Author's Notes: So I've been going through things lately, including issues with depression and anxiety. Because of that my writing has been pretty non-existent lately. This is a recent offering to continue Alearustuck. There will be more in the future, but I don't know when that will be for this or any of my other work. I need to deal with my issues first I think. But when inspiration strikes me, I will work.

Memory's Absence

Everyone else always said it was a gradual change. That over time Rose had grown more contemplative, more intellectual, maybe even a bit more genius than she had always been as a child. Of course all of them were outsiders. They hadn't lived a life at her side, hadn't been there every day, hadn't seen what Rose was really capable of. No, only Roxy had that honor, and so it was only her that could mark the exact moment that Rose had truly changed.

Okay, so maybe not the exact moment, but pretty darn close to it. Some might have said that Rose had been an indefinable and growing enigma over the years, but it hadn't really been there, hadn't been complete until about midbreak-time of a middlingschool endzoneball game. Roxy had left her sister-cousin behind for a few minutes—okay, maybe a whole twenty minutes or something—and when she had come back Rose had been different.

No, different wasn't even remotely a strong enough word for that moment when Roxy had come back from some relatively meaningless flirting and found her not-sibling utterly changed. From that moment on she hadn't been able to help but feel like she had been left behind.

A lot of things changed that year of middlingschool, though it was only in looking back that Roxy had noticed some of them. For one thing, Rose's internet habits had changed, though it took Roxy's computer giving up the ghost and having to borrow Rose's to complete an assignment. Gone was the research into the zoologically dubious, psychic and clairvoyant discussion threads, and even the links to wizardly fiction. Replacing them were bookmarks for all manner of strange forums related to thinks like music and ghosts, and a lot of pages on dealing with psychological conditions like PTSD and memory repression. But she hadn't thought much of it at the time.

Then there was Kanaya. Rose had never told Roxy about it, leaving her as shocked as the Mothers when Rose had brought her 'study-friend' back to the house. Before that Rose had never expressed any romantic interest in trolls, but the way she was with Kanaya was... well, it almost reminded Roxy of the way she used to be with Rose. Okay, not the kissing and touching and double entendres, but definitely the holing themselves up, the whispers, the long discussions late into the night when Kanaya stayed over.

But the biggest clue, the kicker, was the journal. Where Rose had found a blank book nearly the size of a dictionary was a question for the ages, the better one being just what Rose spent her free time so diligently writing in. Whenever Roxy tried to get a peek Rose quickly shooed her, saying it wasn't ready yet.

Every question she asked was dodged. Every time she tried to figure out what was going on, Rose deflected. Worst were the almost leading questions Rose offered her: things about dreams, about the divines, about a meteor and a batterwitch. The disappointment in Rose's eyes when Roxy didn't have whatever answers Rose was looking for hurt her.

The answers, of course, were in the book. Roxy was as certain of that as she was of the color of her hair. So she took the only step she could fathom.

It was easier than any books or TV shows seemed to imply. The second Roxy resolved herself to stealing the tome everything had fallen into place. Her footfalls as she slipped through the hall late that night had been utterly silent. The doorknob had made no sound as it twisted in her hand. It was almost like she hadn't even cast a shadow as she had slipped into the room, right past Rose's bed, and grabbed the book from under her bed. The pages had made no sound while they had turned, the Mothers hadn't bothered to check in on her that night while she stayed up late reading, and she even managed to get it back without incident. Roxy Lalonde was a master thief that night, and the next, and the next week's worth as of nights well. And, night by night, the story had unfolded.

The story of a set of four children, all alone in their own ways, and yet united in one that was almost impossible to explain. Friendship wasn't a strong enough term to cover the narrative before her, one Roxy had read with a voraciousness she had never found in herself before. Maybe there was a yearning, some sub-conscious pull that kept her reading, page after page, story after story, improbability after improbability as it spun itself beyond the reaches of a planet called Earth and out to the very edges of reality itself.

Maybe what had captured her the most was Rose's name, later joined by Kanaya's. More than that, there was the fact that the girls with those names sounded so much like the ones she knew.

Then the story had spun out even further, and Roxy found herself unable to do anything but stare down at the page at the brief description of a girl that sounded just like her.

The next time Rose asked Roxy had given her some vague tidbit from the story that had related to the girl that was so very like herself, and there it had been. A light in Rose's eyes. Hope.

