Ugh... Jade felt absolutely awful. That was the first thing she noticed as consciousness slowly started to trickle back to her. Her body ached terribly, she was thirsty and hungry, her head was killing her, and she felt way too exhausted to move. Opening her eyes seemed to be the most effort she could possibly exert; her limbs were leaden and it seemed like a titanic task to twitch a finger. Couldn't she just... lie here... and go to sleep... wait, where was 'here', anyway?

It didn't matter. She hadn't died so far, wherever she was, and that meant it would be okay if she allowed herself to drift away again, right?

Wait.

She hadn't died, but there was a distinct lack of hands in her own, no figures lying next to her. The last thing she remembered was holding Dave and Rose's hands as tightly as she could before she flung them all into the void between universes... into the void... A terrible, terrible horrible awful thought struck her then. Oh no, oh no oh no, oh god no, had she—had she killed them? Had she just sent them to their deaths in the bright green emptiness? Where was she? Suddenly it didn't seem so unimportant anymore, and with a hard knot of fear pushing away the clutches of exhaustion, Jade found the strength to open her eyes and push herself up onto her elbows, blinking a few times against the bright sunlight. She was in one of their tents, albeit one that was roughly patched together, and the flap that made the entrance was tied back, allowing light to stream in from the forest outside. Jade coughed, her throat feeling way too dry. How long had she been lying here?

"Jade?" It was Dave's voice, oh thank god he was alright! He hurried into the tent, kneeling by her side, and helped her sit up, albeit leaning heavily against him. Even that was a lot of effort, but she was just so, so happy he was alive and safe!

"Where—" she tried, coughing again. Dave seemed to have anticipated that she'd be thirsty, and wordlessly held a cup to her lips. After she'd finished it, she tried again. "Where are we?"

"You don't know?" he asked, shifting her weight so that he could lift her more easily.

"I have a vague idea," she said weakly, trying to smile. Was he angry? "Did... did it work?"

"If you mean whatever the green thing was, then I guess so," he answered. "Hang on, I'm taking you outside so I can stay on watch."

"'Kay," she mumbled, closing her eyes and leaning her head on his shoulder. Dave stood, carrying her without too much effort—from years of swordsman training with his brother, he had a measure of wiry strength in his lean body—out of the tent into a forest clearing, where he sat in the grass with his back to the tent so that they could see the rest of the woods around them.

"You okay?" he asked after a moment. When she opened her eyes, she saw him studying her with a hint of concern.

"I feel awful," she moaned, letting her head fall against his shoulder again. It was easier to lean on him than it was to remain upright of her own volition, and she was just so, so very tired.

"If you did what I'm pretty sure you did, I'm not fucking surprised," was the response.

"Are you angry?" she asked. Dave could be really hard to read sometimes, even though she'd known him for years. Mostly she could tell, but this was just one of those times when she honestly wasn't sure. She really hoped he wasn't angry, though, because she didn't think she could go back. Definitely not now, not in this state. Ugh, she was never universe-jumping again!

"No." He sighed and patted her shoulder. "Just a little overwhelmed. That was quite a goddamn stunt you pulled, you know."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"What for? You saved all of our asses, at least."

"I... I didn't really think about it. But we can't go back, not at all..."

"I know. There's nothing for us there anyway," he replied dully. Jade looked up at him. Now she could see, plain as day, what he was thinking—he was remembering his brother. The last they'd seen of Dirk Strider was his grave, a simple unmarked affair outside of the city proper, in the same place that everyone that the Batterwitch's armies killed surreptitiously ended up. It was more than Jade and John's grandparents had gotten, but not by much. It wasn't like they could go visit often, and even if they did, what was the point?

"Dave..."

"It doesn't matter anymore," he shook his head dismissively. "What's done is done, Harley. Don't stress over it."

"No, it's... there's something I should tell you—wait," she suddenly realized—how could she not have realized sooner?—Dave was the only one here. "Where are Rose and John? Are they alright? Did—"

"Calm down!" he interrupted. "They're fine. They went off to town again to see if they could find anything useful in terms of information."

"Again?" she blinked. "What do you mean, again?"

"Jade. You have been lying in that tent for two days."

Somehow, the news wasn't as surprising as it might have been. Jade just took it in for a moment, and then with a weak laugh, said, "Grandpa always did say I slept too much."

"Oh for fuck's sake," Dave shook his head, but he was smiling just a little, so Jade counted her joke as successful.

"But... that does explain why I'm so hungry," she added, softly interlacing her fingers with his. "Do we... do we have any food around here?"

