"Lucas, I'd like to work through some strategies together for how to deal with your depression. There's no surefire way to make you feel at your best, of course, but I'd at least like to talk through some techniques that might be helpful."

"…"

"Lucas?"

"Before we start, I have a question for you."

"Of course."

"And I don't want you to give me the bullshit that you'd tell someone else. I don't want you to change up the topic and try to make me feel better. I want your honest opinion."

"Hopefully my honest opinion includes something that will make you feel better. I'm optimistic about our chances of helping you."

"Why is my life worth anything at all?"

"Lucas, I know that things might seem bleak right now, but-"

"But you're here to support me. Right. But why? Just because I'm paying you?"

"Because I want you to feel better."

"Okay. You want me to return to my normal self. You want me to live. But does it really matter in the cosmic sense? What loss is it really if I fling myself off Smash skyscraper, just one death out of billions of people?"

"I think we should focus on getting you to feel better. Then we can work on answering those questions."

"No redirection. No bullshit."

"I think it's better for us to get you to a state where you can answer that question on your own."

"I want your answer."

"…"

"You don't have one."'

"You're right, Lucas. One life, when compared against billions, doesn't seem like it matters all that much."

"So what you're doing is just a lie to make me feel better."

"That's one way to interpret it. But let's say that a billion people die. Couldn't you argue that a billion deaths isn't really that many, since we have essentially infinite people in the multiverse as a whole?"

"Right. Nothing at all matters."

"But meaning is relative. If nothing matters, everything matters. And then we're right back where we started."

"I don't follow."

"If you had to choose between saving one life or two, which would you pick?"

"Two lives, obviously. Get to the point."

"One life. Two lives. Both of them are nothing when compared to the vast reaches of the multiverse. But you just admitted that the difference of one life matters. That one life could be you."

"…"

"So sure, we're nothing when compared to the multiverse. But we still matter. And soon, I hope you can see that the meanings we create for ourselves are just as important as the numbers you crunch in your head, if not more."

"…"

"Lucas?"

"Let's get started."


Ah, the sweet sweet cafeteria. Again. And it even smelled vaguely of vomit this time. It would be so easy for Lucas to reach out with his mind and sift through floating thoughts until he could glean information about the person who barfed in here last night. No different than flipping through an encyclopedia until he landed on the right page, really.

But thanks to Lucas' new therapist, he was supposed to stay inside of his own head for now. Lucas had scoffed when the therapist said that reading so many minds with telepathy could be overwhelming enough to contribute to his depression, but there must be a reason why this person got paid for just giving out life advice.

And ultimately, it couldn't hurt to shut himself off from telepathy for a while. It wasn't like he could feel that much worse.

Lucas sighed, and then looked over to see Ness sitting down next to him with a plate piled with eggs and steak. Where had he come from?

"It really would kill you to eat normal person food, wouldn't it?" Lucas said.

"Hey, I have eggs this time." Ness crossed his arms. "So it's breakfast food."

"Sure." Lucas yawned. "Sorry again for giving you a scare last night with the Cosmic Spirit. I had no idea that she was going to talk about Porky."

"Yeah, about that." Ness chomped down on his steak. "You made it seem like I was acting all weird when I said that I wanted to go track down Porky. I assumed that I was just out of it because it was so late."

Late? Lucas was pretty sure it had been before one in the morning.

"But it still makes sense in my head today," Ness said, "So unless I'm hungover from just being tired, I think that we should head over to Dalaam."

Lucas took a moment to study Ness. Stupid grin? Check. Baseball cap on slightly crooked? Check.

Dark eyes that drew him in like black holes? Check.

Okay, maybe Lucas shouldn't go that far, but there was something cool about the way that Ness pushed his way through the thorns and brambles of life with a smile on his face. It didn't even seem like Ness was smiling through the pain. He just… didn't let it get to him.

What would that be like?

"Lucas?"

"When did this become about both of us?" Lucas said.

Ness' eyes widened in hurt. "Because Porky. I know you don't want him to hurt more people in the same way that he tore your family apart."

