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Epilogue – Moonward Bound

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"Go home, Maggie."

In the silence of the apothecary, the voice startles Maggie so violently that she nearly drops the vial in her hands. She fumbles and catches it, slowly setting it down on the table before turning to face Doctor Ortega, who leans against the threshold.

"I lost track of time," she murmurs, smiling. "Just clearing this up."

In the weak purple light of dusk, his dark grey hair looks almost white, the creases around his mouth and eyes deepening. As if by some signal, the automatic fluorescents above their heads buzz to life, sensing the approaching darkness of the night, but Doctor Ortega barely flinches. He stares back at her, his expression the same familiar mingled affection and pity as always.

"It's late, and you haven't stopped working since dawn. Time to go," he explains. Without another word, he steps forward to dim the record screen listing patient immunizations and prescriptions, turning to begin scooping the vials off of the table.

In the three years since she's been on her own, Doctor Ortega has been a great help to her. Like Maggie, he is alone: his wife died years ago, and his children have grown and moved away for some of the larger cities, or even off-world entirely. Of course, he at least hears from his children on a fairly regular basis, unlike Maggie's experience with her last remaining flesh and blood. Jack has never even bothered to so much as send her a birthday message.

They return the pills and vials to their places around the room, which is organized with clusters of narrow shelves labeled in the doctor's neat handwriting. Their joint cleaning unearths the Overland family's old holo-comm, which Maggie has been using to access the pharmacy text she's been reading.

"Still studying?" Doctor Ortega asks mildly, picking it up to swipe through a few pages.

Sifting through the wall of antibiotics for the matching label, Maggie shrugs without looking back. "I'll be old enough to take the certification exam in a year," she notes, dropping another bottle of pills into place.

"I could use the help," the doctor admits ruefully. Maggie turns as he sets the holo-comm back down. "But you know I wish you'd get out of here. Find something else. This rock is no place to live."

Maggie stares at him blankly. "Where else would I go? This is my home. My whole family's lived here."

Doctor Ortega opens his mouth as if to retort, but he sighs and changes his mind at the last second. "Right," he says quietly. He scrutinizes her face. "Well, get some rest, Maggie. I'll see you in the morning."

He squeezes her shoulder and sweeps out of the door almost before she has the chance to mumble a quiet goodbye, heading for his rooms in the back of the clinic.

A little after Maggie's mother died, he'd offered her a place in the rooms upstairs, where a handful of elderly tenants still reside. The arrangement would have made a lot of sense: Maggie spends more time in the apothecary than anywhere else, and it would cut out the long walks to and from Overland Farm every day. But Maggie has lived on the farm all of her life, and to abandon its wide open spaces now is almost more than she can imagine. After all these years, she knows every creak of wood and every rustle of plant or animal. The farm is her last living friend.

Stop sounding crazy, she chastises herself, donning her sweater and then her bulky, fur-lined overcoat. This is why the doctor looks at you like you're nuts all the time.

Wrapping her scarf around her neck, she steps out of the dusty clinic and into the biting cold of the winter evening. The clinic's bright display window scrolls through the same images of computerized skin grafts as always, and the three-dimensional neon display shimmers against the heavy snow, which crunches under her boots as she steps through the side street and onto the village's main thoroughfare.

It's later than she thought. The market square is already packed with people, most of them crammed to either side against the shops and vendor stalls scattered around the area. A few forest nymphs drift past, traders by the looks of them, and that means that there will probably be some HAB Sector fruit now, maybe even golden pears from the Loftian Galaxy—not that she can bring herself to eat those anymore. Not since Jack left.

The smell of meat pies wafts from the butcher's shop at her left. Maggie's got enough credits to buy some good meat now that Doctor Ortega's paying her for her help, but she's spent so long living off almost nothing that she can't bring herself to part with the money now. Besides, she's grown enough on the farm to last her a while without paying.

