"You were well off being..." Howard blinked once. "Grounded?"

In history, there are an infinite number of interpretations of events that have happened. Yet that does mean that there are an infinite number of truths in this world. There is only one truth, and as many ways to interpret it as there are stars in the sky.

But sources can be wrong. They can misdirect. They can be born of a desire to delude or sheer ignorance, but they exist in countless droves. It is a historian's duty to sift through fiction and give birth to fact. That is the duty that Howard took up when he turned his back on his dignity in exchange for material wealth.

It is the only thing for him to hold tightly to.

"That's the biggest load of shit I've ever heard in my life. You hate being grounded. You hate the earth. You hate caves and Excadrills and..." He stopped himself before standing up. He peered out of the hospital room into the dream-filled haze. "Stop mocking my struggles! This isn't an opera meant to amuse."

The mist encroached, curling around the hospital's hallway as it closed the gap.

"The hearts of people are NOT YOUR TOYS!" The mist retreated for a moment as Howard slammed the door in their face, cutting them off. "Fuckers."

He rubbed his temples in annoyance.

"Try again." He gestured at June in annoyance. I can translate a thousand scripts, but reversing your speech is a slog. Use your words."

---

june sleigh

“Why don’t you go k–”

Oh. The curse was lifted. June’s shoulders slumped in relief, yet they perked right back up at the prospect that followed. Being honest with Howard. Properly. The man who shot her out of the sky. Who threatened to kill Matchstick. Who tried to stop her from fulfilling her dream, even if it proved futile in the end.

“Look,” she said. Good, easy, simple. “It was easy when I was just shambling about, going through the motions. Basically a corpse. Still kinda am. But now things feel more… perntitnent? Relevant? Real.”

This sucked. “Now I’ve got a big fucking golem, both the League AND Rocket on my ass, a war on the horizon, a million in the hole, unresolved dad problems, and three different people in my ear trying to get me to care about some otherworldly threat. Before, I could just ignore it. Now… don’t know how I ever did.”

She was living– more than before. They worried about things in the current, but she still felt stuck in the past. One central pain had been replaced with several smaller, much more annoying fractures. It added up to the same, and Dad still took most of the space, yet it no longer solely revolved around him.

“So… I’m not, really. Never had been. And it ain't getting any better, either.”

Interest was a hell of a system. How the noose slowly tightened around her neck, yet it never truly threatened to finish the job. Just make things that much more uncomfortable.

---

howard slayte

"Because that threat is real. It will kill us all. It is encroaching from all sides. Eternatus. Team Rocket. Whatever you want to call it, it is coming, and you can't look away now."

He had tried to keep people out of this oncoming war. When the sky was choked with poison and the world was stained black with the blood of the fallen, the only people fighting should be those who had a reason to and the means to help slay a god. Every human being should fight in favor of their species and its survival, but unwilling soldiers made for poor allies.

Howard did not want to see his friends die.

"Because you caught it, June. It was a marvelous trick, but you caught something that was part of a grand design and now you're stuck here with me. At least you had the chance to walk away. I was given Regice by my superiors with no chance to refuse." His bitterness was clear. "If you don't want to shoulder this, give it to me and I'll find me someone who can use it."

Himself, most likely. He would rather die than give something so valuable to any of his colleagues in Team Rocket. It would keep June safe too, and it would leave Grigori satisfied.

"But it never gets better. It never gets easier. You just sort of... placate yourself. Make it work. Keep marching forward." He had become an archaeologist to exclusively look backwards. He didn't mind being stuck in the past. Actions that had already happened couldn't hurt anybody.

Just like a cannonball fired towards the sky couldn't drag a delivery girl down to earth.

"You still have Grigori." Howard shrugged. "Go to him."

---

june sleigh

Her knuckles tightened. Even in the dream, even now, he could not help but pretend to be a smart man. Someone who knew it all by gleaming it from the relics of the past. But he was not– June could see the bullshit from a mile away. What he collected from dusty objects, she collected from musty, shifty car dealers.

“Bullshit,” she muttered. “Even now you’re still doing the same shit. Acting like I’m some fucking damsel. Go fucking read another seven history books, 'cause you’re breaking your fields ‘ultimate sin’.”

