Even after the world went silent and the heroes and villains met their end, the night sky was still absolutely breathtaking.

Up above the twisting violet clouds pulled apart from coalescence to reveal an indigo and cobalt canvas, spattered with shining silver lights. Only some of those lights were stars; many of them were the shattered remnants of the broken moon that had finally been scattered across the night. The light that was born from the fragments glittered like precious gems cut to shards, illuminating the world below.

Looking at them, it was impossible to tell if there had ever been a moon in the sky at all.

And soon, there would be no one left to to remember the moon that once was.

The only two who did laid in the ashes, gazing up. Bloodied and bruised, body and soul, but breathing. Breathing, still. Children no longer, innocence ripped away by the circumstances they had the misfortune of being born to.

A boy, a man, an unwilling inheritor of duty. He had destiny thrust upon him, with all its cruel claws and endless cries for more. Everything was demanded of him: his home, his blood, his will, his tears, his very soul. The next sacrifice of many expected to hold the line against unyielding, undying force.

A girl, a woman, forged into a warrior by the flames of total war. She only wanted to be a hero and was made to be a reaper. Because she was special, because she was able, because she was unable to harden her heart and deny the world her suffering. She fought for mankind's salvation, and was gifted their inevitable demise.

Between them they were missing an arm, an eye, their most cherished ideals, and every loved one they had fought so hard to protect. All of it, in exchange for what amounted to an eternal ceasefire.

Because once the war of scorched earth and attrition came to a close, there were no victors, only the ones who would lose last.

So the last losers did the only thing they could; they held hands and looked up at the sky; they cried bitter, bloody tears and grieved with broken souls. They begged the shattered moon to affirm they made the right choices up to this point.

But like the gods, the moon would not answer, and the two were abandoned to the solitude of the empty world.

It had been seven days since they had defeated Salem.

A sentence that would have once inspired hope and joy: Ruby Rose and Oscar Pine, the victors, the survivors, felt nothing but hollow. There was nothing to celebrate. How could they when the witch took the whole world with her as she fell?

In the last decade, as the secret war had turned to unmitigated bloody chaos, the land of Remnant had slowly been decimated to the point of becoming completely inhabitable. Not only did the people fear the Grimm, but they also were forced to compete for treasured resources. It was incredibly difficult to mount a proper defense when no one was properly fed, and there wasn't enough dust to heat their homes in the winter. And of course, the surge of negative emotions only made the Grimm scourge so much worse.

The kingdoms had fallen one by one, and the measly encampments of the survivors hadn't been far behind. People grew to distrust one another and turned towards ripping out their neighbors' throats to survive. It was exactly what Salem had wanted.

Yet their ragtag team fought to the bitter end. They had somehow managed to achieve tiny footholds and cling to life long enough to chip away at Salem's arms. But every inch they gained cost a mile of blood.

And at the end of it all, Ruby and Oscar were the last two left to live in the epilogue.

They limped their way through land of Darkness, using each other as a crutch. Over the sharp, arid earth, amidst the silence and the cold, they held onto one another like a lifeline. They didn't talk much anymore, not while they were moving. That took too much energy, the most they could manage were small squeezes of confirmation. Those were enough to communicate the will to go on.

There was no particular direction or destination in mind, just the determination to get as far away from Salem's body as possible.

So they did the only thing they could do anymore, and they walked. How much longer they could keep going was anyone's guess.

"Ruby? What should we do now?"

Oscar's voice sounded like sandpaper, dry and scratchy. The two of them had run out of water two days ago, so they had to rely on less pleasant methods to stay alive. Ruby still couldn't decide whether the cloying taste of ammonia or the perpetual layer of dust on her tongue was worse. "We get out of here, find survivors."

"Ruby… I think we both know there aren't any."

The two of them were laying down for the night. They took shelter in the hollow of a rock formation that shielded them from the worst of the winds, huddled together under the crusted fabric of her precious cloak. The dried blood and crusty mud made it scratchy on her skin, but it was still a comfort. She knew she would never get the chance to wash it again.

"Ruby?" Oscar's head was on her shoulder. She could feel his hair tickle her cheek, the warmth of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was grounding. "I had an idea, but I'm not sure it's a good one yet."