The payments she'd gotten from Jack had begun only a month after he'd left. She can still remember seeing the credits in her bank account, her hands shaking knowing where they'd come from, even with nothing to describe the source except a transfer number. The money had been irregular after that, but every credit had helped, especially after her mother died and left an almost unfathomable amount of debt in her wake. It had taken her three years to pay it all off, eating only food she'd grown herself and saving every credit received from Jack and Doctor Ortega, but it's over now. The farm is hers, and she's put down roots—some of them literal—and managed to make things her own. Maybe it's silly, but the thought inspires a fierce sort of pride in her.

She turns off of the main road and toward the icy stretch of land leading to the farm. Wind whips through the barren trees as she trudges through the snow. It's kind of a lonely thing, being out here like this, she thinks to herself. The land around the farm is quiet, her nearest neighbor a half a mile away, but she doesn't usually mind the isolation. Over these past few years, she's become the sort of person who keeps to herself.

The darkness of the woods deepens around her, the last vestiges of sunlight slipping from between the black boughs of the trees and toward the horizon. In its place drifts a fat full moon, which turns the snow at her feet to glowing silver. Even in the relative darkness and with heavy snow covering the dirt trail, Maggie knows her way by heart. She could probably walk it blindly if she needed to.

As she reaches the crest of the hillside, she can make out the farm sprawling in the distance just through the trees, the blocky bulk of her darkened home and the edge of the solar-powered fence. She pauses, partially to heave a few breaths to regain her energy after trudging through snow for so long and partially for Spruce. The sheepdog, the only member of her family still around, always rushes to meet her at this point. Spruce is getting a bit old—nearly eight, if Maggie remembers correctly—but she still bounds over with the same unyielding sort of energy that she'd had as a pup.

At least, usually. Maggie trots down the slope of the hill, her boots slipping a little in the snow. Spruce barks in the distance, as she sometimes does to keep the sheep in place. Maggie can faintly hear the sounds of the dog's movement through the snow. It's hard to make out much of the house in the twilight, but with the snow reflecting the pale light of the moon, Maggie catches a glimpse of the stranger standing near the fence.

She stops short a few yards away. No one visits Overland Farm. Maggie's friends and family are scattered to the wind, either dead or fled to larger cities or lost to the Collectors.

The stranger is a boy a little older than she, with narrow shoulders and hair that glows silver in the moonlight. He's bent over backward against the fence, half-holding Spruce and half-blocking her from licking his face and shoulders and anywhere else she can reach. And he's laughing. It's a weirdly distinctive sound, a sort of cackle that sends shivers across Maggie's skin.

Maggie's got nothing she can use as a weapon. It's always been safe here on FS-12, aside from a few drunken mishaps a year down the road around the market square. So it's just as well that Spruce seems to trust this stranger—or even to know him.

As she approaches, the boy looks up. The moonlight shines right into his eyes, shimmering across the familiar ridge of his thin nose and casting shadows beneath his dark brows, and then the resemblance hits her so forcefully that Maggie takes a step back. She's got no recent pictures of her brother; the Overlands were fairly negligent about that sort of vanity, and even on the holo-comm, there are only a handful of images of him when he was younger. Over the years of his absence, she's mostly forgotten what he used to look like. But now, this stranger's face sends a jolt of recognition through her.

It's not moonlight: his hair is white. And he's always been taller than she is, but he's still taller now, with a wiry sort of leanness to his limbs. Even in the biting cold, he wears only a thin leather jacket—nothing like the rags they both used to wear—and worn brown boots. But the look in his eyes is somehow unchanged, even though they are now a piercing shade of blue. He looks at her pleadingly.

"Hey, Mags," he says quietly, and if there had been any doubt in her mind, it was gone. No one calls her that. No one but her idiot brother.

"Jack." She's not even sure if it's a question, but he nods once in confirmation anyway.

In the years since her brother left her, Maggie's spent an inordinate amount of time considering her response if and when he ever reappears. Depending on the way he showed up—in a blaze of glory, probably, or contritely bearing some stupid treasure like a cat bringing back a dead sparrow after puking all over the floor—she's had several reactions lined up. Punching, hugging, shouting, snarling, crying. But she realizes that it's this reentrance, this quiet and unpretentious appearance back at home, that is most like her brother. Firm. Dutiful. Because that's what he's always said, isn't it? That it's his duty to protect and look after her?