"Yeah, we do. I'll go get you some bread, just a minute." Dave stood and walked back into the tent. Jade remained sitting outside, leaning on an arm that was propping her up in his place. Her thoughts swirled uneasily through her mind; so, as she'd hoped, they were in a new universe, and everyone was alright, but what were they supposed to do now? She hadn't really thought this far ahead—hadn't really thought what a toll universe-jumping was going to take on her, either; she had no idea how long it would take her to feel well again. She was still absolutely exhausted and waves of pain were dully rolling all over her body, though at least it wasn't the sharp stabbing tearing pain that usually came. She must have been unconscious for the most of that. I guess I should count my blessings, she surmised.

But... there was something else that she didn't think Dave, Rose, or John knew. Well, maybe Rose might have known, due to her visions, but it was doubtful. Jade sighed, shaking her head but immediately regretting it as her vision swam. She'd tried to find the best universe for them to go to that she could, she really had! But even her enormously augmented powers weren't enough to navigate the void between universes for long. Being there drained her energy at a gigantic rate, because she had to fight to hold every last molecule and atom that made up herself and her family and all their belongings together as the void fought to reduce them to nothingness. It was like nothing she'd ever dreamed of, not even in her worst nightmares.

But the end result was that this universe was pretty similar to their old one. The biggest difference was, well, the one that she thought would be the first qualification to finding a new universe, and that was their family members.

As far as she knew, Grampa, Nanna, Dirk, and Ms. Lalonde should all be alive.

There was a difference, though; she knew she hadn't landed in quite the right one. She'd seen it, floating by in the void, but it was too far away and she couldn't make it, so she had dived into the closest similar universe, and here they were. Now it seemed like they were all around the same age as their former guardians, which would be strange, to say the least, but at least they were there and not dead, right?

The question was, how did she tell Dave, John, and Rose about this?

Dave returned at that moment, folding his lanky legs to sit next to her again and holding a slice of bread, a piece of which he broke and held to her lips. "Here, don't eat too fast," he said as she eagerly accepted it, not having realized quite how ravenous she was until the food was offered. He studied her for a moment, and feeding her the next piece, commented, "You really do look like shit."

"Thanks Dave," Jade said wryly between bites of bread. "That's what every girl wants to hear."

"Yes. It is like fucking music to your ears, I'm sure."

"Only comparable to your smooth beats," she giggled.

"Exactly. So smooth you couldn't even ice-skate on it, because if you tried you wouldn't be able to turn because it is so goddamn smooth that there is no fucking friction at all and you'd just keep on going and going and going."

Jade laughed at that. Dave's metaphorical mannerisms were always amusing; he was... he was something else. "But would you hit a wall at some point?"

"Nah. It was too smooth for them to build any walls. Those building crews just up and quit. Said it was too fucking smooth and they couldn't even walk, so they just sat there on strike until someone threw them a rope," he answered, offering her the last piece of the bread slice. "Here, have some more water."

She drank gratefully, feeling a little bit improved after that nourishment. "Thanks, Dave."

"No problem," he shrugged and wrapped an arm around her shoulders again so that she could lean on him. "You really do look like shit, though. Do you want to go back to sleep?"

"No, not yet," Jade sighed. "I'm going to wait until John and Rose get back."

"You sure?" he asked a little skeptically.

"Yes, I'm sure! Or I guess, I could rephrase it as 'I'm going to try to wait until John and Rose get back', if that makes you happier."

"Yes. It does."

"Oh, whatever! Jeez."

He cracked a grin down at her, and she returned it with a tired one of her own. But then his expression grew more serious again, and almost hesitantly, he began again. "So... in that case, can I ask you something?"

"Go for it," she replied, resting her head against his shoulder once more. She was pretty sure she already knew what he was going to say: some variant on "what did you do anyway?". But the thing she wasn't sure about was how exactly she was going to answer that...

"What the hell exactly happened?" he asked, just as she'd figured.

"I... we're in a different universe now," she replied, surprised when he didn't stiffen or pull away or do anything else that suggested that he was very taken aback at all. Instead, he just nodded as if she had confirmed his own suspicions.

"I thought so. Didn't know you could do that, though."

"Neither did I," Jade confessed. "I was just desperate, because... because I didn't want to go back, and I didn't want them to get their hands on you guys, and... it seemed like the better option."

Dave rubbed her shoulder soothingly. "I don't blame you. That last universe, I think we can all agree, was pretty fucking shitty."

"But, um... there's something about this one that you should know," she said tentatively, trying to gauge his reaction before she broached the topic.

"What would that be?" He raised an eyebrow curiously, and Jade felt her heart sink. Was he going to take this well? She had no idea, and that honestly scared her.

