an arm over the back of Hope’s seat, raising an eyebrow. “Relax. What's the worst that's gonna happen?”

Hope looked away, out the window, then back at Lizzie. “How long have you been here?” she called over the wind. 

“What?”

“I said, how long have you been here?”

“In San Junipero? Oh…” Lizzie pondered. “Couple months. Plan is long enough to enjoy myself.” She grinned at Hope. “Guess I’m a tourist like you.” 

“Yeah,” mumbled Hope, turning away so Lizzie couldn’t see her face. 

“Hey.” Lizzie looked at her, a little furrow in her brow, cute as a dimple. “You okay?” Hope couldn’t help melting at her concern, and opened her mouth to respond before catching a glimpse of headlights in her peripheral. “LIZZIE-”

“Shit!” Lizzie yanked the wheel and Hope felt terror fill her veins like nitrous as they spun off the road. The sound of crunching metal invaded her ears and they came to a final, skidding stop in the bushes, both thankfully alive and unharmed. Hope was sure her eyes were as big as dollar coins, her hair in an awful state. Lizzie started to giggle. Hope looked at her in disbelief. 

“Seriously?”

“Sorry, but-” Lizzie choked out through loud, uncontrollable laughter. “Man, your face!” She got out and walked over to help Hope onto the pavement. “Come on, it’s only another quarter mile. We can walk.”

It only took them about 15 minutes before they made it to a house on a tiny little inlet beach, a huge, airy affair with curtains that blew in the wind and blue sideboards, softly colored like everything else in the pastel alternate universe of San Junipero. Hope had never talked to someone like Lizzie, her life was so bright and full of stories and parties. She was content to walk beside her and listen to some grand adventure from when she was younger. 

Lizzie’s house was just like Lizzie herself: loud and fun but somehow still classy. It took Hope a moment to take everything in when she first walked inside.

“Wow,” she breathed.

Lizzie leaned against the doorframe behind her with a cheeky grin. “Like it?”

“It’s just so big .” Hope meandered around, dragging her fingers along the tables and letting her eyes wander from place to place.

“Reminds me of where I grew up,” Lizzie said absentmindedly, staring at Hope’s ass.

Hope picked up a picture on the sideboard, one of a smiling blonde woman, maybe in her mid-40s. There was a banner over her head that read Happy Birthday Caroline! “This your mom?” She turned back around and Lizzie was right in front of her and suddenly she was kissing Hope. It took a second of skin-on-skin for Hope’s brain to catch up, and when it did, the first thing she thought was holy fuck. The first kiss was soft, but as they drew closer together, the kisses became more heated, needy. She tangled her fingers in Lizzie’s blonde hair, just as soft as it looked, and let Lizzie drag her towards the bedroom.

They fell onto the bed, Lizzie nipping her way down Hope’s neck, rough but somehow still gentle. Hope gasped out between kisses, “You- you’ll have to show me-”

Lizzie pulled back, blue eyes pinned on Hope’s own, and gave her a sideways, reckless grin that made every system in Hope’s body go haywire. “Good,” she said, that one word a promise ringing in Hope’s ears.

Hope let Lizzie unbutton her jeans, and, well, you probably know what went on from there.

A few hours later, nearly midnight, Lizzie and Hope lay curled up in bed together, the sound of ocean waves crashing a cool backdrop against the warmness of the night. The windows were open, and a breeze whipped through, making the curtains billow out and a lock of Hope’s hair fall across her face. Lizzie turned towards her, on her side, and tucked it away behind Hope’s ear. “You never slept with a woman before?” Hope blushed deeply. “I mean, that’s not a critique, it was fucking awesome. I’m just curious.” 

“Never with a woman.” Hope paused, then admitted, “Never with anyone.”

Lizzie’s eyebrows shot up in pure astonishment. “What, no one in town, or-?”

“No one, nowhere. Guess you ‘deflowered’ me.”

“You’re impossible.” Lizzie laughed. “Deflowered? What is this, Merry England?” 

Hope cracked up, pressing her nose into Lizzie’s shoulder. “Shut up!” she cried affectionately. Lizzie took Hope’s hand and ran her thumb down the back. Even after what they had just done, it felt like the most intimate moment they had shared.

“Well, you’ve had relationships, though? I mean, hello, you have a fiancé.”

Hope shrugged and shook her head. “It’s complicated.”

Lizzie’s brows came together, showcasing that cute little dimple again. “I’ll say.”

There was a beat before Hope hedged on. “So, how did you know you liked women?”

“Uh, I like men too.” She raised a jokey power fist. “Equal rights!” 

Hope giggled. “Okay, but when did you know? Did you always know you liked…”

Lizzie’s eyebrows furrowed again, this time in thought. “Well… I was married to a guy. Long time, I was married.” Her blue eyes were far away, like she was retreating into her memories. “I always knew. I mean, I’d be attracted to girls: coworkers, friends. A random waitress at a random restaurant…” she laughed, seeming to think of something, an inside joke with herself. “There were crushes. My God, were there crushes.” Her face hardened again, staring past Hope’s cheek, unfocused, as Hope watched intently, feeling more empathy for the blonde girl than she’d felt for anyone in her life. “Never acted on any of it. Never did anything. I was in love with him, so in love with him, the kind you only hear about in stories.” Lizzie’s perfect mouth twisted, the words coming out slower now, like they were harder for her to say. “But… he chose not to stick around.” Hope hesitantly slid closer, wanting to comfort her, but she was at a loss for what to say to make it alright, because she didn’t think there was anything that she could say, so she just reached up and ran her fingers through Lizzie’s hair, brushing it away from her face. There were tears glistening in Lizzie’s eyes, and one crossed her pale cheek and dripped onto her nose. “So now it’s me. And I’m passing through. And before I leave, I’ll have a good time.” She repeated it, more of a mumble, like she was trying to convince herself. “I’m just gonna have a good time.”

Hope leaned over and kissed the tear away, feeling Lizzie’s skin grow warm under her lips. Hope pressed her lips one more time to Lizzie’s, and Lizzie reached up to cup her face. She looked embarrassed, maybe even annoyed at the vulnerability she had just showed, and Hope kissed her again to remind her that they were safe together, and that telling the truth was good sometimes.