"Don't doubt yourself, you have a lot of good ideas."

A humorless chuckle vibrated along her shoulder blade. "Maybe, I'm not so sure about this one."

The silence ticked past between them, backdropped by the peeling howls of the wind. She waited for him to explain.

Oscar's left hand, his only hand now, hovered over the Relic of Creation. One of the two artifacts they had in their possession, it's soft blue glow illuminated the walls around them. In its light Ruby could see the pensive frown on Oscar's face. His eyes looked so tired. "I want to sleep on it one more night."

"Way to leave me in suspense, you're so dramatic."

"Ha ha," he nuzzled into her side, she returned the gesture. Being touchy-feely like this was one of the last comforts they had left. "Are you…"

He trailed off. "Am I what?"

"Are you satisfied with how it ended?"

She stopped breathing for a few seconds, only noticed it once her lungs began to ache. "This isn't a story book, it never was, technically there are no endings."

"But we will end. Soon, probably. Are you content with stopping here? Do you think it's finally time to rest?" His voice was a low whisper.

"Oscar…" She put an arm over his shoulder and buried her nose in his hair. "The war is over," she couldn't bring herself to say that they won. "The outcome might not be the greatest, but I'm relieved. We don't have to fight anymore."

"If you could go back and do it again, would you?"

"Could I change things?" Oscar nodded slightly under her chin. "Then… I might have to sleep on that too."

Oscar hummed lightly and said nothing else. A few minutes later she felt the tension in his shoulders slacken, and his breathing slowed to a crawl. Asleep.

She almost smiled. Instead she matched her breathing to his and let exhaustion claim her too.

There was no plan. For most of the past 4000 years, there never was a plan. Only stall until the inevitable and then to make the inevitable as troublesome for Salem as possible. That was the reality Oscar had come into when his journey into hell began.

And maybe he was too naive or optimistic, but Oscar hadn't wanted to accept that. As soon as the depressing, horrifying reality came to light, he found himself trying to plan a way out of the end. Countless ideas and strategies thrown at the issue, very few of them proved to be fruitful. The ones that were often bore fruits he had no desire to partake in, but sometimes he was faced with no option other than to starve.

So Oscar ate the fruit, he kept making plans until the promised ending became the ending narrowly avoided. With his meager skill to strategize, along with the talents and assistance of many others, he and his friends had come out the victors by default, and he survived. He survived.

The endgame had come and passed, and now that he was unexpectedly still alive he had no idea what to do. The millenia old grudge match was finally over, and he was starting to realize he had never considered what came next. Oz was gone, or at least his voice. All his memories were left behind, the tangled and convoluted mess that they were, but his spirit felt far beyond Oscar's reach. After what had happened, he entertained no notions that he'd ever be hearing from him again.

That… made him feel terribly lonely. He felt loss. For a teacher, a brother, a father: he wasn't sure but it hurt. Oscar had a hard time remembering what his head felt like without the old ghost haunting it, and didn't appreciate the feeling after being reminded. Except this time was so much worse than the half of year of silence when he was a teenager. Expected, definitely. Maybe poetic even, or logical, but it still hurt.

The only thing that made it bearable was that he wasn't alone. He had Ruby. She was always his pillar, his rock in the storm, but she was shutting down in the aftermath and now he was terrified he'd lose her too. He could see it when she'd drift off while they were talking, or how her body would be wracked with tearless sobs while she slept.

Ruby was about three steps away from catatonia and there was no way to fix that before they died of starvation or dehydration or exposure. It was a reality somehow more gut wrenching than Salem, and Oscar had never felt more useless.

So, maybe out of habit, Oscar tried to plan against the inevitable. One night when Ruby had fallen asleep first, he reached for the Relic of Choice.

The Relic of Choice and the Relic of Creation were the only two relics they had left with them. The Relic of Knowledge, after the final question had been used, was buried in an unmarked plot somewhere in the frozen tundra of Solitas. As for the Relic of Destruction… A sharp phantom pain stabbed Oscar's right shoulder at the memory of what had become of it.

