Chapter Text
"The magic thing about home
is that it feels good to leave
and it feels even better to come back."
- Wendy Wunder
On a faraway planet—perhaps closer to the Polaris system, though not quite—Tommy Innes, nat-born son of Sam Innes, adopted son of Philza and Kristen Minecraft, and the former leader of the Children's Rebellion—stared up at the universe; at the billions of cold stars and the lightyears between him and empty space; at the dark matter that causes the night sky's lights to flicker; at the constellations that he didn't know the names of but Technoblade Minecraft probably did, at the glow from the stars that was thousands of years old, and wondered when he had found the time to grow up.
It wasn't exactly cold—it was actually the summer season on HIP-6528-P-4A, or, as Tubbo had so unscientifically named it, Small Boi. Still, Tommy, standing in the middle of the small prairie, shivered slightly as his eyes flickered across the splash of purple and blue that flared their way across the sky. He wasn't technically even needed on the surface—which was why he was staring at the stars—and George, Jack, Lani, and Tubbo, were all meticulously collecting samples to test when sentient life would have theoretically formed on this planet, on which life never would form on due to specific chemical circumstances.
Or something like that. Tommy didn't know. He wasn't even allowed to use the glass vials because he'd broken the last one he'd touched. He broke a lot of things he touched.
"Tommy!" someone called, and Tommy turned his head slightly, unclasping his hands from behind his back as he turned to fully face Tubbo. The Shulker was making his way across the tall grass, holding a red-topped vial rack in his hands, his expression light—just a bit more than usual. "It's almost time to beam up, bossman. You ready?"
"I wasn't exactly doing anything," he said, raising an eyebrow and lifting up a hand to brush the hair out of his face. Ugh. He really wanted to cut it, but he had a feeling Techno would murder him. And, well, he was scared of Techno, even if he would never say it aloud. "Just staring at the stars."
"Ah," Tubbo said, his words turning wistful. "Do you suppose he's up there? Looking down on us?" Tommy frowned, confused. "Do you believe in that sort of thing?"
"I do," Tommy said slowly, comprehension dawning.
"You think he's judging us, then?" Tubbo said, with a small laugh that wasn't all happy. He squinted his eyes and peered up at the stars, and there was silence for all of a second. "For our choices?"
"I think," Tommy said, choosing his words carefully. It was newly spring again, Earth-time—it had almost been a year since he'd met the crew of the L'manburg, and about six months since Ranboo's death. Even now, it still hurt. He had a feeling it always would. "I think he would've been glad we were alive."
Tubbo snorted loudly. "Yeah, not like they give us dangerous missions anymore, bossman," he muttered, kicking at the dirt.
Tommy raised an eyebrow at him. "The only 'dangerous missions' around nowadays are the frontlines," he said coolly, speaking of the war that the Arachnids had officially declared on the Galactic Rebellion. "And you know our ship isn't built for that. It's an explorer's vessel." He gestured widely. "We're exploring. Just because we technically battled an Arachnid warship once doesn't make us a battleship. Save that shit for the Mira."
"Exploring is boring," Tubbo said, and then snickered. "Ha. That rhymes."
"It's what keeps you alive, big man," Tommy said fervently, clasping his hands behind his back once more. "It's what keeps all of us alive." He didn't mention that he'd overheard both Phil and Kristen arguing with ground command on multiple occasions to pass laws that banned children from being allowed on spaceships. Tommy didn't quite hold it against them, not after everything that had happened. He knew that Purpled, Tubbo, and Drista all would, though, so he kept his mouth shut and never mentioned it.
His comm flashed, and Tommy answered it with a flick of his wrist, never lowering his gaze from the sky.
❯ Bridge crew to ground team, are you ready for extraction? ❮
Tommy cleared his throat at Wilbur's familiar voice. "Copy that, Wilbur," he said. "You might want to contact Niki and Jack's team, though. I only have Tubbo next to me."