“You’re repeating the past,” she said. Of course it was. “You act sorry for what you did, then trying to push me away again. Act like you’re helping me but just making things harder. More confusing.”

Unfortunately, it meant that he wasn’t malicious: just incredibly fucking stupid. Dumber than rocks. Rocket had put him into the position to shoot her down, and he hadn’t meant to do it. But it was never about her. Matchstick was the real victim here, and he'd yet to apologise to her.

“And don’t get to bring up Grigori’s name,” she started off, her arms furiously crossed against her chest, “he’s a hundred times the man you’ll ever–”

She stopped. Wait. No. History wouldn’t be that cruel, would it? For it to be a near-exact replica of previous times? “And then you say something obvious, waiting for me to figure out what it means.”

“How the fuck do you know Grigori?”

---

howard slayte

Damn. Why had he mentioned Grigori? It was the bridge that undermined everything. He was, to an extent, the source of all of this. If it weren't for him, Howard and June could still be friends. She wouldn't have gone after Regieleki, and they'd still be experiencing some false form of happiness.

Until Howard fucked it all up and June kicked his ass as recompense. He was remarkably good at former, and she excelled at the latter. All in the name of Matchstick, a bird he barely knew. Her version of Shirley.

Perhaps a false life was better than a true one. Still, he had come so far. No reason to lie now.

"Because he's a member of Team Rocket, too." Howard frowned. "You really think he works at an insurance company? Him? The region's fucked to hell, and you think insurance companies are paying anything?"

Working at an insurance company was worse than being a member of Team Rocket, honestly.

"Not a damsel. You beat me. You caught Regieleki, you adapted and caught it while I was still fumbling around in the stone age, trying to blast it into submission." His lip twitched. He had complained about Regice's failings for months, but June had caught Regieleki without a single powerful asset. "You're right, I'm stuck in the past."

"It's why I need to look forward."

Admitting that was treason. Admitting that he had fucked up felt wrong, like a betrayal of everything he had sworn to study. It made him a hypocrite, but hypocrisy was simply someone in the process of changing.

Right?

"How can I help?"

---

june sleigh

Shocked, confused silence followed Howard’s explanation. As if he laid all the relevant cards on the table and let June read them for herself. Even if she wanted to stand up and smack him, berate him, call him a liar and a bastard and deserved everything that happened to him…

It made perfect sense. Down to the crossed t’s and dotted i’s. The truth filled the gaps and erased dozens of peculiarities about their relationship and Grigori’s existence. Everything fell into line, and the puzzle pieces fit perfectly.

Except for the massive implication that crushed the puzzle and bent the line into an infinity:

Why did Grigori lie to her?

Not because of the desire to keep his identity secret, but because of the truth. Or rather, how he only spoke in it.

“...Why would he lie to me?”

“Not the obvious reason– keeping himself hidden– but… he’s told me he never tells lies. Seriously, it’s gotten him to reveal some bizarre shit,” she said. Things better left clumped up and shoved into the corner. “He has a fucking tattoo for it and everything.”

“You wanna help me, then tell me why I’d be the one exception,” she looked him dead in the eye. “And while you’re at it, tell me why you keep doing this thing,” she motioned to the room around them. This entire thing shouldn't be real, shouldn't be here, yet here they were.

"It was never about Regieleki. Or the island. Or this. They're just excuses."

---

howard slayte

"Grigori does not lie. He merely..." Howard paused for a moment as he plucked the word from ether to defend his friend's honor. "Omits."

A lie of omission was just as bad as a genuine lie when historical texts were concerned. Anything that did not elucidate or illuminate the truth was a lie that deserved to be mocked and scorned and pointed at. Yet was that the same for a human life?

Did good lies exist? They had to.

Otherwise, what the hell had this whole Team Rocket thing been for? Howard's ego? Grigori's struggle was built on a lie, but it was years of karma staining the man's soul black.

"It's always been about the fucking island, June. It's always been about that stupid fucking Baghdad battery of a golem. I'm trying to put all this back together, but I'll be honest with you." A chuckle followed, and Howard rubbed his temples as the sound of Atlas's cannon firing into the sky rang in his ears. ”I suck at it! I thought if I left it alone and left you to your devices, it'd all work out."

