~Earlier That Day~

After reading that message from Sullivan, Curt pressed his foot to the accelerator, tires screeching on pavement. After racing back to his home, he made a bee line for his dad’s den, and the safe where Mitchell kept that gun and all of its ammo. Rushing to pack the ammo and the gun into the dufflebag he hadn’t used since his arrest, Curt didn’t even hear the footsteps in the doorway behind him.

As he stood and turned, his eyes fell on Sky and Star, both waiting there in that doorway. Their hands were clenched tightly in one another’s. watching him wordlessly, breathlessly as he prepared for the violence he had planned that day. Curt was a bit taken aback when he saw them there. But then he remembered all the other strange or unexplainable things he had seen since his arrest; nearly all of which had to do in some way with his victims.

“Not falling for it again. I know you’re not really here at all. None of you are. And none of you will be” he added with a bite as he pulled the bag up over his shoulder and determinedly moved toward the doorway, despite the two other teens standing in it.

“Wrong, Curt” Sky stated coolly, “we are here. We’re real this time.”

Curt scoffed as he took only a second’s pause. He then sneered, “in that case...” he didn’t finish the sentence as he reached into the bag again, causing both Sky and Star to take another shaky breath.

Sky then made his voice work again, “just stop now, Curt. You still can. We’re giving you one last chance; a chance that you don’t even deserve at all.”

“A chance you never gave any of those girls, or Sky” Star added, the words catching in her throat as the gun came into view once more.

“Fuck you both” he stated in a slow growl as he turned the gun toward them, pulling the safety back as he did.

Only then, he inexplicably turned the gun back toward himself, seemingly against his own will, placing the barrel under his chin. His eyes filled with fear, Sky’s and Star’s eyes full of hatred as they glared back at his response to that one chance that they had chosen to give him.

And then the gunshot went off.

~6 Months Later~

Kole had already awoken and gotten his shower that Monday morning in late May. His long black locks were now dripping, his pale skin only covered by a towel about his waist. He returned to Sky’s room where he had left the bed and his two sleeping companions behind half an hour earlier. He just shook his head down at where they continued to cuddle close together on Sky’s bed, refusing to open their eyes on the world that day, despite what day it was. Kole then grinned as he pulled himself free of that damp towel, balled it up in his hands and threw it into the bed between Sky and Star.

“Would you two get up already? We got high schools to graduate from” he teased in response to them startling at the feel of the towel landing between them as they opened their dark, sleep-filled eyes with a groan.

“Can’t we just call it in?” Sky mumbled, burying his face in the pillow as he rolled closer to Star, each only clad in the dark black underthings they had gone to bed in the previous night.

Kole just scoffed at that response. Though the two finally pushed themselves up to their elbows a moment later. Their sleepy eyes just then noting his nakedness as he moved toward the pile of clothing he had left on Sky’s chair near the bed the previous night. Both their sets of dark eyes then moved over Kole, piercings and all, as he smirked back at them, turning to hold their gaze, as he slowly, deliberately began dressing.

“Enjoying the view?” Kole called them on the way their eyes moved over him.

“We were supposed to be getting up?” Sky stammered.

“Think you already did” Kole teased as his eyes moved to Sky’s snug underwear before finally allowing them some composure as he finally slid his vinyl pants up over his narrow hips.

Once the graduation ceremony came to a close, parents and their now adult children laughing or taking pictures, Kole returned from the punch bowl to interrupt where Sky and Star had been quietly whispering to one another. The two startled from whatever somber conversation they were having as he reappeared.

“Ok seriously, with the whispering?” Kole complained as he handed them their drinks.

“Sorry” Star said softly as she looked down, taking her drink from his hand as she did.

“You two” Kole just scoffed and shook his head after handing Sky his drink as well, and then moving his cat green eyes from his companions to take in the crowd with a sigh. After another moment, Kole just had to speak again, “we did it. Against all odds, we survived fucking high school” he told them pointedly. “Well, all of us except that prick. But last I checked, that was a good thing! And you two have been acting even more melancholy as fuck since then. And that’s coming from me! What is with you two? Curt blowing his brains out is the best thing that could have happened; what we wanted to happen! Hell, I made the birthday wish for that exact same thing to happen myself; only twelve days earlier. You’re welcome by the way” he smirked. “So cheer the fuck up already. And that’s coming from me!” he added with another pointed grin before he then got distracted by his parents not only showing up, but actually calling out to him. With a sigh back at Sky and Star, he made himself then leave their side to at least acknowledge his parents’ presence.

“Well, he seems happy with how things turned out” Star said softly as Kole moved away.

“Only because we never told him, or Crista, about that last whole rewind.”

Star allowed another soft sigh, “or that we technically killed Curt, ourselves.”

“Not according to the cops” Sky stated, though there was sarcasm there.

Star then looked back up at him, “do you really think Kole would hate us if we told him what we did to save him, and Crista, and all of... them?” she added as she gestured to their graduating class, most of whom had been mowed down in a hail of bullets in that other, much darker time line.

“I know the pain of losing Sammi and the baby is so deep with him... I just don’t know if he would ever forgive us not taking that pain away if we could have. And should he?” Sky stated sadly.

“We saved everyone else though, including Kole himself, and Crista” Star attempted to remind.

“Tell that to Curt’s victims when they wake up screaming, remembering what he did to them... to us” he added more quietly.

“Then maybe we did save Sammi after all” Star whispered.

“What?” Sky asked as he looked back down at her.

“At least she’ll never wake up screaming, remembering what happened to her, or her baby. By letting her stay gone, we saved her from that, in a way. Didn’t we?” Star asked hopefully.

“But do you wanna hope that Kole sees it that way too? Honestly? And he doesn’t just think we could have somehow stopped Curt from hurting her at all?” Sky told her in the same whisper.

“I guess we should just let him enjoy this life, as much as he can, without her. And not open that wound again, after all. We’ve all got enough pain to deal with, without inflicting any more on each other, right?” Star stated softly.

“Now let’s just hope we all can get past it now. All of it” Sky agreed with his own shallowly buried pain always apparent,

“As long as you promise me that you honestly do really want to try to get past it all now. Can you do that, Sky?”

“I promise” he smiled down at her, covering her lips to seal that new promise of his with a soft kiss.

~THE END~