Ham Duo sighed—a long, theatrical exhalation that seemed to carry the weight of thirty-six years of unspoken secrets.
"Alright," he said. "You want the story? The real story? The one I've been promising since Messer Dimitri's death trap of a sanctuary?" He glanced at Bill, then at Splock, then at Delia, who had abandoned her pigeon-watching and was now producing a piece of chalk as though it had been conjured from thin air, and was beginning to draw smiley faces on the asphalt with the kind of careful attention that suggested she might, at any moment, be judged by the universe for accuracy and moral correctness. Each line she made was deliberate, each curve of the smile forming under her tiny fingers as though the weight of joy itself depended on her hand maintaining perfect control.
"You're going to get it. The whole thing. Every last detail. For the first time in three decades, the mystery of the flamenco dancer's outfit will be revealed."
Splock's expression remained carefully neutral, but one ear twitched—the barest flicker of interest. "I am... prepared to receive this information. For archival purposes."
"Sure. Archival purposes." Duo grinned.
Delia, having apparently completed her preliminary sketches of comically happy faces, now sat on the curb with the solemnity of a small monarch surveying her kingdom. Her legs stretched out before her, tiny shoes lightly scuffing the rough asphalt as her finger traced perfect circles in the dust. Each circle was a miniature declaration of order, happiness, and the absolute inevitability of cuteness. Mr. Bunnikins rested in her lap like a venerable, floppy-eared knight, one ear caught in the morning sunlight and glinting as if it were forged from gold. She glanced down at him now and again, murmuring tiny, serious instructions: "Keep still, Bunnikins. This is important. Make it perfect."
She paused to examine a particularly large circle, her brow furrowing ever so slightly—a motion so small it might have been missed by any ordinary observer, but which, in fact, seemed to warp the very air around her, lending gravity to a simple morning on a Brooklyn sidewalk. Then, with a careful adjustment of her dress and a tiny tilt of her head, she leaned forward to add another smiley face, her pinky raised slightly from the ground to avoid smudging her previous work, and hummed a quiet tune about sunshine and gentle breezes, as if the universe itself had composed an accompaniment to her artistry.
Bill leaned against a lamppost. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was smiling. Not the tight, desperate grin of survival. A real smile. Easy. Free. He glanced down at Delia now and again, noting how her tiny, deliberate movements seemed to command the attention of the world, as if her chalk-drawn smiley faces were small talismans of order and joy in a universe that often had little patience for such things.
"So," Duo began, "you remember the setup. Messer Dimitri's sanctuary. The formal dinner. The guests with their scars and their decorative women. The blue-skinned guy who might have been an alien or just really committed to a theme. Splock here playing manager, Tesora playing... whatever she was playing. And me, waiting in the wings, literally, for my cue."
"The piano," Bill said. "You were the pianist."
"Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings." Duo struck a pose. "Catchy, right? I came up with it myself. But getting to that piano was not simple. Oh no. Because Messer Dimitri's sanctuary was not the kind of place you could just walk into. Not unless you were on the list. And I was not on the list."
Delia looked up, her small head tilting slightly, ringlets bouncing as though each one were an independent observer of the unfolding drama. Her enormous, luminous eyes tracked Duo with a seriousness that seemed to weigh the moral content of every word. She clutched Mr. Bunnikins closer, pressing the floppy-eared rabbit to her chest like a shield of virtue, while her tiny pink shoes dug faint impressions into the asphalt as though she were anchoring herself to the very reality of heroism being described.
"Were you a bad guy?" she asked, voice small but perfectly pitched, each syllable ringing with the gravity of someone who understood, on an elemental level, the cosmic importance of distinguishing right from wrong. Her fingers twitched slightly in the dust, poised over a new chalk circle, but she didn't resume her drawing until Duo had answered, as if the universe itself demanded that she listen first.
"No, sweetheart. I was the opposite of a bad guy. I was the guy who shows up at the last minute to save everyone. Those guys are called heroes. Remember that."
Delia nodded solemnly, a motion so slow and exacting it seemed to stretch time itself. Each ringlet on her head swayed gently in the morning breeze, catching sunlight like tiny gilded threads. Her eyes glimmered with comprehension, absorbing the concept of heroism in all its dazzling, paradoxical weight, and then, with deliberate care, she returned to her drawing. The chalk rolled beneath her tiny fingers in arcs of precision and artistry, each line and curve imbued with the quiet authority of someone who understood that even a smiley face could carry the weight of moral truth.
"The problem," Duo continued, "was the guest list. Invitation only. Plus ones strictly vetted. No exceptions. And the theme that night was—" He paused for dramatic effect. "—Fiesta Flamenca."
Bill snorted. "You're kidding."
"I am not kidding. The decorations alone were enough to make a sombrero weep. Fake cacti everywhere. Papier-mâché peppers hanging from the ceiling. A mariachi band that only knew three songs and played them all at once. And the dress code? Formal flamenco. Which meant—"
"The outfit," Bill breathed.