❯ You walked off again? ❮
"I did not," Tommy scoffed. "I'm in the middle of the field that we were beamed down on, fucker. They just went into the forest. There ain't no stars in the fuckin' forest, so I stayed out here. They're quite pretty, really."
Tubbo leaned over closer to the mic. "Relax, Lieutenant," he said in a slight drawl. "There's no sentient life on this moon."
Tommy looked at him, taking his hand off the button. "This is a moon?" he asked, shocked.
Tubbo blinked at him. "Yeah," he said slowly. "We landed on the dark side; the gas giant that it's orbiting is visible on the other side—hang on, did you not read the brief file?"
"It looked boring," Tommy said. "I was too lazy. You guys would have told me if it was something important."
"You are ridiculous," Tubbo snorted.
Tommy smiled and raised the comm to his mouth again, this time sending the communication through the default channel. "Ground team—I guess, team two—to the L'manburg, you have the all-clear signal to beam us up."
❯ Copy that, Ensign. ❮
It was Fundy talking, this time, which was why he called Tommy by his rank instead of his name, and Tommy made a face. Still, he closed his eyes and steadied his feet, taking a breath of fresh atmospheric air before light swirled around them. He appeared in the transporter room of the L'manburg that was drifting above the planet's—or, rather, the moon's—stratosphere. The air immediately smelled recycled. It was, but that was beside the point.
"Fundy," Tubbo said, by way of greeting, as he stepped off the dematerialization platform. "Where's the others?" Glancing around, Tommy noted that Niki, Jack, Lani, and George were still missing. He quickly shook his head before he jumped to the worst conclusion.
"They're picking up the sciency-stuff," Fundy said amicably, orange-red Kitsune ears twitching. "And that's Junior Lieutenant to you."
"I outrank you," Tubbo said instantly. "That's Lieutenant Underscore to you."
Fundy rolled his eyes as he leaned back over his station, pushing his headset mic over his mouth. "George, I read you. You four clear?" His tail twitched as he cocked his head, waiting for an answer, and Tommy hurriedly stepped off the platform just in case the transporter somehow glitched and made people land on him. "Gotcha."
Tommy stuck his hands in the pocket of his uniform and listened to the telltale hum that filled the air. Four figures appeared, two of them—Jack and George—carrying more oversized vial trays than Tubbo was, and most of them were filled with dirt. Science dirt.
Tommy didn't really know much about biology or why it was necessary during war-time. He didn't really pay attention to that sort of thing. He just knew that they were , and that Tubbo had that glint in his eyes that told that he was about to attempt something Tommy wouldn't like.
"Come," Niki said brightly and brushed the pink tips of her hair back from her shoulders. She'd stopped dying her hair, and it had turned a pale blue, the color of her birth people, but that was only due to a lack of proper Merling hair dye, something that Tommy had heard her complain about on multiple occasions over the past few months to anyone that would listen. And since everyone was scared of the fierce Merling doctor, everyone listened. "We need to go debrief."
"About what?" Tommy asked cheekily. "Dirt?"
"How dare you," Jack said. "This is more than simple dirt, you cretin—"
"Jack," Niki sighed. The Blazeborn shut up. "I know you don't like debriefs, Tommy, but it's regulation."
"We go against regulation, like, every day," Tommy pointed out. Tubbo snorted loudly.
"I'd rather we try not to go against regulation as much as possible," Niki said patiently.
"I didn't even take a single bit of dirt," Tommy protested. "I don't see why I need to go sit in a circle and talk about fucking dirt—"
"It's not dirt!" Jack yelped. "It's critical scientific evidence that life has the ability—" He cut himself off when Niki gave him a look. "Never mind."
"Can we just get this over with so I can go back to sleep?" George asked wearily, his Feline ears flattening against his brown hair. "I'm tired."
"You're always tired," Tommy said. "And I don't wanna."
"Tommy," Niki sighed.
