Of course she'd thought about staying. Who wouldn't?
Mira and Nebula had led the relief effort, spending several weeks in the alternate universe helping their counterparts repair their space station and coordinating the distribution of supplies to their own universe. It had been weird at first. And not just seeing Rangers in green or that tiny XR or even forcing herself to be around Buzz Lightyear and accepting that this version did not deserve to be set and fire while his beating heart was ripped from of his chest.
The thing she really couldn't get used to was looking into her own eyes and seeing such innocence.
To an outsider, she supposed she and her alternate self looked nearly identical. But she knew far more set them apart than just their contrasting uniforms. Mira—the other Mira—was every bit the princess she insisted she wasn't. Naive, spoiled, used to getting her own way. Soft. Kind...
She'd been like that once.
It was a few days into the mission, sitting in the partially-reconstructed cafeteria after a long shift, when the commander had brought it up. "So, you gonna go, Nova?" he'd grunted.
It had startled her, and she'd clenched her glass tightly. "What?"
"You know. To see him."
Mira had said nothing.
"You'll never get another chance." Nebula left it at that—they'd known each other long enough not to need many words. She liked that about him. He was always there, but he never pushed. He'd saved her life in more ways than one when he and his Rangers showed up to help the survivors on Tangea.
She spent the next week thinking about it, or rather trying not to. She knew the commander was right. He usually was. But there was only so much she could face, especially now that the man she'd spent her entire adult life hunting down was apparently dead and she couldn't wall off all her emotions behind that hatred any longer. She'd existed to kill him, and that had been strangely comforting. Now she had to think about the rest of her life.
Then she'd made the mistake of knocking on her other self's door one night, just to ask her a question about the work they'd be doing the next day. It should only have taken a couple of minutes. But as they were talking in the cramped Star Command living quarters, her eyes had fallen on a picture perched crookedly on the edge of the dresser. Her throat went dry and her voice dropped off abruptly.
The other Mira frowned, then she followed her gaze. "Oh," she said. "I, uh, I'm sorry, I-I should've thought..." She tugged at a lock of hair.
Mira remembered doing that as a kid when she was in trouble. It bugged her now to see this woman do it, to hear her stupid stuttering. For a moment she hated her, or she wanted to. Mostly she just wanted not to cry in front of her.
"We can, um, we can... we can go see him, if you, uh, you know, want."
And so finally she did. Although, in the end, he came to her. The thought of seeing her home again, as she remembered it, was one agony too many. But to her surprise, he'd readily agreed to meet her on the station.
"Daddy's... well, he's mellowed a lot," the other Mira had giggled nervously. "Maybe one day I'll even get him to come with me to the Star Command family picnic."
She'd said nothing, because she knew the other woman didn't mean for her words to sting.
They met him in the docking bay, and she'd gasped, just a little, when she saw the royal shuttle. It was pink instead of green—she'd come to expect such inconsistencies here—but she'd have known it anywhere. She remembered flying with him across the planet whenever he had important business to attend to in other parts of the kingdom. The royal guard always tried assign him one of their pilots, but he would insist on flying the ship himself. Once, when she was twelve, he'd even let her take the controls briefly. A smile quivered across her lips.
She barely dared to breathe as a figure stepped through the hull, bathed in a shimmering blue glow. A cane clinked on the metal walkway. There he was.
One look at his face, that strong nose and perpetually raised eyebrow and especially those little wrinkles around the corners of his eyes that always deepened when he smiled, and it was as if the last four years had been nothing more than a bad dream. Every detail she'd forgotten came flooding back. "Father..."
He stepped forward, first embracing his own daughter in a hug, then turning to her, his smile sad. "Mira?"
"D-Daddy?" Blast, she'd sworn she wouldn't cry.
"Oh, child." And suddenly his arms were around her, just the way she remembered, the way she'd ached for for so long. "Oh, Mira."
She buried her face in the rich green fabric of his coat, clinging to him. She never wanted to let go. "Daddy," she gulped. "Oh, Daddy, I missed you..."
"I know, my child." He stroked her hair. "It's all right."
There was so much she wanted to say to him. Where to begin? She'd thought of something new almost every day since... since...
"It's all right," he repeated.
She didn't fight the tears any longer. "I love you, Father," she whispered.
Cupping her chin in his hand, he pressed his lips gently to her forehead. "I love you, Mira."