"The outfit." Duo nodded gravely. "I had to acquire a flamenco dancer's costume. And not just any costume. It had to be convincing. It had to pass inspection. Because Messer Dimitri employed people whose entire job was to stand at the door and judge whether you were fancy enough to enter."
Splock's ears twitched again. "And you obtained such a garment... how?"
Duo's face assumed an expression of profound dignity. "I stole it."
"From whom?"
"A real flamenco dancer. A very short, very angry real flamenco dancer who was using the bathroom at the time. I was in and out in thirty seconds. The ruffles alone were worth the risk."
Bill was laughing now—really laughing, the kind of helpless, unstoppable laughter that came from somewhere deep. "You stole a flamenco outfit from a guy in a bathroom?"
"I was on a mission. Sacrifices had to be made. His dignity was a small price to pay for the safety of—"
"And you wore it?"
"I wore it with pride." Duo drew himself up. "The ruffles, the sequins, the little bolero jacket, the heels—especially the heels. Do you have any idea how hard it is to walk in those things? They're like stilts designed by someone who hated ankles. But I walked. I walked past the guards, past the guest list, past the mariachi band that was now on its fourth simultaneous version of the same song. I walked into that sanctuary and I took my place at the piano like I owned the place."
Delia tugged at Bill's sleeve, her small hand warm and urgent. "What's a flamenco?" she asked, tilting her head in that slight, deliberate way that made every ringlet of hair catch the sun like golden threads in a medieval tapestry. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity, an unspoken plea to experience the world she had just glimpsed through Duo's words.
"It's a type of dancing," Bill explained, his voice careful, tinged with the gravity of someone trying to convey the enormity of culture to a tiny, mercilessly perceptive judge. "Very fancy. Lots of stomping."
Delia's face brightened. She glanced at Mr. Bunnikins in her lap, who seemed, at that moment, like a royal advisor witnessing the birth of a new tradition. Then, with a deliberate inhale that somehow seemed to summon the spirits of every dancer who had ever stomped across the Earth, she announced, "I can stomp."
And she did.
What should have been a single, simple patter of small feet against asphalt transformed under her into a spectacle of transcendent gravity. She lifted one tiny foot, flexed her toes with the precision of a sculptor shaping marble, and let it descend with a tap so perfectly timed that the sound seemed to resonate down the street, stirring dust motes into a delicate, spiraling ballet. Her other foot followed, pattering, then stamping, then rebounding with elastic grace, as though the very laws of physics were being gently persuaded to accommodate the tiny miracle of her body in motion.
Each movement of her legs was mirrored by the subtle sway of her arms, which she extended with a kind of aristocratic flourish, pinkie extended, as though every finger were a separate participant in a grand cosmic performance. Her ringlets bounced in synchronization, each curl a pendulum marking the passage of time in slow, deliberate arcs. Even Mr. Bunnikins seemed to lean forward slightly, floppy ears trembling, caught in the gravitational pull of her artistry.
Her stomps punctuated the air rhythmically, yet unpredictably, so that one could imagine each tap as a heartbeat of the universe itself acknowledging her, and the dust around her seemed to rise in gentle eddies, floating lazily before settling back to the asphalt with reverence. A faint hum escaped her lips, accompanying the steps, tiny notes perfectly pitched to the subtle acoustics of the street, as if she were both conductor and orchestra, dancer and audience, simultaneously wielding and surrendering to the invisible forces of rhythm and joy.
Bill watched, mouth slightly open, utterly unprepared for the existential weight of a three-foot-tall human in pink ruffles, performing flamenco on a Brooklyn sidewalk, every stomp and sway a testament to innocence, mastery, and absurdly concentrated delight. Splock's ears twitched slightly, perhaps in acknowledgement, perhaps in fear. Ham Duo's hands hovered in midair, as though he, too, were momentarily paralyzed by the miniature performance that somehow contained multiverses of elegance, determination, and joy.
Finally, after what felt like both a moment and an eternity, Delia paused, settling back onto her heels with a triumphant tilt of her head. She looked at Bill with a smile that radiated both pride and the quiet, unshakable certainty of someone who had just introduced the world to a previously unknown dimension of perfection. Mr. Bunnikins nestled against her chest again, floppy ears twitching like flags marking the end of a victorious march.
Duo waited for her to finish, then continued. "The problem was, I didn't know how to play the piano."
Bill's laughter redoubled.
"Oh, I could fake it. I knew where the keys were. I knew that pressing them made sounds. But actual music? Real melodies? That was beyond me. So when Messer Dimitri announced 'a little light piano music by Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings,' I had approximately ninety seconds to figure out how to be a master of anything."
Splock leaned forward almost imperceptibly. "And your solution?"
"I improvised. I played the only thing I knew—a spacer's shanty from my home sector. It's not exactly Mozart, but it has a good beat and you can dance to it. I just... changed the tempo. Made it sound fancy. Added some trills where I thought trills might go."
"You faked classical piano with a pirate song."
"With great success, thank you very much. The audience applauded. Messer Dimitri nodded approvingly. The blue-skinned guy actually cried. I was a triumph."
