445 HE
It's not the place she thinks about, so much as what happened there.
Faces and events are revisited in increasingly infrequent intervals, when she closes her eyes and concentrates, but Milliways itself is fading. Its corners and ill-defined space were always shifting, stretching, curving, folding over and around each other, layering like memories in her mind; or so it seemed. And now, with distance and time providing another barrier to clarity, she struggles to recall the details of Bar and Baby. Even the lake and stables feel nebulous, a secondary cast of characters existing only in the background of her mind.
At first, she remembers, she’d thought she was finally going insane; the end of the universe was an intangible concept, undeniable evidence or not. Then came arm wrestling with Indy, an explorer after her own heart; drinking that noxious green liquid with Corwin; learning a whole new, puzzling meaning to the word ‘companion’ from Inara; staring down, or at least at, Anthy; pranking Bernard with Raph and Tim; being kissed heartily by Jack; exploring the benefits of glitter with Raven and Lilly; watching Meg gleefully stuff people in her beloved tutus; meeting and befriending other warrior type women like Svava, Faith and Mel; and realizing that these people had become as important to her as those in Tortall.
Some of those Tortallans followed her there, or were already waiting. I’m sorry Alex had said, after they nearly killed each other (again) in the snow. She'd said it back, and meant it. Without Milliways, the words would never have been spoken.
Sometimes, she wonders what her friends there are doing, and if they miss her. Even now, she bristles at abandoning her duty; it hadn't been fair to the others on Security to just disappear, whether she'd had any control over it or not. But thank the Goddess Mike was there and would understand, even if it's his brother trapped on the Tortallan side of the door.
Alanna knows missing her friends won't get any easier, will always twinge like a recurring injury, but she thinks about them anyway. In her mind, Mike makes waffles while Mel trots in from her morning exercise or latest job, and they're both smirking. Indy’s behind Bar wearing that grin he always gave her, like he knows that she knows that maybe it wouldn't have been the best idea to get together, but it would never have been dull. They'd never really talked about it because they were better as friends, and besides, why bother with such nonsense when there were adventures to be had? Alanna always smiles at that.
She smiles less when she thinks of some people; more when she thinks of others. So many people she’d cared about had gone, and now she's gone, too.
Memories of Jack hurt more than most. Her honest side had never allowed Alanna to hide from the fact that part of her had loved him, though she wouldn't admit as much aloud. There was no sense in it. He was Jack, in love with the sea and his freedom. They'd recognized, acknowledged and accepted each other in a way that made it impossible not to care deeply, even if that's all it was destined to be. But he’d taken her with him -- kidnapped her, really, though she'd had a hand in her own fate -- and shown her places, people and things that made her head spin with excitement. It had been everything she'd always wanted. The ability to explore new worlds had literally been at her fingertips, through a door, and she could still be home in time to fulfill her duties. Milliways had meant her newfound freedom.
And if it had been her freedom, then this is her penance.
Alanna had always known there would be a price to pay for what she did. How could there not? She’d meddled with the will of the gods, interfered with life and death, and employed magic she had no right even knowing. All for the sake of her brother.
Thom.
Others have been trapped by her punishment, stuck with her, unable to return. The biggest secret she has is that she’d do it again, and gladly, because somewhere in another land, Thom walks in the sunshine and goes about the business of living. Maybe he still keeps company with Lucifer, spending lazy afternoons laughing at Alanna and Adam. Maybe he doesn't. He'll never change, she's not fool enough to think that, but maybe he's found new interests.
When she thinks of Thom, it tends to be in a distant fashion, almost clinical, weighing cause-and-effect and imagining what his life must be like now in the way that one wonders about characters in a story that has ended.
Occasionally, she forgets to be detached. She remembers the pained look he would get on his face whenever she teased him; the way his hair was forever falling in his eyes, and the way she would brush it back; the press of his back against hers when she would sleep over, and their quickly synchronized breathing; his face, so like her own; and the love she would see reflected in his eyes, even at the worst of times. He'd promised to give her a week of every year. They would go somewhere together, away from Lucifer and Adam and everything else that made things so complicated.
Alanna never expected to be the one to break that promise. Only then, struck by that thought, does she cry.
Some memories will never fade, while others are ever slipping through her fingers like sand.