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Once upon a time, there was a planet.
This planet was the first, the oldest. He was born into a system with a star who, upon his arrival, seemed overjoyed to have his 'first planet'. He meant something. He was important.
He made friends, because of course he would. He knew how to, after all. But, for now, only one was enough. He needed nothing more than that slightly smaller planet who orbited a small distance away from him. And he was happy. Each day they would talk about their new favourite asteroid, or how their star was growing ever-more clingy, or the arrival of new planets.
Then, one day, a dark blue ice giant woke up in the further reaches of the system. The first planet watched from a distance, but stayed close to his best friend, until his star told him to return to his orbit.
He saw less of his best friend from that day onwards, until he saw him walk over, hand in hand with the ice giant. They were friends, and he couldn't stand the sight. He had been watching the ice giant for a while now, and he was pretty. Beautiful, even. He didn't seem too bad, and if Jupiter had the chance, he might have spoken to him.
But watching him take his place and take his best friend away from him stirred up that growing pool of jealousy in his core.
He was the first.
He knew him for the longest.
They had more of a history together.
So he moved. He moved to show that he was the better friend, that he was too big, too important to be replaced. And then it collapsed.
The scars from the asteroids still dug deep into his arms, the burning sensation nowhere near the pain of those whose deaths he was wholly responsible for.
And there was hate. Hate, and anger, and disapproval, and he had grown up never knowing of these emotions until now, and the glare that pierced into him made him shrink under the weight of what he had done.
All of a sudden, it was less about friendship and loyalty, and more about hiding a dark secret that the ice giant threatened to reveal.
It only took a pull for his protests to be silenced. A pull, with no harm or pain intended, and then he beared the torture of watching him
fall
fall
fall
Until he was nothing but a memory, carved into his mind for all of eternity.
From that moment onwards, if there were ever a problem, or conflict, he knew not to do anything. Because standing by and letting others cause the fall was better than risking catastrophe and living with more guilt than he already had.
He lived.
He thrived.
He watched moons and planets come and go, each one leaving a mark on the tally of guilt engraved into his core.
He watched two moons, his moons, leave, and realised he couldn't save them. He couldn't, and he didn't know how. So, in the way he had grown accustomed to over four and a half billion years, he let it happen. He stood there, and let it happen, because although he may have had a chance to fix it, there was always the risk of failure and escalation. And he couldn't bear to carry any more of that weight.
A few weeks later, the moment he had both been longing for and dreading occurred. His moons returned unharmed. They were back in his orbit again. But so was another dark blue ice giant.
The curiosity in his eyes stripped away to make room for pure hate and vengeance. And he smiled. He smiled at the thought of enacting his revenge.
The blue ice giant exposed him.
And he let it happen.
There was so much he wanted to say, so many conversations he had rehearsed in his head every night. So many apologies to give.
Yet nothing came out. The words caught behind his mouth as he watched every secret of his get dragged out from where they were hiding.
He was still as beautiful as the day he lost him.
He accepted his punishment. The cold, dark void of space would be his new home, because all this time he knew that he was the one who should have been stripped of his birthplace.
He deserved this.
He had expected this.
What he didn't expect, however, was for that same blue ice giant to appear in front of him, obviously having been crying not long before, and ask to talk.
And, even with weeks alone to plan his explanation...
He couldn't.
But somehow, by some miracle, the ice giant began to understand.
Not forgiveness.
Never forgiveness.
But a new perspective.
Then he said he must leave, and he was heartbroken. All the dreams he would have late at night of a different ending, the now blurry image of his terrified eyes as he went hurtling through space, all the opportunities they had missed, and now he was leaving.
What they could have been was stripped away.
Only to exist in his imagination.
He told him to come back. He told him he belonged here, but to no avail.
Maybe in another lifetime.
Maybe in another universe.
"I'll see you later, Jupiter."
"Goodbye, X."
It didn't take long for the cold to hit. Literal cold, yes, because he was in the literal void, but also a deep metaphorical cold. Emptiness. Even when he had been banished from the solar system, Jupiter could still watch the orbits of the planets he had seen as family for so long.
Although, one he had refused to outwardly acknowledge. One he had pushed away, shoved aside, while the image of his terrified eyes as he fell through space rotted Jupiter's mind from the inside out.
Out here, systems seemed condensed into a single point of light. Nebulae looking like small swirls against the pitch black backdrop. Star clusters blurring together, the same way a crowd slowly becomes one singular mass.
Jupiter had spent his entire existence around others. When he first woke up, the Sun was there to shine down on him, light up his early days. Then there was Saturn, and X, Uranus and Neptune, and then Mars and then all the others.
He didn't know how to be alone. Jupiter, the big brother of the solar system, didn't know how to live without anyone to look after, without anyone to keep safe, without anyone to fill the silence. Now, there was no one else. Now, the silence could press against him, thick and heavy and overwhelmingly suffocating.