Bill wiped his eyes. "And then?"
"And then you came out and started throwing Grundges at people, and everything went to hell. But for those few minutes, I was Stumper Rosewoodie, master of the silken strings, the finest flamenco-dressed pianist in the galaxy." He sighed, almost wistfully. "The outfit didn't survive the battle. Got shredded by a stray energy blast. But I kept the bolero jacket for years. Used it as a pillow."
Delia looked up at him, her little head tilted ever so slightly to one side, those perfect ringlets bouncing with the gentlest motion, catching stray sunlight like spun gold threads. Her eyes, enormous and liquid, sparkled with uncontainable wonder. They were the kind of eyes that could make the universe pause mid-breath and reconsider its priorities. Her tiny hands clutched Mr. Bunnikins with a grip that was at once protective and ceremonial, as if she were presenting him as an ambassador of approval to the most intimidating space pirate alive.
"You're the fanciest man I ever met," she said, her voice small but perfectly pitched, like the delicate chiming of a crystal bell tuned to resonate with every hidden corner of the heart. Each word carried with it a weight of admiration, awe, and pure, unfiltered recognition of grandeur—so much so that it might have bent the air itself, creating a soft halo around her and the floppy-eared rabbit she held. She emphasized fanciest with a slight, dramatic pause, tilting her head as if to allow the universe to witness the absolute truth of her declaration. Her pinkie, tiny and elegant, extended subtly as she gestured toward Duo with imperceptible authority, as if formally bestowing upon him the highest honor a three-foot-tall human could confer.
Ham Duo, who had spent his life commanding starships, surviving ambushes, and facing down foes who made grown men tremble, froze. The muscles in his jaw loosened, just slightly, as if some invisible hand had pressed the "soften" button in his chest. A faint glimmer appeared in his eyes—just enough to betray that beneath the rough, pirate-like exterior, something tender had been reached, touched by the delicate hammer of pure admiration and childlike sincerity. His usual grin, the one trained for smug heroics, faltered into a small, almost imperceptible curve of emotion, like sunlight slipping through clouds after a storm.
Duo bowed, slow and deliberate, as if acknowledging not only the compliment but the enormity of its delivery. "Thank you, young lady. That means more than you know." His voice, usually brimming with bravado and dramatic flair, wavered just enough to let the faintest trace of genuine vulnerability through—an acknowledgment that he, the flamenco-dressed, galaxy-hopping hero, had never been met with such purity, such unadulterated, soul-shaking praise.
The laughter faded into a comfortable silence, punctuated only by the soft scratch of Delia's chalk on the sidewalk as she drew new smiley faces, her tiny movements rhythmic and ceremonial, a gentle counterpoint to the enormity of the story she had just honored with her verdict of "fanciest." Bill looked at his friends—Duo, still grinning, still radiating the energy of a man who had just unburdened himself of a thirty-six-year secret. Splock, carefully expressionless but with something almost warm in the set of his ears. Delia, entirely absorbed in her art, unaware that her single, tiny, perfectly pitched statement had just rearranged the emotional gravity of a small corner of the galaxy.
Even Mr. Bunnikins, floppy ears catching stray light, seemed to nod in approval, as though to confirm that yes, the young human had spoken truth, and yes, the fanciest man in the universe had, for a brief shining moment, been properly recognized for all his ridiculous, heroic glory.
Splock broke the silence first. "Your decision to remain in this timeline remains, from a logical perspective, irrational. The environmental conditions are suboptimal. The cultural offerings are limited. The long-term prospects for personal fulfillment are—" He paused. "—uncertain."
Bill nodded. "I know."
"However." Splock's voice softened—or at least, it softened by Fortinbrasian standards, which meant it dropped by half a decibel and lost some of its edge. "I have observed that humans frequently choose irrational courses of action. And sometimes—rarely—those choices lead to outcomes that are... acceptable."
"Was that a compliment?"
"It was an observation. Interpret it as you wish."
Ham Duo stepped forward and extended his hand. Bill took it. The grip was firm, warm, weighted with years of shared absurdity.
"We'll be in 8962," Duo said. "If you change your mind—if you get tired of peace and quiet and little girls who draw on sidewalks—you know where to find us. Chewgumma's still outside the York house. He can run interference if you need to use the Disruptor."
Bill glanced toward the bushes where Chewgumma was presumably still hiding, still dreaming of pink bunnies. "I'll keep that in mind."
Duo pulled out the Disruptor. His thumb hovered over the F1 key. "Ready, pointy-ears?"
Splock adjusted his purple robe with as much dignity as he could muster. "The Disruptor's energy matrix is stable. Coordinates set for 8962, Gumption's last known location. Initiating in three... two..."
Delia stood up, her tiny body straightening with a dignity that seemed almost comically formal in contrast to the casual absurdity of the cosmic situation unfolding around her. Her pink dress swayed gently with the movement, ruffles dancing as if each one were aware of the ceremonial importance of the moment. She lifted her small hand in a wave, slow and deliberate, every finger articulated with care, as though she were performing a ritual as ancient as time itself.