They had spoken for a time after that. Mira—the other one—had given them some space to be alone, and she poured her heart out for the first time in so very long. And he had listened. He didn't yell, didn't try to tell her she was wrong about anything, didn't insist on what she should or shouldn't be doing with her life. It was the sort of conversation she'd always dreamed of having with him. Perhaps he really had mellowed. Her heart ached with jealousy all the more, and she wondered just how much Lightyear had robbed her of.
It was difficult to say goodbye when the moment finally came. King Nova told her she was welcome to see him on Tangea any time before she returned to her universe, and she had nodded, promising to think about it, and they'd hugged one last time. She did think about it. She thought very hard.
Star Command could get by without her, right? Lightyear was dead. Half the reason she'd joined had been to get a shot at him. What was left for her there now?
But here... here she had another chance. Oh, it might be awkward at first—what would the other Mira think of sharing a father?—but she'd get used to it. In time it could be home. Maybe eventually she'd even get used to Buzz Lightyear being a good guy. It was everything she'd ever wanted. There was just one nagging little problem.
The man she had met with wasn't her father.
He was close—close enough to pretend, close enough no one else would notice. But she did. There was a hint of it, in the way he laughed, the way he spoke, even the way he walked. It was like seeing his reflection. Almost the real thing, but not quite.
No matter how much she wished it weren't true, her father had died four years ago and she would never get him back.
She spent more than a few nights crying after she made her choice. It wasn't fair—just once she would've liked to take the easy way out. But then she wouldn't be the woman her father had raised, would she? Or the Ranger Nebula had trained. And her universe still needed Rangers, even with Lightyear gone.
When the last of the supplies were loaded and ready, she found herself at peace. She said her goodbyes to King Nova over the comm line, words she wished she could have said to her own father, and then she bid farewell to everyone else on the landing pad. Somehow, she even found it in herself to salute Buzz before she left, and she meant it too. Who'd have seen that one coming? Maybe her father wasn't the only one who could mellow.
Of course, once they crossed the threshold back into her universe, a wave of emotions collapsed over her, regret and anxiety and grief and a million other feelings. It only worsened as she watched the portal seal up behind her—forever, probably. She was alone again.
The Munchapper kid had been standing beside her, and though they exchanged no words, he placed a large hand on her shoulder. They'd been working together over the past few weeks, and she realised she'd sort of grown to like the guy. She'd never asked him about his family, but she knew the situation on Jo-Ad had been bad, and she wondered if any of them were still alive. Had he gone to see them in the alternate universe too? Maybe she should have talked with him more.
She offered him one of her rare smiles, and he smiled back. It was nice.
The next few months after that had been busy ones. The galaxy barely had time to breath a collective sigh of relief over Lightyear's demise before it was time to start rebuilding. The last vestiges of the Galactic Senate were finally able to emerge from hiding to try to bring order to the fractured governments and worlds Lightyear had left in his wake. It would take years, perhaps decades before the Alliance was restored to something resembling its former glory, but finally there was hope.
It was only after the initial chaos had died down that Mira requested a leave of absence. Nebula had been happy to grant it. "You should talk to the senate now that you've got some time," he told her. "They've been trying to get a hold of you."
"I know." And she knew why too. It was something that had been a moot point for four years, but now she had to think about it.
The talk with the senate had gone surprisingly well. The new president, Hammerhold, had listened as she outlined her plans and agreed to mediate on her behalf with the other party. Shortly afterwards, to her surprise, she was informed that they had agreed.
And so, here she was, on her way to Tangea. It would be her first visit since the Rangers had arrived and rescued her from the rubble of the burning palace. Her throat grew tighter and tighter as they neared the planet. In her mind, when she thought back to her home, she still saw glistening towers and vast, unblemished jungle stretching out to the horizon. She wasn't sure what she would see now.
For a moment she wished once again that she had stayed in the alternate universe. She could've lived there, in that palace with her father, and it would be just like she remembered.
As the ship descended through the atmosphere, she got her first glimpse of home. Jagged purple mountains reached upwards, surrounded by lush blues and greens. But here and there, large blackened patches appeared, only a faint smattering of flora beginning to reclaim the scorched ground. She tried to block out the sound of plasma cannon fire that echoed in her ears. She remembered rushing to the balcony and gaping as hell rained down on the kingdom without warning in the black of night. It hadn't seemed real.
She was grateful the ship didn't pass over the site of royal palace. She wasn't sure if the wreckage still lay in the valley, but she recalled all too well how it had looked as she stared out the star cruiser's viewport, leaving everything she'd ever known behind in flaming ruins.