Now they were here, years later and what felt like worlds away, standing on the edge of something. A party, a celebration that Rose insisted would happen even though there were no invitations, no phone calls, no explanations. And then Rose was there, assuring her that some of the gaps would only fill in with time.

"I... I don't know about this, Rose," Roxy sighed, shifting the party platter of sandwiches Rose had insisted they buy on the way to this relatively average looking apartment building. "I mean..."

"Trust me, Roxy. This is the right place," Rose promised her, smiling as she adjusted the plastic bag filled with a variety of sweets on her arm. "It's exactly to his tastes."

Rose hadn't bothered to explain who this 'he' was yet, and every time Roxy asked Rose just smiled to herself.

"Yes, I would have to concur," Kanaya added in her elegant way as she swept past them, moving more confidently than a woman weighed down with a box of two liters should rightly be able to. But that, of course, was a bit of the natural grace that jadebloods seemed to possess. She was the one who guided them through the apartment doors and toward the elevator. Or at least, she started to; Roxy could do nothing but watch in shock as Kanaya froze for a moment, then dropped the box and rushed for the elevator. When she stopped, it was to pull another troll, one with strangely nubby horns, into a hug. And that, for reasons surpassing explanation, started the small troll nearly screeching.

"Fucking hell! Let me go! Kanaya I swear to human Jegus that if you don't put me down right this second I am going to bite you!" the small troll roared as Rose chuckled and continued down the hall as if the altercation wasn't happening.

"She hasn't seen you in a lifetime, Karkat. Can you really expect her to react in some other manner?" Rose asked of the nubby troll, leaving Roxy behind to try and push the box down the hallway with her toe and stare at the trio in confusion. Karkat had been one of the names in that book of Rose's, and his role hadn't exactly been a small one. More, he seemed to know them both without the littlest bit of prompting. Was that really possible?

"Yes!" Karkat roared indignantly as a chime sounded in the hall, announcing the timely arrival of the elevator.

"Oh shit, Karkat's having a fit over hugging. Think I just won Karkat Tantrum Bingo again!" a new male voice declared as Roxy made it closer to the elevator.

"Fuck you, Strider. Just fuck you! There is no fucking way you..."

"Nope, it's official. See?" There was the sound of paper being pulled from somewhere as Rose and Kanaya took steps back to let whoever was speaking out of the elevator.

"When the fuck did you come up with that?"

"Rose helped me about a year back. We've got lots of official sheets. Each randomized, of course. Sent them out to everyone," the guy said as Roxy finally gave up on pushing the box and strode toward the elevator. Kanaya could get the box herself for all Roxy cared.

"I hate you so much, Strider."

"Now now, don't get all hatelationship on me, Karkat. You know I don't swing that way."

Roxy finally got a glimpse of the speaker and had to struggle to keep her jaw from dropping. Maybe the Strider should have given it away, but somehow it hadn't. Maybe she hadn't been willing to believe it, even when her mind connected 'Strider' with 'Dave' because of Rose's book. Yet there had always been something in her that had distanced the Dave Strider of Sburb from Dave Strider, brother of Dirk Strider, and heirs to the Strider fortunes. And 'fortunes' was definitely the correct term; Dave Strider was raised by a famous producer of niche puppets, comics and movies. His brother Dirk was being raised by an even more famous comedy movie maker, who was working on his seventh film. He looked exactly like he did in all the photos he had online, though most of them were candids by the press meant to capture pictures of his well known guardian. But there he was, Dave Strider, standing there in a t-shirt and jeans with a pair of shades on despite how dark the hall was.

What was more, Dave Strider wasn't the only one there, though he was the one grudgingly accepting a hug from Rose. Beside him was a slightly older looking guy, who was just as blond, just as recognizable from photos, and just as oddly prone to wearing shades where it was too dark. A guy that seemed to have his attention riveted on her.

The argument between Karkat and Dave continued while Rose hugged Dave, and Kanaya seemed to try to teasingly mediate between the two. Meanwhile Dirk Strider nodded briefly to the gathering then seemed to disappear entirely. Then, without warning, he was at her side, helpfully lifting the platter from her hands. Dirk smiled at her, not too much because that just didn't seem to suit him, but enough for her to be certain it was truly meant for her.