Her eyes—large, luminous, and impossibly clear—fixed on Duo and Splock with a focus that made the swirling, pearlescent glow of the air around them seem almost pale by comparison. In those eyes was an unspoken catalogue of trust, joy, and innocent understanding; a gaze that somehow communicated, in a language older than words, the simple human truths she had always carried: that goodbyes could be warm, that heroes could be fanciest, and that even the most absurd, universe-spanning adventures were better with someone small and earnest watching and approving.
She gave a small, earnest "Bye-bye, funny men! Come visit again!"—each word perfectly pitched, her little voice rising and falling in a melody so sweet and precise it might have been composed by the universe itself to honor this exact moment. The wave continued, now a little more vigorous, though still entirely controlled, her hand tracing a tiny arc through the golden light, leaving behind, for those who could see, a faint trace of joy suspended in the air.
And her eyes—oh, her eyes—remained locked on them as they began to shimmer, the pearlescent glow wrapping around Duo and Splock, lifting them slightly off the ground. Those eyes, full of innocence and quiet gravity, seemed to follow the glow, following the motion of the universe bending around her little farewell, capturing a single, ephemeral instance of perfect, ridiculous, transcendent adorableness.
The air began to shimmer. The familiar pearlescent glow wrapped around Duo and Splock, lifting them slightly off the ground.
"Hey!" The Disruptor's voice emerged, thick with its Hungarian accent. "A little warning next time? I'm a precision instrument, not a carnival ride!"
"Shut up and do your job," Duo muttered.
"This is my job! Complaining is part of my job description! You try being a temporal device for eighteen years with no maintenance and see how cheerful you are!"
"Can it talk?" Delia asked, eyes wide, her small face lifting toward the flickering screen as if it were a magical creature that had stepped out of a storybook. Her tiny fingers gripped Mr. Bunnikins with the intensity of someone holding a treasure entrusted by the universe itself, and the floppy-eared rabbit's ears brushed against her cheek as she leaned forward ever so slightly. Each word came with a gravity and clarity that made the air around her seem to shimmer with importance, even though she was only asking a question, innocent and curious.
"It can," Bill said. "Unfortunately."
Delia's head tilted to one side, ringlets bouncing slightly with the motion, catching stray beams of light like tiny golden threads. Her enormous eyes—so round and bright they seemed to hold entire galaxies of wonder—stayed fixed on the Disruptor, drinking in its blinking screen and the strange, gravelly cadence of its voice. She pressed Mr. Bunnikins closer, as though drawing courage from the floppy ears, and her lips parted in anticipation, a soft gasp of awe and delight barely audible but impossible to ignore.
"Tell it I like its voice! It sounds like my grandpa!" Her voice rang out, perfectly pitched, clear, and deliberate, every syllable a miniature proclamation of admiration. She extended her tiny pinkie slightly, unconsciously performing a gesture of ceremony, as though this compliment were not merely a statement but a solemn decree with cosmic significance. Her eyes sparkled with expectation, the kind of uncontainable light that could melt the crustiest pirate heart or even make a machine feel seen.
The Disruptor's screen flickered. "The child compliments me? The child has excellent taste! Unlike some people who shall remain nameless but are currently standing right next to me!"
Delia's eyes widened a fraction more, and a small, radiant smile curved her lips, a smile so utterly innocent and full of quiet triumph that it seemed to envelop the entire room. She gave a tiny nod, as if to affirm that yes, the compliment had been delivered properly, and Mr. Bunnikins' floppy ears twitched in silent approval, echoing the gentle triumph of her declaration. She remained perfectly still for a heartbeat, just watching, her gaze filled with wonder, delight, and the serene satisfaction of having, in her small but absolute way, made even a grumpy, galaxy-hopping machine feel appreciated.
The shimmer intensified. Duo raised a hand in farewell. Splock's face was unreadable, but his ears gave one final twitch—a gesture Bill had learned to recognize as something almost like affection.
Then they were gone.
The street was quiet again. A bird sang somewhere. A car passed. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary world.
Bill stood alone on the sidewalk, the weight of emptiness settling over him like a soft, invisible blanket. Beside him, an eight-year-old girl in a pink dress looked up with curious eyes—eyes that seemed to carry the full clarity of a small, unspoiled universe. They were wide and luminous, reflecting the morning sun in glimmers so delicate that they might have been shards of gold scattered across a quiet pond. She tilted her head slightly, those ringlets bouncing just enough to catch stray light, framing her face in a halo of innocence so radiant it made everything else—the machines, the battles, the impossibilities—fade into a distant memory.
"Why didn't you go with them?" she asked. Her voice was soft, precise, perfectly pitched to the world, like the gentle chiming of a bell calling for attention, carrying a mixture of curiosity and the faintest hint of concern that seemed far too deep for someone so small.
Bill sighed. It was a good sigh. Deep. Complete. The sigh of a man who had finally stopped running, a sigh that carried the echoes of countless worlds, countless conflicts, and the quiet, aching knowledge of the things that had passed him by, unobserved and unremarked.