Maggie is surprised at the coolness that washes over him. She stares at him evenly. "'I'll be back?' Really? You're planning on leaving for somewhere across the cosmos and that's what you go with?"

"It was…a pretty hazy timeline," her brother declares, gently pushing Spruce's muzzle away. The sheepdog's tail is wagging furiously as she winds back and forth around Jack's legs. "I didn't know when I was coming back, and you know what I like to say. If you're going to have to keep your lies straight, the best way is not to tell them at all."

The philosophy, stated with a casual roll of the shoulder, is so familiar that a smile cracks across Maggie's face before she can stop it. Jack instantly grins back at her. For a moment, she's surprised by the fact that this whole thing is so fluid, like leaping into a pool of water only to realize you haven't forgotten how to swim after all. And then she remembers how furious she is with him.

"So." Schooling her features, she casually stamps snow from the sides of her boots, determined to behave as though her brother isn't back for the first time in years. "What took you?"

At the change in her tone, Jack's grin drops away. He rubs the back of his neck, a solemn expression on his face. "I was a little too confident," he admits. "Bit off more trouble than I could handle this time, rushing into a contract with the Collectors so fast."

She raises her eyebrows, letting her skepticism ooze out in waves. The Jack she knows has an uncanny knack for slipping into and out of trouble with an almost enviable smoothness. She's seen her brother convince off-world merchants that his theft of food was just a misunderstanding, and he even once managed to artfully extricate himself from a scrape involving a pair of hotheaded foreign soldiers.

Jack catches the look and seems to follow her line of thought. He grimaces. "You were right about the Collectors, you know. Nothing was like they promised. I got there and…" he shakes his head, leaning against the fence again. Spruce settles at his heels. "It's a long story."

Maggie frowns at him unrepentantly. "Seems simple enough to me. You left all of a sudden without saying goodbye—oh, don't give me that," she adds before he can interrupt, her voice rising. "You didn't really say goodbye, and you know it. And then you couldn't even be bothered to send a message. I know we barely get the local Net here, Jack, but cosmos, you could have shipped me a letter or a package or something to let me know you were still out there! Not a word for years? You weren't supposed to do that. You were supposed to—" You were supposed to take care of me, is what she doesn't say. Because she doesn't need Jack, and she hasn't needed him for some time. Not after he cast her away. "The money helped," she admits begrudgingly. "At least I knew you were alive. And I really needed it—even if it was next to nothing. Except when the payments stopped. Then they got really irregular."

She phrases the last part casually, shrugging her shoulders as if it doesn't matter, but Jack recognizes it for the question it is. "Yeah, well. Pitch Black—the one in charge of the Collectors—he stopped pretending to be nice enough to pay families. Guess he ended up with too many people to pay all of them, even though he started losing some of us." The response is incredibly vague, but Maggie refuses to ask more questions, refuses to admit her worries. "And after I ditched the Collectors for good, I didn't exactly have regular work—just found jobs where I could."

"And you thought to yourself, 'Well, I'm already out here. Might as well fly around a while if I can, because it's a hell of a lot better than going home—'"

"That wasn't—you know I wouldn't do that—"

"Except you did—"

"I was afraid the Collectors were gonna chase after me, Mags. If I came back here, they would have tracked me down for sure. And probably dragged you and Mom right into it."

"Maybe you need to just stop—protecting me, Jack. You don't decide that you get to give everything up for me. You don't get to decide to throw your life away. You always do this—!"

"Cosmos, Mags, what are you even talking about?"

"—one second, we're practically telepathic, and I feel like I know everything that's going on in your head, and the next, you do something completely crazy or stupid to 'help protect me.' Like all those things you made sure Mama blamed only you for, not me. Or whenever you pretended you dragged me into stealing food. Or like that time at the lake."

Mags knows it's the wrong thing to say before she even says the words, but she still can't keep them from pushing their way out of her mouth. Her brother's face instantly wipes clean of all emotion, the way water ripples fade away to leave a pond's surface perfectly smooth. "I'd do that again," Jack says finally.

