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“Captain? Captain, are you okay?”
You slowly lifted your head to meet eyes with the head engineer, who was looking back at you with a level of concern you had seen all too many times before. After stumbling once again out of the cryopod, your legs basically jelly, you ended up on your knees on the ground, your hands holding you up as if you were about to crawl across the room. If this had been fifteen realities ago, you would have found the energy to at least do that. But in this particular moment you were not feeling energetic. You felt defeated. Because you couldn’t find him again.
You constantly thought about him. You weren’t even sure how you ended up here, in what felt like some eternal hell when you thought you actually had a chance at being happy.
In one reality, the one reality you wanted to be in, you were with Yancy, even just for a fleeting moment.
“It’s too late for me. It’s too late for us - But I can tell that youse got something worth fighting for out there.”
For a man who had originally come at you with aggression, you could immediately tell he had a soft side. And when you reached out to shake his hand, you could tell something sparked. Yancy had quite literally helped you break out of prison, on the first day that you met. That itself was a reality that even seemed a bit fuzzy to you, as you were in there for a heist with a partner who seemed to have completely disappeared. All you knew was that you needed to escape. You needed to be free.
Of course, Yancy made you cover your eyes to hide the secrets he knew about the prison, but he stayed true to his word.
“And there you have it!” he said from the other side of the gate after moments of muffled noises and darkness. “You’re free as a bird!”
He gave you back the box with the blue crystal which you assumed had gotten you into this entire mess - but you didn’t blame Yancy. He was kind and your heart softened as he explained why he took it back for you.
“Why don’t you come with me?” you blurted and Yancy’s eyes widened.
“Me? Out there? With you? I, uh…” He trailed off for a moment.
You nodded. “You could be happy out here.”
You didn’t know why you so desperately wanted Yancy to come with you. Maybe it was the kindness he showed you. Maybe it hurt to see him in the same place, even if he claimed he was happy there.
Yancy explained that prison was home. But you held on to the fact that maybe he would follow through with applying for parole. And you would see him again someday.
“Visitation day every third Sunday!” he called as ran back inside.
You would be there every third Sunday.
You weren’t there every third Sunday. The blue crystal had to have had something to do with this. Unless you were going mad. But how else could you have ended up in space, stuck in some wormhole as captain of a ship working besides a head engineer that coincidentally looked like and shared the same name as your heist partner?
You couldn’t tell if it had been days, months, or years. But every day, month, or year, you found yourself thinking about Yancy. How things could have been if he had just left with you and you left that box and that stupid crystal behind.
There was a moment where you had an idea. Maybe the wormhole could bring you back to him. You kept getting second chances at life, so why couldn’t you get a second chance with him? The crystal had somehow attached itself to you. It lived on your wrist. Maybe you could use it to your advantage.
By some miracle, you were right. After days, months, or years, you found yourself back at Happy Trails - the prison you met Yancy. After traveling through the wormhole for what seemed like the billionth time, you found yourself looking at Yancy through a window. You hadn’t felt anything but exhausted and stressed in those days, months, or years, but in this moment all you could feel was happiness. Yancy lit up at the sight of you and began to speak at the speed of light. You smiled back, barely able to hold back a laugh, picked up the phone and held it up.
“Oh, I always forget that part,” he spoke into the phone.
You laughed again - there was so much you wanted to say but you couldn’t decide where to start.
“I knew youse would come back!” Yancy said happily.
“I wanted to so badly earlier Yancy, I’m so sorry it took so long I just-“
“Hey, it’s okay, (y/n). I’m just glad youse is here now. Well, I guess not here here but…here.” he laughed nervously as he gestured to the glass separating you two.
You wanted to stay in this moment forever. “Well how have you been? How are things? I missed you a lot.” You were both speaking a mile a minute but it didn’t matter. It was the most beautiful reunion. You just wished you could actually hug him.
“I’ve been doing good,” he said. “I’ve been doing real good. How about youse?”
“That’s so good, Yancy,” you beamed with pride. “I’m really proud of you. I’ve been um…okay.”
Yancy frowned. “I don’t know where youse went off to but if anyone is bothering youse then let me know and I will-“
“I’m okay, Yancy.” you said. To hear him be so protective practically made your heart swell.
“You promise? And youse’ll let me know if anyone messes with youse?”
“I promise.” you said, and you could feel tears forming in your eyes. You missed him so much.
“Well, uh, (y/n)…” Yancy said, with a small smile. “I gotta tell youse something.”
“Yes?” Your heart skipped a beat.
“I, uh…I applied for parole.”
You couldn’t help your smile, and you couldn’t help the tears from in your eyes from falling. Was this it? We’re you going to stay here and leave with Yancy, and go back to being happy?
“Yancy, that is incredible. I really am so proud of you.”
“So uh,” Yancy continued, coughing nervously between his words. “I was hoping that could mean we could see each other more.”
That was all you wanted. “Of course we can, Yancy, I’ve been wanting to see you for the longest time.”
He grinned and held his hand up to the glass. You held your hand up to his. You wished there wasn’t a window separating you two. And you wished it even more so after the wormhole brought you back to the ship.
Where you continued to stumble out of the cryopod, where you only saw your few other crewmates, where disaster happened at every corner and was solved only by resetting the universe. You felt yourself going insane. You tried everything to find Yancy again. Fixing it from the outside. Even reversing the ship back into the wormhole. You couldn’t find him again.
So here you were again, down on your hands and knees, with no Yancy in sight.
“Hello? Captain?” The head engineer said again. “Captain, I don’t know what keeps happening but if we can just-“
“I can’t keep doing this, Mark.” you deadpanned. You stood up, and turned to look back at the cryopod. The thing that had only failed you except for that one, perfect time.