"I've seen too much," he said. "Too many worlds. Too many wars. Too many things that shouldn't exist. I need a rest. A long rest. Somewhere quiet."
Delia considered this with all the solemnity of one weighing the eternal order of the universe in the palm of her tiny hands. Her head tilted, then she nodded, decisively, her fingers curling around Mr. Bunnikins as though he were a talisman of comfort and trust, ready to be bestowed. She pressed the floppy-eared rabbit into his hand with the gravitas of someone performing an ancient rite.
"Here. Bunnikins will keep you company. He's very good at listening. He never talks back." Her voice carried a gentle finality, like a whisper across a sunlit meadow, and her eyes held a trust so pure, so absolute, that Bill felt it like a weight settling softly on his chest, heavy and warm and impossible to ignore.
Bill looked at the stuffed rabbit. Floppy ears. Button eyes. Stitches where Delia had clearly performed some kind of meticulous, well-intentioned surgery. Every imperfection was an unspoken story of care, of patience, of love.
"Thanks," he said, his voice catching ever so slightly, though he would not allow it to tremble further.
Delia smiled—that perfect, innocent, utterly uncomplicated smile that seemed to contain the quiet wisdom of childhood, the clarity of joy, and the gentle inevitability of days unspoiled. She ran down the street toward her house, her ringlets bouncing as though each one carried a note in a melody composed solely for her passage. Her small voice called out for her mother, high and clear, rippling through the morning air like sunlight through glass, leaving behind a trail of warmth and fleeting wonder.
Bill stood there for a long moment, holding the rabbit. The morning sun painted his face in gold. The sounds of Brooklyn stirred around him: footsteps, distant voices, the subtle thrum of life continuing, ordinary and miraculous all at once.
He looked at the spot where Duo and Splock had vanished, the air still shimmering faintly with their departure. Then at the corner where Delia had disappeared, her presence lingering like a memory stitched into the folds of the world. Finally, he looked at the sky—blue, ordinary, perfectly free of temporal anomalies, a quiet canvas for the impossible innocence he had just encountered.
Then he started walking. No destination. No mission. No deadline. Just walking. Each step felt heavy with thought and light with the memory of her glance, her smile, the perfect tilt of her head and the trust in her eyes.
The rabbit's floppy ear brushed against his thumb.
"Don't get used to this," he told it. "I'm not good at quiet."
The rabbit said nothing. It was, as advertised, an excellent listener. And somehow, in that small silence, it seemed to carry all of Delia's laughter, all of her gentle judgment, and all the quiet weight of a fleeting miracle that had passed through the ordinary world, leaving its echo in the heart of a man who had seen too much and yet was utterly undone by the simplest, smallest human perfection.
Two days later, Bill sat in a diner.
It was the kind of place that existed in every city on every planet—plastic tables, sticky floors, the smell of frying grease permeating every surface like a curse. The menu was laminated and featured pictures of food that bore only passing resemblance to what actually arrived on plates.
On the table in front of him, propped against the napkin holder, sat Mr. Bunnikins. The rabbit's button eyes stared at nothing with the placid acceptance of someone who had seen it all and simply didn't care anymore.
Bill had ordered coffee. It arrived in a thick ceramic mug, lukewarm and slightly burnt. He drank it anyway. It felt like something a person did when they were trying to be normal.
The waitress approached. Her name tag read 'Flo'. Her expression read 'don't try anything'. She slapped a menu in front of him with the force of someone delivering a subpoena.
"Menu's right there. Special's meatloaf. We're out of it. Anything else'll take twenty minutes." Her eyes traveled over his uniform—faded now, patched in places, but still clearly not of this world. They lingered on the fabric, the cut, the strange insignia. Then they dropped to his pocket, where the outline of Damien Thorn's cash was visible through the cloth.
Her expression softened. Slightly. The way a wolf might soften at the sight of a particularly plump deer.
"I'll have the pie," Bill said.
"Apple or cherry?"
"Yes."
Flo stared at him. "We got apple. We got cherry. Pick one."
"Apple." He said it with the confidence of a man who had faced down Chingers and temporal anomalies and eighteen-year-old women with continent-sized posteriors. Pie should not be this difficult.
Flo grunted and disappeared.
Bill looked at Mr. Bunnikins. "She's going to spit in it. I can tell."
The rabbit said nothing. It was, as advertised, an excellent listener.
Movement outside caught his eye.
A small figure in a pink dress. Ringlets bouncing with the buoyant rhythm of a life entirely unburdened by the weight of consequence. Every twist and curl of her hair caught stray shafts of sunlight, making her look as though she were composed not of flesh and bone, but of spun gold and laughter. She ran down the sidewalk with the particular joy of someone who had nowhere to be and all day to get there, and yet every small step seemed deliberate, precise, and imbued with the kind of magic that makes the world pause for just an instant to admire it. Her tiny feet struck the pavement, a gentle patter that harmonized with the distant honking of cars and the song of a bird somewhere unseen, and yet somehow the universe itself seemed to slow to honor the perfection of her movement.