Tommy caught a flash of black feathers and was out of the room so fast that he could've been a roadrunner in another life. "Phil!" he shouted, and the Elytrian only had half a second of reaction time to turn around and catch Tommy's flailing limbs as he leaped on his adoptive father and all but cowered behind him. "Phil, please save me!"
"Mate," Phil said pleasantly, grabbing Tommy's forearms. "What's going on?" Tommy assumed that he knew that nothing horrible was going on, otherwise he would've drawn the phaser sitting in the holster at his side.
Something horrible was happening, though. Tommy didn't want to be forced to go debrief about fucking dirt.
"It's just a debriefing, Captain," Niki said, as she exited the room. "He doesn't want to go."
"Phil, Philza, Philza Minecraft, the bestest and greatest, the one and only, the creator of Minecraft, the Captain of the L'manburg, Dadza—" Tommy said, only babbling slightly. "Please do not make me go to this horrible and no-good debriefing, O'Father mine. It sucks and I do not want to suck with it. I do not wish to become one with the dirt. I am not going to become a—a worm. Do not doom me to become a worm, Philza Minecraft."
Phil looked vaguely amused, his black wings shifting closer to his body. "Is that what this is about? From the way you were talking, I thought the world was about to end."
"It is ending," Tommy hissed, throwing Jack and George the stink-eye, the latter of whom gave him a blank look and the former of whom glared right back. "I do not want to become a worm, Phil. That is not in my future."
"You're not going to become a worm, Tommy," Phil said, still amused, and now trying to hold back a laugh.
"But I will, Phil! I will!" Tommy cried out. "They're wrong'uns. They eat dirt and shit!"
"Only the good dirt," Tubbo cut in.
"Don't egg him on," Lani hissed at her brother.
"Nihachu, does he really need to do the debriefing?" Phil asked, ruffling Tommy's hair.
The Merling gave a long sigh. "You let him get away with too much, Phil," she said mournfully, but there was no resentment behind it. "Alright."
"Not like he would've added anything meaningful to the conversation anyway," Jack muttered.
"Hey!" Tommy said, jabbing a finger in the Blazeborn's direction. On the hand that wasn't partially paralyzed. "At least I'm not a dirty bitch!"
"What the fuck does that mean?" Jack objected.
"You, prick. You."
"Tommy," Phil said tiredly. "If you're not going to the debriefing, at least don't hinder the others." He dipped his head politely at Niki. "Let's hope it's not that much paperwork this time."
"Shouldn't be," Niki said, shrugging her shoulders to release tension. "Although it might keep our dear Quartermaster busy for a few extra hours and out of trouble."
Phil smiled at her. "In that case, make sure there's extra paperwork."
"Hey!" Tommy protested. "Don't keep Purpled busy with paperwork because you can't handle our teamwork."
"You mean your shenanigans," Phil stressed, as he prodded Tommy down a hallway perpendicular to the one where Niki and the others were heading. Tommy managed to peek his head around Phil's body and massive wings to wave goodbye to Lani and Tubbo, as well as flip off a fuming Jack. "I see the work before it's sent back to Command, Tommy. I know the amount of balls you go through."
Tommy sniffed. "I am a Big Man, Philza Minecraft. I go through many balls."
"You little shit," Phil said with a laugh, shaking his head, blue eyes dancing with mirth. "That's not what I meant. I meant tennis balls."
"That's Drista, not Purpled," he said.
"Purpled's there."
"So?"
"So you need to stop destroying tennis balls."
"They're like four credits a pack, Phil."
"It's not the price I'm worried about," Phil said, rolling his eyes. "It's the fact you're going through three packs a week."
"I am a man of many balls, Philza Minecraft," Tommy said solemnly. "Don't judge what I use up where."
"Please stop talking," Phil sighed, as he brought Tommy to the cafeteria.