"Um... so I really, really should have talked this over with you guys before I did it, but I didn't think of it before and I never thought I'd have to jump universes to begin with, and—"

"You're rambling," he interrupted, his voice just a little flat in an indication that he had picked up on the fact that she was pretty sure that this was going to be bad news. "What is it?"

"I..." she took a deep breath, glad that leaning against his side kept her from having to make eye contact as she said it, and took the plunge. "Your brother is alive."

He stiffened as if she'd dropped a bucket of icy water down his back. "You... I... you mean..."

Jade stayed silent, unsure of what to say but cringing just a little because she knew, she knew so well that under his façade he was still raw and hurting from Dirk's death, he'd never really come to terms with it and he'd just shoved it away and tried not to think of it, he'd never been able to accept it the way Rose had her mother or been able to at least even allow himself to grieve as much as he hurt like she and John had cried into each other's arms, and now suddenly she was telling him Dirk wasn't dead again, and it had to be taking some kind of toll and she just wanted to hug him, so she did, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his shoulder.

"Holy shit," he breathed, and then the next thing she knew, he had crushed her to his chest in a hug. "Holy shit." And suddenly, he was laughing softly, almost as though he might cry instead, but the important thing was that he was happy, and Jade relaxed.

"There is one thing, though," she added softly after a moment. "I don't think he's your older brother."

Dave froze again, though he didn't loosen his hold on her. "What do you mean?"

"I tried to find a universe that was the best one. For some reason they're grouped by similar characteristics, in a way, but I didn't have enough power to leave the little cluster of ones that we were around, so I picked the optimal one of those. And I was looking for one where our families weren't dead, and there was one where it seemed right but I knew that I couldn't make it without dropping someone, so I picked this one. And they're all alive, but it's like they switched with us, in a way, so your brother, Rose's mom, and Grampa and Nanna are all our ages, and I think that to them, we're the other family members," she attempted to explain. It was weird and complicated, but that was the best way to describe her knowledge that she could come up with.

"So... to him, I'm the older brother or something?" Dave asked.

"Yeah, I think so," she nodded against his chest, stifling a yawn.

Dave shook his head slowly, processing this information. "Holy shit," he slowly repeated after a few seconds. "Holy fucking shit."

Jade risked a glance up at him. He was still smiling, though he also seemed to be more thoughtful now. But at least he looked happy; that was what she was concerned with. They would sort out everything else later.

"So," he said after a few minutes. "What other weird shit is this universe going to throw at us?"

She considered for a second, idly tapping her fingers against his side in absent thought. "I don't really know. A lot of it is a lot like our old one, which sucks! There's still a Batterwitch, I know, and the cities are the same, and all that. Honestly, I think most stuff is the same..." she trailed off.

"Except our families aren't all fucking dead, huh?" he finished. "Space does some weird shit."

"Hey, you know a good bit of this is all your weird confusing timeline stuff!" she pointed out, closing her eyes. She was starting to feel pretty tired again... maybe she could just rest her head for a few minutes here.

"Yeah, true... hey! Are you going to sleep on me?"

"No," she mumbled drowsily. "You're warm and I'm tired, that's all."

"Told you you weren't going to stay awake until John and Rose get back," he said with a hint of smugness, tucking her head under his chin and stroking her short hair. "Go to sleep, Harley."

"Mhm," she sighed. Dave knew full well that playing with her hair was one of the easiest ways to soothe her, and this time was no exception. Since she was already as exhausted as she was, the repetitive, gentle motion was more enough to entice her to depart the waking world in favor of the realms of slumber.

She woke again a few hours later, groggy but not as fatigued or pained as she had been when she finally woke up from her two-day-long faint. Dave was still there, though he had relaxed his hold enough that her head was resting in his lap now rather than against his shoulder. But what had woken her was the fact that there were voices—

"Jade!" John scooped her up from Dave's lap out of the blue, eliciting a yelp of surprise from her, and hugged her tightly enough that she gasped. "Oh my god I'm so happy you're awake, you really worried me!"

"John, I think you're squishing her," Rose laughed, walking over to stand next to the two of them with her hands clasped in front of her as she watched their antics.

"Oh, oops. Sorry. But jeez, Jade!" her brother exclaimed.

"I didn't exactly mean to pass out for two days!" she laughed, ruffling his hair. "I'm glad to see you, too, though."

John grinned and hugged her again, more carefully this time, which her aching body appreciated, before he set her down. Rose immediately seized the chance to embrace her as well, and Jade smiled at her when she pulled back.