Lizzie glanced over at the clock. It read 11:59 PM. “Time’s almost up.”

“Then let’s just lie here,” said Hope. She had just a little bit more time to stare at Lizzie’s gorgeous face, so she would.

Lizzie had come back down to earth now, and her eyes flitted over to Hope’s, full of warmth and gratitude and just a little bit of sadness that made Hope’s cracked heart ache. She smiled slightly, revealing a flash of teeth, the type of smile that you couldn’t help returning, so Hope did.

Next to their entwined bodies, the clock clicked over to midnight.

ONE WEEK LATER

It was the third time Hope visited San Junipero, and the year was 1987. The billboard over Tucker’s was now promoting Spaceballs , and Hope walked through the shadow of it to enter the bar, bouncing. It was less crowded than normal, and after looking around, she saw no trace of Lizzie. Not even the brunette girl from the arcade or the boy in the flowered tuxedo were there.

Hope sidled up to the bartender, from the week before. He seemed to recognize her and slid a Coke across the table (no Jack, thank God). She took a few moments to sip and look around before leaning over to Blondie and saying, “you seen Lizzie?”

“What’s that?” he called back over the music.

“Lizzie! Is she here?”

The bartender shrugged. “Haven’t seen her all night.” Seeing Hope falter, he seemed to take pity on her. “You tried the Quagmire?”

“What is the Quagmire?”

About 20 minutes later, Hope found herself on a dusty road, a hastily scribbled map on a bar napkin clutched tightly in her hand. It was pretty much the middle of nowhere, and in front of her was a gate and an old-fashioned buzzer. She rung it, and a voice crackled over the intercom. “You want in?”

“Uh-huh?” Hope said hesitantly.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” There was a beep and the gate clicked open. A motorcycle roared past her and down the beaten dirt trail, and in the distance she could see what seemed to be an old, abandoned factory, lit up in neon.

It only took her about five minutes to reach it, and when she stepped inside, she knew there was no going back. It smelled like sweat, except more acrid and alcohol-y, of smoke and leather and bad decisions. It sort of reminded her of one of those old black-and-white roadhouse action films. It was full of writhing, scantily-clad bodies, much closer to each other than Tucker’s. There were people with snakes on their arms, people making out and more, people dancing in cages and on poles. The air was steamy and reeked of sex, and it felt thick enough to touch in the low light. She understood what Lizzie meant: this was so not her scene. It didn’t much feel like Lizzie’s either, despite her being such a party girl. 

The place got more claustrophobic as she followed the passages further, like a rabbit warren. Things happened in those halls; drug deals, fights, orgies, and Hope wanted to get out as fast as possible. She turned and almost ran directly into a girl, and her beer bottle sloshed over and dripped onto Hope’s shoes. “Whoa, hey!” she cried, her voice strangely familiar. Their gazes locked and the other girl cocked an eyebrow. Penelope . Her eyes were unfocused, her pupils dilated. “Hey, I know you. From Tucker’s.” She gestured with her bottle, and more drips of beer dotted the sticky vinyl floor. “Lizzie’s friend.”

Hope gave her a tight smile. “Yeah, hi. Do you know where to find her?”

“Why would I know that?”

“You’re her friend.”

Penelope shook her head, her wavy bob swinging from side to side. It was limp, and there were beads of sweat on her brow. “ Was a friend.”

“Oh.” Hope shuffled her feet, the hallway seeming to grow smaller. “Well, have you seen her?”

“No.” Penelope looked closely at her, and her face broke into a slightly mean grin. “You too, huh? Ha!” She raised her drink in a sort of toast. Hope was stung. She shook her head- this wouldn’t help anything- and turned to leave when Penelope took pity on her. “Wait!” Hope turned back. “Try a different time. Seen her in ‘80. Mid 90s. ‘02 one time.” Penelope took a breath, suddenly looking sad. “She’s worth the shot, right?” She raised her bottle again, and Hope gave her a small nod of gratitude. Thank God she could finally get out of here- it was almost time to leave anyway.

She had made it about 20 minutes down the path when, back in the grimy dive bar that was the Quagmire, the clock clicked over to midnight.

ONE WEEK LATER

The year was 1980, and Hope was determined to find Lizzie. The TVs outside the store were now showing an episode of Dallas , but Hope paid them no mind as she strode purposefully down to Tucker’s. The little bar was more crowded again. Over in the arcade section, which featured Pac-Man , Rally-X , and Missile Command , she spotted the caramel-headed girl from her first week. She glanced up as Hope walked by, and her face showed recognition. She really was quite pretty. “Hey! I remember you.”

Hope smiled at her. “Hey. Nice to see you again.”

“Golden age, right?” She gestured to the games. “Didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t throw it,” said Hope, surprising herself and the other girl.

“You seem quiet, but you’re definitely a fighter.” She gave Hope a grin. “I’m Josie. You playing, or…? I happen to need a Player Two.”

“I’m Hope. And sorry, I’m looking for somebody.”

Josie nodded, disappointed. “Maybe next time.”

ONE WEEK LATER

The year was 1996, and Hope was back at Tucker’s once again. The sign had changed, and a bank of TVs in front of her were showing the music video for Wannabe . A giant billboard advertising Scream was displayed over the doorway of the bar.

Hope checked inside, but she knew what would happen. Sure enough: no Lizzie.

She didn’t know why she bothered at this point.

Later, Hope found herself at Lizzie’s big, airy house. The lights weren’t on, but the windows were open and the curtains blew in the sea breeze just like last time. Out over the ocean, the sun was already setting.

“Lizzie!” She called once, then louder. “LIZZIE!”

Nothing.

ONE WEEK LATER

The next time Hope visited San Junipero, the year was 2002, and Hope was discouraged. She knew that Lizzie wasn’t doing attachments, but she had hoped against hope- ha ha- that she’d get to see her again. She was her first, well, pretty much first everything, and she at least wanted some closure before Lizzie fucked off into the sunset or whatever.

Despite feeling like she’d never find Lizzie, she entered Tucker’s one more time. Taking a dejected look around, she grabbed a cola from the bar and prepared to leave. She wasn’t-

Wait. Across the hazy room, Hope thought she saw a flash of white-blonde. As she walked further into the bar, she caught sight of a Dance Dance Revolution machine, occupied by two very familiar dancers. Josie and Lizzie were jumping up and down on the arrow pads to some high-energy Japanese pop, and Hope cautiously walked up behind them. They were both doing really well, and as the song ended, they were awarded a High Score! award. The two girls cheered and high-fived, but when Lizzie turned, her triumphant smile immediately dropped and she looked unsure.

