Chapter Text
At this point, you were sure you wouldn’t be able to make it this time. It was about the fifth loop since you last finalized your plan, although before that you’ve had more last-minute changes than you can count. Every time you thought you were ready, you ended up thinking of one more thing to do. Perhaps you were hoping for something new to fix before you made the most important decision of your life, but no matter how long you stared at the warp core in front of you, you could think of nothing. Not that you’d be able to make it to the vessel this loop, you’d been waiting in zero-gravity in your little well of indecision that you could practically feel the heat of the red giant sun on the back of your neck.
With a grunt of frustration, you took your loop-pack and placed it right against the warp core, glided down to the controls, closed the warp core and turned the gravity back on. That pack was a collection of thousands of loops of technology that you put together for when you finally went through with it, if you ever did. You had figured if the Ash Twin Project could send your memories back in time, it could do so with solid objects and cause no problems, and all those loops ago you ended up being right. You walked over to the nearest wall and sat down against it, burying your eyes in your arms. You thought it almost funny, the only person capable (or willing) to make any changes in such a bizarre circumstance was the one who was utterly terrified to make the one change that would ever have any real meaning.
Of course, Gabbro did eventually get bored after a few hundred loops of the same damned scenery and finally decided to get off Giant’s Deep, but they were strictly against getting involved with all of this. The mystery-solving was never really their type, but even when you told them everything you’d discovered, they said they “could never bring themselves to carry that kind of responsibility.” It made sense; Gabbro was Gabbro, and you were more so the type that actually had any initiative. At the time you thought they’d be stranding you, just a hatchling, to figure it all out on your own. No, they knew very well the reason they stayed on Giant’s Deep for so long wasn’t just because they liked the scenery. At least all that meditating meant a lot of time to talk to themselves, so they ended up being able to bring somewhat good company. That is, whenever you could look past their choice to do nothing.
And yet here you are, doing exactly nothing, just like Gabbro.
Unless of course, you count ‘wallowing in self-deprecation’ as ‘doing something’.
You felt a kind of disappointment, you suppose. You’d taken pride in being the one who actually cared enough to do something, but you never seemed to be able to go through with it. You cared too much, then. You’d think that years of loops would give you some kind of maturity, but besides the depth in your memory you’d always kept the fragile emotions of a hatchling. That’s the only place Gabbro beats you in, you think. They could give some deep insight, maybe as a byproduct of living most of their life at this point in meditation. Maybe that’s the kind of insight you could really use right now.
It wasn’t like you were doing anything else. You’d probably been alone for a few too many loops anyway, and a conversation where you couldn’t mutter exactly what the other person was going to say before they said it would definitely do you some good. You pushed yourself off the floor with a grunt, and slung your suit’s pack back over your shoulder before making your way to the warp pad, putting it on as you did so. After the warp, your ship had ended up in a rather awkward position resting against a newly-revealed rock and the slowly sinking sand. It was a bit downwards from the rock platform where the towers rested, but it wasn’t anything you couldn’t jetpack down to.
After that, it was just a matter of taking off and finding Giant’s Deep among the sky. You leaned back in your seat once the autopilot kicked in, finding yourself imagining playing an instrument that you were well aware wasn’t there. It was a lot of loops ago when you decided you wanted one of your own, and you had decided on an ocarina. You had spent so much time learning it that it almost felt like something was missing whenever you blasted through space with nothing to do, but you always kept it in your loop pack so that it wouldn’t be gone every loop. That had unfortunately also meant you didn’t always keep it in your ship, so the silence seemed to just get louder without it.
That silence was cut clean in half as you broke through the clouds, the roaring winds putting you more at ease than you probably were way back when it was your first time here, but now it only ever calmed you. You didn’t think to pull out your signalscope- Gabbro wasn’t always playing- instead you followed the thin trail of smoke pillowing out from what you eventually found as Gabbro’s island. As you put the landing gear down, you felt a strange pang of worry in your chest, as if Gabbro could care any less about you not seeing them for so many loops at this point. As your feet hit the ground, you drowned your worries in the noise of the wind. Mercilessly.
“Hey. Nerves?” Gabbro asked, reading your mind (although they were well aware at this point that there was only one thing left for you to do).
“Yeah. Not ready, and I don’t know why.” You might have started roasting a marshmallow, but after the years of loops you’ve had you think you might have had enough of those for a while. “It’s just… you both know I’m the only one of us who’d ever go through with it. So why can’t I? Why is it all just… impossible?”
“You can’t be ready. No one could be ready. You were never the one who-”
“Who wanted to get stuck in a time loop, yeah, I know. But I HAVE been getting ready. Loop pack says that pretty clearly, I’d think.”
“No,” Gabbro says, “You’re not the one who goes in unprepared. But if you ask me, it doesn’t matter how many gadgets you’ve put together, you’re not going to be ready.”
“Because there’s something I can’t do?”
“Kinda. You can’t not be scared.”
You shoot to your feet, looking at your ‘time buddy’ with a sharp glare of offense. “Excuse me, I’m scared? When was the last time you even got off your ass and actually helped me deal with any of this? Last I checked, you were pretty damn content to leave me alo-” You cut yourself off as your feelings change to a shade other than anger. Something along the lines of guilt and confusion, but still laced with the same defensive anger as before. It was hard to get angry at them when they're really all you've got.
Gabbro looked away from you, into the campfire for just a second. “...That came out wrong. Sorry. I meant, like… even while we’ve spent so much of our lives here in this situation where we can only know eachother better, it’s never going to get past the fact that we… were never supposed to deal with any of this. Like, any of it.” Gabbro sat up from their hammock, looking up at the swirling mess of clouds above them. “We can’t be ready for this. Ever. I can’t be ready to try and just… let everyone… y’know. Just the thought of it makes me feel like there’s… an anglerfish behind me, or something. You’re a lot braver than me, but- What I'm saying is… I’m scared, too.”
Gabbro didn’t open up like this often. You immediately felt your demeanor shift from defensive to attentive. With a hint of shame, you sat back down to listen to anything else they had to say.
Catching your look, they continued. “You’ve done good, I think. You’ve got your pack ready, you’ve got your plan… I think at this point, anything else you could ever possibly add wouldn’t make a difference. That anxiety isn’t your subconscious letting you there’s more you could do, it’s just… fear. And you’re gonna be scared on the way in, and maybe on the way out too. It’s sort of… you shouldn’t think about it. Like, think about Riebeck. They’re scared of space, yet they went to space. Think about how that works, next time.”
“...You think about that while meditating?”
“Only on occasion.”
“I’ve got to give it a harder try, clearly I’m missing out on some deep next-level brain function that allows me to just not be scared.”
“Ha-ha. The epitome of comedy.”
“Thank you, thank you.” You stand up and bend in a mock bow, a grin plastered on your face. “For real, though… thanks. I think I needed this.”
“...Anytime.”
It was silent for the next few moments. You couldn’t really think of anything to say, and you could feel it getting late anyway. Time passed, and soon the sky was getting darker. It was only then when you thought of something.
“...I’ll see you after.”
“After what?”
“Everything.”
Gabbro smiled, and as the world went white there was an image in both of your minds, of a boat sailing into the sunset with three occupants.