Bill was out of his seat before he knew he'd moved. The door banged behind him. Flo's voice followed—something about his pie, something about payment, something about the general rudeness of customers—but he wasn't listening. His eyes were fixed, riveted, drawn by a force stronger than gravity itself.
"Delia!"
She stopped. Every motion stilled. Her face split into that perfect, innocent, utterly uncomplicated smile, the kind of smile that seems to exist outside of time, capable of momentarily disarming any calculation, any war, any monster. Her wide, luminous eyes glimmered with trust and wonder, and the curl of her lips made it feel as though the sun itself had bent low to shine on her.
"Mister! Mister with the funny friends!" She ran toward him, arms outstretched with the sort of reckless abandon only a child could manage, her small body brimming with kinetic delight that radiated warmth into the air around her. The hug she threw around his legs was startling in its sincerity, in its overwhelming flood of pure affection, the kind that makes a man remember every lost moment, every danger faced, every universe he had fought to survive, and realize that somehow none of it mattered as much as this tiny, living spark of joy in his arms.
Then she stepped back, bouncing, each motion a careful yet unstudied choreography of happiness. Her voice rang out, high and musical, emphasizing every syllable as though she were conducting an orchestra:
"You won't BELIEVE what happened!"
"What?"
"That doctor! The one with the funny name—I can't say it, Mommy says it's a bad word—he TOLD EVERYONE about my cookies! He talked to a newspaper! And they wrote about it! And now everyone at school wants to know what it's like to have cookies inside you!" She twirled, the pink dress flaring outward in a perfect, circular halo, her little feet stamping lightly against the concrete in joyous punctuation. "I'm FAMOUS!"
Bill stared at her. "Famous. For cookies. In your—"
"YES! Isn't it WONDERFUL?" Her voice soared with uncontainable enthusiasm, tilting her small head back, ringlets bouncing in perfect counterpoint, eyes sparkling like tiny twin suns, cheeks flushed with delight, a soft laugh escaping her lips that made the world feel impossibly wide and bright.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Fame," he said slowly, "finds everyone eventually. Just... not always where you expect it."
Delia nodded vigorously, a tiny bob of her head that sent curls bouncing and sunlight scattering. "That's what Mommy said! She said I should enjoy it now because next week everyone will forget and some other kid will do something weird." She paused, one small finger tapping thoughtfully against her chin. "A boy in my class put a bean up his nose. It started growing. He's famous too now."
Bill processed this. "Competition."
"The BEST competition. But I think cookies are better than beans. Don't you?" Her tiny fists were clenched in excitement, bouncing ever so slightly on the balls of her feet, and her words were delivered with such earnest precision that even the most hardened heart—like Bill's—could feel itself softening, melting under the insistence of pure, unfiltered childhood logic.
"Much better. Cookies are delicious. Beans are just... beans."
Delia giggled, a sound like chimes in a sun-drenched hallway. Then she looked past him, toward the diner, her gaze sweeping over the mundane world as though seeing it anew: a small, miraculous observer of ordinary life. "Are you eating? By yourself? That's sad. You should eat with people. That's what Mommy says."
"I'm practicing."
"Practicing what?"
"Being alone. It's harder than it looks."
She considered this with the solemnity of someone balancing the cosmos on a fingertip. Then she nodded, her little head tilting just so, ringlets bouncing once more, eyes sparkling with approval. She waved, the gesture small but infinite, a microcosm of generosity and joy:
"Okay! Bye, mister! Tell Bunnikins I said hi!"
And she was off, running down the sidewalk, her ringlets bouncing in perfect rhythm, her pink dress fluttering outward like a flag of innocent triumph, each tiny footfall sending a ripple of delight through the asphalt, a small comet of ordinary joy blazing briefly through an otherwise complicated universe.
Bill watched her go until she disappeared around a corner. Each bounce of her hair, each flick of her hand, each reverberation of her voice in the air seemed to echo long after she was gone. His chest tightened, eyes following her retreating form, remembering every glance, every laugh, every moment of unshakable trust. He held Mr. Bunnikins in his hand, the floppy ears brushing against his thumb, and for a heartbeat the world felt impossibly large, impossibly fragile, impossibly full of the kind of beauty that could never be captured, only witnessed—and mourned a little as it passed.
Something buzzed in his pocket.
He reached in, puzzled. His hand closed around something he hadn't felt in—hadn't felt since—
The radio.
The same radio. The one that had materialized in 2000. The one that had disappeared when they returned. The one that had absolutely, definitely, without question not been in his pocket five minutes ago.
He pulled it out. Held it up. Stared at it.
It crackled. And then, unmistakably, a voice emerged. Thickly accented. Dramatic. Utterly familiar.
"Bill? Bill, are you there? This thing is—yes, yes, I'm using it correctly, stop—Bill, can you hear me?"
The Disruptor.