Josie raised a hand in greeting, but Lizzie pushed past her, muttering “ladies’ room.”

Hope gave the confused Josie a brief smile and turned to run after Lizzie, catching up to her right next to the bathroom. “You wait a minute!” Hope burst out.

Lizzie whirled on her, nose scrunched in frustration and lip curled in a snarl. Oh. Even angry, she was incredibly cute. “Why are you here?”

“I was looking for you. Where did you go?” said Hope. She hated how plaintive she sounded.

“Felt like a change of music.” She pulled out a Nokia phone and began to fiddle with it. Hope snatched it away from her. “Hey, I was looking at that!”

“How the hell is this your era?!” Hope straightened, suddenly realizing the truth. “You hid from me.”

Lizzie avoided her eyes. “One, I did not! Two, I owe you zero! Three…. well, see point two!” she blustered. She turned and stormed into the bathroom, Hope right on her heels. 

“It’s not about who owes who, it’s about manners!” retorted Hope. Lizzie let out an incredulous laugh. “Shut up! You don’t know what this means, you don’t know who I am!” 

“This-” Lizzie gestured around wildly. “This means fun. Or it should.” She indicated the two of them. “This, this… game we’re playing, you chasing me and me running away, is not fun, okay? This is not fun and I’m sick of it.”

Hope deflated, all the fight leaving her as she finally understood what she was trying not to. She was just a fuck. She was nothing to Lizzie. But when Lizzie saw her eyes pool with tears, she seemed to soften just a little bit.

“Hey, don’t- don’t do that.” She reached out a hand, but pulled it back at the last second. 

“So you don’t feel bad?” asked Hope. Lizzie looked away, not answering. She didn’t seem to know what to say. “Well, maybe you should feel bad,” huffed Hope bitterly. “Or at least feel something .” She turned and left, feeling a tiny bit shattered.

In the bathroom, Lizzie stared at herself, her own expression unreadable. She socked the mirror, which predictably broke. It didn’t hurt. When she looked down at her fist, there was no blood, and when she looked back up, the mirror was just fine. That was when she made her decision. Emerging from the bar, she glanced around, but the redhead girl was nowhere in sight.

“Hope?” she called out, heading back towards the main street. She spotted a couple, sitting on the hood of a car, looking up at the sky. “Hey.” They glanced at her. “Have you seen a girl cross this way? An older teenager, red hair, glasses?” In response, one of the guys pointed at what the two of them had been staring at previously. Following his finger, on the roof ledge of Tucker’s stood Hope staring off into the distance, and Lizzie’s heart gave a violent lurch in her chest. “Oh, Jesus.” She ran for the fire escape, praying she could get there in time.

When Lizzie reached the roof, Hope was sitting serenely on the edge of the overhang, legs dangling into thin air. Lizzie made her way cautiously over and said, with a slight hysterical laugh in her voice, “Please tell me you got your pain slider set to zero.”

Hope looked up at her, face blank. Hope wasn’t quite sure what emotion she was feeling. Maybe they were so mixed that it was too confusing for her brain to parse through them, so she just defaulted to numbness. “Yeah, I think so.” Her brow creased. “You don’t have to treat me like some scared kid.”

“I never would. I was just a little worried.” Lizzie came over to sit next to her, taking off her heels and setting them on the concrete. The two girls looked over the neon paradise of San Junipero. Was it smaller than before? “Okay, listen-” Lizzie began.

Hope interrupted her. “How many of them are dead? Like what percentage?”

The question didn’t surprise Lizzie like it should have. “As in full-timers, not tourists? Eighty. Eighty-five, maybe.” Hope nodded, absorbing the information. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I wouldn’t jump, you know. You don’t have to talk me down-”

“I know, I’m sorry, whatever. I want to apologize, and not just ‘cause I think you might off yourself.” Hope felt her lips quirk up slightly. “It’s just, in the time I’ve been here…” Lizzie sighed. “I’ve just been visiting, you know? And it’s- I didn’t want to…” she was struggling to get her point across, her mouth working to find what she was trying to articulate, like what she wanted to say was too big for words. “I said I wouldn’t- I don’t know- ‘do’ feelings.” She let out a breathy laugh and shrugged, turning to Hope with a helpless look in her blue eyes. “It hasn’t been too hard… up ‘til now. So you’ve just been… really fucking inconvenient.” Hope felt like she was about to cry, and Lizzie looked like it, too. “I don’t know how long there is, and I can’t- I wasn’t prepared for this, for you, for wanting you, wanting something so-” 

And Hope just couldn’t fucking take it anymore, so she leaned over and kissed Lizzie like it was the last time she could, because it might be, and she finally knew she didn’t want to run anymore. And it seemed like Lizzie didn’t either, because she kissed back, so hard they almost fell off the roof, and they fit together like they were made to be in each other’s arms.

Back at Lizzie’s place, hours later, the bed was in disarray, and the time was 11:54 PM. Hope sat on the balcony like she had sat on the roof of Tucker’s, wearing nothing but Lizzie’s silk bathrobe. She felt warm, even as the cool ocean air tickled her legs, and Lizzie sat next to her, wearing Hope’s pastel-striped shirt, a cigarette in hand. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, a curtain of wind-tousled blonde waves. Even in the silence, Hope loved Lizzie’s presence. She was intimidating, even without meaning it, and Hope automatically felt safer with her around. 

Lizzie took a drag of her cigarette, and Hope broke the ice. “Can’t believe I’m getting married next week.”

“Next week? To ‘nice’ Landon?” Lizzie blew a cloud of smoke, and it rode a gust of breeze away from the two of them before Hope could even smell it. “You sure you’re going through with that?” She teased her finger up Hope’s arm, causing her to shiver inwardly, before taking another pull of her cigarette and letting the smoke curl off of her tongue. 

“I have to,” Hope confessed. Of course Lizzie couldn’t understand, and Hope wasn’t sure she wanted her to.

“You have to?”

