Rose wandered through the meteor looking around. Everyone seemed to be in dream bubbles at the moment, and she wanted to make sure nothing catastrophic was going on. Plus, dream bubbles were hand for psychoanalyzing her friends.

Rose looked around for the nearest dream bubble to see who was there. Without realizing it she became apart of a memory playing out.

She was in her room back at home on pesterchum with Dave, John, and Jade. Was this her own memory? She was certain she had control over which memories appeared in dream bubbles.

Then she looked around and saw Dave's room right across from her. It was Dave's memory. She just happened to be taking part in it.

Jade was telling them about Sburb. It was the first time any of them had heard of the game. Rose remembered what she had said aas she typed it out on the keyboard. She remembered John being really excited about the game, and sure enough Rose's screen was filled with blue emoticons and exclamation points as John couldn't contain his excitement. She stifled a laugh.

Dave cooly shot down the game, showing no interest in playing. Looking across, Rose thought she saw him look distraught, but the look vanished quickly.

When it came time, everyone left pesterchum and went about their day. Rose walked over to Dave's dream room to talk to him, but he didn't notice her. He was pestering Jade now.

- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 16:30 -

TG: hey

TG: do you have the program downloaded yet

TG: i dont have all day

GG: hold on to your horses! :P

GG: its almost ready

GG: i cant wait to finally get to speak to you face to face!

GG: or, i guess screen to screen :/

TG: yeah

TG: its pretty cool

GG: ive never actually seen another person before besides grandpa

GG: it gets lonely here

GG: i mean

GG: becs great and all

GG: but there are some things a dog cant do :/

GG: oh look! its finished! :)

Rose watched as they talked through videochat. She had never seen Dave so open to anyone before. She didn't even know that they set this up. He actually seemed happy.

"Hey Dave, why don't you want to play Sburb?" Jade asked him.

"It's just stupid to me. I'm not interested in playing stupid games."

"You do it all the time ironically!"

"Yeah, well... this is different."

Jade looked hurt. Rose also noticed by Dave's reaction that this was straying from the way the actual conversation went.

"Jade don't... I'm sorry, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, I just..."

The now speechless Dave finally broke down into tears. On the other side of the video chat, dream Jade kept asking "what's wrong? what's wrong?" like a broken record.

Rose wasn't sure what to do. Seeing the unfathomable Dave break like this shook her up. Sure she's seen throught he cracks of his "cool guy" image before, but this was unexpected. For once, she didn't know how to responded.

Slwoly Rose approached her brother.

"Dave..." she called out softly, taking hold of his shoulder. He jumped a little and tensed up upon seeing Rose. She thought he was about to brush her off, but after a moment's hesistation, he slumped back into the computer chair. He was no longer crying, but he wouldn't speak either.

Rose turned to face him and leaned on the computer desk for stability. She took a deep breath.

"I miss them too," she whispered, so quiet that she thought Dave might not've heard her.

"I was hoping," Dave started slowly. "When we had finsihed the game, that me and Jade could..."

Rose knew exactly what he was thinking.

"But then everything went to shit and... it all went so wrong..."

"We will see them again," Rose said.

"Yeah, 2 and a half years later we'll have a great big reunion!" Dave said scarcastically.

"I never said that. We'll probably have to go out and fight right after we see them again, and we might die before this is all over, but we will see them again."

Rose thought for a moment.

"Instead of moping around in your memories maybe you should be thinking about what to say to Jade when you see her again."

Rose got up and left the dream bubble. She was certain she had fucked up. What kind of advise was that?

Back in the meteor she read from a book on psychology trying to figure out what she could've said instead. She hoped Dave was alright.

"Hey Rose, Kanaya's looking for you."

It was Dave. He seemed like his usual self.

Rose nodded and got up to leave, brushing past Dave. He grabbed her hand and stopped her for a brief moment.

"Thanks."

And then it was gone. As Rose left she could hear Dave shout something about protection to her.

They never spoke about it after that.