Where to start?
A million planets. He had promised to save a million planets. And now he was alone to think this through, it seemed an impossible feat.
"Jupiter?"
"X. You're here."
"Sorry I'm late. SIMP wouldn't stop lecturing me..."
"It's okay. I'm glad you're here."
Jupiter could feel X's gravity behind him, and he basked in it. The feeling of someone else with him. He wasn't alone anymore.
"I don't know how to start."
"Yeah. I still don't know how you went through with this. I tried to tell you so many times that the Rogue Planets aren't good. But you never listened."
"You're right, I'm sorry. But once I've don't this, once I've saved a million planets, I can earn their forgiveness and then we can all leave."
"You can't leave."
"What?"
"You can't leave. This kingdom is like a cult. I don't know what exactly happens if you try to leave, but whatever it is, it can't be good."
"Well...well I'm sure me and the others can come up with a plan."
"Who's to say the others will even return?"
Jupiter froze. He hadn't even thought of that possibility.
"You might be able to save a million planets, because you want to. They don't."
Only now did Jupiter remember the confused, scared faces when SIMP gave them their mission. Just like when they first joined. They didn't want this. None of them did. Yet, they all looked up to Jupiter, and believed they had no choice but to follow him.
"You wanted to be like me, and now you are. Just like when I dragged everyone down in my search for revenge, you're doing the same in your need for redemption."
But he didn't mean to, did he? He didn't want to manipulate them into joining.
After all, Jupiter was the only one who needed forgiveness.
"I hope you're happy with the choice you made."
The slight pull of gravity began to weaken, and Jupiter almost flinched at the change in pressure.
"X, wait."
I can't keep waiting for you, Jupiter.
He didn't say it, but Jupiter felt it deep in his core. His core that was slowly freezing in the near-absolute zero of the void.
"...How do I fix this?"
There had to be a way to fix this. This time, he was willing to take action to make it better. He would no longer stand around and let it happen.
"I don't know."
What?
He had to know. If Jupiter didn't know, X had to know. So why didn't he?
How was he meant to fix any of this if no one knew how?
"I don't know how to fix it. That's up for you to decide. You shouldn't be asking me how to fix it."
Of course the blame was turned on him now. He deserved it, but it still stung.
"But...it seems like no matter what I do, it's always wrong. And I never know what anyone wants from me, so I can't fix it. I couldn't fix the ejected rocky planets. I couldn't fix the years you spent outside the solar system. I couldn't fix Theia's death. I couldn't fix the Sun, or the ice giants, or the moon revolution."
"Maybe you couldn't. Maybe you could. You need to stop thinking about the solution that you think would hurt less people, and turn to the solution that sits right with you. Stop lying. Be your true self. Don't hide what you want from others. Even if it pushes them away, tell them the truth."
"But-...but I don't know how-"
"Then find out how."
Everyone was always so vague about what he needed to do. Jupiter was so utterly terrified of hurting someone, he needed a set of instructions on what to do so that everyone was happy. Even at the cost of his own happiness.
At the price of his ability to move on. He would choke on guilt and regret if it kept everyone happy.
He would die for them.
But Jupiter swore he didn't want to die.
He sat there. He sat and thought until his mind went numb.
"X? Are you-...are you still there?"
The only response he got was a cold hand resting on his shoulder. Cold, but warm. Warm in the way it feels when someone's pinkie finger brushes yours, warm in the way it feels when the first flowers start blooming in spring.
Warm like home.
Which was strange. He had hardly spent much time with X. The short time they knew each other at the beginning of the solar system, the moment he returned, the moment he left, the moment he came to help save the planets, and the brief conversations they had in the rogue planet kingdom.
Such little time spent in each other's presence, yet his entire life revolved around him. Whenever it got too quiet, his thoughts would drift back to him.
Most of their lives spent millions of miles apart, yet, since Jupiter saw X for the first time since the ejection, no place would feel like home without him.
"Can I tell you something?"
The grip on his shoulder tightened slightly, and Jupiter wished it would dig into his skin, then hold him and comfort him, then stab him and leave him to die.
Anything to indulge in that feeling.
So very temporary.
"I think-...no, I know, I-"
"Love me? Jupiter. You don't. You love what we could have been. You wouldn't want me. You want the idea of me."
"No, X...I swear. I-...I love you."
The void went silent.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because it's true..."
"No, Jupiter, why? I'm not here."
But there was still the grip on his shoulder, tighter and tighter and tighter until Jupiter turned around.
He was met with darkness. The lonely void he had been drifting in for so long.
Days?
Weeks?
Years?
X had never come after him.
He never would.
Jupiter lifted a trembling hand to his shoulder.
"Hey Jupiter!"