And that was another thing. Even when Lucas had read Ness' mind with telepathy earlier, he couldn't wrap his head around how Ness believed that everyone could be so purehearted. Ness would drop everything to stop Porky from ravaging Dalaam, so of course everyone else would do the same. The alternative probably never occurred to him.

"Listen," Lucas said. "I don't know if I can confront Porky again. Besides, I know that you'll be plenty capable on your own."

Ness blinked, frowned, and then picked at his steak. Ness hesitated as he brought his fork up to his mouth, and he looked at Lucas out of the corner of his eye as he ate. After Ness took a couple bites, Lucas released a sigh.

"You're terrible at keeping quiet when you want to say something, you know," Lucas said.

Ness tensed up. "I just don't know if it's polite."

"I never comment when you slurp your spaghetti noodles, do I?"

"This is a different kind of impolite."

"You're going to ask me why I'm scared of fighting Porky when I have the psychic power to raze an entire landscape."

Ness dropped his fork on his plate. "How did you know?"

Because it was the obvious question? Lucas rolled his eyes.

"The answer," Lucas said, "Is in the question. What if I'm too powerful, Ness? What if I let my PSI run out of control and make everything worse?"

"Well, that's never happened before," Ness said, "Right?"

Lucas sucked in a breath of air and slid out of the cafeteria booth, standing straight up.

"Right?" Ness said, frowning.

"I just remembered something I had to do," Lucas said. "I'll talk with you later."

"Lucas?" Ness said. "Did I say something wrong?"

Lucas started to walk away.

"Lucas!"

Lucas clenched his fists. Of course it wasn't Ness' fault. He would figure that out eventually, one way or another.

Lucas walked out of the cafeteria and shut the door behind him.


Lucas found Zelda standing by one of the window-walls in Smash Skyscraper, looking at the world of steel and flashing lights below. He walked up to her and pressed his palms against the glass of the wall, staring down at the cars and buildings on the planet's surface. The blanket of steel covering the ground extended all the way out to the horizon.

It was strange to look at the world beneath the Smash Skyscraper without his telepathy blazing. Instead of seeing lines of blue data flowing through the air to create a network that sprawled across the entire city, Lucas only saw the grey.

How to explain it? Without telepathy, Lucas felt blind. But with blindness came a sort of clarity. Whereas blind people heightened their hearing abilities, Lucas' lack of telepathy allowed him to focus and really see the world below.

His eyes followed a steel airship as it weaved between buildings. Perhaps the airship didn't have to be a point of data exchange, a cog in the well-oiled machine of society. Maybe it could just be an airship. Maybe the rockets blasting blue flame behind the airship could just be rockets.

Maybe the people inside of that airship could just be people.

"I remember this was the place where I first met you," Zelda said.

"Excluding all the times we fought on the battlefield before?" Lucas said.

"Those don't count." Zelda's blue eyes stared through the glass wall. "This was the first place where I really met you."

"I suppose that's fair."

"I remember that you asked me why the preservation of life is fundamentally good." Zelda looked over at Lucas. "Have you found your answer yet?"

Lucas stepped away from the glass wall. "Not yet. But I figure that until I do, I might as well cling onto everything I have. It's so much easier to destroy than it is to rebuild. That goes for morals, buildings, and people."

"And what do you have that you're scared to destroy, Lucas?"

"You and Peach. My friendship with Ness."

But there were times when he couldn't hold on. Rosalina had left after calling Lucas a friend, and Samus had done the same less than a month later. Eventually, Ness would go off to college and leave Lucas behind.

Lucas' life was decaying slowly, inevitably. And at the end of it all he would die alone and join his mother, along with his brother Claus.

This must be what happened to all heroes after they finished their adventures.

"And of course," Lucas said, "There are strange feelings bubbling up in my chest that I can't quite understand. It's enough to make me wonder if I have the capacity to love again. But I can't say for sure."

Zelda smiled. "Love takes on different forms for different people. But I will say that if I were in your place and loved Ness, it wouldn't have been so easy for me to destroy him during our training session yesterday."