"All I'm saying is if things went different that day, we'd have both drowned because you decided to throw your life away for me, instead of just me drowning. And that's not what I want."

"I'd do it again," her brother repeats staunchly.

Huffing in frustration, Mags shoves her face in her hands. "Well, you did, just in a different way. You just left without saying anything—and I know you probably thought you were helping," she adds loudly as Jack begins to speak, "and I know you probably thought, 'We need the money,' or 'I'm the worst brother ever even though I basically saved your life, Maggie,' or something incredibly stupid, but it killed me. When you left, it was the worst, and you have to stop doing it. Throwing things away for me. Just…stop." Maggie is almost ashamed to find tears pricking the corners of her eyes, and she blinks them away furiously.

Jack nods slowly, frowning at her after her outburst, and looks out into the woods. Maggie wonders where the easy camaraderie of a few minutes ago has gone, because he the look on his face seems more distant than ever. He's more like a stranger somehow—though she can almost feel him processing her words, internalizing them. She shifts uncomfortably, wondering if she should invite him inside so they can talk. As if it isn't his house, too. Or is it his house? Can he still call it home if he hasn't set foot in it in years?

One of the boards squeaks as he leans against it, and Jack jolts forward and then turns to look at it. For the first time, Maggie sees the fence the way he must: discolored and weather-worn planks with rusted nails and small missing pieces. The house is worse off, if only he could see it in the darkness. Maggie's kept the place afloat—she's done a great job of it with what she's had to work with—but she can't repair everything that needs fixing, not on her own. She's looked at the fence and the broken tiles on the roof and the slanted storage shed from time to time, thinking she ought to get someone from town to help her chop and haul new wood to repair the damaged sections, but it's too much trouble. Too much expense. The shed still stores their tools, and the roof still keeps the rain out, and the fence keeps the sheep in, and she doesn't have the time or money to worry about anything more than that.

It would be easier if you were here to help me, she thinks, but instead she says, "Your hair's different now." It's a stupid thing to say, but she's been watching the moonlight glint off of his strange white hair for the last few minutes, clinging to this tangible sign that this is no longer the brother she once knew.

Jack's hand reaches up to flatten his hair in an almost anxious gesture, as if he can wipe the color away. "Yeah, it was a side effect of…well. What happened with the Collectors. What Pitch did."

His expression is so bitter that Maggie can't help but blurt, "It's not bad." He smiles faintly, and she bites her tongue. "Anyway. There's no money for the fence right now."

"I thought—with the credits—"

Maggie shakes her head. "Everything went to paying off the house. And all of Mama's debts. She's dead, you know," she adds bluntly. "With all those liver problems. And about three years ago, she just…went to sleep. Never got up."

To anyone else, Maggie thinks her brother might look appropriately grieved: the confused furrow to his brows smoothes away, and his jaw tightens as though his teeth are grit against the news. But Maggie recognizes something subtle in his breathing, a languid sort of relief that betrays his easy acceptance of the idea.

It's not so far from how she feels, truth be told. Rebecca Overland did little to endear herself to either of her children throughout the final years of her life. She had once behaved as a mother to them, but it was a very long time ago, and Maggie has always had a hard time muddling through the vague memories of her early childhood to remember the person her mother used to be. Jack is probably more intimately familiar with the change, being several years older when their father left and their mother fell to pieces, but he'd only rarely expressed any compassion or regret for her altered character to Maggie. It's one of the few things about himself he has always kept hidden from her, but she can understand why: displaying anything less than the expected affection for their mother, especially to others, has always seemed shameful to her as well.

Finding herself straying down the path to sympathy, which she is the last thing she wants to show her brother, Maggie adds spitefully, "She said you broke her heart by leaving us alone. She said couldn't bear to live knowing her son had abandoned his own mother and sister."

Privately, of course, Maggie knows that there had been little truth behind Rebecca Overland's words. Her mother didn't care. Not about Maggie, and certainly not about Jack. She'd cared more about the loss of the free labor than anything else, and she'd worried where her medicine would come from next, but if her mother had felt anything beyond the realm of spite and irritation toward her son's departure, Maggie had never seen it.