"The what now?" Bill said. "How—where—I don't—"
"No time for questions! I've been trying to reach you for—well, time is relative, you know how it is. I'm in 8962 now. Chewgumma and I made it. The Kookie sends his regards. And his thanks for not making him stay in Brooklyn. He says, and I quote, 'Kookie no like pigeons. Pigeons rude.'"
Bill laughed. Actually laughed. Standing on a Brooklyn sidewalk, holding a radio that shouldn't exist, talking to a time machine that had opinions about pigeons.
"Listen," the Disruptor continued, "I have news. Important news. Splock made it to the Gumption. He convinced Captain Dirk and the entire crew that the universe can be explained through baked goods. I'm not kidding. He gave a lecture. Three hours long. By the end of it, they were all crying and craving cookies. It was beautiful."
"Splock? Crying?"
"Metaphorically. He doesn't cry. But his ears did something. I don't know what, but it was emotional."
Bill leaned against a lamppost. "And Duo?"
"Ah. Ham Duo. Your pirate friend. He's taken up dancing. Seriously. He's choreographing something called 'The Flamenco of Victory.' It's based on his experiences. Very interpretive. Very traumatic. I hear the ribbons are back."
"Ribbons?"
"You don't want to know. Trust me."
A pause. Static crackled.
"Bill," the Disruptor said, its voice softer now, "I could send someone for you. The Gumption's crew—they owe you. Splock would come himself, I think. He won't admit it, but he misses you. In his way. The way a calculator might miss a particularly interesting math problem."
Bill looked down the street. The place where Delia had vanished, where her small pink dress had twirled one last time, where her laughter still seemed to hang invisibly in the air like motes of sunlight trapped in dust. The ordinary life stretched beyond the corner, mundane and miraculous all at once: the rhythm of passing feet, the soft hum of distant traffic, a dog barking somewhere down an alley. He could almost see her little curls bouncing in that precise, impossible way, each spiral reflecting a universe of innocence and trust, each step a punctuation of joy that made every one of his own battles feel unbearably heavy in contrast.
His chest tightened as a faint tremor passed through his voice before he could speak. A shiver that was not fear, but a mixture of awe, longing, and grief—the kind a man carries after seeing a single perfect, untainted fragment of life and realizing how rare it is in a world of wars, of cosmic conspiracies, of things that should not exist. Memories assaulted him, unbidden: the clinic, the cookies, the twirl of her dress, the earnest tilt of her head, the solemn nod when she pressed Mr. Bunnikins into his hand—moments so small they seemed trivial, yet so infinite in weight that they left him shaking quietly inside.
Associations tumbled through his mind, quicksilver flashes of thought he could not catch: the first moment he saw her smile, the simplicity of her trust, the fragile gravity she exerted over everything around her, the way the world seemed to pause for her little triumphs, the echo of her giggle inside a diner that smelled of burnt coffee and fried grease, the impossibly warm hug that had startled him with its sincerity. All of it condensed into a single, quiet ache behind his ribs, a tremor in his throat that he could neither speak nor fully suppress.
"No," he said quietly. The word was small, almost a whisper, but it carried the tremor of everything he had just remembered, every heartbeat shared with her, every fleeting miracle he had witnessed in her presence. "I'm staying."
"You're sure?"
"Tell them I'm the Legate now."
The Disruptor paused. "The Legate? Of what?"
"Of this sidewalk. Of cookies. Of eight-year-old girls who get famous for the wrong reasons. Of keeping gynecologists from talking too much." He shrugged. "It's a small jurisdiction. But someone's got to patrol it."
The Disruptor was silent for a long moment. Then—laughter. Genuine, warm, crackling laughter that seemed to come from somewhere deep in its Hungarian-accented circuits.
"Legate of Brooklyn," it said. "I like that. I'll tell them. Splock will analyze it for three days. Duo will want a parade. Chewgumma will want a hat." Another pause. "Goodbye, Bill. For now. Or forever. Temporal mechanics are unclear on this point."
"Goodbye, Disruptor. Thanks for—" He stopped. "Thanks for everything."
Static. Then silence.
The radio was dead.
Bill stood there for a moment, the device warm in his hand. Then he looked up.
A man was watching him from across the street. Unkempt beard. Wild eyes. Filthy clothes. He looked like Noah—the same Noah from an alternate 1990, the one who walked onto the Yorks' lawn with an ark full of stuffed animals and died when a piano fell on his gray head.
"You talkin' to yourself, buddy?" the man called. "That's a bad sign. That's how it starts. First yourself, then the voices, then the flood."
Bill looked at him. For a long, quiet moment.
Then he straightened his uniform—faded, patched, but still unmistakably the uniform of a Galactic Hero. He lifted the radio, as if showing it to the man.
"I was talking to my regiment," he said. "They send their regards."
The man squinted. "Your regiment?"
"Fighting 69th Deep Space Screaming Killers. Best damn unit in the galaxy." Bill tucked the radio into his pocket. "We won. The war's over."
He turned and walked back toward the diner, leaving the man staring after him with the particular confusion of someone who had just brushed against a reality much larger than his own.