Why had she caught Regieleki? It had ruined everything. He could justify staying away and closing his ears to her plight, but unlike most people who had problems, she had gone and tried to do something about it. She had made history, and it had been because of a mountain of daddy issues, debt, and mob connections.

The admin didn't know whether to laugh or scream in this false dream that ameena abadi had constructed. All he knew was that June Sleigh was strong.

She had been strong since the carnival, since facing that Excadrill. Why did he keep trying? It was a dream. Did it even matter if he tried?

He gave her a look.

"You know."

---

june sleigh

“He literally told me he wasn’t in Team Rocket, word for word,” June deadpanned. Omission was the cop-out answer. The go to. It wrapped up everything in another neat little package and covered the glaring flaw in the design so that it’d go unnoticed. Perfect for everyone else

But not for the one who knew better, who’d been gifted a pile of shit. Omission was one thing– a blatant lie was another.

“I don’t know, actually,” she stared back. She had an inkling of the idea. Several inklings. But until the box was opened, she couldn’t know whether the Litten was dead or alive. And she was certainly not interested in the status of the Litten. It could be dead and rotting for all she cared, but the smell wasn't there until she chose to take a whiff.

“But you’re right about something: you fucking blow at it.”

“Your initial thought, after accidentally shooting me and Matchstick out of the sky, is to hide your identity,” she raised her pointer finger, “and then you decide to not try and explain it to me or Matchstick. And THEN you decide to blow it up in my face and threaten to kill Matchstick.”

“And to top it all off, you– you fucking–” She shoved her fingers into his direction, as if they would plug his eyes and ears from what she wanted to say. No, NEEDED to say.

“You keep insisting that the right play was fucking abandoning me and Matchstick. Like it’s what you deserve. You haven’t said it, but it’s the only vibe I can get from your sorry ass.”

“When will you realize that your self-destructive habit is more than just self-destructive?” The fire in her voice died down, and her gaze went to the side.

Unknown hypocrisy made the advice all the more comedic. If only she could take it upon herself to do the same– then there might not have been a problem to begin with. But the ignorant delivery girl could not see it, and instead threatened to open the box. Just a peek, nothing more.

Was there a Litten in there at all, or a bomb primed and ready to blow?

---

howard slayte

Damn. Grigori could lie, then. It was mildly surprising, if a little infuriating. It made the archaeologist seem like a complete idiot at best and a saboteur at worst. It wasn't worse than blasting a Talonflame out of the sky, surely.

"It was a mistake! I shot someone I knew out of the sky and immediately panicked. I'm not that good under pressure, bite me. I had to abandon you after, too. You were too close, and Rocket too grasping. The best way to ensure your safety was to annul our friendship."

It was the only way to preserve a life that flickered in the wind. In order to preserve something, another had to be burned away.

That was his purpose. Beautiful destroyer. Blunt and effective. He had become a hammer that shattered much in order to preserve what remained, even if that meant that what had stayed behind despised the very notion of his existence.

Had that all been a mistake?

Yes.

"I am one of Team Rocket's four admins. They think I'm some grand planner, that I snap my fingers and gold appears between them. Maybe it does, but this is my punishment." He looked up at the ceiling of the dream, which eroded into a brilliant night sky. "Retribution from on high for being complacent in Team Rocket's acts is that one day the League will hang me for a traitor. No need for you to be there when the rope goes taut."

To swing at Ever Grande's steps was the only hope he could wish for. There was a chance that he could slip into the night when Rocket fell, but those options were growing limited as the admin forcefully shut more and more doors.

"But you..."

"You went and caught that machine! You chased it and chased it and you caught it, and Rocket will find out no matter what I do." He clenched a fist in rage and rose, crossing the room to poke June in the chest. "What's the point of being admin if I can't protect the people I love!?"

The box creaked open. The contents were unveiled Howard's face paled.

This was a dream.

Words did not matter. They would be washed away.

"I loved you." The admin spat as he looked her in the eyes. "There, now you know. Happy?"

---

june sleigh

Howard still had a chance. Hide it, play it off as a true, deep, meaningful friendship. Cast away his true feelings, for they could never be real. Even in the dream, they’d be nothing more than that. June hoped he would. It’d make more sense. Save them the trouble.

