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Fifty years after you died, you saw the sun again.
Famous showed up at the Hall when the huge doors opened, something that until then you didn't know they could do, the sound of which shook you to your core . Standing at the head of the ship, long coat tossed over his shoulders, arms crossed, Famous was taller than you remembered him being when you were alive, and in a way he looked more severe, more... Grown up, just like the rest of your Tigers.
He was carrying a leather-bound notebook at his hip, with two letters sticking out of the pages: one that you didn't recognize, only somewhat worn; the other, yellowed with age, falling apart, and intimately familiar .
You couldn't stop smiling as the team-- many, mostly new faces, new stripes-- help you, Scorp, and Frasier up onto the deck. The Monitor was drifting above the grand hall, peacefully , quietly , watching the teams, the living and the dead, mill about and have their reunions, yet as you stood up, catching Scorpler's arm before they stumbled, as the team turned and headed back for the still-open doors, it lay in silence in the murky space beyond .
Almost fifty years ago, then, you died. You don't regret it-- it's a policy of yours not to. You would have changed some things: would have left the team in better shape (they fell apart after you were gone), you would have said a better goodbye to everyone, you would have-- knowing what you know now-- called Jaylen or the Garages or both, that morning, though you aren't sure what you would have said . You would have gone to Landry's memorial one more time. But the point is you left behind a life you were satisfied with, the fulfillment of something Landry told you once, when you were much younger, that you never really understood until you died.
Death changed you. Your hands, when Famous clasped your wrist, stood stark and inky against his, your pores clogged with words . Deprived of your journal in the Hall, you had felt less stable than ever, and instead of being secreted away in your heart-of-hearts, your memories and thoughts wrote themselves on your skin, winding up your fingers, down the lines of your veins, haloing your heart and crossing your ribs . Death, a half-century later, was as all-encompassing as the ink on your hands.
You had begun to worry they had forgotten about you.
You couldn't stop smiling when they pulled you up, and you couldn't describe the feeling in your chest as you sat at the bow, Scorpler standing above you, hand held out, high and proud, Frasier stretched up to watch the distant supernova . The Instability under your skin didn't seem like pre-game jitters, like the anxiety of impending doom; it felt more like hope , in the light of the flames of the Rogue team . You couldn't stop smiling, because they remembered you, and they remembered Scorpler, and they remembered Frasier . Many stripes, one tiger, no matter how long it's been.
Famous had-- has-- many reasons to loathe the Coin. He is the only original Tiger still standing; you do not have to hear all the details to know that he has lost an unthinkable amount . You do not begrudge him the fierce pride and joy he takes in striking the Coin down, watching Her burn beneath hellfire, righteously delivered .
Everything after that is a blur.
The trip to the Vault was frantic. You stood beside Landry, paces away from Scorpler and Yazmin, as you helped the Tigers and the other late arrivals throw themselves across the growing divide into the sterile white space of the Vault . Below them, endless darkness yawned. You watched Landry wave one more goodbye to Paula, shouting: "Give them hell!" You squeezed his hand when she yelled back, her voice scarred with old pain, cracking in the center: "Do it for VIOLENCE !"
And then, one final clear moment.
When the Vault's doors finally sealed shut, and it was just the five of you, dead Tigers all, standing outside on the precipice, you turned around and looked out at the Black Hole as it crept nearer and nearer .
The others watched as you sat down, once again dangling your legs over the abyss. "We can fight this," Yazmin said.
"We can run," Landry added, which wasn't quite agreeing with Yazmin, but the look she shot him spoke volumes about an argument you must have missed out on-- being dead, and all .
"You can," you had said. You were still smiling. "But I've seen my team to safety, and... That's enough for me. The captain goes down with the ship."
For a second, no one had moved. Then Frasier hopped off of Scorpler's shoulder and settled next to you, in your shadow, hardly visible in the gloom . It squeaked at you, and you smiled, softer, at it, patting its tiny paw with your finger. Scorpler sat on its other side, grinning at you.
"I'm with you, captain," they said, and put one finger over Frasier's other paw. "Til the end."
Landry perched on your left, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "You already did that once, captain." He ignored your half-hearted chastisement for the title, just like he always had. "Now you're just going down like a civilian."
"Famous is slacking off," Scorpler said, and you laughed as they twisted around to look up at Yazmin, standing there with her arms crossed, watching the four of you . "Well?"
She hesitated, glancing behind her at the Vault and ahead at the approaching Black Hole. Already the molten remains of the Coin are hardly visible in the dark. Then, finally, she sighed and came to sit on Landry's other side. "Ugh, fine. But let the record reflect I think we should have done something."
"This is doing something, Yaz," Landry insisted. "It's a radical act of acceptance. Live to fight another day."
You thought about that in silence, as you looked out at expanse of nothing. Somewhere out there were people you had once known. An entire League, coming together under the Microphone's shadow. For the end of the world, it was as hopeful as it was desolate, and it was both of those things more than you expected.
Landry nudged you with his elbow; when you looked at him, his smile was smaller, warmer. You were watching his face so you missed him holding an object out until he set it in your lap. "Hey. I brought this for you. I know it's been a while, but I thought maybe you'd wanna bring back the old habit."
It's a journal, leather-bound, smelling not of new pages but of smoke and brimstone, tobacco and pine. On the front cover are debossed images of cooking implements; on the spine, your name, and the letters RIV.