by Jenn Gott
A pair of steady hands yanked Jane back to her feet. Time tumbled on.
“Are you okay?” Allison asked, still holding fast to Jane, but Jane couldn’t even begin to answer. Wind was kicking up the gallery, racing in tight circles like it was the Indy 500. Sparks crackled out from Amy’s chair, sending paintings crashing to the ground. The crack of frames sounded like bones breaking.
“What’s happening?” Jane called over the tempest.
Allison shook her head. “I don’t know!”
“I do!” Granite Girl said. She hunched over the laptop, typing madly. Hair whipped across her cheeks, and she ripped it back. Her face went stony as she turned to Jane. “You did exactly what you weren’t supposed to do! Your touch provided the machine with the emotional resonance that it needed to lock on to. Clair’s connection to Amy wasn’t born out of nothing—it was that they both loved the same person. Now the machine is reaching out into the multiverse, and it’s pulling along that thread. And any second now—”
Another crack!, and a rumble of thunder shook the museum.
A figure appeared in front of them, half-formed, like mist.
And then another.
And another.
Another.
Jane turned. The gallery was filling up fast, like patrons crammed in on free admission day. The figures swept through as if they were ghosts. Going about their day. Eating, walking, punching . . . sketching.
So many of them were sketching.
A cold prickle ran up Jane’s spine. “. . . Marie?”
“Shit,” Granite Girl said, turning back toward the laptop. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“They’re . . . they’re all me,” Jane said. Her mouth went dry, and she tried to swallow, to regain some moisture. “Why are they all me?”
“I don’t know!”
The sound of laughter drifted in, like litter washing up to ruin a perfect day at the beach.
UltraViolet was watching from her prison of lasers. Her lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout.
“Oh, dear,” UltraViolet said. “Did someone forget to tell you? I reconfigured one of your toys to act as a resonance magnet.”
Granite Girl’s eyes widened. “You didn’t.”
UltraViolet smiled. “I did.”
“Are you insane?” Granite Girl said. “You can’t just yank that much matter from one universe into another! The imbalance would—”
“Trigger an implosion, and destroy us all? Yeah, I worked that out, thanks. Call it my fallback plan. If I can’t have ultimate power . . .” She shrugged. “It’s better than prison.”
“Jane,” Allison said, “you can’t be serious.”
UltraViolet smirked. “Can’t I?”
Amy screamed.
“Shut it down!” Jane shouted, her heart pounding so hard that it felt like it would rip from her chest. Not again, not again, not again, went the song in her veins as she ran over to the laptop. “Marie, seriously, who cares? Just—just shut it down!”
“We can’t! It’s a self-sustaining process! As long as Amy remains linked into the machine—”
“Then get her out of there!”
UltraViolet chuckled. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”
“Like I’m going to listen to you,” Jane said. She shoved her way forward, past Granite Girl and the laptop—but a stony hand grabbed her elbow.
Granite Girl looked up. “Jane. If we take her out without closing down the flare, the shock to her system will kill her.”
“Leaving her in there will kill her!”
“Not if she absorbs someone’s essence.”
“I don’t—” Jane started, but then she did. Flashes of her own comics went flying through her head, panels enlarged and plastered smack-dab in front of her. Mindsight in a cramped cell, Dark Atom looming large over her as he tries to induce a flare. An issue with a glimpse into the future, a vision that haunted the team for months: Mindsight overtaken by the personality of a madman. The downside of Mindsight’s powers, the one aspect of her powers that Clair had always insisted had to be true.
Jane jerked back, as if she’d been physically shocked. “No . . . no! That’s the same as killing her!”
“Not technically,” Granite Girl said. “She’d still be alive. And, I mean, we don’t know . . . maybe there would be a way to bring her own personality back to the surface. At least we’d have options!” Granite Girl added, raising her voice as Jane began to protest. “Which is more than we have right now.”
Jane shook her head. “No. No, I won’t let you do it.”
“Jane—”
“I said no!”
