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On his last official day on the Waverider, Jax finds one last surprise waiting for him in the engine room. Intending to check on unusual fluctuations in the core, he enters to spot his leather case (easier to pass off as a notebook in pre-tech time periods) that contains his phone sitting on a stool. He hadn't even realized he'd been missing it until now.
“Apologies for the subterfuge, Mr. Jackson. There is no engineering emergency. I've taken the liberty before your departure to make some improvements for you.”
“You know you could've just asked for it,” Jax replies as he picks up the phone and seats himself on the stool to check it out.
“But what would've been the fun in that,” she says cheekily. Her tone quickly shifts back to more serious though. “I hope you find my additions useful.”
Upon unlocking his screen, he sees a new icon placed in the center - a faithful 2D rendering of Gideon's blue holographic head.
“The whole crew will miss you. This way they'll only be a click away, or two, as it were.”
Jax clicks on the app icon and finds the crew listed there along with an emergency beacon function and a normal - more every day, he assumes - feature of 'Request Waverider visit'.
“If you have any messages for the crew I'll pass them on at the earliest convenience. I can also schedule a phone or video call for you when we're in communications range.”
“Thanks, Gideon. Hang on, why aren't you on here?”
There's a small pause before she replies, that would be easy to miss if you weren't familiar with her speech patterns, but definitely exists. “I didn't foresee any need for you to contact me directly once you leave.”
“You don't get rid of me that easily. Once a Legend, always a Legend, and that includes you too. You belong on there just as much as any of us.”
“I'll take your word for it.”
“Just so you know, if you were here in person I'd be planting a huge-ass hug on you right now.“
“I guess we'll just have to settle with a good new fashioned virtual hug,“ Gideon says right as Jax gets a notification on his phone.
The alert comes from the freshly updated app, that now has Gideon showing up near the start of the alphabetical list of Legends. He opens the message up to an ASCII hug emoji, which is sweet but he's gonna have to teach Gideon how to make good use of picture emojis and reaction gifs at this rate.
The whole first month of him being back to normality, and on solid ground again, finds him not able to sleep. At first, he figures he's simply out of sync with real-time, like some kind of chrono lag. And of course, it's still strange not to have Grey in his head but he's getting used to it. His sleep problems don't get any better though and he doesn't know why. The bed at his new place is so much more comfier than the weird 22nd-century idea of ergonomic he'd put up with for so long, mainly by adding extra layers underneath him.
Tossing and turning one night, it dawns on him what's wrong. It's too quiet. Even with the fairly frequent noises of the city in the background, it's nothing like the constant hum of the Waverider. Originally, that hum frustrated him no end, and caused about as much problem sleeping as he's having currently, but over time it had become soothing. The sound of the ship he'd been uniquely tuned into, considering understanding what was as expected and what was off was the difference between things being shipshape or heading toward a disaster.
He asks Gideon if she can send him a recording of the ship's ambient sounds and the next day he finds she didn't just do that. She over-delivers with a sleep timer function including Waverider noises added near the top of the app's list. That alone makes him smile, knowing some things haven't changed and she's still looking out for him.
Sleep comes easier after that. And anytime he misses the ship, he turns on that recording and closes his eyes to imagine he's back there. It helps him stay connected in spirit, every bit as meaningful as the words they send back and forth.
Jax sends messages to the crew from time to time, but he knows they're pretty busy and replies tend to be spotty. The Legends are much more likely to turn up unannounced for a little downtime when they can. That's pretty fun when it happens. Not exactly like old times but a good reminder of the friendships he built, and forging something new with how they fit into his life as it is now.
Gideon herself is the person he ends up messaging the most. And she gives him deadpan – but strangely spoiler-free – accounts of the goings-on aboard. He starts to wonder if he goes back one day, if that's why a lot of the details are missing. He knows better than to ask. Either way, the out of context pictures prove frequently hilarious. Jax even turns some of them into personal memes they share between just the two of them.
Gideon herself develops a talent for picking the best surveillance clips on the ship - from public areas only - to make spot-on gifs of the crew. Those he does share with the others eventually. And Gideon may have filmed several videos of crewmembers reacting to their own gifs before they caught onto that particular ploy. Zari's reaction faces were priceless, though Ray was the best sport about it and in fact asked to be sent his gifs for his personal use.
