Jake Addams May 24th,20XX

I was reluctant to wake up and even more reluctant to open my eyes. I had asked Mei to knock me out until everything was over, but I wasn’t sure if my being awake truly meant things were okay.

“You can wake up Jake, we’re at my grandfather’s place but we should get back to the human world soon.”

Ever before I opened my eyes, I heard Finn’s tired voice and was put on guard. Had something bad happened? I mean, worse than what had already happened?

The silver and ruby room spun as I got up quickly and I had to sit back down to catch my balance. My hands refused to leave the railing of the bed I’d just gotten up from and it took me much longer to get myself settled. I wondered just how long I’d been unconscious.

I closed my eyes to center myself and counted to ten before finally opening them again. Finn sat on a pallet across the foot of mine, cross-legged with his back straight like he was meditating. He was surrounded by mounds of scrolls and ink pens that moved frantically around him, a strong contrast to Finn himself.

The first thing I noticed was the bags under his eyes and the weird stillness around him. If not for the occasional rise and fall of his chest I would have thought he was a statue.

“Woah, Fi-Cai are you okay?”

He let out a small chuckle but his lips that barely climbed out of a straight line quickly fell back in place.

“You can call me Finn here, there’s no one else in the building right now.”

“Are they okay?”

“Yeah, they just had things to do for preparation.”

“Preparation?”

He motioned to the busy pens and mounds of papers around him as he answered.

“Preparation for our transport. I also have a lot of stuff to take care of before we go.”

“We?”

It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought he would come back with me but the possibility of him choosing to stay here had crossed my mind. There was also the way he said it, which sounded like he wouldn’t be returning to this world for a while.

“What? Don’t want me to come back to the human world?”

I brushed him off and took it as a joke, but his strained tone made it hard to laugh. I suddenly got a bad feeling and looked him over again, the depressed countenance and the way he avoided my eyes.

“What happened? And don’t try to brush me off. Did Mei get hurt? Or did something happen to Sparrow? I thought Ion said the brainwashing spell had worn off?”

He looked surprised at my sudden question and quickly started to respond, finally moving enough to look alive.

“Nothing happened and everyone is fine… really!”

“Then why are you acting like this? Last time you were like this I found out my best friend was a native of another world and not only a native but a prince of two opposing races whose life was constantly endangered. You cant tell me something of that magnitude happened again?”

Although I made my voice slightly louder and tried to play it off as a joke, I couldn’t help but be worried. I had no previous experience to rely upon in this scenario and for all I knew, something bug really may have happened and I just had no way of guessing what it was.

“Haha. No really, I’m okay. Rubella just said something before she died, and it got to me.”

So, Rubella had been defeated and even killed. I was suddenly reminded that Finn was someone with a body count but didn’t know how to feel about it. I hadn’t actually seen him kill anyone but the little I’d seen of his grandparent’s actions made me wary.

I pushed it down and decided to decode how I felt when I was back home in the human world. For now, I needed to be a good friend.

Something was bothering Finn, and while I probably wasn't the best person for the job, I was the only one around.

“What did she say?”

He hesitated and I could see the conflict in his face as he debated whether to tell me. His facial features finally relaxed as he came to a decision, but I cut him off before he could lie to me.

“Don’t bother saying anything if you’re just going to lie Finn. I thought you said you didn’t lie to people you cared about?”

I quoted his earlier words to Rubella when we had been captured as best as I could remember. His face somewhat twisted up and he gently corrected me.

“No, I said I don’t lie to people I don’t care about.”

“What type of logic is that?”

“The type that made sense at the time, I guess.”

He slowly relaxed the more we talked, and his speech became a bit more casual. That was better, at least he didn’t look like he was about to do something everyone would regret anymore.

“In all seriousness, I wouldn’t mind lending an ear if you need one. Even if you don’t think I could do anything about it I could at least help you think it out.”

He nodded and let out a big smile, which I took to mean he’d heard me but still decided not to talk it out with me. I wasn’t offended, there was a lot about this world I didn’t know despite Tyus’s best efforts to catch me up, and more so there wasn’t much I could do even if I did know anything.

“She called me an abomination. And Yeah, I know she was just saying whatever so she could hurt me and all that. But It worked? Like, she wasn’t wrong you know? A lot of things that have happened wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been born, and everyone around me just keeps getting hurt or inconvenienced in some way or another. Geez, I sound so pathetic.”

“More accurately you sound like you’re wallowing in self-pity.”

He looked at me with a hurt expression and I could see his eyes somewhat start to water, but I didn’t take my words back.

“Before you clock out and regret telling me your worries have I ever told you how I started living with my stepmom?”

He shook his head to respond to me but had a confused expression on his face, thrown off by me suddenly changing the subject.

“Well, first my mother died when I was about 7, complications from her giving birth to me. She lasted until then through modern medicine, but she was in constant pain and barely lasted that long. Then my dad met my stepmom and got her pregnant twice before kicking the can when I was 12. There was an accident on his last mission before we could move to where we are now. Why am I telling you this? To tell you that bad things happen, Finn. Should you feel bad about it? Of course, you should! But do you think you’re the only one with dead parents? I mean, comparing the two of us, one of whom has a beautiful fiancée, wealth beyond imagination and two overprotective grandparents to the other who has a scholarship and a dependence on a rich friend that gave him a job out of favouritism… who do you think is better off?”

“I- I guess me?”

“But me saying all that won’t make you feel any better, will it? In reality, you’re allowed to get in your feelings and regret the past just don’t dwell on it. Set your mind to it and work hard on making sure you don’t have anything to regret in the future. It's possible to focus on the people that love and care about you now while respecting those who died for the same reason. You’re allowed to be happy Finn; you’re allowed to be so happy it makes everyone that looks at you want to punch you in the face. What you’re not allowed to do is disrespect the efforts of everyone to make you happy by stopping yourself from being happy over some random villains’ words. Yeah?”

He nodded and retreated into himself once again, but this time the gloomy cloud that had hung over him before was somewhat gone. I didn’t know if what I had told him was the best advice, but it was the best advice that I could give at the moment.