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“Alright, yeah, good night! Thanks for all the presents! Bye!” June shut the door behind her, and sat down on the couch with a sigh. After Roxy came back from tossing some wrapping paper scraps from yet another birthday, they sat down on the couch and put her arms around their partner. “Long day for the birthday girl?”
“Yeah, I guess. Lots of people all at once, you know?”
“Yeahhhh, I get u babe, social stuff can be hard! But at least janey didn’t go too overboard with the cake, remember last year? The house was full of the things! We had to go door to door givin them away! Was a good excuse to get u out to meet the neighbors, tho! Oh, and remember when you slipped up and called her dad when complaining about all the cakes? She got redder than her apron! U kno, I’ve always thought she has some sort of gender thingy buried deep down, i remember she loved any excuse to dress up as one of those detective dude, fake mustache and all!”
June gave a half-hearted smile, still staring off into the middle distance. “Heh, yeah, that was nice…”
Roxy quirked their head. This was more than just social exhaustion, they’d spent enough time with the girl of her dreams to know that. They turned on the couch to face June, and gently clasped their girlfriend’s hands in their own. “There’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?”
June smirked and leaned over into her partner’s lap, sighing gently as Roxy began to gently massage the tension out of her scalp. “Can’t hide anything from you, can I?” “Nope!”, Roxy chuckled. “Well, I just… it’s one of those things that’s hard to talk about, you know? Like, you feel bad about even having those feelings.”
“Yeah, and then you feel bad about feeling bad, and then you feel bad for THAT, i know what you mean.” Roxy smiled gently. June could really bottle up her feelings, and Roxy knew it was better for everyone to help her vent them out in a controlled way like this, rather than waiting for her to blow up on someone.
“Yeah, exactly! But anyways, it’s just… Do you remember the battle that happened once everyone got to your session?”
“Pfft, do I? Hell yeah I do! There were like ten diff fights at once, we were fighting the batter witch, the striders fighting the jacks, Jake fighting those green dudes, it was crazy!” Roxy mimes punching motions and sword swings, but to their surprise, June just looks away. “No, not that one… The one in the previous timeline.”
“Oh. Yeah, that one…” Roxy puts their hands down, that sad look appearing on her face too. “Yeah, that was… kind of a shit show.”
“It was. I’ve… I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently.”
Roxy simply nods, waiting for June to continue.
“Like, I’m glad to have everyone over! I’m glad they’re still around! Rose and Dave and Terezi and Kanaya, they’re all great! But… I can’t stop thinking about the people who didn’t make it out of that doomed timeline. The Jade I spent three years on a battleship with? That’s not the Jade that came to this party. The Dave who set up all the music? He’s not *my* Dave, he’s some other June’s Dave! The June I blew up so I could swoop in and fix everything!
“Was she talking to Typheus when she exploded the planet? Was she told ‘Hey, a version of you from another timeline is coming to fix everything so your friends won’t die, but I gotta kill you for some reason! You wont get to see it!’? Or was she just hanging out watching TV one moment, and then the next she was dead?”
“June, sweetie…”
“And and and! When Terezi was here and drinking a bunch of soda and eating a bunch of cake, when she ended up face down on the floor, all I could see… All I could think of, was... was…”
“JUNE!” Roxy lifted up their girlfriend & spun her around so they were facing each other. June’s face was wet with tears. “June, you’re spiraling. Take a moment to breathe, ok hun?”
She paused, burying her face into Roxy’s shoulder as she tried to manage her breathing.
The Rogue sighed deeply, and began to talk as they patted their girlfriend’s back. “I think about it too sometimes. About how Jane got brain-jacked and locked me up. About how Jane threatened Jake with some pretty f-ed up stuff, and yet the guy still jumped in the way of the sword to try and save her. But mostly… Mostly I think about Rose.”
June looks up from her partner’s shoulder, and sees they’ve ended up crying too.
“Maybe if I’d, like, I dunno, voidy-powered her out of the way soon enough, she would’ve avoided getting shanked in the first place... But I didn’t. Heh, it’s almost funny, in a sad way. I grew up hearing all about the exploits of Rose Lalonde, her works, her resistance to the batterwitch, and the battle where she met her end. Then, I heard about The Game, and that I’d finally get the chance to meet up with the baddest babe who ever lived. I was so excited! I mean, yeah, I did suspect the batterwitch was plotting something, but I’d finally get the chance to meet my mom! The game comes, there are some times when we would pass each other by in the bubbles, but I wasn’t expecting to actually get the chance to talk to her until she got here. And, when she DOES get here, I don’t even get to introduce myself until after fish hitler has already impaled her.”
“I spent so long waiting to say hello, and I only got the chance to say goodbye…” Roxy starts full-on sobbing at this, their body shaking as the grief pours out of them. June windy-things over a box of tissues and hands it to her partner, lovingly brushing their bleach-blond hair out of their eyes. “Take a handful of tissues, Roxy.”
“I can’t imagine how that felt for you. I was waiting for Rose for three years. You were waiting your whole life…”
“Ohhhh no you don’t, you don’t get to downplay your problems like that, little miss Egbert! Shit sucked for the both of us!”
The sad smile was back on June’s face as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Yeah… It really did. Hey Roxy? Thank you for helping me get this off my chest.” The two lovers held hands and smiled at each other, before learning in for a quick yet passionate kiss. “Okay, we should probably start taking some of the decorations down before we get any more distracted. I don’t want to end up trying to hide the happy birthday banner behind the Christmas tree again.”
“Sounds good Junebug, I’ll finish cleaning up the kitchen – I was gonna grab another slice of pizza for myself, should I leave one out for you too?”
“Oh, yeah, that would be great! Thank you.”
“Anytime *wonk*”
“Oh, and one more thing? I love you, Roxy.”
“I love you too, June.”