Cassie and Larson pushed themselves for as long as they could, their stamina was tried and tested. By the time an hour passed, Cassie was winded and nearing exhaustion. More time passed of them running, while Jax just watched them feeling a little amazed at the sight before him. After several hours of running, Cassie gave up and couldn’t run anymore at any speed. However, Larson remained running and Jax watched as Cassie trudged over to him. Her deep gaping breaths got louder as she finally got over to the car and fell onto the hood with a small thud.

“I brought some Gatorade, but I don’t know if-”

Cassie shot up at that and went to the door where she fell inside the car searching for the beverage.

“Where is it!” She asked with an almost animalistic tone.

Jax chuckled at her and explained where it was. Cassie scavenged for it and eventually found it, she took the drink and moved on top of the roof of Jax’s car, but not before chugging most of the beverage. Jax leaned against his car beside Cassie’s legs all while keeping watch for when Larson eventually stopped.

“Does that stuff do anything for you guys?” Jax asked.

“Yeah,” she took a breath, “we’re still human, but as Lars puts it,” She set the drink down and frowned deeply, “We don’t have the same functions, properties, and processes.” She said in her best Larson voice with her best Larson expression. Jax couldn’t help but laugh. “Not that I know how true that is, but essentially we’re like that. Lars doesn’t eat very often, and I’m the same way, where I can go for almost a month without eating or drinking anything. I just choose to eat because I like food!”

“I’d love to find out what food does inside you guys.” Jax said with a curious tone.

“I don’t know how you'd do that. If you have to cut us up or something, you’ll have to find something that’s strong enough to hurt us.”

“That’s something you two were curious about?”

Cassie’s head shook, “not me. Lars is the one curious about how our blood is different from regular humans.”

“That’s a good question. I’ll have to look into it then,” Jax took out his phone and typed something, “If anything, I’d assume you guys would only be able to hurt each other.”

Cassie winced, “pain doesn’t sound too fun.”

“I’ll tell Lars about that then. I’m sure he’d be willing to hurt himself to investigate this theory.”

Cassie resumed drinking the Gatorade as they both watched Larson, “how long do you think he’ll go?”

Jax hummed, “Maybe another hour or so. I’ve noticed a decrease in his overall speed, so I’m sure he’s getting a little exhausted by now.”

“I think he could go for another four days.” Cassie joked, “but, how can you notice he’s getting slower, shouldn't he be impossible for you to see?”

“Oh, it’s actually because of that. He’s visible to me now. Before it was more like a blur than anything, I couldn’t even make out that someone was running.”

“You have to be really perceptive huh?” Cassie dropped to stand next to Jax, “like it’s really interesting to know that people can figure stuff out without even needing a test subject.”

He looked at her, “it’s all theoretical.”

“You know about stuff like that?”

“It’s what I hope to study in college.”

Cassie grimaced, “theoretical science?” She said more as a question than anything.

“Yes,” Jax stated with a small grin, “I won’t bore you with the details though.”

“Oh,” she got his attention back, “I only looked like that ‘cause science and stuff like that is hard for me, but I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s interesting. Like, what kind of stuff does it involve?”

Jax couldn’t help but feel a sincere interest from her words. He turned to face Cassie fully and began his explanation…

Jax happened to be right and Larson went on for another hour, marking the six hour mark in their test. It was dark now and they decided to go somewhere to check the results.

They went to a nearby restaurant and went to the very back where Larson caught his breath and cooled down with Gatorade. Jax had been writing and Cassie was bored while waiting, so her boredom turned into annoying Larson.

She turned in her seat to face him, “why'd you run for so long anyways?”

“What?” Larson glared over to her.

“You heard me. Were you flexing or something?”

His eyes narrowed and Cassie only bit her lip in an attempt not to laugh. Larson sighed and turned his gaze from her.

“Okay,” Jax said, getting their attention, “with this… I think we have two options.” They looked to Jax, “either Cassie goes for as long as you did… and you two add another two hours-”

“Eight hours!”

“She could barely take the four she did!”

Jax took a breath, “it’s either that or we try a theory where you two use each other to launch off.”

“Is that what you were talking about before?” Larson said.

“Yeah, I was thinking about it when I said you guys might have to launch with something. I figured, why not use each other and that way you guys can have an extra push.”

“It’ll be like those things on the playground!” Cassie exclaimed.

“Essentially.” Jax said.

“That might be a good idea, instead of trying to use ourselves to get up there we could use something to help us.” Larson sighed as he rubbed his neck, “then I guess we’ll have to test that theory right?”

“Well, not really.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know the kind of speed you guys can pick up. From there, I can assume some things and using that to launch you off should come easily.”

“So does this mean we’re going to Pluto soon?”

Jax smiled at Cassie’s excitement, “we shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves.”

“Fine, I’ll work a little harder then!”

“It’d be good to get Cassie to run at full speed for at least four hours.” Jax said.

Cassie groaned.

“And you better.”

Cassie glared in Larson’s direction, but he ignored her and kept drinking. Jax just smiled at them and they relaxed for the rest of the time they spent at the restaurant.

…

For the next week, they spent six hours every day after school getting Cassie’s stamina up. Larson and Jax worked on the conditions they would have to consider once they were out in space. Including how they would even move once they were out there.

In the time that Cassie was building her stamina, they would meet up at Larson’s place to track their progress. During the weekend, she spent the night at Larson’s place alongside Jax who was taken aback at first by the rift.