Jupiter looked up, and over by the Kuiper Belt was an all-too-familiar ice giant. Smiling and waving at him.
"X?"
"Yeah! What, you forgot about me already?"
An asteroid was launched in Jupiter's direction, and he spun it around, sending it back to X.
"What do you want?"
"I dunno. I mean, I found a pretty cool spot it the Kuiper Belt, if you wanna come check it out..."
The Sun was facing the other way, and Jupiter stared at him for a while before deciding he was sufficiently distracted.
"Sure, I'll come." He sped towards X before the Sun could turn around and notice him leaving his orbit.
"So, where's this place you were talking about?"
"Just through here!"
X grabbed his hand and dragged him through the belt, dodging asteroids here and there, until they reached a relatively empty spot.
It was...a bit underwhelming, to be honest.
"So...why did you bring me here?"
"The view." Two hands grabbed onto each side of Jupiter's face and turned it to face towards the inner solar system.
The Sun's light illuminated the remaining gas and dust clouds in the solar system, and a few comets and ice asteroids shimmered in the sunlight.
Jupiter never got a view like this from his orbit.
"It's perfect, right?"
He turned his head back to look at X, who still looked in awe at the scene. The smaller planet looked so calm, so content, so...at peace.
"You're perfect..." Jupiter muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" X's attention snapped away from the view and met Jupiter's eyes.
"Uhh...nothing. I like the view..." Jupiter turned away before X could ask any more questions.
He was perfect. This was all perfect. As if the Grand Tack never happened.
Like the beginning.
And like the end.
Jupiter would stay here forever, with the familiar pull of X's gravity by his side.
Love.
Love, overwhelming love.
The warmth in his core that only grew every time he smiled at him.
"For the record...you're pretty perfect too."
Their hands brushed against each other's, and then their fingers interlocked and everything felt right.
Like a jigsaw falling into place.
"I hope you guys aren't bonding without me!" Saturn called from a short distance away, before arriving and sitting down next to Jupiter.
X and Saturn by his side.
This moment would last forever as he closed his eyes for the last time.
One day, you looked up at the universe and asked, "Is this the end?"
And the universe smiled, and said, "This was always how it was going to end. Don't be afraid, little one, for from the moment nothing became something, from the moment the first atom came into existence, your destiny was predetermined. You had no say in this. It may feel as if you could have changed something, but, in reality, you are just another domino in the chain of events that will inevitably lead to the death of the universe, and the love, loss and life within it."
You smiled back, temporarily relieved.
You sat in silence with the universe for a while, before the blurry faces of those you remembered from your past filled your mind, and you asked, "What about the others?"
And the universe held your hand.
"They will grow to understand. Maybe not forgiveness. Maybe never forgiveness. They too will suffer the same fate as you, and, if there is a higher plane of existence out there, you may see them again. Do not fear, my child. The cold does not last much longer."
But the cold was enveloping you now, and you held your hands closer to your chest.
And the universe said run. Run for warmth, run for those you love, run for the mission you swore to complete.
You swore to save them.
You have a long journey ahead of you, little one.
So you ran. You ran until your legs gave way and then you were drifting. Light years away from anyone else, and it was quiet. Only the sound of your breathing.
And the universe said sorry. Sorry for the bad hand you were dealt in life, for the people you loved and lost, for the mistakes you made.
So many mistakes.
You stared at a lone star in the distance, and felt a strange pull towards it.
And the universe said goodbye, because that was the word you never got to tell them before you left on this larger-than-life mission for redemption and forgiveness.
Not forgiveness.
Never forgiveness.
It is the word you will wish you had said until the moment your eyes close and the shimmering light of the cosmos goes dark once and for all, and all you knew and all you had and all you loved drifts into darkness.
And the universe said I love you.
I love you like the stars that give what little light I have left.
I love you like the remaining warmth in my core.
I love you like the light I woke up to, the light that, until now, had guided me and held me and protected me.
I love you like every atom that makes up everything in the universe.
In the hopes that somewhere, a certain blue planet would hear the whisper and learn how to love again. But he will never hear. You never told him.
He will never know.
I love you.
So let me go.
Once upon a time there was a planet.
This planet had been the first, the oldest. He had been born into a system with a star who, upon his arrival, had seemed overjoyed to have his 'first planet'. He had meant something. He had been important.
And now, he would be the last. The last to slowly wither away in the cold grasp of the void. He would die afraid, and alone.
And he would feel the hand reach out to him. Hands. The hands of those he left behind, the hands of those he thought he could fix, the hands of those who would never forget but whom he thought he could teach to forgive.
Forgiveness.
Always forgiveness.
He would earn his redemption, even if it wiped him clean off the fabric of the universe.
And he would hope that somewhere in the galaxy, a small blue ice giant would be awaiting his return, and one day realise that he'd done his duty. He had earned his punishment.
He was free.