But love was messy. The box opened. Now, none of it made sense. It never really did from the start, but it could be ignored. All the awful, horrible feelings surfaced, and she had no choice but to look at them. Deal with them proper. The woman who had just returned to the land of the living was now forced into the land of romance.

June’s hand had never come up so fast.

SMACK!

Howard’s face bore the wrath of not an ex-friend, but an ex-love.

“You don’t push those you love away,” June said darkly. Her eyes held a wrath last seen during her breakdown in his apartment. The world worked in funny, cruel ways. “You make things work. Do whatever you can. And if nothing works? Then you make it work anyway. Everyone knows that.”

Rocket demanded your all. No one could ever give their all to a cause so evil– without severe mental lapses or a traumatic childhood. Plenty of them found time to lead seconds lives, or they abandoned their first for it. Amnesty existed. So too did other countries. They could've run away.

She wanted to hate him. It was so much easier to. The decision sat inside her mind, and on the tip of her tongue. He clearly didn’t care enough to try and make it work.

She opened her mouth. All she had to do was say the words. So simple. Convenient.

It was convenient to push him away. Made life easier. Hate was an easy emotion to latch onto. Kept things neat and tidy, even if they blinded intentions. Love, though, it was inherently troublesome. Made people do stupid things. But always out of fear. What if they didn’t love you back? A broken heart was rarely salvaged.

Easier to burn the bridge and never face that reality. The potential wasn’t worth the fact that it could only ever be that. Potential. Potential was worthless until it was realized, given concrete form.

Doing things out of hate was easy, and its depth was that of a simple puddle from an afternoon drizzle. But doing things out of love, even if it killed your soul and sank you–

The depths of space couldn’t hope to rival its expansiveness. Its unquestionable insanity. The twinkle of the stars were caught in humanities gaze since the beginning of time. Even when clouds covered her entirety, they still looked upward in hope. Even when they looked down and the people shut their eyes, they continued to shine.

In the dark times, should the stars also go out?

“If you could go back in time…” she finally said. Love… it wasn’t her choice. It was hard. Maybe she’d never love again. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be with Howard– annalise henderson stayed in her mind a little longer than normal, when time crawled and the night sky blinked.

Or perhaps they were out there waiting. Another timeline, and she found a man and had kids without ever knowing either of them.

But whatever the case, you made it work. It was the only choice.

“Would you change anything?”

---

howard slayte

June Sleigh was an anomaly. This was not meant to work. It was not going to work. It was an error that would soon be detected. Like a serpent devouring its tail, this was a self-destructive endeavor.

Yet they were both destroyers masquerading as something better, pretending they were building themselves up even as they cast themselves further down in this spiral of destruction.

"Yes."

At the beginning, if possible. A thousand mistakes lie between then and now. His love for archaeology, his passion for the craft, his decisions when his fiancé had left in search of someone more fulfilling.

"Everything."

His cheek stung. She hit hard. This wrath was just. Still, he wouldn't trade it for anything.

"Except for meeting you."

---

june sleigh

All June could do was let a slow stream of breath past her lips. This would be terrible. Awful. It would likely end with them both worse off. Life got in the way before, and it would only be a matter of time until it did again. Another island, another scenario, another falling out.

If Atlas succeeded next time, then Howard was as good as dead. Even now, in the face of such a strange, foreign, alien, yet ever enticing future, she could not simply move past the scar left in the wake of the golem. It still hurt. Matchstick still thought him entirely evil. It posed the greatest hurdle.

And yet.

“Okay.”

And yet.

“Then…”

And yet.

“I guess… I can try too.”

Baby steps. She still struggled with the basics. Love was well out of the question. Friendships were hard enough. But maybe, in the far future, if the world didn’t explode and Rocket and League stopped their quarrels and Howard did not hang beneath the sun and she paid off her debts and she stayed in Hoenn and time healed all wounds and they stayed in touch–

Then maybe, just maybe. It would work out. All it required was the world’s cold gaze to remain elsewhere, firmly upon everyone else.

“But you can’t lie to me anymore,” she said. The first of the long list of maybe’s that would immediately make the tower crumble. “Not about stuff like that. Or the island.”

The impossible hope of not being alone felt sickeningly sweet. Intoxicating.

---

howard slayte