"So, what did you both do all day?" she asked.

Rose and John exchanged glances. "Well, for one thing, we found out some stuff that could be important. For example, some people are trying to overthrow the Batterwitch," John said.

"What?" Dave frowned.

"No one really knows who's behind it, from what we could glean, but their last attempt at a march ended in disaster. A lot of people died, and the organizers seemed to vanish. No one knows if they're alive or not. But apparently, two nights ago, some interesting graffiti appeared that suggested at least some of their supporters are still active," Rose reported.

"Interesting graffiti?" Jade cocked her head curiously, unceremoniously plopping down next to Dave again. Rose followed suit, while John pulled his legs up and sat on a puff of air just a little bit above the ground.

"Yes. 'I believe in the Shaded Prince and the Masked Maiden'—those were the pseudonyms of those leaders that went missing when their supporters were slaughtered—'and their spirits will never die.'" Rose quoted. "I wonder if we could find out who is in charge of this... I would like to meet them."

"And shake their hand pretty hard," John added. "It takes guts to do something like that!"

"Right, and it doesn't take guts to do what we've been doing for the past few years," Dave drawled.

"I didn't say that," John huffed. "Just that they must be pretty cool!"

"Boys, boys, do calm down," Rose interjected smoothly, seeming amused. "We also found that this Witch does not specifically hunt Time or Space mages."

"Wait, wait, wait," Jade interrupted. "You're saying 'this' Batterwitch. So you already know what I did, right?"

"We guessed," John shrugged. "Dave blabbered some stuff about alternate timelines and weird crap that I don't remember, but what we got from it was that this is a different universe. That's right, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Jade nodded, tugging him down from his slightly lofty perch so she could lean against his shoulder more comfortably. "There's a few differences, I don't know much about what they are, but... um... certain people are alive in this universe that weren't when we left the other one."

John gaped at her, incredulous. "Wait, what? You don't mean—you mean that—?"

"Not exactly," she said hastily. "There's some weird timeline stuff going on or whatever, so it's like temporally they were swapped with us. Or something like that. So Nanna and Grampa in this universe are the same age as you and me."

Looking over at Rose told her that the Light mage was bright-eyed, one hand covering her mouth to hide the gasp that probably had escaped. "So... my mother—well, she isn't my mother right now, I suppose—but she is alive and well?"

"Yeah," Jade said with a little smile. "I tried to bring us to a universe where our families weren't dead. But I didn't have the energy to get it totally right..." Ugh, just thinking about universe-jumping was reminding her how tired she was. As if not to let her forget about her ridiculous amounts of power, either, a sudden jolt of pain stabbed through her, and she let out a little choked gasp, curling in on herself defensively.

"Jade?!" John gathered her into his arms fretfully. Dave and Rose both moved forward, anxious expressions on their faces, but she shook her head and weakly waved them back.

"It's okay," she gasped. "I just... it hurts you know. Ow." But the pain was fading slowly, just having come and gone, and she slowly straightened again, though she could tell that she was trembling. Damn it all! How long was it going to be until she could even properly stand again? Her brain was working fine, but her body was so, so very drained... "Sorry, guys! I'm okay, don't worry."

They didn't look too convinced, but resumed the discussion.

"So you were saying she actually isn't trying to hunt down and kidnap us?" Jade prompted. "That's good, right?"

John and Rose exchanged glances. "Um... no, not really," her brother said. "She doesn't specifically hunt Space and Time. Here she goes for everyone."

"You have got to be kidding me," Dave muttered. "So no magic at all?"

"Nope," John affirmed. "She's got some kind of Mages' College in general, not just the Space and Time Academy."

"Fantastic," the Time mage said. "Don't go flying around all the time then. Keep your windy ass on the ground, Egbert."

"Yeah, yeah, I know! Jeez, Dave, give me a little credit here!" John laughed.

As they began to descend into friendly banter as they always did, Jade began to withdraw from the conversation. A wave of wooziness was coming over her, like it had earlier when she fell asleep on Dave, but she really didn't want to pass out again. Focusing all she could on staying awake, she completely tuned out from the exchange. "Um... guys? I don't... I don't feel so good," she was vaguely aware of saying, right before the ground seemed to heave and she lost all sense of balance, collapsing.

"Jade?" It was Rose's voice, she registered. But she was so, so tired... "Jade, listen to me. Do you hear me? Nod if you can, please." She said something else, to Dave or John, that Jade didn't catch. So tired... sleeping sounded wonderful right now... but because Rose had asked it of her, she gave the barest of nods before slumping again.