Lucas' heart skipped a beat. "Who said anything about Ness?"

"I don't have to read minds to see how much you care about each other. Oh and by the way, Peach thinks that Ness is gay for you."

No. Oh no. bad, bad, bad.

"I know that dealing with those sorts of emotions might be tough," Zelda said, "But hey. You might just like him as a friend. That's okay as well."

"Okay, back up," Lucas said. "Why do you think that Ness is even gay in the first place?"

"I was the one who suggested it." Zelda shrugged. "Peach loves to pester him about getting a girlfriend, and he gets pretty uncomfortable whenever she brings it up. Sure, it's possible that he's just embarrassed around someone like Peach, but I think it would make sense if he's still coming to terms with his own sexuality."

"Ness isn't gay," Lucas said.

"Oh, you read his mind?"

"No, I just…" Lucas felt goosebumps rising on his arm. "He can't be."

"Well, hopefully you have some time to work out your feelings, and Ness has time to work out his. Peach could be wrong, of course. And I could be as well. I just wanted to let you know in case he starts acting weird."

Lucas' looked into Zelda's eyes and saw sympathy. The thought crossed Lucas' mind that maybe, just maybe, he should tell Zelda the full truth. Lay out everything in front of her so that she could see exactly why he was so scared at the thought of someone loving him.

Stupid, stupid. Some secrets bore down on his shoulders with the weight of a mountain. To try and force his pain onto Zelda would be selfish.

"Well, it might not end up mattering for a while," Lucas said. "Porky surfaced in Dalaam, and Ness wants to check up on him."

Zelda's eyes narrowed. "Are you okay with him leaving?"

"Of course. I have to be."

"What does that mean?"

"I know that you and Peach dragged Ness into this whole mess just so that I could have a 'normal' friend instead of another mom who hovers over me like both of you do. Friends take trips sometimes. They won't always be there to attend to my every need. That was the point."

"I think if you explained how bad your anxiety and depression are and how much you appreciate his company, then-"

"Then he wouldn't be any different from you," Lucas said. "I don't want Ness to help me just because he feels sorry. That's not fair to him, and I already feel terrible for what I've done to you and Peach."

"We don't mind," Zelda said, "And we both understand that some people have different needs than others. So please, don't say that you've 'done' anything to us. We're both here for you because we want to be."

"And Ness?"

"I think," Zelda said, looking back out the glass wall, "That he picks up on more than you realize."

Lucas sighed. "Maybe. But we're still normal friends. We hang out and play video games. We meet up and talk about baseball while he stuffs his face with steak in the cafeteria. We give each other training tips for Smash tournaments. I don't want to lose that by forcing him to stay around me when he wants to track down Porky in Dalaam instead."

"I think it's not too much to expect a normal friend to stand by and offer support when you need help," Zelda said.

"But I always need help," Lucas said, "And I don't want Ness to be responsible for me when I can't offer him anything in return. So I'm going to let him go to Dalaam on his own."

Zelda looked up towards the ceiling. "You know, the other thought is that you could go with him to Dalaam. I don't know if you're feeling up for venturing into the rest of the multiverse again, but-"

"I'm not."

"Well, then I guess you have a difficult choice. You could talk to your therapist about it."

"I think I'm just going to let Ness go. It's the right thing to do."

"If you feel comfortable with that decision, then I'll stand behind it," Zelda said. "I think it's good that you care about Ness. I just worry that you still don't care enough about yourself."

Lucas walked back over to the glass wall and looked down at the city. Without telepathy, the world sometimes looked so cold. Airships darted by and cars swarmed the highways. Lucas didn't think that any of them cared for each other.

"But I do think it's important to come to terms with how you feel about Ness," Zelda said. "What do you want your relationship with him to be like?"

"Relationship?"

"Doesn't have to be romantic."

"I'm still not sure," Lucas said. "It's probably selfish to say that I just want my relationship with Ness to be whatever gets me through each day. But hey, I'm a selfish person."

