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<title>The Homestuck Epilogues: Candy - Chapter 33</title>
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<div id='s33'></div>
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<div>
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<h1>Chapter 33</h1>
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<div class="o-story_text o_epilogue type-rg type-sm line-caption line-copy pad-x-0 pad-x-lg pad-b-lg">
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<p class="no-indent"><span class="opener type-hs-opener-rg type-hs-opener-sm">J</span>ohn looks
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up to see Rose waving at him while hanging out the hatch of a troll
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cruiser. John tries to smile at her, but all he can muster is a
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weird, queasy expression. Rose looks glad to see him anyway. She
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drops to the ground when the modest cruiser comes in for a landing,
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followed out, regrettably, by her daughter, Vriska.</p>
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<p>Shit. John flies up to greet them, more quickly than he would
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ordinarily in a situation where he wasn’t trying to divert his
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friend’s and her teenage daughter’s attentions away from a couple
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making out in a bush. He dips forward like he’s going in to hug
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Vriska (to her apparent surprise, due to his historical complete
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lack of desire for any physical contact to be made between them),
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but instead uses his momentum to spin her all the way around so
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that her back is facing the cursed shrubbery in the distance.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="vriska">VRISKA: Whoa! Hey, Old Man.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: hey vriska, hey rose. nice to see you
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both!</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: John, I—</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">John and Rose appear equally surprised
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themselves when Vriska hauls him in to seal the deal with a
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crushing hug of her own.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: haha. geez! hi vriska!</p>
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<p class="vriska">VRISKA: Hi John!</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: this is great. just great. hey, why don’t we
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just go over here to talk, for like. no reason at all? ha ha.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: O... kay? If that’s what you want.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: oh yeah, it’s the thing i want most. the view
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on the other side of this ship is just... AMAZING. trust me.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Rose cocks an eyebrow at him. Behind her, the
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bush releases a strangled, lusty honk.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Was that...</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Nevermind.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Vriska, why don’t you go and help your mother
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with the deployments?</p>
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<p class="vriska">VRISKA: UGH. I can’t 8elieve I have to Actually
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Listen to you now that we’re At War.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Run along now, dear.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Thankfully, Vriska heeds her mother’s command
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and heads back to the cruiser. Rose tries to glance back toward the
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source of the suspicious honk, but John pulls her behind the ship,
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beyond audible range of the activity taking place in the offensive
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bush.</p>
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<p>On this side of the cruiser, troops are departing the hold in
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single-file efficiency. They’re all decked out in full Alternian
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military garb. It’s the cool, Tron-looking stuff with the
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luminescent cording that matches their blood colors. Rose is
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wearing it too, John notices, in black and lavender. He gives her a
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concerned look up and down, then holds out his hands, palms up.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: so... i guess this war is really
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happening?</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Yes.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I understand that you don’t want to be
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involved, and I respect your decision. However, I wanted to speak
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with you before we left.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: oh, thanks. i actually appreciate that a
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lot.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: i think i would have been pretty bummed if
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you went off to your potential doom without saying goodbye.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: now that i think about it, that’s how this
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all started, isn’t it?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: you were so sick that it looked like you were
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dying, and i was about to leave on a perilous mission.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: but now, here we are.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: it’s almost like...</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: the circle of stupidity is complete?</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Rose laughs.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Don’t be ridiculous John. Nothing is
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complete.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: There is no true ending or beginning in this
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scenario.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: ha ha. yeah, right. because this is real
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life, right?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: i guess reading narrative relevance into a
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bunch of dumb and totally random events is kind of lame and
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childish.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: No, that isn’t what I meant at all.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: By all means, apply a narrative to our lives.
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Up until a certain point, it would have been perfectly accurate to
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do so.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: But not anymore.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: because... it’s not canon, right?</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Do you remember what I told you years ago?
