Disclaimer: I still don't own Homestuck.

A/N: I figured I'd post the second chapter up tonight before I turn in. I finished the rest of the story, but I want to look it over at least once before I submit it, so I'll look over it while I'm visiting Drexel tomorrow. I don't know if I'll get on to upload it then, but it'll be up quickly!

Also, this chapter and the rest of the story is from John's point of view.

Finally, we were all going to be reunited! We had been using our gadgets to communicate and coordinate our strategies to escape the apocalypse, and it really wasn't all that abnormal since we had only talked online so far anyway, but I was excited to see everyone! Until I saw them, I wouldn't know for sure that they were okay, after all… After everything we'd been through, after all we'd risked and lost, after we'd almost died ourselves… Seeing my friends' faces was all I could think about. I was with Jade already, and she had Bec with her and I had my dad, but we hadn't seen Rose and Dave yet. Man, it felt like it had been so long since we'd had regular lives, but the disaster had taken place within 24 hours! Jade and I walked up to the burnt-out building we'd chosen as our rendezvous point to see Rose standing there with her mother, waiting. Where was Dave? We were barely on time as it was, and wasn't he supposed to be the one out of all of us who was best with time? There shouldn't be anything left to make him late, either.

We'd only been there for a few moments, all of us still standing and facing each other as we wondered what to say, when we heard footsteps. Considering we were the only humans left on the earth, it had to be Dave! He really was all right! I saw Rose's hand creep towards her pocket, but I suppose we were all a little paranoid after all the battling we'd been doing. The footsteps didn't sound even, either; whoever was coming was limping. Maybe it wasn't Dave; he hadn't mentioned being hurt to me, anyway, and there was only one set of footsteps. I followed Rose's example; I looked over to Jade to see what she was doing, but she was only standing there with a forlorn expression. Did she know something we didn't? As I was busy having that thought, Dave made it around the edge of the wall that had been hiding him from us beforehand; it really was him. But holy shit, what the hell had happened?! His left ankle was wrapped in bandages, and he was covered in blood—it was on his clothes, in his hair, on his sunglasses, even smeared across his face. He didn't tell me he'd been hurt!

And he was alone.

"Dave…" Jade ran up to him and hugged him, but he just stood there. He didn't reply, didn't move his arms to hug her in return, nothing; he didn't seem to react at all, at first. Then I realized he was crying, tears dripping down his cheeks steadily, and my next realization was that there was no blood where those tears fell, so this wasn't all the crying he'd been doing lately. I took a few hesitant steps towards them, Rose right there with me.

"Dude… what happened? Where's-?"

"I didn't want you to know." He cut me off, but I didn't mind. His voice was almost timorous—not what I'd expected from cool kid Dave Strider at all—but I just wanted to know what the hell he was talking about. "It's not my blood. I…" He couldn't finish, pulling himself from Jade's grip. "My brother's dead."

"What?" That question came from Rose.

"He died while I was time-hopping. I didn't want you to be distracted worrying about it; it was too late, anyway." He was walking away from us, towards the same wall that had hidden him from us at first; he didn't make it all the way there before he sank to the ground though, burying his face in his hands. "I was too busy goofing off and I didn't even know that my own brother was dead!" The short scream burst out of him like he just couldn't hold it back any longer, and as his best friend, I rushed over to his side and pulled him into a bro-hug.

"Dave, I'm so sorry… You'll come stay with me, all right? We might not be able to bring him back, but we won't let you be alone." With him in my arms, I could feel the trembling I couldn't see before, but slowly, he brought his arms around my back and returned the hug, pulling me closer and leaning his forehead on my shoulder.

"I just… He's really gone-"

"I know… It won't be easy, but we'll all be here for you." I pasted a small smile on my face even though he couldn't see it, and Rose and Jade smiled encouragingly in return (though Jade's was considerably more enthusiastic). "I'm so sorry…" I always knew that Dave didn't hate his brother as much as he let on, but I hadn't wanted this kind of proof. Even so, there was nothing any of us could do about it now. His brother was gone; we were going to do our best to work around it, of course, but that was all we could do. We couldn't replace his brother in any way; Dave was alone in that sense, but we could be his new family. We were the only humans left alive; that had to count for something in way of unity, didn't it?

"He was always gone, but he's not coming back this time; he's not coming back and he left me with all of those goddamn smuppets and he's not coming back, Jesus, he's not coming back!" I could see my dad and Rose's mom holding hands over Dave's shoulder, watching the scene sadly, and Rose and Jade were kneeling on either side of us, showing their support with their presence. I don't think Dave was even listening to us; he was just becoming more and more hysterical. My first instinct was to get him inside, but why? It wasn't like there was anyone else around to see. Even if there were others, I think he was past the point of caring, his arms locked around my back as if he was afraid that I'd disappear, too; hell, he probably was. I'd been worried about everyone without having any particular reason, so he must have been making himself sick with worry—not the cool kind of sick either, or the kind that meant you got to play video games at home all day, I mean the kind that shot your temperature through the roof and made you think you'd rather be dead than feel this shitty for another second.

"Let's go home; Dave, we need to get you cleaned up, and I'm sure the rest of us could do with a hot shower and some food." The game hadn't been unwinnable as we'd all worried at some point, but it had taken its toll on all of us—Dave especially, considering he'd lived through more time in the game than the rest of us even before his brother's death. He didn't seem to hear my suggestion, but he didn't resist when I pulled him to his feet, and he allowed me to lead him to my house by the hand as everyone else followed. Rose and Jade flanked us like soldiers who were concerned the decimation around us was going to attack, all of us forming a chain with our linked hands, moving slowly to accommodate Dave's mysteriously injured ankle. He hadn't told us how that had happened, either…

"What happened to your ankle, anyway?" Jade wondered. "You never told me about that…"

Dave seemed to be retreating back into himself now. "Kicked a bucket," he murmured. "A heavy one."

"Is this more of your confounded irony?" I remember being glad that Jade picked up on that, because I'd been caught between being confused and appalled at the insensitive almost-euphemism.

"I literally kicked a bucket—I knocked over a trash can. Take it how you will."

"You—why would you—"

"You said not to flip off the handle. I didn't."