Hope thought for a moment. “He really is a good guy. I mean, my family doesn’t approve but… but they can’t stop us,” she said fiercely. “I know he pities me, and it pisses me the fuck off, and that’s not fair to him-” 

She was getting worked up, and Lizzie sensed it. She cupped Hope’s face in one hand and leaned her forehead against Hope’s temple. “Shhh, it’s okay.” Lizzie kissed Hope’s cheek, and Hope let her eyes drift closed and leaned into her.

“You said you didn’t know how long there is,” Hope said, eyes still shut, and she felt Lizzie go completely still. “Back on the roof. ‘‘I don’t know how long there is’. What was that?”

Lizzie shook her head, letting go of Hope and leaning back a little bit. “They tell me three months.” Hope’s eyes blinked open and felt a stabbing pain in the pit of her stomach, knowing all of a sudden what Lizzie was saying. “It’s spread basically everywhere. They’ve said three months before, six months ago, so, y’know, what do they know?” She glanced down at her cigarette and flicked it over the edge. “Doesn’t even taste of anything,” she laughed ruefully.

Hope wrapped an arm around Lizzie’s shoulder and pulled her in, and Lizzie pillowed her head on Hope’s collar willingly. Hope ran her hand through Lizzie’s messy hair, and the wind blew it into Hope’s face, tickling her nose. “So, you’re going to stay here? Pass over, stay full time?” asked Hope. 

Lizzie shook her head, surprising Hope. “Nah.” She sat up. “When I’m done, I am done .”

“But that’s- I mean- why?” Hope said, stumbling over her words as thoughts competed to chase each other out of her mouth.

Lizzie got that faraway look in her eye that meant she was about to tell Hope something she didn’t say out loud often. “Rafael. That’s- that was my husband’s name. He died two years ago and had the opportunity to pass over. He didn’t take it.” She shrugged. “Didn’t want to take it.” 

“But why wouldn’t anyone take it?” asked Hope in confusion.

“He… well, both of us… had this viewpoint. There were things we believed in, and things we didn’t, and this place was one of them. He wouldn’t even visit.”

“I mean, shit,” Hope said. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to try it out, but, like, without this place I’d never have met someone like you-”

Lizzie nudged her. “Yeah, you could have.”

“No.” Hope shook her head vehemently. “I wouldn’t have.”

“We could have met outside all of this.”

“You would not have got me. At all.” Times like this, Hope remembered all too well what she was like outside of San Junipero. “If you really met me, I mean, if you really met me, you wouldn't like me-”

“Try me,” Lizzie challenged.

No. Absolutely not. “You wouldn’t, like, want to spend time with me or whatever. You’d-”

Lizzie interrupted her, more forcefully this time. “ Try me.”

“There’s no point. Where are you?”

“Mystic Falls, Virginia.” Hope went silent. “Hey, come on. I showed you mine,” Lizzie joked. “You know, I can just look it up-”

“New Orleans,” relented Hope.

“Oh, that’s no distance!”

Hope laughed. “It’s like a thousand miles.”

“You’re worth it,” said Lizzie, making Hope’s heart squeeze. “Besides, I like to travel, when they let me. Which isn’t often.”

“So they won’t let you anyway-” said Hope with relief.

“Oh, I’ll make them let me.”

Hope’s face hardened. “I don’t want you to visit me. I don’t want you to see me. I’m scared-”

“And I’m dying,” countered Lizzie. “Whatever you are can’t scare me away. Nothing could.” There was a beat. Hope couldn’t believe she was even considering it, but something about Lizzie made her want to see her, no matter how- well- “Come on. Let me come say hi,” Lizzie hedged. 

Hope slowly, almost imperceptibly, nodded.

Inside the house, the clock on the nightstand clicked over to midnight.

LESS THAN ONE WEEK LATER

At Sienna Trust Assisted Living, an older woman was helped into a floating van by a young nurse. “Here you go, Lizzie,” she said as the older woman made it up the steps. The elderly woman, who was in fact Lizzie, sat herself on a bench inside the vehicle and let out a racking cough, but it didn’t deter her sunny mood. She was on her way to visit Hope in New Orleans, for the first time outside of San Junipero.

The drive was mostly cornfields.

Nearly two days later, the van hovered to a stop in New Orleans outside of Hope’s hospital, and Lizzie was greeted at the door by a doctor. “You must be Lizzie,” he said.

Lizzie smiled. “I guess I must be.”

“She’s waiting for you.”

Lizzie wanted so badly to run in, to throw her arms around Hope and to dance around with her, but even the thought made her chest hurt, so she allowed herself to be led towards Hope’s room. 

When she arrived, she could hear the percussive beeps of a heart monitor and the low hiss of a respirator. Everything was a bright, sterile white, and her shoes made squeaking noises on the freshly waxed floor. In front of her was the still form of Hope lying on the bed, red hair fanned across the white pillow, shot through with grey. Her blue eyes stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. Lizzie felt everything strange Hope had ever said to her fall into place. Of course she hadn’t ever done anything exciting when she came to San Junipero. How many years had she been trapped inside her own body? 

“She won’t be able to physically respond in any way, but she can hear you,” said the doctor. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

For a moment, Lizzie wasn’t sure what to do, but that wasn’t new. Lizzie had always been so sure of herself, but with Hope, she’d gotten used to feeling awkward, scared of looking silly. So, setting everything aside, she just stepped towards Hope and took her hand. It felt familiar, and Lizzie knew this was where she was supposed to be. “Hello, stupid.” Lizzie smiled down at her. “It’s good to see you.” She leaned and tenderly pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

Then Lizzie eased herself into the chair next to her and began to talk, not really saying much at all, but just wanting to fill the silence, and it was less lonely than she had expected. She could practically hear Hope’s responses, quiet but biting, sardonic yet kind, gentle yet gravitational. Her loud, chiming laugh, the way she let out a little ‘oh!’ when something surprised her, how she was always smiling, even if it was just a little. Once, Lizzie even thought she saw Hope’s lips twitch, and she decided right then that she did like Hope outside of San Junipero, no matter what Hope tried to tell her.

After about an hour of Lizzie visiting and talking, Emma, her nurse, poked her head in the room. “Time for lunch.” She allowed herself to be led out of the room before she was stopped by a tall, slender man with a mop of curly hair, wearing scrubs. He was cute, in a hasn’t-slept-in-a-week kind of way.