She'd mostly said the words vindictively, wanting to see the look on Jack's face, but he bows his head toward Spruce, rubbing her head absently. When he looks back up at her, his face is again wiped clean. "I'm sorry you had to deal with it alone," Jack murmurs. Not the most appropriate consolation by most standards, but Maggie finds that she can't think of anything more fitting. Neither of them have any lasting attachment to their mother that hasn't been irreparably damaged by her foul mistreatment of them and her self-centered indolence, but it was Maggie who had to pretend otherwise. It was Maggie who plastered on a mask of sorrow for the benefit of the village onlookers and gossipmongers, Maggie who had dodged her mother's debtors until Jack's first paychecks began to pour in, Maggie who had gone to the stonemason to pick the cheapest placard for the gravesite, Maggie who had publicly grieved for months—as was expected—in the worn black dress that had once belonged to a younger version of her mother.

She lets out a long breath. "What does it say about me that I did all that?"

The murmured question isn't really directed at Jack, but he manages to follow her line of thought regardless. "Nothing bad," he replies. "You did what you had to. It's what you've always done. You've always been the one who held us together, even when Mom and I spent most of the time being pissed at each other. You were always the one going back and forth between us, getting things done. You were always the strong one, Mags."

A sudden lightness falls over Maggie at the earnestness of his expression, and it's only now that she realizes that these are the words she's been waiting to hear. After all this time, she'd half expected Jack to ride in on the wind, martyred and haughty and determined. Sweeping into town to save her from her boring life. Or else she'd pictured him coming back crushed and hunted looking, like he always was when he felt he bore the weight of the world on his shoulder. It had been some time since she'd seen the version of Jack she once knew, the one who was slyly mischievous when he knew anyone was watching and sincerely affectionate when he didn't.

There are hints of the old, mischievous Jack, the familiar one. Traces of him poke out every now and again in the slight curve of a smile or the haughty placement of hands on hips. They flicker just under the surface of his skin, and Maggie thinks that they can be teased out in time.

But Jack has changed. It's more than physical, though there's certainly that, too—the sudden leanness of him, the way he's grown several inches before his body had time to consider what it was up to, the absurd shock of white hair fluttering in the winter wind like the frills of a dandelion, the bleak blueness of his eyes, the new sharpness of his shoulders and jawline. But he's also somehow more serious. Rather than imperiously prompting her to answer questions, he waits coolly for her to work the words out, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. Calmly, as though in his adventures he stumbled across a stockpile of more time. He's more confident, she thinks, but not in his old brash and rebellious way. In a strangely certain way.

She hadn't expected an admittance like that from Jack. Not from the old Jack, anyway, not for him to acknowledge that she'd done enough for herself, maybe even more than he'd been able to do for her.

And she wonders, as he leans over once more at Spruce's stubborn whines to scratch her ear, whether he is studying her as well—not as overtly as she's staring at him, of course—to catalogue her differences, to compare one copy of Maggie against another. And then she brushes the thought away as foolish. Of course he is.

The thought settles her. They've come to even ground now, both of them curious and uncertain and too stubborn to show it.

Jack straightens again, cocking his head at her as he shoves his hands back into his pockets, and Maggie looks at his thin clothes as if for the first time. "Maybe we should find somewhere else to talk," she begins uncertainly, pulling her own coat more tightly across her front. The house will be a little cold before she has the chance to put wood into the furnace, but it will be out of the wind, at least.

Her brother smiles. "Yeah," he says, looking at the house and then back at her. "But not here. Let's go for a walk. I know a place."

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The town's tiny shipyard is a brown and dead thing, more of a barren field than anything else. Dry patches of grass and parched, alkali soil is interspersed with winding dirt roads that wander as aimlessly as slug trails between fuel stations and abandoned loading carts. The ground is always clear, at least: in addition to the market road, it's one of the few areas of the town that has the advantage of a dedicated workforce that clears away the regular layers of ice and snow.