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About the three pillars of canon?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: um.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">John strokes his chin and thinks very hard on
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this. Maybe too long, because Rose sighs and taps the bridge of his
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spectacles.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: “No” is a perfectly valid answer to that
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question, John.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: i just didn’t want to make it look like i
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don’t pay attention to your wordy philosophical babble!</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I philosophically babble rather a lot, or at
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least I used to.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: It would be unfair of me to expect you to
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retain nearly three decades of oblique technical jargon regarding
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the metaphysics of the reality in which we inhabit.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: wow, we’ve known each other a long time.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Yes, we have.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Well.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: It would be more accurate to say that we both
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have and haven’t known each other a long time.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: As I explained to you on that morning sixteen
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years ago, there are three critical features of canon:
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essentiality, relevance, and truth.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: yeah.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: We have been untethered from the mooring of
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“truth” for some time now.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: So while we, in our subjective experiences of
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conscious perception, feel in this moment that we have known each
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other for a very long time, technically it’s not true at all.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Contemplating the vastness of that statement
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makes John feel suddenly very small and sad. He shuts his eyes and
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runs a hand through his hair.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: oh my god, rose. it’s too early in the day
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for this.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I agree.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: And besides, that’s not what I wished to
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speak to you about.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: John.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Look at me.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Rose wraps her narrow hands around John’s arms
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and pulls him gently toward her. He cracks his eyes open to see her
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face glimmering in the late morning sun. Her eyes are glossy and
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bright in the gleaming light.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I want to thank you.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: for... for what?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: didn’t i fuck everything up by not going to
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fight lord english?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: it’s my fault we’re all living in this
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meaningless hell world where everyone’s vaguely out of their minds,
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and we’re all about to go to war over... freeing prisoners from the
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whipping cream camps!</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Oh, whatever.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: The war is just as irrelevant as everything
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else that’s happened here in the last decade and a half.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: At least with a conflict, we have something
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to DO.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Something to strive for and against.
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Something to believe in.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I’m thankful for that. But more than
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anything, John, I’m thankful that I got a chance to be happy.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I never...</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Rose pauses meaningfully, as if the
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realization is falling into place as she says it.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I never thought I would actually get to be
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happy.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: rose... you weren’t happy before?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: when you married kanaya? before you got sick?
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when we were all together?</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Rose shakes her head. She brushes past John,
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out toward the open field, away from the brewing battle. The land
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is so flat that it rushes out to meet the horizon uninterrupted for
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miles and miles. Rose is a pale flame against the brilliant haze of
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a perfect Earth C morning.</p>
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<p>John doesn’t follow after her. He lets her compose herself
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privately with her back to him. She clasps her hands in front of
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her and raises her head to look at the perfectly blue sky with its
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perfect sun and its perfect clouds, unmarred by the dark storm
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brewing on the planet below.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: In Complacency of th—</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">She corrects herself.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: In the silly wizard story I wrote when I was
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a child,</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: The realm most comparable to heaven existed
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in a state of subliminal conditionality, dependent on the inscience
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of the individual experiencing it.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Which is to say that it would cease to exist
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the moment you realized what it was.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: And so, those with knowledge could never
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truly be happy.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">John looks at his hands. The same hands that
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held Harry Anderson when he was a baby. The same hands that tore up
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Terezi’s photograph just a few hours ago. The same hands that
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remember steadying Rose on her sickbed sixteen years ago, and the
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shaking feeling they’d awoken with that morning: a subharmonic
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symphony that can only be heard in the bones. All things that
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remain “true” to him. Knowledge of what came before his choice, and
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then after. There are things that he can’t forget. That he won’t
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forget. Is this the reason he’s felt like this for so many
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years?</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: But that isn’t me anymore.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I am blind against the veil of this
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world.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: It’s all ambrosia to me.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I don’t care if it’s not true. I care even
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less if it’s not canon.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I have a beautiful wife who I love more than
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I thought possible, and a daughter who I am immeasurably proud
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of.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: It can all be senseless, ephemeral noise that
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dissolves in the void. A whisper swept up by the wind before it’s
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uttered.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: I’m still grateful to have felt this way.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: So, John...</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Rose turns around, smiling. The smile is calm
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and honest. Her eyes are perfectly clear. There is no other word
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that could possibly do justice to her expression. She looks
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happy.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Thank you.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">She comes forward to give him a kiss on the
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cheek. John wraps his arms around her shoulders, pulls her into a
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tight hug, and breathes in the scent of her hair. Whatever the
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truth of the matter is, she still feels tangible and real to him.
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What does it mean to be real, anyway?</p>
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<p>Around them, the first wave of bombs start to go off. Bright
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pinpricks of light and dark that flash and flame out, leaving a
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nanosecond of absolute, dead silence in their wake.</p>
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<p>John’s laughing when they part. They’re enveloped in a cloud of
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smoke and dirt so thick that they can barely see each other.
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Despite what Rose said about there being no ends or beginnings for
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them anymore, it feels very final. And in that moment, he thinks he
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understands. Finality was always up to him.</p>
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<p>He finally decides to allow it.</p>
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