“Hello, are you Lizzie?” 

“That’s me,” ventured Lizzie.

He held out a hand. “I’m Landon.”

Lizzie’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re Landon? Well, holy shit.” She shook his hand.

Landon laughed. He had a nice, toothy smile, and his voice was low and gravelly. “Holy shit, indeed.” He gestured back at Hope’s room. “You know, I think it’s nice that you came to visit her in person before she passes over. Even her parents don’t come anymore-”

“She’s passing over?” asked Lizzie in shock. Landon and Emma glanced at each other, unsure of what to say or do. Finally, Lizzie said, voice cracking, “when?”

Landon smiled again, this time more sympathetic, and offered his elbow. “Let’s grab lunch.”

They walked to the hospital cafeteria arm in arm and Landon bought them some snacks from the vending machine and two coffees. As Lizzie sipped hers, Landon said, “so she didn’t tell you.”

“No,” sighed Lizzie. “No, she didn’t. She said she was just visiting.”

“More like sampling the trial version.” Lizzie stared down into her coffee. “I mean, I’ve only known her the past three years. We talk on the comm box. She told you how she ended up quadriplegic? And how long she's been that way?”

Lizzie shook her head. “She didn’t tell me anything. She was scared. I would be, too, if I were her. But I’m not like everybody else.”

“She must have known that, or she wouldn’t have let you come visit at all.” Landon looked at Lizzie like he couldn’t quite figure her out. “So one night, Hope was 19 at the time- she comes out to her parents. They’re a little uptight about it, you might say. They tell her they don't want a gay daughter, it’s not natural and so forth. They fight, she gets in her car, runs it off the road.” He clicked his fingers. “Boom.”

So that was why Hope had been so terrified when they almost crashed the car. Lizzie immediately felt bad for making fun of her. “When she was 19?”

“More than 40 years ago.” Landon nodded. “It’s been her whole lifetime basically. That’s why San Junipero system was such a big deal for her. The biggest deal. All of us pitched in to get a subscription for her.” He took a bite of a granola bar, and Lizzie watched him closely. She could tell he cared about Hope a lot. “Of course, until she passes over, she’s on the five hour weekly limit. I’m guessing you’re the same?”

“They don’t trust us with more,” laughed Lizzie. “They ration it out.”

“They say you go crazy if you have too much. Never leave your seat, disassociate your body from your mind…”

“Like that doesn’t happen in every senior home already.” Lizzie was starting to warm up to Landon a little more. “System's there for therapeutic reasons, officially, at my place. ‘Immersive nostalgia therapy’. ‘Plunge you into a world of memories’; helps with Alzheimers. That's what they say.” Landon looked up at her, a question in his dark eyes. “Incidentally, that’s not my problem.”

Landon raised his coffee in a toast. “Small mercies.”

“But, this marriage…” Lizzie hedged.

Landon exhaled, leaning forward. “State's got a triple-lock on euthanasia cases. You have to have sign off from the doctor, the patient, and a family member.” He ticked off on his fingers. “Stops people passing over just because they prefer San Junipero flat out.”

Lizzie glanced sarcastically around the small cafeteria. “And leave all this wonder behind?”

Landon laughed, but grew somber again. “Anyhow... Hope’s family? Big time religious. Don't come fuckin' see her- pardon my language- but they won't sign.”

“But a spouse can override that. Hence the wedding bells,” said Lizzie, finally understanding. 

You got it.” Landon nodded. “We have a pastor coming in tomorrow morning, and she's scheduled to pass tomorrow afternoon.”

“‘Scheduled to pass’,” said Lizzie. Her voice turned steely. “Let’s just call it dying.”

“If you can even call it dying.”

“Well, uploaded to the cloud sounds like you’re going to heaven.” Lizzie shrugged. “I don’t believe in that.”

“Me neither,” Landon said.

Lizzie smiled slightly. “Are you going to wear a suit?”

“The ceremony’s on my coffee break,” Landon chuckled, shaking his head. “I’m not married yet, so I figured, what’s the harm?”

Lizzie stared at him for a few moments. “You’re a good man,” she said.

Landon shrugged, looking a little sad. “Least I could do.”

Lizzie admired Landon for what he was doing, letting Hope move on to live a better life, possibly at the cost of getting married in the future. Everything made so much more sense now, except…

Then an idea hit her. A crazy idea. Crazier than anything she’d ever done, and that was saying something.

“You think you could hook us up to the system, now, just for a little while, before she passes?” she asked.

“You can still see her afterwards. I mean, then she's no limits.” Landon’s brow furrowed.

“I know but… can you?” Lizzie widened her eyes pleadingly.

“We're meant to stick to the five hour cutoff. Once a week-”

“But you can bend that,” said Lizzie. “They let us have more on birthdays and Thanksgiving. Special occasions.”

Landon shook his head. “Seriously, it's so tight they-”

“Night before her wedding, that's a special occasion,” Lizzie cut in.

Landon seemed to think on that for a second. 

“I only want a few moments,” she wheedled.

“Fine.” Landon caved. “Fine. You brought your connector?”

Lizzie leaned in, sharing the joke. “I call it a ‘bipper’.”

They went back to Hope’s room and hooked Lizzie up to the system. Emma closed the screen and connected Hope up as well.

“Ma’am, watch the door,” Landon said to Emma, then turned to Lizzie. “You two have five minutes.” Lizzie nodded to show she understood. She pressed the button on the remote in her hand, closed her eyes to let the simulation wash over her. The seat under her disappeared, and she suddenly felt lighter, less brittle. Her spine straightened, her mind cleared, and the pain in her lungs was gone.

When she opened her eyes, she was on the road overlooking the inlet beach where her house stood cozily against the rocks of the cliff. Not too far in the distance was Hope, walking around and looking a little confused. Lizzie ran to her, calling “over here!”

Hope saw her and broke into a dazzling grin. “Hey! Never been here during the daylight before.” She opened her hand, and Lizzie accepted it, twining their fingers together easily. “It’s really... warm.” They began to walk down the beach. Lizzie’s bare feet sunk into the warm sand and kicked it up in little sprays with every step.

“So I spoke to Landon,” said Lizzie.