“How amazing!” Jax was staring at the front door, “it’s almost as if time itself is distorted just in this very spot.” Cassie couldn’t help it and thought his reactions were endearing. Larson, on the other hand, wasn’t amused in the slightest. Jax then noticed their staring and cleared his throat as he calmed himself, “right, sorry about that.” Cassie just giggled, “but I don’t think we should waste anymore time on this. Cassie can maintain herself up to four hours pretty decently, so we should try it now! Plus, since school’s out, we can go to an Elementary school and try using those merry-go-rounds.”

Cassie went over to Roman who was resting on the floor. She crouched down and asked him to come to her, he did so slowly, but still came eventually.

“You hear that?” she said to the dog, “I won’t be here to take care of you, but Jax said he’ll take good care of you okay?” Roman barked at her, Cassie giggled and gave him a small treat before standing normally.

“At least you weren’t joking when you said you were going to train him.”

“Of course I wasn’t! You underestimate me.”

“This was one case. I’ll come back to you if you can keep that up for the rest of the time we’re stuck together.” Larson complained.

Cassie huffed but went past him to the door. She had her phone in her hand and stood in the doorway.

“Just come on, let’s do this already! Onto Pluto! Come on baby.” Roman barked and went to Cassie’s side as she ran out of the door.

The school they went to was empty, leaving them to do what they needed to in relative peace. Cassie ran her earbuds down her shirt so they wouldn’t fling off, but still put them in her ear for the moment.

“Okay, now you guys should run as fast as you can for four hours.”

“And I’m the person who has to do this on my own.” Larson tried to say under his breath.

“Just because I’m not all brute strength like you.” Cassie mocked.

“Still, hopefully I can get enough strength off the ground to get into the air.” Larson said.

“I think you’ll be able to.” Jax encouraged.

“Really wish I could have more than just a ‘you think’.” Larson stretched. Jax gave him an awkward chuckle. Larson and Cassie went over and grabbed onto the somewhat warm metal of the merry-go-round. “Now don’t slow me down.”

“I won’t, but you count us down and from there I’ll be seeing you in space!”

Larson gave a small chuckle but gripped it and got himself ready.

“Three, two, one!”

…

Once more, they went for four hours straight and by this point, Cassie was running out of stamina. Larson could feel that as they began to lose the speed they worked so hard to get and yelled for her to jump.

“But we’re not at the right speed!” She yelled back

“Just jump you idiot!”

Cassie growled, “fine!” Cassie waited until she was in the right direction and pushed herself off the ground. When she did, she felt a sudden jerk to her body. Cassie didn’t have time to think about that as she felt herself rising in height. She couldn’t see much as she was covered with clouds while she ascended.

Cassie covered her face as Larson explained to avoid anything hitting her eyes and soon Cassie felt herself slowing down. She lowered her arms and was amazed at the sight around her.

“Wow…” She slowly turned, taking in the vast universe around her. The stars were all gleaming around her and the dark void gave Cassie a feeling of astonishment, “I can’t believe it worked!”

Her head shot back to look behind her and there she saw another object hurtling towards her. Cassie reached her arms out and they were grabbed by Larson and his sudden force pushed them a bit further out. They began to slow down.

“It worked!” Cassie pulled herself closer to Larson and hugged him all while giggling.

“Obviously…” he pushed her off, “but I think we’re a bit off.” Larson looked around.

“That’s fine, the hard part was getting out here. We can get to Pluto easily now!” Cassie said, spinning around. She then looked at Larson but couldn’t stop herself from spinning. “By the way… what was that jerk I felt?”

Larson stared at her confused for a second before he realized what she was talking about.

“Oh, we weren’t going fast enough. Plus I doubted your ability to jump far enough, so I pushed it as hard as I could once you were about to let go.” Cassie stared at him before she began to slow down her spinning.

“So I was off thanks to you!” She accused.

“You’re here because of me!” He retorted. Cassie laughed and turned her body in the direction of Pluto. Larson came beside her and saw it as well. “Either way, let’s get going already.”

After their successful launch, Jax stared into the sky for a little bit.

“Those things are really built differently,” the merry-go-round was squeaking loudly, but was still fully intact. It was then he remembered what he and Larson talked about. “I’m not sure how this is gonna work, but I’ll give it a shot.” He was about to try and call Larson when he got a call from his mom instead. He grunted knowing the squeaking was still too loud. He went inside his car before answering the phone. “Hey mom, what’s up?”

Roman sat up and scrambled to the front seats. Jax let him climb into his lap and he kept him calm by scratching under his chin.

“Hi sweetie, I just wanted to call you because those books you wanted showed up!”

“They did? Good, thanks for telling me! I’m still gonna be out for a little bit, but I’ll swing by the house and pick it up later.”

“Okay, I’ll leave it on the porch for you.”

“Thanks mom!”

“What did you want those for anyways? I didn’t even know your grandfather had any actual research.”

“Oh, I actually found a book of his in the library.”

“In town?” She questioned.

“Yeah, I couldn’t believe he actually had something here in town!”

“I could believe it a little bit. Did you know we used to own a library around here? Your grandma refurbished it into a vintage library or something like that. People could donate their old books back in the day.”

“No way, why didn’t I know about that?”

“She never told us very much about it aside from the fact that it existed.” Jax found that interesting, “but anyways, I was just a little curious. I’m glad you’re getting back into your grandfather’s work.” Jax felt a feeling of nostalgia at the recollection, “but anyways—I won’t keep you—I’ll see you for dinner when you get back.”

“Yeah, see you later mom.” Jax hung up the phone. Roman was just staring up at him and Jax looked down seeing the dog stare at him. Jax thought and figured he’d pick the books up before trying to call Larson and Cassie. “I never would have thought something like this was even possible. It’s all so amazing!”