"Jade! Don't go to sleep just yet. Here, eat this," and something was being pressed to her lips. Weakly, she ate it, surprised to find that it was a piece of chocolate. "The sugar should give you a little boost. Come on, stay with me."

The sugar did indeed give her a little boost, and Jade found the strength to open her eyes. She had fallen against Rose, who was currently supporting her. "Did... did I faint?"

"Holy shit don't ever do that again," John begged, watching with wide eyes.

"Dave, pass me a banana, would you?" Rose asked, peeling the fruit once it was handed to her. "Here. You need more nourishment, too. Have you eaten anything all day?"

"Some bread," Jade managed, taking a bite of the banana. "Can I have water?"

John passed the waterskin over, squeezing his sister's limp hand. "Are you okay?"

"Just... really tired," she sighed. "I'll be fine." The overwhelming exhaustion was still hanging over her head, but she didn't want to sleep just yet. She wanted to hear what else John and Rose had discovered, wanted to stop feeling so ridiculously awful, wanted to not be lying there like an invalid! It was kind of infuriating. She didn't like it at all.

He looked unconvinced, and beside him Dave gave her his characteristic skeptical face, one eyebrow ever-so-lightly raised.

"I will be!" she insisted.

"She will be," Rose agreed, her long fingers gently stroking Jade's hair back from her face. "However, she is not fine right now. You should rest, Jade."

"Do I have to?" Jade sighed. "I don't want to, I just woke up..."

"We'll give you five minutes," John decided. "And no, you don't get to push your bedtime. And also no, no one is waking you up for watch, before you even consider asking as stupid a question as that."

"Well then, rude, John," she laughed weakly. "Okay, fine. Just tell me... what else did you guys do?"

"We walked around town and found out a bit about the culture. They have a legend about Lord English just like we did, but it's a little different in some ways. Something about a group of heroes rather than a singular knight. But the most important stuff for us seems to be this revolution. If we can get rid of the Empress, we won't have to live on the run like this!" John grinned.

"So our priority is finding out who's in charge now that their Prince and Maiden or whoever are gone, huh?" Dave said.

"I'm going to look for that tonight," Rose nodded. "Hopefully I will have an answer that we can use sometime soon."

"That would be nice," Jade smiled.

"Now, off to bed with you," John instructed. "Before you faint again. Please don't do that, that was terrifying."

"I didn't mean to..." she whined as he lifted her on the wind. It felt more than a little precarious, being supported by thin air, but she trusted that John wasn't about to drop her as he carried her to the tent and gently tucked her into the pile of blankets in the middle.

"Good night, Jade. And... thanks."

"For what?" she blinked sleepily.

"For giving us all a fresh start!" he replied, squeezing her hands. "Now go to sleep. You'll be better in the morning."

"Mmm, okay," she smiled as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Night, John."

"Good night, Jade."

The stars glimmered overhead as the four settled into their places for the night, pondering what this new world could bring to them.

AN: Fainting is not fun, by the way. It's a little terrifying, actually. And yes, bananas help. xD Also, because today is International Literacy Day (hence me pushing myself to get a chapter out), I'm taking short drabble requests! Send them in to my tumblr (adreamingsongbird . tumblr ask) if you'd like.

I'd also like to ask a few things of you guys! First, do you have any songs that you think fit this AU? I like "Vanilla Twilight" by Owl City and "Demons" by Imagine Dragons so far, as well as a few others. c: And second, does anyone have an idea for a general name for this AU so I don't have to keep saying "for this AU"? So far I've got either Prophecystuck or Revolutionstuck, but I'm very very very open to other suggestions. Thanks guys!

Pony - Yeah, she ran.

Snowy - Nope, definitely not one whit over the top. ;/ I mean, you obviously completely cracked any riddle I had for the prophecy with that one. Obviously. I'm glad it was exciting! I wanted it to be pretty climatic and all that. ...is that a challenge? How many ways can I make this extremely sad without killing anyone? What if I take that as a challenge?

Rouge - Hmm... you tell me, are the betas in the alpha world? ;D This chapter should have cleared that up! And yes Roxy baby c: I love her. She is so awesome.

LordBeannut - Oh my god I typed LordWalnut because I associate that with you now. Anyway no prob, trust me I understand school is busy 0_0 The alphas and betas haven't met yet, but they will eventually! c: Jade's not in a coma, thankfully, just pretty sick and tired from that whole universe-hopping thing she pulled. And Lord English's forces knew about Roxy thanks to Dirk, remember? (also I think you misread that part with AR, or I was unclear, sorry! Roxy said that she couldn't stay down there forever. Sorry for the misconception!)

Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! :D