“Uh-huh.”

“He says you’re passing over tomorrow.”

“A couple hours after the wedding,” Hope said, like it was no big thing. It was a big thing. At least to Lizzie, it was. “I guess I’m technically honeymooning here forever.” She turned to Lizzie with big blue eyes. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you-”

Lizzie put a finger to Hope’s lips and Hope stopped talking, eyes crossing involuntarily. “I’m going to say something crazy.”

“Um, okay.”

Lizzie dropped down on one knee, and Hope’s eyes grew as round as cereal bowls. “Wanna marry me instead?”

Hope looked like she was about to throw up from nerves, so Lizzie backtracked a little. “I mean, Landon seems like a really great guy, but why not someone you’ve connected with…?” 

Hope’s expression changed, and she fell to her knees and kissed Lizzie so hard she bowled the two of them over into the sand in a tangle of limbs and laughter. The sand stuck in Lizzie’s hair and behind her ears, but she didn’t care. “Is that a yes?”

“Shut up,” said Hope, giggling giddily, and kissed her again. And suddenly Lizzie’s eyes flashed open and she was back in the hospital.

Landon peeked in, questioning, and Lizzie said to him, hiding a smile, “Well, I guess I’m getting married tomorrow.” He kept his face carefully neutral when he nodded, but Lizzie saw Emma give him five bucks later and she knew that he had known what she was doing all along.

The next day, the pastor came as planned, and Lizzie signed off on Hope’s euthanization as her legal wife. Landon wouldn’t connect her up to the machine, but that was alright, because Lizzie knew Hope would be waiting for her whenever she was able to visit.

Saturday rolled around, and Lizzie had made it back to her hospital. She could practically feel herself getting worse, her chest clogging, her breaths weakening; it was becoming harder for her to stand. But the best part of San Junipero wasn’t her newfound youthfulness, it was, far and away, Hope.

On the seventh and last time Hope would ever visit San Junipero, it finally set in that she was staying forever. Hope crossed San Junipero Beach, kicking up sand in what she knew was a completely childish way, but she didn’t care at all. Everything was the same, but it felt so different, because now this was her home. She was going to live here. She would get to do the things she hadn’t done since she was 19 years old- she would get to walk and talk and run and laugh, and there would never be an end.

She sat down on the beach and let the waves roll in, washing the sand from her bare feet. Then, by some strange compulsion, she took her glasses off and set them on the ground next to her. She had the feeling she didn’t need them anymore.

Night began to fall, and Hope heard a loud honk from behind her. Her face split into a grin: without even turning around, she knew who it was. She ran to meet Lizzie, who was standing on the driver’s seat of her Jeep, pumping her fists in the air and yelling like a maniac. Hope yelled back, feeling the freedom of the night rush through her veins and blur her senses. 

When she got there, Lizzie was ravishing in a gorgeous white wedding dress, and Hope forgot how to speak for a quick second. “You didn’t dress up to see me? Come on!” Lizzie cried over the roaring of the ocean. Hope concentrated, and suddenly she was in a wedding dress too.

“Better?” she grinned up at Lizzie, and she saw mirrored in Lizzie’s eyes what she knew was in her own.

She climbed into the car, Lizzie sat down with a loud thump , and they drove away. There were tin cans on strings affixed to the back of the Jeep that made a loud din against the freeway. Hope noticed that Lizzie was more careful with her driving, presumably because of the story that Landon had told her, and felt her heart swell with gratitude and something else- something warmer and deeper than the ocean they were driving alongside. Hope knew what it was, but she wasn’t quite ready to say it.

Lizzie drove them up to a point that was overlooking the town, and the two of them sat side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder on the hood of the car. They had been up there for what felt like only minutes, but must have been several hours, because night had fallen. Crickets sang from the trees and bushes behind them, and the moon was full. Despite the glow of San Junipero, they could clearly see even the smallest stars, but they were too busy looking at each other to notice. 

“This looks so real,” marveled Hope. She rapped the hood with her knuckles. “It just feels so real!” She turned and kissed Lizzie, feeling more spontaneous and joyful than she had ever felt in her limited life. She slid down the hood of the Jeep and started doing a silly dance in the dirt next to the road.

“What are you doing, dumbass?” laughed Lizzie, but there was no meanness behind it. Hope wiggled her hips and swayed her shoulders, making a funny face, and Lizzie cracked up, holding her sides. Hope watched her with reverence; she loved to be the one to make Lizzie laugh.

“I love it so much!” Hope did a cartwheel and Lizzie laughed harder. She stepped to the edge of the point, no fear of falling, and looked out over the town. She felt more at home there than she had, anywhere else in her life. “I love it,” she repeated, more quietly. 

“You’ve been here before,” said Lizzie from behind her.

“Yeah, but now I live here.” Hope turned to look at her and suddenly realized that while, yes, she loved San Junipero, the truth was that she loved Lizzie more. The little pastel town would never be as vibrant without her there by Hope’s side. “Be with me,” she said simply.

“I’m with you now,” said Lizzie. The little crease in her brow appeared as she grew confused.

“That’s not what I mean,” Hope replied. Lizzie suddenly realized what she was saying and tensed up. “Pass over. When you’re ready, when it’s your time, pass over.”

“Hope.” Lizzie said that, just her name, but it was full of a hundred thousand different emotions.

“Stay here, with me-”

“Can we just enjoy tonight-”

“It's ten to midnight, you're out of here in ten, and we gotta wait a week to meet again.” Hope bounced on her heels.  

“You know I'm just a visitor-” 

“For how long? Couple months? Then what?” said Hope. What exactly? She didn’t want to think about that.

“We're not discussing this,” said Lizzie flatly. 

“Then you'll be gone, just gone. We could have forever.” Hope was pleading now.

“Forever, who can even make sense of forever.” Lizzie shook her head, getting angrier.

“However long you want, then! You can remove yourself like that-” Hope snapped her fingers. “It's not a trap, it's- look at it.” She gestured around, then rapped the hood of the car again, more insistently. “Touch it!”

Lizzie slid down, off the car, and started heading for the driver-side door in a huff. She couldn’t believe Hope was putting her in this position. Hope knew what this place was a symbol of for her. “I'm going.”