“Then the whole universe is going to collapse!” Granite Girl said. “Because I don’t see any other way of stopping this process. And then she’ll be dead anyway, just like the rest of us.”
Pixie Beats’s hand rested on Jane’s back. “We all knew the risks when we put on these uniforms, Jane.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Allison said, “if we have a way to stop this, then stop talking and just do it!”
Not again, not again.
Jane’s fists clenched hard at her sides. A flash of light burst out from her, strong enough to send everyone staggering back.
“I said no!”
“But I’m saying yes.”
Jane froze.
The voice that had spoken was soft, barely registering above the wind that still howled around the edges of the gallery. It strained with the effort of speaking, as if her throat was dry. And yet, Jane would recognize that voice anywhere, in any state. She heard it with every beat of her heart.
She made herself turn around.
“Amy?”
Jane ran over, stopping just short of the chair. She got down on her knees. Amy’s head was slumped forward, but her eyes were clear, and fixed on Jane as Jane looked up at her.
“Amy, you can’t.”
“I can,” Amy said, wincing. “And I will. Under one condition.”
Condition. A strangled laugh escaped Jane as she made herself ask, “What’s that?”
“That you let me use Clair’s ring.”
Jane could barely breathe, for the sudden constriction of her chest. “What?”
Amy gave a shaky smile. “Hey, if you’ve got to be subsumed by another personality, it might as well be your own.”
“It’s not your own, though,” Jane said. She reached up, cupping Amy’s cheek—damn the risks of contact, and anyway, how much worse could things get? Their foreheads dipped, leaning against each other. “Amy,” Jane whispered. “I’m sorry, but you’re not Clair. If you take her ring, you’re going to die.”
Amy nodded, her head brushing against Jane’s. “I know. But I’ve been listening the whole time. I’m going to die anyway. At least this way, something good can come out of it.”
“Don’t say that. Please, please don’t say that. There’s got to be another way.”
“There isn’t,” Amy said as she drew back. “I know that. You know that. Please, Jane. Just let me fix this for you. Let me be your Clair.”
Jane’s chest seared, as if her heart was cleaved in two. She couldn’t look at Amy’s face anymore, Clair’s face anymore. Instinctively, her fingers found the chain around her neck. The links were warm from being against Jane’s skin.
“Please,” Amy whispered, and Jane had to shut her eyes. “Jane . . . you know this is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Jane nodded. Tears cut hot tracks down her cheeks as she made herself look back up. “I know.”
“Then don’t argue with me.”
Amy’s wrist was still bound to the chair, but she stretched her hand out, fingers spread.
Her hand was shaking.
Clair’s hand had shaken, too, on their wedding day, out of nerves and joy and disbelief that this was finally happening, that this was finally allowed to happen. They stood there, exactly where they were right now: beneath the display lights, against a blank wall as if their love was a piece of art. This gallery
had been reserved private, just a handful of family and friends allowed in—a perk of Clair’s new promotion. History and beauty surrounded them, a special exhibit that Clair had curated herself. It had a wholly different theme presented to the public, but they knew the truth of it. Clair had watched Jane slide the ring on her finger, as if she was trying to remember every last detail. Jane had sketched it for her, later, and the drawing hung framed in their bedroom.
Jane dug the ring out from underneath her uniform. Her neck felt empty as she pulled the chain over her head. For so long, Clair’s ring had hung there, tucked safely beside Jane’s heart. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp—she had never opened it, not once, not since stringing the ring into place.
She opened it now. The ring slid off, landing in Jane’s open palm.
Clair. The prospect was as impossible as a dream. It was a dream, in fact, the only dream. The one that Jane had kept having, in her weakest and most vulnerable moments—that there was some way to fix this, that everything would somehow be okay. She’d never expected it to actually be possible.
Jane’s throat closed up. She held the ring, poised at the tip of Amy’s finger.
It felt wrong, trading one for the other. The hero for the wife. Even if it was what Amy wanted, even if it meant saving the universe from imploding, even if it meant Clair.