Tommy brightened when he saw Drista and Purpled sitting at the table, eating dinner—it was like eight in the evening, Earth-time, which made sense. He left Phil behind and ran over to the table, swooping in and stealing a slice of apple from Drista's plate. Theoretically swooping, that was. He didn't have wings like the great and powerful Philza Minecraft. And Tommy didn't quite feel like sleeping for eight hours if he overused his Avian biology. It was getting better—he could run for miles and miles, now!—but still.
"Hey!" Drista protested.
"Too slow," he said, shoving the apple in his mouth as he did so.
"Chew with your mouth closed," Purpled said, not looking up from where he was scrolling through his datapad.
"Are those chicken nuggets?" Tommy asked him, squinting at his plate. "Dinosaur shaped?"
"Yes," Purpled deadpanned. "Karl ordered them from Earth's America."
Tommy made a face. "Ugh. Americans."
"I'm American."
"Exactly," Tommy pointed out. He looked over at the doorway. Phil had vanished. "Phil abandoned me here."
"I think you abandoned him," Drista said, looking at the entryway meaningfully. She dug her spoon into her mac 'n cheese and ate a bite. "I see you're back from your trip. Run into anybody?"
"The stars," Tommy said. "And some dirt. They're quite dirty fellows, those scientists..." Purpled finally looked up from his datapad, and Drista stifled a snicker. "I didn't mean it like that."
"Sure," Purpled said. "Okay."
Tommy frowned at him, standing up from where he was sitting next to Drista to peer across the table at the blonde-haired boy. "Are you doing paperwork at the dinner table?" he asked, astonished, as he caught something along the lines of hazard control.
Purpled pursed his lips as he turned the datapad around to show Tommy. "This," he said. "Is an environmental hazard report form."
Tommy squinted at him. "All I heard was meh meh meh."
"It's about Tubbo setting off a smoke grenade in the recreational room," Purpled said. "I have to fill it out and attain his signature for suitable... punishment. Which is like nothing, because Command is too busy dealing with the war to punish people who didn't actually damage the ship."
"That was funny, though," Tommy said.
"But still requires paperwork," Purpled said. He raised an eyebrow. "It was quite... humorous, though, I must admit."
"You sound like you have a stick up your fuckin' arse," Tommy said. "Come on, man! Lighten up!"
"I'll lighten up when Chroma is in the grave," Purpled snapped. Tommy blinked at him, sitting down heavily. Drista paused, spoon in her mouth, her green eyes wide as she looked between the two boys. Purpled glared at the table for a second, before pushing away his tray. "I'm not hungry. I'll be in my room."
Tommy watched him go, wilting slightly. "I went too far, didn't I?"
"No," Drista said quietly, swallowing her mouthful. "Purpled is just stressed. Chroma was spotted earlier today."
Tommy hit his arm on the table and winced as pain shot up his elbow. "What?" He suddenly felt...cold. Like the ship's temperature had dropped twenty degrees, even though Philza Minecraft would never allow that, because then the Blazeborns and Piglins would freeze.
"Yeah," Drista said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her datapad. She opened it with a touch of her finger and slid it over to Tommy with one finger.
He read the messaged report—it had been to Philza, from Toast, who was fighting on the frontlines in the Mira—and apparently, Purpled had intercepted it. Maybe illegally. He wasn't going to question that.
Chroma had been spotted in neutral space, nowhere close to where Tommy had ever been. Nowhere close to them. It was very short. To the point. No details. Nothing about murders or more genocides.
It didn't matter.
Tommy handed the datapad back to Drista before he broke it. He clenched his fists in his hand, his nails digging small crescent moons in his palms. Drista set her datapad aside carefully and reached over, placing her hand on top of Tommy's.
"Hey," she said quietly. "We're nowhere near there. We get our missions directly from Command. He won't find us." He won't kill us, she didn't say, but her eyes spoke a thousand words.
"What if he goes after other children?" Tommy asked, blinking back tears. "What if he targets others?"