Hope grabbed her arm and turned her around. She took Lizzie’s hands in her own and pressed them against her face. “I’m right here. It’s real. This is real.” She held up her hand with the wedding ring. “So’s this, huh?”

Lizzie rolled her eyes. “C’mon, you know that was a gesture.”

“You married me-” said Hope insistently. 

“To help you pass over, as a... kindness.” 

Hope sighed, looking up at her, eyes wide, tears starting to well in their blue depths. “It’s not so kind to leave.” Lizzie broke away from her grip, shaking her head. “Look, I’m sorry, but- I’ve got this chance, we’ve got this chance- I want to share it with you. This place is dull without you. All these colors, and not a single one brighter than you.”

“I said I made my choice. Pretty words aren’t going to change that.” Lizzie was at the door now, but there was no way Hope was letting her leave.

“What is it, then? You feel bad that your husband’s not here?”

Lizzie whirled on her, eyes full of steely anger, ice on her tongue. “Don’t.”

But Hope did. “Well, that was his choice. He chose to turn this down-”

“Please-”

“It's like he left you. I mean, he could've passed over here but, no, he left you,” continued Hope.

“You don't know what you're saying,” Lizzie bit out through gritted teeth. 

“You should be mad at him,” pleaded Hope. “Not whipping yourself with guilt-” She grabbed Lizzie’s hand, she needed her to stay more than anything, needed to make her see-

Lizzie yanked her hand away. “Get off of me!”

“You can’t see it- what he did, it was selfish, actually!”

Lizzie turned with a frustrated yell and shoved Hope so hard she fell on her ass and skidded across the ground. Hope stood up, wincing, betrayal in her eyes. She knew she had gone too far, and maybe she deserved it, but that hurt , and not just physically. Lizzie had never touched Hope with anything less than reverence, and now she stood over her, eyes flaming with hurt, and regret, and a bitter sadness too terrible to name.

Lizzie’s fists balled at her side, and Hope was sure she was going to walk away and leave her behind. But then Lizzie began to speak. Her tone was measured, but Hope could feel the anger and hurt and deep, deep loss working its way through the cracks in her voice. “49 years. I was with him for 49 years. You can't begin to imagine- you can't know- the bond. The commitment. The boredom. The yearning. The laughter, the love of it. The fucking love, you just cannot know. Everything we sacrificed. The years I gave him, the years he gave me. Did you think to ask? Did it occur to you to ask?” Hope was stunned into silence. “We had a daughter. Caroline. Always difficult, always beautiful. Died at 39 years old, bless her heart, and Raf and I, we felt that heartbreak as one. You think you're the only person ever suffered, go fuck yourself. ” The last three words she spat out, harsher than anything Hope had ever heard Lizzie say to her. Hope didn’t think Lizzie was capable of so much venom, especially not towards her.

“I didn't know-” 

“Didn't think to,” Lizzie corrected her. “You know, when he was dying, Raf said to me- when they offered him this, to pass over, serve eternity in this fucking graveyard you're so in love with- he said ‘how can I?’” Lizzie’s face crumpled. “‘When she missed out, how can I?’ And so he went. And I wish I could believe he's with her now, they're together, but I don't. I believe they're nowhere. Like you said, gone. Just gone .” Hope reached out her arms to comfort her, to do anything, but Lizzie pushed her away. “No. I pitied you and that's the truth. I pitied you. And now you give me some sales pitch about how fuckin' peachy forever could be?” 

“I'm sorry,” said Hope, at a loss for anything else to say. 

“You want to spend forever somewhere nothing matters? End up like Penelope? All those... lost fucks at the Quagmire, trying anything just to feel something ? Go ahead. But I’m out. I’m gone.” With that, she stomped to the car and got in.

“Lizzie, I’m sorry! LIZZIE!” Hope screamed. But it was too late- she roared away, the cans clanking madly behind her, and Hope was left standing in the middle of the road.

Lizzie gunned her engine and sped along the highway, the wind whipping the tears from her eyes before she was even able to cry them. She swerved around a corner, unhinged, just missing another set of headlights. She hated her pain, how it had become a part of her, that it had caused her to push Hope away, literally and physically. She knew Hope cared for her, and that it wasn’t her fault she didn’t know about Lizzie’s checkered past, but the demon of loss that had wrapped itself into the cracks of her brain and heart had roared when she mentioned him. She shouldn’t have mentioned him. Even from beyond the grave, his love still controlled her, and now the only person she had loved since him hated her. The time on the dashboard clicked to 11:59 and Lizzie ground her teeth until her jaw popped. 

Up ahead, there was a drop in the road, protected by a concrete bollard, and Lizzie aimed the car straight at it. She was going to feel something other than loss if it killed her. Which it couldn’t. But she’d try anyways.

The crash rocked her out of her seat and through the windshield in a spray of glass shards, hitting the ground and flopping down the hill like a rag doll. Again, there was no pain, no broken bones from the impact, no blood from the shattered glass. She rolled over and sat up, and there, shadowed against the moonlight like a mirage in her white dress, red hair blowing in the wind, her hand extended, was Hope. 

She didn’t hate her. And Lizzie could never love her enough for that.

Lizzie looked up at her, tears finally coming to pool on her cheeks, and reached for her. Her past was stained, sure, but with Hope she wanted, needed to move forward.

Suddenly, the clock in the car clicked to midnight, and Hope was alone in the dust. She stared down at the rut in the ground from the crash, which was already disappearing.

The next Saturday rolled around, and the one after. Lizzie didn’t come. Hope stayed in her house, everything around her reminding her of what she’d lost, but not being able to bring herself to leave.

In her nursing home, Lizzie stared at the sky, watching the sun set and feeling something like melancholy as she looked back on her past and relished in it. Tonight was one of happy memories: Caroline’s smile, Raf’s laughter, board games and hot chocolate, rainstorms and sunny days, good times with friends and comfortable nights in. She realized that, even when she died (and she knew it would be soon), she didn’t want to go just yet. She had more to live for than she had realized. And maybe it would be months, years, decades before she left, but she knew that she had to stick around.

Honoring Caroline and Raf’s memories didn’t have to mean denying herself a life after their deaths. She could honor them by… by living. 

Loving.

“Well, alright then,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

Emma looked up from the couch next to her, puzzled. “What? Lizzie?”