Maggie perches on the rusted fence, her heels hooked onto a lower rail, and Jack stands behind it, leaning his forearms on top as he catalogues the details of the ship he flew here on—his ship, if his story is to be believed. He seems dreamily enamored with the very idea of the spacecraft, which is "a completely custom job—even though I doubt North knew much of what he was doing, he must have described what he wanted to a specialist who really did" and "perfect for a small crew, because you don't have to worry about some of the utility systems on bigger ships" and one that "has rear propulsion engines to get unbeatable speeds, almost as good as Cespare class crafts" and "comes with the newest ADA-compatible lasers, too."

Maggie's not sure what most of this means, but even without Jack's babble, it's obvious that the ship gleams like a small star in the moonlight, stark in comparison to the dingy grey spacecrafts around it. Better crafted than the trade ships they usually get, too—and sleeker, like a silver fish. But she can't see what Jack does, no matter how hard she tries. It's as though he knows another language, one totally unfamiliar to her, that lets him understand parts of the ship she can't.

"It's kind of battered, actually—you can see the scars from laser fire under some of the rotors, because we haven't had a second to buff it back up, but it runs like a dream anyway, and we upgraded to the EC-class rear thrusters after the fact—they're like the ones you find on some of the military-grade recon crafts like the Sealis…"

At first, Maggie had the slight suspicion that Jack was trying too hard. It had only taken her a few minutes to realize that he really isn't. Overcome by genuine enthusiasm, he's allowed himself to be carried away by his own babble, and Maggie wonders who this boy is, someone who can discuss thrusters and rotors in the same breath with all the confidence of one who has tested multiple ship models.

"So what happened to you?" she asks when he finally pauses to stare at the ship again. "And no bullshit about long stories. It's been years. We have the time."

After ages spent talking, Jack is quiet for the first time. He exhales slowly, shuffling on the hard-packed ground, but he finally nods in agreement.

The story is so fantastic that he might as well have pulled parts of it from one of the trashy space operas their mother used to read. He takes the story up at the moment he'd left, explaining his trip aboard the Collector ship. A researcher and tycoon taking people prisoner, horrible experiments that brought strange abilities and altered his appearance—which he's faintly self-conscious about in front of her, Maggie can tell—and then escaping by ship and living in fear of being caught, taking smuggling jobs, being sponsored by a group of famous industrialists Jack calls "the Guardians." It's all so incredible that Maggie might have thought he was lying to her—maybe should have thought it, after all Jack's done—but the idea doesn't settle in her mind for long. Jack is the type to embellish, to be sure, but she doesn't believe he would do so here. He owes her the truth, and they both know it. And he wouldn't do anything to mess this up.

"They really did give me the ship in the end," he explains finally. The whole time he's been talking, he's stared out at the ship, not really seeing it, but now he turns back to her. "It's perfect. I can—go anywhere, do anything. We can," he amends, smiling a little. "I picked up a few stowaways. Some of the kids from around here who didn't have anyone to go back to. Like the Bennetts. You remember Jamie?"

It had been some time since Maggie had thought of him, but at the sound of his name, an image blossoms in her mind of the boy with puppy dog eyes who had followed Jack around for some time when they were all young. She nods slowly.

"They're…helping. It's hard to say what we'll be getting into, exactly, but it's nice to have someone to help out on board. Repairs, cooking, navigation, inventory, communications…that kind of thing. And Mags—I want you to come, too. If you want."

She's only half-expecting the question. The pair of them may be at odds, may not have seen each other in years, but they are still siblings, and at their cores, they are fundamentally linked. Jack wouldn't leave her alone on this planet, not if he had any recourse to offer her a better life. And it's what they've always wanted, isn't it? To get off of this icy rock, to travel and explore the Reaches, to—well, this last had been only Maggie's dream—to find any information on what had become of their father.

She stares at him blankly anyway. A response escapes her.

Jack tries to fill her silence. "Mom's gone, and…this isn't the life we wanted. Remember we used to plan like we were gonna sneak aboard a trade ship? See where we ended up?" His smile falters a little, but he plasters it on relentlessly. "Come with me, Mags," he begs.