Drista raised her chin and looked at him, her face weary. "Maybe he will," she said quietly, and Tommy dropped his eyes to the flecks on the table and traced their every line. "He's a wildcard in this war. Command isn't prioritizing him."
Tommy let out a painful laugh, sinking lower into the bench seat. "I should've killed him six years ago," he spat bitterly. "I should've murdered him in his sleep. I should have cut his fucking throat."
Yeah, this was why he had mandated therapy.
Drista gave him a look. "Maybe if you would've, then this would all be different," she said amicably. "But it's not your fault you didn't." Tommy gave her a look. "Really, it's not, Tommy. You didn't know. Unless you've suddenly gained the ability to see into the future—"
"Wouldn't that be just the bloody thing," Tommy muttered.
"—then you can't blame yourself," Drista continued. "Not for things like this."
Tommy let out a long breath through his nose and rested his forehead against the table, straining his back slightly as he did so. Part of him was seriously debating slamming his head against the table in an honest attempt to become better—but he didn't think Drista was on his side on that one, so he refrained from doing so. He could feel Drista's judgmental stare on the back of his head, so he sighed and turned his face so his cheek rescued against the cool table. "Do you think he would be proud?" he asked.
Drista paused from eating more of her mac 'n cheese. "If you're talking about your birth father," she said carefully. "Then I think he would be damn proud of you." Tommy blinked at the ferocity in her voice. "If you're talking about Ranboo, or any of the others..." Her features softened slightly. "Then of course they are, Tommy," she finished quietly. "You've made it this far, yeah?"
"Just another forty years to go," he said, feeling weight that didn't actually exist settle over his shoulders.
"Look on the bright side," Drista said cheerfully. "At least you don't have to do paperwork for the rest of your life!"
"Yay me," he sighed.
Months ago, he had learned that he couldn't ever stop the momentum of a tennis ball flying at his face. Or a bullet, for that matter. Acceleration and velocity simply didn't work like that.
But he could... adjust it.
The day that Tommy managed to minutely adjust the movement of said ball away from hitting him in the chest to hit his arm instead was the day that Drista shouted the ship down until Hannah burst in, phaser raised, having apparently thought someone was getting murdered. The day that Tommy succeeded for the first time was coincidently the only day that he hadn't slept for fifteen hours.
Staying up the next time hadn't help. In fact, he hadn't managed to shift the momentum of a tennis ball again for another two weeks.
Like a lot of things, it didn't get easier over time. When he grasped for the air molecules around a ball going fifty miles per hour—roughly one-twentieth the speed of a bullet, which was his ultimate goal—he was also grasping for people that he would never hear again. He was grasping for voices that were slowly fading in fragmented memories of things he wanted to remember and things he wanted to block out. He was swimming in blood, at Death herself, grabbing at fragments of happy memories and the most that were drenched in fire and pain.
Over time, their voices faded. His birth father's had become Tommy's own voice and sometimes—though he ignored the snide little voice that screamed replacement, replacement—Phil's. But Tommy had accepted that a long time ago, because it had been six years since Sam's death, and while he had neither moved on nor replaced him, there were people that he looked up to in the same way that he had his father.
What Tommy hadn't accepted was forgetting Ranboo's voice, only half a year later after the Enderian had died. Bad had said that was a normal time—in fact, it was normal to forget a voice in an even shorter amount of time—but Tommy was angry and scared and he got Purpled to slice through old recordings and watched them during nights he couldn't sleep.
That was most nights.
Sometimes Tubbo joined him, sitting quietly at the foot of the bed as Tommy watched Ranboo play football—sorry, Dream, soccer—on the court in the main gym. Sometimes it was Lani, as they watched the two do old practicals for med school and Ranboo gave Lani the evil eye every time she misnamed a virus. Less often it was Drista, and it was never when Tommy was watching old holos—it was unexpectedly when Tommy chose to read Percy Jackson. The second series. Half the times he cried it was imagining Ranboo's clawed hands on it, a crooked smile on his face as he handed Tommy the book. In the other half he distracted himself with pretty words and compared himself to the main characters. He thought he gave off Leo vibes.
