Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hello, this might not have needed its own chapter, but I’d love to explain a bit about the story I’m planning before you start reading. This is my first time really truly writing a fan-fiction, I have written many times before but have never posted unironic works publicly, so I promise I am good. There will be no descriptions of intimacy in this fic because I am strongly against myself writing those scenes for multiple reasons. Any intimate scenes will be cut out, like a fade-to-black, but there will still be romance. I apologize for that, but I will not be writing that sort of thing ever, and I am very much not open to hearing about dead batterys.

Some chapters will be flashbacks, like Ariel and Skye in the commune. Those will not be turned into separate fanfics because I feel they are important to how I wish to develop the characters, but will not directly contribute to the story. They will be referenced, however.

Thank you!

Chapter Text

I’ve never given up before, but what choice did I really have? I was locked out and I don’t exactly have the brute strength to rip a bunker door of it’s fucking hinges.

Rajesh’s phone goes off, and a news lady speaks “One minute now, one minute, these pictures coming live to us from the Hubble…” My face is still lying in the dirt, my head racing trying to find a way out of this, internally fighting itself, ’that wouldn’t work, that neither, we can’t do anything we can’t fix this.’

Never in my life have I felt so defeated before. Everything hurts, my legs hurt from running all over the place, occasionally carrying my daughter, my feet hurt from being barefoot all day with pebbles digging up against them, my upper body hurts from being tied down, from pulling at that damn bank cell door. If I’m going to hell, it couldn’t be a long trip from here.

Layla, she won’t know it’s not me. She thinks she’s talking to the real Jamie. No matter how much I scream now that I’m Jamie, how loud I yell over the comets crashing against the surface of the Earth, how much I crawl despite the excruciating pain I’m in, she’ll never hear me. She’ll never know, and there’s nothing I can do. I can barely move, I’ve been fighting tooth and nail since the day this comet was announced, no, since I was just 12 and it suddenly seemed like nothing was ever going in my favor. I haven’t truly rested and I vowed to never rest until Layla, my wife, was safe.

But, now I’m forced to rest, to die with the rest of the Earth, with every other person in the Milky Way, in the galaxy. My face hits the dirt and the rocks, my whole body still tensed with pain, with suspense of my impending doom. Shit shit shit SHIT. I just wanted to be safe with her, I almost want life to be how it was before I knew about him.

It’s all over now. The sky grows dark as the comet covers the sun. There’s nothing I can do? There’s nothing I can do. Nothing will be left of me or this world, and I won’t get the luxury of dying peacefully.

It’s quiet for a moment, not outwardly, but in my own head. My thoughts silence for the first time in over a month and I unwillingly accept my demise. Me and the whole world, we’re all dying together, and it’s like I can feel the universe holding it’s breath all at once. A sense of unity seems to lay over the world, no matter who you are, Mother nature was going to take care of you.

My eyes, already shut, scrunch up and my mouth closes. I hold my breath, as the suspense finally ceases.

“3… 2… 1…”

”Welcome, Jamie”