But the Relic of Choice had been almost as painful to hold. Touching it incited memories to claw to the surface of his mind: the ones made by one of Oz's past incarnations, the king of Vale, Phadrig. In that life he had seen visions of the future so terrible he had been too scared to touch the relic ever again. Phadrig had built great locked doors, walls taller and and a pit deeper than any of the other relic chambers, all to seal it away. Whether he was hiding the crown from Salem or hiding himself from its visions was unclear.

Oscar had thought about that while he gingerly held the golden relic, keenly felt the fear that had gripped Phadrig before him, and placed the crown on his head without hesitation.

And he saw-

He saw…

Tears would have streamed down his face if his body had water to give. Instead his eyes burned as he slowly removed the relic. He was shown what he needed; he had enough to make a plan. That night Oscar delved deep into Ozma's memories, searching for the way to make the vision reality.

He found it: held the knowledge in his hands. It was staggeringly heavy. He could understand how Phadrig could be paralyzed by it, because it forced him to confront a choice that could change everything. So Oscar dwelled on his revelation in silence, because speaking it would make the desire and all its consequences take shape.

He weighed the decision of whether or not to make what he saw a reality, and when he couldn't find an answer within himself he wondered what Ruby would think. So in the morning, after his final night of agonizing by himself, he told her his idea.

"Time travel?"

"Time travel."

Ruby's one silver eye was wide in honest surprise. She blinked a few times with the most bewildered expression; it was certainly a change compared to the exhaustion and depression that normally wore on her face. Her mouth opened and quickly shut, brows furrowing. "Time travel?"

He felt his face burn in embarrassment, as if the idea was really ridiculous. Well, it was, but still. It would have been comedic if they weren't living in the literal apocalypse. "Right, time travel."

"But how would that work?"

"Well, with magic. The old kind, from the first age of humanity. When magic was prevalent there were all sorts of spells, and a few of them allowed the manipulation of time," Oscar explained.

"But if people back then could travel through time then why…?"

"If you want to ask the famous question, 'how come nobody's ever seen any time travelers,' there are a few reasons."

The two of them were sitting, propped up against the bottom of a sheer cliffside. It was morning, but they still couldn't see the sun. The only way they could tell it was during the day was by the way the sky turned bloody red instead of violet. Ruby had her knees curled to her chest and tucked under her chin, listening intently to what he had to say.

"The biggest reason is, as far as I can tell, there were no spells for moving forward in time. As for the ones moving backwards, the feasible ones could only go back a few seconds to a minute." Habitually Oscar slipped into Ozpin's 'teacher mode.' "Magic that's capable of going back larger jumps of time requires huge amounts of energy."

"Then, how would it be possible? For us?"

"Well, while between the two of us we are currently in possession of all the known magic in the world, you're right for thinking that it's not enough. People in the age of the gods could produce significantly more magic than we can and still not have enough to leap through time. But we," He held up the Relic of Creation. "Have this."

He could see it dawn upon Ruby as her mouth opened a little. She whispered, "Unlimited energy…"

"Exactly. With this, I'm almost positive we could perform the spell."

Ruby frowned. "So if we did this, how would it work? Is it like, our adult minds end up in our younger bodies, or do we jump through a portal and just show up in the past?"

"The latter would be best, since by the time the beginning of the end rolled around we were still too young. I think I was around 13?"

"I was 15, so yeah."

Oscar nodded in agreement. "It would be better if we could go back as we are, with the skills and abilities we spent years perfecting. Plus, it would be easier to move around as adults." He set the staff down on his lap so he could scratch the back of his head. "That's technically harder to pull off because the energy demands are even more exorbitant than possession of the past self, but again, energy is not a problem."

"So are we working with closed loop time travel or branching timelines? Dynamic or fixed? Would we have to worry about disappearing as soon as we change anything?"

"I think you might know more about this than I do…" He mumbled, startled by the sudden flow of questions. She was taking it rather well, Oscar thought. Then again, he remembered some of the comic books she'd made him read in the early days of their quest, it fit. "It should create a new timeline, if I understand it correctly.

"The technical aspect will work, I'm almost certain we would have no problems with that part. What I want to know is how you feel about the idea." Oscar crossed his legs beneath him. "I know we can get there, but if we went, do you have enough left in you to keep fighting?"

Ruby's whole body stiffened. For a moment she was very still, and her expression was blank. After a few seconds she rested her head on her knees and heaved a heavy sigh. She seemed very deep in thought.