“Captain…?”
You sighed, and turned back to Mark, still with that concern in his eyes. You felt your eyes well up with tears. You wanted to be with Yancy. You had never asked for any of this.
“I can’t find him.”
Mark’s expression softened. You had mentioned Yancy before. Maybe a bit too many times. Mark was supportive of your mission to find him but his loyalty had to lie with the ship. Maybe this breakdown had finally shown him how much you needed to be with him.
“Yancy?” he asked quietly, taking a step towards you.
You nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. There wasn’t much else to say.
“I want to be free.” you said after a moment.
“What?”
“I want to be free. That’s what I told him. And here I am, the complete opposite of free. I’m trapped. I want to be free, Mark.”
The tears began to fall, but they were not happy ones like on the day you found Yancy again. They were tears that had been building for days, months, or years.
“(y/n).” Mark said quietly. He had never said your actual name before.
You hadn’t noticed he was holding something this entire time - just another strange encounter in your extremely strange life.
Mark held out the box. The box that the crystal had come from. The box you and the original Mark had gotten in the heist. The box Yancy had returned to you that had sent you to this hell.
“Where did you-“
“Don’t worry about it.” he said. “Just…just take it. I don’t know if it will help but…it’s killing me to see you like this, Captain.”
You looked at Mark before taking the box in both hands. The blue crystal connected to your wrist began to glow.
“Mark-“
“I haven’t had it for a while. At least, I don’t think I have. Things are fuzzy for me too.” Mark laughed nervously. “But I know it was meant for you. Go find him, Captain.”
You threw your arms around your head engineer, and he settled into your embrace. “Thank you, Mark.” you whispered.
You pulled away from the embrace, and Mark lifted his hand in a salute.
“Thank you, Captain.”
You found yourself entering the cryopod for what you hoped would be one last time. You weren’t even sure if this was going to work, but for once, you had hope.
“Space camp sure sounds crazy,” Yancy said, shaking his head with a laugh.
You nodded. “You have no idea.”
You turned to look back at him, the man you had quite literally almost destroyed the universe for.
It had been the last time you stepped into the cryopod. Your head engineer had found the solution. You weren’t sure how he found it, but you suspected he had been on a mission of his own. Or maybe in another reality he had been your heist partner too.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that you had found the reality that had made you happy. A reality with Yancy.
Currently you sat next to him, on a fuzzy blanket at the park he had chosen to visit. Around you children ran around, people played catch with their dogs, and other couples sat on the benches nearby. It was a warm day, but Yancy wore his leather jacket like he always did (not just because it was his signature look, but also because he insisted on having you wear it by the end of the night). The only non-cliche thing about this day was that instead of a homemade picnic you two had just picked up McDonald’s instead. But you didn’t mind. You could have been sitting in an empty parking lot, but if you were with him it wouldn’t have mattered.
The days after you returned had turned into weeks, and Yancy was free. You were free. You were free and together.
“I sure wish I could thank that Mark guy,” Yancy said for what must have been the millionth time since your return. He laid down on his back to look up at the sky, and you followed.
“Maybe one day you can,” was your usual reply.
“I hope so. Because he brought you back to me.”
You turned your head to look over at him. He was already looking back.
This was another thing Yancy had said many times, but each time made your heart flutter. Each time he said it included a goofy, adorable smile that went all the way to his eyes, and a faint blush on his cheeks.
“I wish I could thank him for that again too. I thought I was never going to see you again.”
“Do youse, uh… think that we’re like uh, soulmates?” Yancy asked slowly, the goofy smile fading as he appeared more nervous.
That one was new.
You raised your eyebrows, and felt yourself begin to blush now.
“Just ‘cause like…I don’t know, you said youse was like traveling through time and space to find me and the main reason I applied for parole was, like, so we could see each other more and it felt like, I don’t know, years had passed but then youse came back and then youse came back again, and now we’re here and, I don’t know, that would just make sense right?”
Sometimes Yancy would ramble a bit as he was now and you found it endearing. Especially now that he was implying you two could be soulmates.
“I mean, we definitely could be,” you replied, and his soft brown eyes widened and his smile returned.
“I just thought because of everything we went through it would just, uh, just make sense ya know?”
You smiled and reached for his hand, interlocking his fingers with your own.
“It makes a lot of sense.” You agreed. There could have been no other word for the two of you than soulmates.
“But, uh, like soulmates in what kinda sense, you know?” He continued. “Because, I was thinkin’, like, maybe the reason I wanted to be free so bad was because-“
“I traveled across the universe to find you.” You never cut Yancy off on his rambling, but you really just wanted him to know how you felt and you had never actually put it that way.
“Huh?” he sat up, a bit surprised that you had interrupted his thoughts.
You sat up too, never letting go of his hand.
“I quite literally traveled across and almost destroyed the universe trying to find you, Yancy. In fact, I may have actually destroyed it a little.”
Yancy frowned. “Youse never mentioned anything about destroying the universe before.”
You shook your head. “Forget about that then. I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t have gone through all of that if I didn’t love you.”
Yancy’s brown eyes widened and his lips began to curl into that goofy, adorable smile.
“Really? I was hoping youse would say that because I’m not really an emotional kinda guy-“ (you almost giggled at this because Yancy was more in tune with his emotions than ever) “but uh, I really feel the same way and the whole reason I even applied for parole because I was thinking that two of us could do stuff like this all the time, ya know?”
You nodded, leaning over to kiss Yancy on the cheek.
“Believe me when I tell you that I would travel across the universe a million times over again just for a moment like this.”