“I don’t want you to go,” Jane whispered.
Amy’s face softened. She leaned forward, and Jane barely contained a sob as Amy’s kiss grazed the top of Jane’s head—a blessing, permission . . . forgiveness. “It’s okay,” Amy said, her breath hot in Jane’s hair. “It’s okay, I promise.”
Jane pulled back. She forced on her bravest face as she made herself meet Amy’s eyes directly.
“You really want me to do this?”
Amy nodded, even as tears cut down her face. All around them, half-formed Janes were pressing in thick, as if sensing their imminent fate. “I do,” Amy whispered. The faintest smile tugged at her lips.
Jane shot forward, kissing Amy hard. “Know that I love you,” Jane whispered against her lips. “Every version of you. And thank you.”
“You’re welcome . . . wife.”
Jane slid the ring into place.
Her lips locked with Amy’s. The ring was probably enough, but Jane would be damned if she took any chances. She opened her heart to Amy and let Clair tumble out: every late night spent laughing instead of sleeping, every afternoon they spent baking cookies together, every stress they’d ever helped each other bear, every quiet evening side by side on the couch, every morning that Clair had woken Jane up. Days and weeks and years, piled together, and she let Amy have them all. Amy’s empathy was like stepping through a warm waterfall. It engulfed Jane in a deluge: Clair’s smile, her sigh, her laugh as she scolded Jane, her voice humming under her breath while she did the dishes. The way that she’d look back over her shoulder, a smile quirking her lips as she spotted Jane. Clair.
The wind died around them. The gallery fell into silence. Jane sat back, and she didn’t need to look around to see that the figures that had been fading into existence had disappeared like the dreams that they were.
It must have worked then, but Jane didn’t dare accept it—not yet. Amy . . . Clair . . . whoever she was now, was slumped over, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
Jane held her breath. She reached out, brushing back the woman’s hair.
Eyes blinked open. Slowly, cautiously. They looked down at the body they belonged to, the bindings still holding it in place. They raised up, and took in a sense of the room.
They settled on Jane.
Clair’s eyes.
A smile quirked her lips.
“Ja—” Clair started to say, but Jane’s kiss cut her off.
Guilt and loss and mixed feelings would find them both later and be dealt with, but for now there was nothing but this: Jane had finally gotten her moment. And it was everything. It was tears and laughter and kisses and relief as giddy as a drug straight to the veins. It was a thousand things said overlapping at once, and it was all the things that they didn’t need to say sitting between them. It was every Christmas, every birthday. It was the one single thing that should never have happened, happening. It was Jane’s heart bursting, healing, bursting again, an endless loop as she wrapped her arms around Clair—Clair—and held her as tightly as she could, and swore that she would never, ever, let go again.
The sound of a door opening cut through the gallery.
“All right, UltraViolet!” Windforce said, his voice booming into the room. “Prepare to—! Oh.”
“Aw, shit,” Rip-Shift said, his footsteps coming in next. “What did we miss?”
Jane and Clair broke apart, laughing. Jane took the technological crown off the top of Clair’s head and tossed it aside. They let the rest of the team sort out the cleanup—transferring UltraViolet, notifying the mayor, checking on Cal . . .
Cal was gone. He must have woken up and escaped in the chaos, and though the Heroes broke up to do a quick search of the building, there was no sign of him. Jane tried not to worry too much. After all, he didn’t have superpowers, and without UltraViolet to pull the strings for him, how much harm could he really do?
Besides, at the moment, nothing could dampen Jane’s mood. She grinned from ear to ear as she helped Clair outside. During cleanup, Keisha had run out and tucked a car behind the building, away from the mob of press that had gathered at the main entrance.
“It’s a good ending,” Jane said now, Clair’s gloved hand wrapped tight around Jane’s for support.