The pie would be cold by now. Flo would be angry. The day stretched ahead, ordinary and quiet, filled with nothing more dangerous than small talk and bad coffee.
Bill pushed open the door. The bell jingled. Flo glared at him from behind the counter, a fresh pot of coffee in her hand like a weapon.
"Your pie's been sitting there ten minutes."
"I'm sure it's still pie."
"It's not. It's a disappointment. Like most things."
Bill sat down. Picked up his fork. Looked at Mr. Bunnikins, who looked back with button-eyed serenity.
"You hear that?" he asked the rabbit. "Disappointment. That's what we're signing up for."
The rabbit said nothing.
Bill took a bite. The pie was terrible. The crust was soggy. The filling was too sweet. The coffee was worse.
He smiled.
It wasn't the grin of a man who had it all figured out. Far from it. It was a smile borne of weary acceptance, the kind of smile a person wears when they've seen too much, lost too much, and are finally able to sit with the quiet aftermath of a life spent running from things that could never be undone. But it was a smile, nonetheless.
War sure is hell. But Legate of Brooklyn had a nice ring to it. Even if his entire army consisted of one eight-year-old girl whose claim to fame was cookies in medically improbable locations. Even if his uniform was falling apart at the seams, threadbare in places, stained with memories he'd never be able to scrub away. Even if his only companion was a stuffed rabbit with one ear slightly chewed, its button eyes forever fixed on the world in that same silent, unblinking gaze.
Still, in the strange absurdity of it all, he was a hero. A Galactic Hero.
He had survived the Planet of Bottled Brains, where minds were crushed and bottled away in glass prisons, their voices silent but eternally pressing against the confines of their vessels. He had walked out of the Quintiform computer, his mind scrambled but somehow intact—mostly. He had faced Chingers and Grundges and Counter-Dirk and Alien Historian, fought battles that didn't belong to him and survived them all. He had watched Splock, ever the stoic, get utterly traumatized by a teenager—watched the man who was more machine than anything else try and fail to understand something so...human, and lived to tell the tale.
And now...
Brooklyn. 1990. A bad pie. A good rabbit.
The door of the diner creaked open, letting in a breath of outside air. It was the usual hum of the city: the whir of tires on asphalt, the bark of a dog somewhere down the block, the occasional clink of a glass as someone inside the diner refilled their coffee. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary life.
But for Bill, standing there in the half-dark of the booth, a piece of cake in front of him, it was a different kind of ordinary. A quieter one. A sadder one.
Delia.
The image of her had become something almost tangible. Her small, pink dress swishing in the breeze. Her ringlets bouncing, as if they had a life of their own, each bounce a small revolution, each movement a reminder of something he could never hold onto.
For a moment, it was as if she were right there, in front of him again. Her smile—the perfect, innocent smile, so free of guile and so full of truth—was the kind of smile that only existed in the universe for brief, shining moments before being lost forever.
She was running down the sidewalk, just as she had before, her arms thrown wide as though the world had been made for her to conquer in that single, effortless motion. And Bill, just for a second, swore he could hear the light pitter-patter of her tiny feet on the pavement, the rhythmic flop-flop-flop echoing through his bones like a distant memory. Her voice rang out, high and sweet, "Bye-bye, Mister! Tell Bunnikins I said hi!"
But then, as quickly as the vision came, it was gone. The street outside was still. The ordinary world resumed its hum. Delia was gone.
And Bill's hand, trembling ever so slightly, reached for his coffee mug, though he didn't really want it. His eyes flitted from the empty street to the piece of pie in front of him, the one he had never tasted—as if the world would end if he did. His chest tightened and for the briefest moment, it felt like his breath was trapped somewhere between his ribs, as if the weight of her absence had simply become too much to bear.
The doorbell jingled and Bill's gaze flickered again—expecting, just for a moment, to see her standing there, those little curls bouncing in that same deliberate rhythm.
But no. She was gone.
Her smile, her endless optimism, the purity of her world that had folded into his own... all of it felt like it had existed in a dream, one too fleeting for him to capture. Her joy had been like the tiniest flicker of sunlight, so small, so delicate, and so bright that it had left a permanent imprint on him—one he couldn't escape, even if he wanted to.
The war was over. He had won. He had walked through galaxies, dodged death, made his way through countless impossible situations. But nothing, not a single battle he'd fought, not a single alien he'd faced, had prepared him for the way she had changed everything.
For a moment, the thought of her filled him completely. A tiny girl in a pink dress with nothing but a stuffed rabbit and a world of possibilities in front of her. Nothing was too impossible for her—nothing but the cruel reality of the timeline, the one that made him stay here while she had moved on.
Victory tasted like apples. But it also tasted like loneliness.
Somewhere, in a timeline far away, a Disruptor with a Hungarian accent was telling anyone who would listen about the craziest human he'd ever met. A hero who had saved the galaxy countless times—and who, in the end, had lost the one thing he hadn't realized mattered most.
And Bill, the Galactic Hero, survivor of the Planet of Bottled Brains, smiled at the thought—and took a bite of his piece of cake.