“All things considered, I guess I’m ready.”

“For what?”

“For the rest of it,” said Lizzie, smiling serenely. She’d made her peace. Now it was time to get the girl.

When Lizzie finally came back to San Junipero, it had been three weeks, but this time she was staying forever. She felt different, a little bit untethered, but she supposed that was mostly in her mind, and for the first time in many years, she felt at peace with herself. She felt lighter, and younger, like maybe she could fly if she really wanted to.

Her house was quiet as she looked over it from the road, the curtains drawn shut and the windows dark.

Lizzie’s outfit was a comfortable purple button-down tucked into black cuffed jeans, her only jewelry a chain attached to her belt loops, her hair shorter and loose around her shoulders, emulating Hope’s style almost subconsciously, but in an edgier way that made it her own. And, really, that was what Hope did: she infused her with goodness, and Lizzie had become like a new person with Hope, but she was still her old self at the same time. She took a little of Hope’s goodness and made it her own, and Hope took some of her spontaneity and made it her own.

Lizzie half-walked, half-ran down the hill, dodging brush and sea lettuce, and made her way across the beach. She quietly entered her house and crept up the stairs, and Hope was asleep in Lizzie’s bed. Hope looked so peaceful, curled up in her nest of blankets, that Lizzie admired her picturesque face for a second before leaning over her and tenderly, gently biting down on her nose.

Hope’s eyes flashed open and she let out a panicked “AAAAAAAAH!”, jerking violently to the side and almost rolling off of the bed. Lizzie howled with laughter and fell into the little nest Hope had created as Hope instinctively curled into a ball, kicking at the air. “Get away! I have a weapon-” she snatched a key from the bedside table and brandished it at her attacker, but her entire expression changed when she saw Lizzie lying on the bed next to her, absolutely losing her mind. “Lizzie!? What are you doing here?”

“Me?” Lizzie pointed at herself incredulously. “What am I doing here? You’re the one who’s sleeping in my bed!” Hope batted at her with sleepy arms, and Lizzie fended her off. “Who else do you think would have bit your nose while you were dead asleep?”

Hope stopped and pondered that for a moment. “A stalker.”

“I guess I’m a stalker, then.”

“I think I’m the stalker here.” Lizzie let out a quiet laugh. Hope had kind of stalked her, hadn’t she? Hope reached out a hand hesitantly, and Lizzie took it in her own and leaned her cheek into it, to show that it was okay, she wasn’t angry anymore. How could she be angry at that face? “I missed you,” said Hope quietly. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Hope... I’m staying.”

“No.” Hope shook her head. “No. No. Don’t tease me like that. It’s not something to joke about.” She snatched her hand away from Lizzie’s face, looking hurt. “I’ve made my peace with your choice, and that’s what it is. Your choice. I just don’t want to think about losing you right now.” 

“Hope. I’m not joking.” Lizzie cupped Hope’s face in her hands so she would look at her. “I’ve passed over. I’m staying in San Junipero.”

“You-?” Hope felt her chest open up, all the stress and worry and guilt of the past few weeks drifting away with Lizzie’s words. “You’re going to stay here?” Hope reached out to touch her shoulder, her neck, her cheek, like she was convincing herself that Lizzie was actually there.

“With you. We have as long as we want. Forever, maybe.” Lizzie brought their foreheads together. “We’re in this ‘til the bitter end.”

Hope let out a sob and kissed her, the type of kissing that was more laughter and teeth and tears, and Lizzie knew she had made the right decision. This was her place. This was her home.

Hope was her home.

“I love you,” murmured Lizzie into Hope’s lips.

“Mhm.” Hope kissed her cheek, her nose, and finally her lips again. “I love you too.”

“Since the moment I met you I-”

“Shut up,” whispered Hope, and pulled her down, down, down.

…

Ooh, baby do you know what that’s worth?

Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.

Belinda Carlisle sang from the speakers as Hope pulled up to the beach. She pushed her sunglasses up into her windblown red hair and let out a loud yell of “LIIIIIIIIZZZZZZZZIIIIIEEEE!”

They say in heaven, love comes first.

We’ll make heaven a place on earth.

Lizzie leaned so far out of the window of her house that she almost fell into the sand, and Hope laughed.

“I’M COMING, DUMBASS!” called Lizzie as she ran across the sand and up the hill. When she reached Hope’s car, they kissed, and Lizzie grabbed Hope’s hand to give her a spin. Her sunglasses almost fell off, but Lizzie caught them quickly and tipped them down over Hope’s eyes, giving Hope’s nose a little boop afterwards. “Hey, hot stuff.”

“Back at you, Golden Delicious.”

“That is, bar none, maybe the worst thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”

Ooh, heaven is a place on Earth. 

When I feel alone, I reach for you,

And you bring me home.

“I could think of much worse things to say, I’m sure.” Hope shot Lizzie a look over her sunglasses and winked at her, and Lizzie cracked up.

“You little tease.” Lizzie slid into the passenger seat. “Wanna drive around the coast for a little, then go for milkshakes and rollerskating?”

“Sounds good to me, as long as it involves me in your bedroom tonight.” Hope hopped over the driver’s door and into her seat, gunning the engine.

“You know it, baby.” Lizzie turned up the radio nearly as loud as it could go.

When I'm lost at sea,

I hear your voice,

And it carries me. 

Hope took Lizzie’s hand and pressed her lips to the back of it, and Lizzie leaned back in her chair, putting her feet up on the dash. “Hey!” Hope said indignantly, and pushed her feet off the dashboard, resulting in a playful slap fight that had them both laughing their asses off.

In this world we're just beginning

To understand the miracle of living.

Hope looked over at Lizzie. This was it. This was her forever.

The two girls in the convertible drove off into the rising sun, full of possibility and promises, chasing their happy ending.

Baby, I was afraid before

But I'm not afraid anymore.

Somewhere in the boondox, outside of San Junipero, in a building owned by TCKR systems, two small, spinning disks sat next to each other in a server where millions of discs, known as cookies, resided. Each cookie held a living consciousness. Those aforementioned two cookies happened to be Lizzie and Hope, but they were together, and they would always be together.

That was the only thing that mattered.

Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth?

Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.

They say in heaven, love comes first.

We'll make heaven a place on earth.

Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.