Maggie opens her mouth and then presses it closed. In the three years she's been on her own, she's poured a lot of effort into this life. Paying off the debtors so she can live in her own house after all, pouring her time and money into the vegetables she grows in plastic bins under the windowed patio, training to be an apothecary so she can support herself if Jack's paychecks ever run out. But in the end, there's no way she can turn down what her brother offers—and she would drop the remnants of her life in a second.

Jack looks anxiously back at the ship, which gives her a second to think. She takes a breath. "I'm supposed to test to be an apothecary soon," she begins, shrugging casually, and there's a bit of coolness in her words. She still can't quite bring herself to allow Jack to see how pleased she is. "But it's standardized, and I think I can schedule it at a HAB Sector planet if it comes down to it. And there are some plants I'm growing back at home—berries and vegetables and herbs, all in pots. We're taking those, too. I'm sure there's a way to keep them growing."

It takes Jack a few seconds to dissect her words and realize her answer, and he appears to be fighting back a smile in spite of her sullen tone. "Okay. Okay, we can definitely do that. Anything else?"

Like it's a negotiation for a bartered deal or contract. Maybe it is. Maggie casts around for anything else, as though she has to organize all of the contract's components before she finalizes it by holo-comm. She looks down at her feet, where Spruce lazes on the ground between us. "And she's coming with us," she adds defiantly, pointing at the dog.

"The more, the merrier." Spruce, the traitor, seems to know that Jack is talking about her, because she stands, tail wagging, to let him scratch her head.

"And you have to tell me everything. Like you used to. No more stupid secrets or trying to protect me or anything like that. I'm grown up now, Jack," she says, realizing how foolishly imperious the statement sounds. "I can handle things on my own now."

Even so, her brother looks her up and down seriously, nodding. "Yeah, you can," he says quietly. "And that's fair. No more secrets."

She nods, a little uncertain.

"But you're really coming?" Jack asks hopefully. "We can go start getting your stuff. We can ship out…well, whenever you're ready to go, really. Okay?"

He cocks his head, still keeping his face carefully blank, and she thinks that this is probably the moment where she's supposed to say Alright, you're forgiven or maybe I get why you did it. But she bites her tongue. Jack must know already, because those are the kinds of things they have never really had to say to each other.

And even if he doesn't know, there will be plenty of time for him to figure it out. She takes a deep breath, suddenly realizing that now, suddenly, there is an entire future ahead of them both. There will be plenty of time for everything.

So instead, Maggie folds her arms haughtily across her chest, looking down her nose at Jack. The pose is exaggerated, almost playful, and her brother smiles as if the movement is a secret signal.

"I've been stuck here for ages," she gripes, returning his smile. "Of course I'm ready. What are we waiting for?"

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Fin

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A/N: So if you've finally made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for sticking with this story! I set out to write something fun and somewhat fluffy and a little weird, and I'm really glad that I got to share it with all of you. If you favorited, set up an alert, or reviewed, you're amazing...And I don't want to say that it's fate, buuut Jack is basically always gonna be a Guardian, no matter which universe he's in. Only here, he's rocking a starship on his way to look out for kids in the Reaches and beyond, and he's got a lot of extra help to do it!

On a potential sequel: A few of you have asked about (or demanded!) a sequel, and I do have a few ideas for one. I may eventually sit down to write it. But IF I do, it won't be for quite some time: I am in the middle of a Hunger Games fic I am wildly attached to, and I'm currently outlining an epically long Harry Potter fic/series that will definitely take ages to write. I'll probably pop back into the RotG fandom every now and then to post a few one-shot ideas I have, but long stories/sequels are currently on the backburner.

That being said, I may or may not gather my notes together at some point to put up a (very) brief glossary that covers some of the main locations of the Reaches/HAB Sector planets and some of the key organizations as well as a short background and history of the main characters, so be on the lookout just in case.

And now that we're done, please leave one last review on your way out—I'd love to hear your thoughts on the epilogue :-)

Again, thanks to all of you for traveling with me on this journey. It's been a blast!

See you next time,

ket