Kumatora… I'm so sorry.

"It's not selfish to have basic needs," Zelda said, "And it's not your fault that those needs are harder to meet than you would like."

"Yes it is."

"Well, either way I think that giving up will just make it worse. I know it's difficult, but we should try to find a way to resolve this difficult situation with Ness."

"I'm not telling him that he needs to stay for me."

Zelda nodded. "That's your choice. Are you really comfortable letting him go?"

The room fell silent. Lucas stared out the window at the world of flashing lights below.

"I do trust you," Zelda said. "I just worry, that's all."

Lucas sighed. "I'm not comfortable with him leaving, but I think I'd feel worse forcing him to stay just for me. Ness should go back to Dalaam and help his friends. I should be okay with this. I'll make it through."

"Sometimes," Zelda said, looking up at the sky, "It's not about what should happen. It's about what you need."

"Well soon," Lucas said, "I need to go back and apologize to Ness for abandoning him without any sort of reason. I bet he's worried that he did something wrong."

Zelda smiled. "Yeah, he's a sweetheart. You have to do what's right for you, of course, but if you do have feelings for him then I'll say you could do a lot worse."

It had been so long since Lucas had blushed that he almost didn't recognize the sensation of heat rising in his cheeks.

"I'll deal with that later," Lucas said.

You can't keep running forever, a voice in Lucas' mind told him. Eventually, your problems are going to catch up to you and beat you bloody by the roadside.

Lucas took a deep breath. Some day the truth would catch up to him, but today was not that day.

"Do you need Ness?" Zelda said.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"How does it feel to know that any day, he might wake up and decide to leave? I'm sure you know that none of us can stay in Smash Skyscraper forever."

Lucas squeezed his eyes shut. Emptiness. If there was nothing to feel, nothing to be, then nothing could hurt him ever again.

"I understand if you're not ready to answer those questions yet," Zelda said. "That's why we're here to get you to a place where you can. Peach and I will keep you safe."

Safe. Lucas almost laughed. He could bring the entire skyscraper down right now with a flick of his hand, and they were trying to keep him safe. He opened his eyes and looked up at Zelda's concerned expression.

"Thanks for your support," Lucas said, "But I really need to go now."

Lucas turned around to leave.

"Wait," Zelda said. "I might have a way to get Ness to stay."

"I thought I told you," Lucas said. "I don't want-"

"I'll get him to stay, and not because of you," Zelda said. "That way, you both can go back to normal. At least for a little while."

Lucas hated that hope started rising in his chest. Of course a few more days, a few more weeks, or even a few more months with Ness wouldn't be able to help him go back to normal. He had been broken when first meeting Zelda over two years in this room, and he was just as broken now. He would need millennia to pick up all the pieces of himself and put them back together.

But he would take any more time with Ness that he could get. At this point, what did he have to lose?


So apparently I had this chapter collecting dust for months and I completely forgot that I wrote it. One thing I should probably mention is that you don't need to have played through the Mother/EarthBound games to really understand this fic. There are hints of Lucas' past here, but it's all AU stuff that doesn't come into play in the actual games.

Will I finish this story? I... hope so. But I honestly have no plan for what's going to happen next, so we'll see.

Review responses:

Guest (first to review): Yep, there are still people devoted to a 23-year old game haha. Damn EarthBound is older than I am.

Guest (second to review): I was almost disappointed that I had never gotten a troll review before this. Now I feel like a legitimate fanfic writer. :D

LordLenne: Thanks! :)

formora: Oh well thank you for reading my fics! I'm really glad that you've been liking my recent stories (and hopefully you still have been over the past half-year haha). Yeah I'm not super familiar with EarthBound ships as well and honestly I just wanted to write something out of my comfort zone... I've never written romance before, and I'm not part of the LGBTQ+ community myself, so I'm trying my best to create a good story with characters I might not be as used to in kind of a low stakes environment (I might not want to try this for the first time on an actual novel that I would want to publish).

Genie: Responded via PM, I would have forgotten about this story if not for you lol