"It would be exhausting," Oscar continued. His voice became a quivering whisper as his emotions began to leak past his calm facade. "It would be a second chance, but it also means completely wiping the slate. Every loss, every victory- it would be like it never happened. We'd have our knowledge and our memories, but going back means running the race again. It means-"

"Stopping Salem, again." Ruby sharply inhaled. "Reliving the nightmare all over again."

"Could you do it?"

"Could you?"

Oscar looked to his feet. "Not by myself. I'm not strong enough for that," he answered honestly, feeling an acute flash of shame.

Beside him he felt Ruby curl in on herself. "There's no guarantee that we could succeed again. If we go back, if we failed, then in the end Salem could win anyway. All of it, Yang, Weiss, Blake, JNPR, Uncle Qrow- they'd have died for nothing. All of the sacrifices made to get to this point could become meaningless. It shouldn't be worth the risk, but-but-

"How come I want to go anyway?" Her face was twisted up in anguish and desperation, like a knife had been driven through her heart. She sounded like I was in terrible pain.

Oscar swallowed a lump in his throat. "Hope. That's probably because you still have hope." Ruby shook with soundless sobs, and suddenly he was shaking too and they were holding onto one another for dear life.

"Am I selfish for wanting more?" She mumbled into his chest.

"No."

"I want the happy ending."

"Me too."

"Then, should we-?"

Oscar pulled away to meet her gaze. "There's no going back, no do-overs. You were right when you said this could fail, that it all would have been for nothing. Do you think we can do it all again?"

She said nothing for a while, only stared back at him. Then Ruby's hands wrapped around his. "We can," she choked out. "We can do better."

A breath that Oscar had been holding for days finally escaped him. He held Ruby's hand to his lips and kissed it. Even after all this time, her tenacity and perseverance awed him. A warm feeling spread throughout him, he was so relieved. "Then, shall we get started?"

They helped each other to their feet. Shaky as they were, there was a new sense of anticipation charging the air between them. Oscar began to explain how they would pull off the miracle to change their fate, as they continued to keep moving forward.

The smallest spark of hope is enough to call the broken and the weary to join the fight once again. It lights a fire within them; creates the light needed to chase away the nightmares so that dreams may grow and blossom. Through its power mankind has found the strength to get up again and again, even as the cruel world tries to beat it back into the dark void.

So even in the ruined world, when all else has been lost, the only two left could cling to the embers within and set themselves ablaze once more. For the sake of the light at the end of the tunnel, they could walk through their darkest night a second time. Even with all their doubts and fears, they could still believe that their end was meant to be a better one.

Because while there may be no victory in strength, there would be no loss in perseverance. They would decide where the story ended.

WC: 3406

A/N: Wooooo look at me back on my bullshit. I have no self control.

Anyway, here's the latest idea that's possessed me: Rosegarden Time Travel Fix-it, featuring adult Ruby and Oscar (they're 28 and 26 by the way, couldn't fit that in there). Blame Lost Parallax by Nunonon for being so amazing and giving me an insatiable addiction to Oscar time travel fics (go read it right now if you haven't already it's stupid amazing good).

A few notes: If they seem too touchy feely it's probably because I'm touch-starved and projecting to cope, whoops. Also, I have a habit of being super melodramatic when I write. Normally I trim it back a bit more in the editing phase, but I think the literal apocalypse warrants some heavy angst. I'm never sure whether I'm going over the top with it or not, and staring at the same text all day doesn't really help my judgement of that. It's something I struggle with so I'd really appreciate it if you let me know your thoughts on the tone of the story. I promise that it will get lighter from here, this is the lowest point (well maybe not but it's definitely down there.)

I don't have a beta. I never have had a dedicated one, but I'd really like one for this story. I only need minor proofreading. If you're interested in hashing out fine details, judging pacing, and making sure I keep the plot holes down to the minimum please send me a message.

That's about it. I have the next 7ish chapters outlined, but my semester starts tomorrow so we'll see how quickly I get it written. I do have the ending planned, so I'm pretty determined to finish this. Please let me know what you think in a review, it'll increase my motivation to work on this.

Buh-bye,

Iggy