“You,” she said, meeting my gaze.
I took a moment to let that sink in. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“So . . . my planet was restarted.”
“Yes. And things should progress on it, barring outside interference—which we will work to ensure—exactly as they did previously.”
I sat there in silence, digesting this. My world was not dead, but technically, my family still was. Technically, everything was . . . but it wouldn’t always be. Things would live again. My family would live again, someday.
It wasn’t much comfort, really, but it was something.
“I’m sorry about your aunt,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I’ll miss her. I wish you could have met her. She knew Captain Harker.”
“Really,” I asked, but it wasn’t a question.
“Mhm,” she said. I felt like a couple of different mysteries were on the verge of being solved, here, but I was too tired to examine them closely. All I knew was that I was here, and relatively safe, and InterWorld was here, too. Joaquim had come through in the end, saving me and sacrificing himself. HEX and Binary were crippled for a while, at least, and we were getting a boost in technology from TimeWatch.
None of that made up for how many lives had been lost. But then, nothing ever would.
“Mom wanted to talk to you when you were up for it,” Acacia said.
“I’m up for it,” I told her. Honestly, I had some questions of my own.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I feel like I’ve been in bed for days.”
“Two days,” she said. “To be exact.”
I pushed the covers back, moving my legs carefully over the side of the bed. I was
wearing clothing I didn’t recognize, but it was comfortable and clean, which was a big plus. “Yeah, I’m definitely ready to get up.”
“I don’t know if you should yet, Joe.”
“Your father said I’m free to move around,” I said.
“With an escort,” she reminded me, giving another smile. “I guess it’s my turn to play tour guide, huh?”
“Sure is,” I said. “Just warn me in advance if you’re going to do any abrupt time-warping, okay?”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, helping me stand. “Where to?” she asked, once I’d found my balance.
“The docks,” I said. “I want to see my ship.”
The docks of TimeWatch were a lot like I’d have expected; half a dozen long wooden walkways extending off into the distance, with various types of ships from all different cultures and time periods docked at them. It was odd to see InterWorld (which was big enough to house more than five hundred people) tied to someone else’s dock like some little dinghy. It was huge, easily one of the largest ships there, and it was still dwarfed by the sheer scale of TimeWatch.
Acacia and I stood on a platform overlooking everything. Beneath the docks was an ocean of something other than water; it looked more like a nebula, with swirls of deep blue and green and white, and sparkles of little stars like sea foam. The sky was that beautiful amalgamation of colors and galaxies I’d seen when I’d first been to TimeWatch.
It was like there were a million skies all mashed up into one, the sun rising and setting multiple times in minutes, in a hundred different places. There were moons and stars and clouds and fog, all sharing the same sky. It had been beautiful before, when I’d been a prisoner uncertain of my fate. Now, standing here overlooking all of it as a guest assured of his safety, it was breathtaking.
My ship was all lit up, warm and inviting like lights seen through the windows of a familiar house. She sat amid the waves of stars, making little ripples as people moved off and on, carrying supplies and machinery. Some of those people were obviously my friends, the Walkers who’d made it out of the fight unscathed, and others must have been the other TimeWatch families Acacia had mentioned. It was refreshing to see so many people who weren’t me.
Acacia and I stood there for a while, watching everyone move about below us. I still felt incomplete, somehow, like things hadn’t been entirely resolved. Like it was all so unfinished. I didn’t feel accomplished, like I had actually saved anyone. In the end, Joaquim had been the one to make the sacrifice that saved us, and I couldn’t give him the recognition he deserved for it.