"About time someone from our group showed up," Dirk said almost conversationally. "Not that I have a problem with all the trolls upstairs, but we didn't exactly share the same experiences."

What was she supposed to say to that, Roxy wondered. Rose's book suggested different connections between her and this Dirk, and a few others, but the details were always vague. After a while the writing had moved to focusing on the bigger picture, and by the time Roxy had shown up herself it hadn't been in enough detail to satisfy. Now, here she was, supposed to just remember this guy?

"That didn't make ours any less important," Roxy offered nervously, hoping Dirk would be as happy to accept her fragments as Rose had been these last few years.

"Maybe a bit more drawn out, but otherwise you're right," Dirk agreed, smiling wider. "It's been too long, Roxy. Far too long."

The hug was warm and welcoming, and there was something about it that felt right, for all that it also made her blush. Then Dirk was pulling away, his hand on her back, twisting her to guide her to the elevator that everyone else was making their way toward. When Kanaya had gone back to fetch the box Roxy didn't know, but they were moving and soon she had joined the rest of the group in the crush of bodies and party supplies. Maybe they had been expected just like Rose had said.

"Have you heard from Jane or Jake?" Dirk asked, almost nervously, as he spun the covered plate on a single finger.

"No," she admitted. "Never really found a way to reach out."

"Oh," he sighed after a moment. "You're one of those. Shouldn't be surprised really, but I'd hoped..."

Roxy did her best not to bite her lip, but when she glanced at Dirk out of the corner of her eyes she could see something like disappointment there. How had he, a total stranger, read her so much better than Rose ever had?

"Dave thinks it's a Void thing," Dirk added almost immediately. "The other two Void players are here already, but we're pretty sure they were dragged here by that cat-troll. One sorta remembers some details, but the other is pretty hopeless."

"I'm a bit better than them," Roxy lied through her teeth. "I mean, I remember some of the big things. Who wouldn't be able to remember the volcano and that Grimbark encounter and all that?"

Dirk seemed to bounce this around in his mind for a while before nodding. There was something in his expression, though, that told her he knew she was lying. Or maybe that he guessed. It made the elevator ride feel longer than it had to be. She felt like it was an eternity, but was probably only a few moments. It wasn't soon enough when the elevator chimed cheerfully open and spilled the whole of them out onto the rooftop. Rose laughed politely at something Dave said, and Kanaya herded them and Karkat forward as best she could with her box filled arms. Dirk, though, hung back, and as Roxy moved to pass him and join the surprisingly large crowd on the roof she found herself stopped by his hand closing around her arm.

"Roxy, a moment?"

Rose shot them a questioning glance over her shoulder, but Roxy just waved her off, unwilling to draw her in to this. It had only been when she had started to lie that she had gained her not-sister back. Having Dirk publicly call her out would ruin that connection she had fought so hard to reforge. Her sister merely nodded and let Kanaya guide her forward toward a group of waving trolls, leaving Roxy behind with Dirk.

"Well?" she asked when everyone else was out of earshot.

"You're tense. More than you were then, even when you were sober. They'll remember a cheerful girl who tried to be friends with everyone and always thought they could make it through. She was confident in everyone. Someone who led from the shadows while bolstering our beliefs in the leaders we thought we actually had."

All Roxy could do was stare at him, confused. Dirk's smile was sadder now, but still there. "How did you...?"

"If you really remembered, if you'd had the dreams, you'd have talked about surviving the drones first. There was no bigger thing for us," he explained patiently. "If you want to play the game, stick with me and follow my lead with all the rest of that in mind. Okay?"

"Why?" she asked after a moment. "Why tell me all this? Why not just..."

"You found a way to keep us together through it all while holding all our secrets back then, Roxy. If it's important to you to pretend you remember, then I'm going to do everything in my power to support you."

"I..."

"Be happy you don't have the memories," Dirk whispered, placing a hand on her should. "You, the Zahhaks... You're the lucky ones here. True new lives. Everyone else sorta hoped for this thing, but you get it. We're the ones who have to live with the burdens of two lives, pay for the wrongs these bodies never did, live through the pains we inflicted on each other and ourselves. Be thankful you don't have that burden, Roxy. You get to be the same person, while we all have to change."

The way he said it was enough to make her wonder. And maybe, it made her the littlest bit thankful.