Drista introduced him to Ender's Game, a really old Earth novel. He hadn't even known she could read. It was good, in a sad sort of way—a young boy, a genius, tricked into doing something 'for the good of humanity.'
God, that could make anybody lose their mind. In fact, Ender did lose his mind. He'd wondered if Drista had had a second motive for giving him this book, but if she had, she'd never showed it.
He'd never thought that he'd find his way here—to spend his nights watching holos of Ranboo with friends so that he wouldn't forget his voice; the same ones over and over again because he wanted to hear his friend laugh again; he wanted to memorize the tone of his voice forever and ever. He'd never thought he'd spend other nights reading books, sometimes with Drista, and occasionally, on the days Tommy found he couldn't sleep—particularly when they were landlocked; but that was the Arachnids' experimentation fucking with him—Technoblade, who always read books on old wars and sometimes mythologies of different species'.
Four times a week, two hours a day, he, Lani, and Drista took lessons from each of the various crew members. Turned out, that with enough people, they could parse together a teaching team. He did some mechanical engineering with Finn, some math with Harvey—even Techno stepped in and taught them some galactic history—and finally, finally got his flying permit after two months of taking lessons whenever they checked in with Earth.
And the war crawled slowly on.
The Mira, Toast's ship, was on the frontlines, and sometimes Tommy awoke in the middle of the night with a shout in his head and prayed for Rae and Sykkuno, the only other two Avians in this lonely universe. Usually, it meant that the ship had been attacked—this was a war, after all—and then he would sit and wait patiently—or impatiently, depending on who you asked—by the transmitter and wait for a message with Mellohi and Ca'jat, the two dhi'sks, curled up around him.
He knew Rae was alive, of course. The same way he knew that Techno was alive. That didn't mean she couldn't be a prisoner of war and everyone else on the Mira could be dead.
Bad told him it was obsessive.
Nobody stopped him.
Sometimes Techno, who could sense he was awake, joined him in silence, often writing out reports and requests to send back to Command.
The L'manburg continued its exploratory missions—nowhere near Arachnid territory; into new, unexplored territory, actually—and sometimes it felt like the entire crew was on the toes of their feet, waiting for the tipping point. Tommy saw all types of dirt—brown, red, orange, and even green—and stepped foot on a dozen moons and planets. The stars were different every time, but sometimes Techno would come with him and point out Terra or Elytra, depending on where they were. It seemed a million bazillion lightyears away, but they were still in the same branch of the galaxy.
He piloted the L'manburg for the first time two weeks after he got his permit, with Dream behind him and Wilbur gleefully strapped to a seat, and the rest of the crew pretending that he wasn't in the piloting seat. It was easier than he thought, but still nerve-wracking and stressful—and all he'd had to do was travel through warp speed and then traverse to a planet to orbit around it. Not even land or dock it.
Tommy turned eighteen surrounded by the crew of the L'manburg, with a cake and dozens of people singing happy birthday very badly out of tune.
His favorite present was a new knife from Purpled, its hilt a glimmering green.
Chroma wasn't spotted again.
Tommy began to relax slowly, because maybe Chroma had crawled back into the corners of the galaxy to live out the rest of his years—which wasn't many; he was an Avian, after all—and slowly Purpled loosened up as well. He even put down his datapad for a few hours instead of checking Philza's inbox for news of the Avian that had been looking for them for a long time. He watched movies with the other children. They played games in places they shouldn't.
But he was Tommy Innes, son of Sam Innes, Avian extraordinaire—and his destiny was already written; his story already told by someone far greater than himself.
So when the day came that his luck turned around, Tommy couldn't exactly say he was surprised.