Nepeta closed the door. What had gone wrong? Had she said something? Or done something? The pain in her hands seemed insignificant when compared to the sadness that weighed down in her heart. Tears sprang to her eyes once more and she darted back to her hive. Equius would probably be back at any moment, and she didn't want him to see her like this. He would worry and ask what happened.

She didn't stop at her hive. Instead, she ran straight into the air ducts and into her secret shipping room. She hadn't been in here since yesterday. It seemed like so long ago now. She walked over to the door and tested it. Still locked. It didn't look like whoever had been in here yesterday hadn't touched anything. Maybe it had just been her imagination.

She sat on the ground with her back against the door, staring at her hands. The bandages seemed to mock her now. What a clumsy idiot, thinking that he actually wanted to spend time with me. I probably scared him off with all of the roleplaying and the shipping wall and being a stupid clumsy… idiot. Nepeta looked up. The dedication to her ship was plain to see. The chalk drawing was still on the floor, and the chalk sticks scattered around haphazardly. Numbly, she began to collect them and place them neatly into their container.

I had one chance, and I ruined it.

The room got blurry again and she rubbed her eyes. She set the chalk in its proper place amongst her supplies and yawned. Today had been such a long day. Tiredly, she sat back down against the door and looked around. This was her OTP. Karkat and Nepeta. Nepeta and Karkat. That's how it had always been, ever since the day they had met. She remembered those first moments on Trollian, and the conversations that led to him asking her to be on the red team with him. It had been a dream come true! But alas, Equius told her no, and who was she to go against his wishes? But they had finally met up at the end of the game. And now they were stuck on the meteor together, flying toward an unknown destination.

Fate had presented her with the perfect opportunity to get close to him. And she completely blew it.

No. There was still hope. This was her OTP, was it not? She couldn't let this simple mistake get in her way! It would be an insult to the very concept of one's One True Pairing! There had to be a way to fix this. But what?

Meanwhile, at the Vantas hive…

Karkat stared blankly at the wall across the room. Sitting here thinking was getting him nowhere fast. He stood and looked around. The boxes that held his still-packed stuff were gathering dust in his procrastination to unpack them. The only thing that he had really done to move in at all was set up his computer and open up all those boxes of books. What to do, what to do? He really should unpack.

He walked over to his computer and sat down heavily. His cycle of procrastination continued. Tomorrow he would unpack. He deftly typed in his password and opened pesterchum. He needed to talk to someone. Didn't that seem to help solve everyone else's problems? He scrolled through the list of his chums. Eridan was on, as usual, along with Equius, Vriska, Terezi, and Feferi. He sighed, defeated and irritated. Why was it that whenever he actually wanted to talk to someone, no one was ever on? Half-heartedly, Karkat opened up some of his old files and skimmed through them. Most of them were half-finished computer codes and viruses. He could almost see himself before the game, crouched over his computer, his face inches from the screen, typing like mad to try and write these.

Everything had been so simple then. No complicated saving the planet business, no complicated feelings, no flying through space on a meteor. He could almost convince himself that he wanted to go back, but in his heart he knew that his life then had been no better, just different. Now he actually had something that resembled a group of "friends," and his life actually seemed to have some sort of meaning. He was supposed to be saving the universe or something, right?

Karkat realized that his eyes were closed. When was the last time he had slept anyway? Time was different on the meteor. There was no night and day anymore, and everyone just slept when they felt like it. Sure, they had established some sort of time and date keeping method, but now that there was no sun, everyone established their own sleeping schedule. It didn't matter anyway. Karkat couldn't remember the last time he had gotten any sleep, and right now seemed like the perfect time to check out from reality for a while.

There was an alert from pesterchum. Karkat blinked in confusion for a second as he was dragged back to the real world. He sat up, wincing as his spine straightened after sleeping in an awkward position. How long had he even slept, five minutes? He glanced around tiredly for the source of the noise. Nepeta was on. He sighed. He didn't want to deal with this right now.

arsenicCatnip [AC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

AC: :33 – Hi Karkat

AC: :33 – I hope youre feeling better

AC: :33 – Do you have a second? I want to tell you something

AC: :33 – Umm so you didnt answer a few hours ago so I guess you are busy so I will just tell you and you can respond later if you want

AC: :33 – Okay well first Im really sorry and I dont really know what I did to make you mad but whatever it was I didnt mean to!

AC: :33 – And I hope you dont hate me now because I really like talking to you and I had a lot of fun when you were here

AC: :33 – But I understand if you dont like me anymore and dont want to talk to me because whatever I did I must have messed up pretty badly DD:

AC: :33 – And thats it really

AC: :33 – Im sorry )):

Karkat stared at the message, confused. Wasn't he the one that messed everything up? Why was she even apologizing? She hadn't done anything wrong. In fact, her behavior was completely justified when compared to his actions. He had been the one to actually hurt her, where as she had been nothing but nice and polite.

CG: NEPETA I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE RAMBLING ON ABOUT

CG: YOU DIDNT EVEN DO ANYTHING WRONG

CG: I SHOULD BE THE ONE APOLOGIZING TO YOU FOR BEING A HUGE JERK

CG: SO

CG: IM SORRY

AC: :33 – But didnt I make you upset?

AC: :33 – I thought that was why you left

AC: :33 – I mean other than being sick

CG: WHAT

CG: NO I WAS JUST SICK

CG: BUT IM FINE NOW

CG: I HAD A LOT ON MY MIND

AC: :33 – Oh

CG: ANYWAY LETS DROP THIS WHOLE APOLOGIZING THING

CG: YOU DIDNT DO ANYTHING AND I WAS A HUGE JERK END OF DISCUSSION

CG: MOVING ON

AC: :33 - :/

CG: SO WHY DO YOU CAPITALIZE THINGS WHEN YOU TALK WITH ME

CG: I NOTICED THAT YOU DONT EVER DO THAT WITH TEREZI

CG: SAME WITH THE CAT PUNS

AC: :33 – Oh well you told me once that it was annoying to you

AC: :33 – So I stopped

AC: :33 – I didnt want to annoy you

CG: OH

CG: WELL I DONT REMEMBER SAYING THAT

CG: ACTUALLY I FIND IT KIND OF

CG: CUTE?

CG: SORRY IT WAS KIND OF A WEIRD THING TO POINT OUT

I'm getting pretty lazy about these updates, and I feel bad for that! But it's not over yet! In fact, it isn't anywhere close to being done yet; I just haven't been feeling up to writing it lately. But, I finally pushed myself to deliver this super overdue update! I appreciate that you all have been so patient with me. It means a lot! Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave me your comments!