Clair shook her head. She settled into the seat, then reached out to brush Jane’s cheek with the back of her fingers. A flood of emotion passed between them, unchecked and bursting with gratitude. “There’s where you’re wrong,” Clair said. She smiled. “It’s not an ending, Jane . . . it’s a new beginning.”
A city skyline, rendered in muted watercolors. The sky above takes up most of the panel, swirling clouds of purple-gray with streaks of red flashing like lightning. Dark lines capture the silhouette of a caped hero flying in from the distance, too far away to make out any details.
“New project?” Clair asked.
Jane shrugged. She was leaning on her elbows on her drawing table, her fingernails ring-stained with ink and paints, her hair tied in a messy bun on the back of her head. Clair’s hand rested against Jane’s shoulders, and Jane closed her eyes as a kiss landed atop her head.
Nearly six months had gone by, and not a second passed that Jane was not grateful. Every day was like Valentine’s Day, their anniversary, Clair’s birthday, all wrapped up into one. “You know that you have to stop buying me flowers one of these days, right?” Clair had asked once, about a week in.
“I don’t have to do anything of the sort,” Jane said, wrapping Clair’s waist in a hug.
The flowers had tapered off since then—somewhat—but the sentiment hadn’t wavered. Not for a single instant.
Clair’s hand moved up from Jane’s shoulder to her head, brushing back the loose hairs that had fallen free of Jane’s bun.
“Don’t you think it’s a little . . . meta?” Clair asked. “A superhero writing about superheroes?”
Jane turned around in her chair, grinning. “I can’t help it. It’s what I do.”
Clair smirked. She glanced out the window. The skeleton of the new Woolfolk Tower could just be seen over the treeline of Regent Park.
It had taken a long time to decide, and a lot of soul-searching, but eventually the two of them had opted to stay in the Grand City of the Heroes’ world. Well, it kind of made sense: Clair was dead in their own universe, Jane was unemployed—not to mention the superpowers that both of them now possessed, and the large gap in the team if they left on top of Cal’s disappearance. Jane had, at least, taken the time to return home for a few days, long enough to try to explain things to her mother. Her mother, who had listened as patiently as she possibly could, though Jane knew
that she already had one finger on the speed dial of her phone under the table, ready to call Jane’s grief counselor.
“I’ll prove it to you,” Jane had said, and she knew that her mother was rolling her eyes as Jane got up, crossed the apartment, opened her bedroom door. But all of Ms. Holloway’s doubts had flown out of the room the minute Clair stepped through, arms thrown wide for a hug.
They visited every few months, now. Hopping universes long enough for a Sunday dinner—well, more or less. Time dilation, and all that.
“Do you like it, though?” Jane asked now. She gestured behind her, at the spread of paintings and sketches littering her work surface. Brand-new heroes, brand-new adventures. A fictional city, ready to be saved.
Clair leaned over, taking her time as she examined them. Her fingerless gloves—nothing from Amy’s collection, all of them bought to Clair’s own tastes—bore yellow lightning bolts across the back, and Jane smiled at them as she waited for Clair to finish assessing Jane’s work.
“It’s good,” Clair said finally.
“Really?”
Clair nodded. “Really. I like Atomita the best.”
“I knew you would,” Jane said, grinning.
Clair gave Jane’s shoulder a playful swat. “Remind me which of us is the empath, again?”
Jane’s grin widened. She waggled her eyebrows. “Oh, that would be you, my dear. No doubt.”
A flush tinged Clair’s cheeks as she turned away. “I should get to work.”
“What’s the rush?” Jane asked, as she hooked Clair’s waist.
Clair stuck her tongue out. Jane leaped up from her chair, catching it in a sloppy kiss.
“Ugh, gross,” Clair said as she pulled away, but her voice was light and amused. She nodded at Jane’s drawing table. “Anyway, do you have a publisher in mind yet?”
Jane shrugged. “Dunno. There’s no QZero here.”
“You could start one,” Clair said as she moved to the door. “Publish the little voices. Make your mark. Goodness knows we have the money in this reality.”
“Save the world through comics?”