Their destination was on the other side of the continent, however. It was the largest surface-level settlement on the planet, and hadn't been reduced to rubble like the floating cities had. This was a Grounder city.
Mira had never visited it before. She'd seen the shabby little villages in the jungle outskirts around the palace, and assumed it would be something similar, if slightly larger. When she stepped out the hatch, her eyebrows rose at the sight of sturdy brick buildings extending as far as the eye could see, and a multitude of people milling about the dusty streets. Most astonishingly, many of the people were Royals, or Bluebloods as the Grounders called them. There was a hint of unease to some of them as they mingled with the Boomers, but most seemed to have accepted this co-existence. She wondered what her father would've made of it.
"Princess Mira. We've been expecting you." A grey-haired Royal crossed the landing pad and bowed. "I'm Chancellor Parallax. Well, acting chancellor, of course. A pleasure to finally meet you."
She nodded. "Don't worry, I'm sure we can make that title more official. I hear you led the refugee integration. Looks like you did a good job."
"I am honoured, Your Highness. Though I suppose I must give credit where it is due. We couldn't have done any of this without the Grounders' cooperation."
"That must have taken some convincing."
"A bit," he admitted, "but they suffered losses too in the bombardment. It wasn't the time for division."
She wondered how much she had missed while she'd pursued her personal quest for vengeance. She didn't regret joining the Rangers, but perhaps she could have tried to go home once in a while. "I'll have to thank them," she said.
"Come, I'll take you to their representative. He's the one you'll be dealing with, and we owe much of our success to him."
The chancellor led her out the starport and through the streets towards one of the larger stone towers looming over the city. As they walked, several blue faces turned in their direction. People stopped what they were doing and the hubbub dropped to a whisper.
"Is that the princess?" Mira heard someone say.
She hurried on, uncomfortably aware of all the eyes on her. She had been away so long. What did the people think of her? What did she want them to think?
Inside the building, they were greeted by several guards, both Royal and Grounder. The Royals bowed and took up their places alongside her. She would have to get used to this.
"Ranger Nova." A tall Grounder stood before her, smiling. He was younger than she had expected, and his voiced lacked the thick accent Mira associated with his people. "Er, Princess Mira. Sorry. Your reputation with the Corps precedes you."
"Ranger Nova is fine. Or just Mira." She held out a hand. "I'm probably going to be sick to death of formalities by the time all this is through."
"Mm. Wouldn't be surprised," he chuckled. He shook her hand. "Romac, official representative of the Tangean Grounders. How I got talked into that one I still don't know."
"Good to, uh, to meet you." Why was she tripping over her words? "Thank you for everything you and your people have done."
He grinned, and it seemed to light up the whole room. "Glad we could help. Us survivors have to stick together, you know."
Mira nodded. "And I just want, um, you to know that I'm not... I'm not here to get in the way of that. Just because I wanna rebuild doesn't mean our peoples' new-found unity has to end. I want us to move forward together."
"That'll disappoint a few of the old Royals, I bet," said Romac. "They've been waiting for their new queen to swoop in and put everything back the way it was."
She raised an eyebrow. "And I bet some of the Grounders would love for us to shut ourselves away in our palaces again and leave them alone." Her chuckle faded as she thought about what he had said. New queen.
There was no getting around it any longer, was there?
"So, Romac, Chancellor," Mira sat down at a table at the far end of the room. "Let's talk. I'd like to hammer out some of the details of the restoration efforts before we have to get into this stupid... coronation thing. Speaking of which, don't worry about me stealing your job, Chancellor. I'm not ready to do this full time yet. I'll check in regularly, but I'm leaving the day to day stuff to you. Star Command still needs all the Rangers it can get."
And so the two Royals and the Grounder sat together and began discussing Tangea's future, now that the galaxy was free of its tyrant. Cities would be rebuilt, refugees that were off-planet would be brought home, and they would recover from the devastation that had been wrought on their world. "We can build a new life for ourselves," said Mira. "A better one, if we work together."
Things would never go back to the way they were. But, she reflected, gazing out at her world from the window, that didn't have to be a bad thing.
She was glad to be home.
A/N: This is based on a fic I wrote in... probably 2012? The original focused specifically on AU!Mira meeting King Nova, and while I never got around to publishing it, I always liked the idea, so I decided to revisit it.
Hope you enjoyed it!