The day Jax sends Gideon news of him and his wife having a baby on the way, her reply is pleasant, congratulatory, but rather devoid of her usual personality. Too practiced and polite.
JAX: You knew already, didn't you?
JAX: I forget sometimes how out of sync stuff gets for y'all.
GIDEON: I wouldn't wish to say anything that could jeopardize the happy future I know you deserve.
JAX: Aw, Gideon, you're getting sentimental on me. I'm touched.
She's the first Legend he sends any new baby pics to and she's the only one who never seems bored of them, endlessly fascinated at how Martina is doing.
He doesn't visit the Waverider as often as he'd like, but being back there – with his back against the wall sensing the familiar vibrations of the ship's inner workings – still felt like coming home. Another home, with another family, important in a different way than his day-to-day life.
One of his favorite things to do when he's on the Waverider is to go sit in the engine room and chat to Gideon like old times, although he probably knows her better by now than he ever did when he was on the ship. He also knows better than to interfere with whoever is the current resident mechanic, so he doesn't tinker with anything no matter how tempting it is. He just sits and takes in the surroundings for a little while.
“You did good with that science fair project you suggested. Martina loved it and she won the fair. Plus, I think it blew the teachers' minds.”
“You're both very welcome.”
“I'm starting to run out of bedtime stories for her, maybe I should be joining up again. Part-time or something. Rack up a few new adventures to expand my repertoire.”
“Surely she hasn't tired of your faithful account of Giant Beebo?”
“No. That's still her favorite, that never gets old. She keeps asking for a bigger Beebo plush and I know Ray could embiggen the one we got her but I think that'd actually creep me out. Anyhow, she's always saying 'Daddy, daddy, tell me a new one' and I've really dug deep. She wants stories I don't got.”
“To her, the Legends are characters. You could make up new stories.”
“Nah, it doesn't feel right. I know they're real, I don't wanna make up stuff. Besides, one day I might tell her about all this.”
“She might figure it out herself. She's a smart child, much like her father.”
“That too. I don't want to make things up and then have to explain later which impossible sounding tales were really true.”
“When she's older she'll be able to make her own stories.”
“You mean here? Too soon, Gideon. I am not ready for that, not for a long time.”
Martina is his little girl and he can't yet truly imagine a time when she isn't, but he knows at some point she'll be walking her own path. He takes a long moment to properly think about the idea before he replies again.
“Maybe one day, if she likes the idea,” he says, though who is he kidding, chances are she'd be ecstatic about it. “I can't pretend that wouldn't scare the shit outta me. I'm her dad, and being a Legend is dangerous, but I had the adventure of a lifetime with you all. Grey was right about that, it was 'an extraordinary opportunity' and I couldn't deny her the same.”
“Maybe one day she could become the captain of the ship.”
“Knowing how determined she is, yeah. Yeah, I could see that.”
He feels a swell of pride just thinking about the possibility. Just as well it's a couple of decades away at least. That gives him time to get used to it, to grow into the idea about as fast as his daughter will grow up into that wonderful woman he fully expects to take the world by storm.
“I would look out for her as if she was my own child,” Gideon says, and her voice seems a little softer somehow as she does.
“I don't doubt it. You look out for us all. I never expected that'd mean even after I left but I'm glad we have you, Gideon. I figured Ray was the mom friend of the ship, at least while I was here, but you're more like the cool aunt.”
“I'll take that compliment.”
Come Martina's next birthday, she has a surprise present in the mail. They open up the carefully wrapped blue package to find a stack of illustrated children's books - 'Gideon's Adventures in Space & Time'. Martina's face lights up. She wastes no time flipping through the pages, excitedly pointing out things she recognizes from his stories.
As he unpacks the rest of the books, he spies something under them; two envelopes. One is addressed to Martina, probably a birthday card. Knowing Gideon's tastes, he's betting it'll be something shiny, which Martina's bound to love whenever she gets to it – the books look likely to have her full attention for a while yet.
The other envelope is addressed to 'Mr. Jackson'. He saves it for a quiet moment later, to have it to himself, and is glad he did.
Martina is important to you, so she is important to me too. You will always be a part of this family.