Part 1 - Fires of Revolution

Chapter 30 - Forgiven

Coughing was what woke Miles, or was it Miles waking which caused the coughing? He didn't know; he just knew it was him doing it. A hand held his head to the pillow as he tried to sit up.

"Hey, relax." The person...a girl...said.

Miles put his head down again and opened his eyes. Gwen smiled weakly, then turned away awkwardly. Before she turned, Miles noticed tear stains on her cheeks. Considering she hadn't killed him yet, he assumed the medical team had managed to fix her up. He was in the medical room in headquarters, so that was another good sign, unless it meant she had taken over.

"How are you awake before me?"

She turned back to him.

"Broken ribs, punctured lung. Even if you can heal quickly there's not much point in doing so when you have a bone keeping the hole wide open. I've no idea how you took me out like that."

"I didn't even notice any injuries until I passed out. What happened to you?"

"Couple of cracked ribs, broken arm, minor skull fracture, a severe concussion, a heavy conscience, and probably a broken heart. If you're going to knock someone out, just hit them in the head next time."

"How long have I been out?"

"I'm not sure. I've been awake for a day."

"So probably not long."

Gwen's expression darkened and she looked away again. Miles could hear her crying. She tried to wipe the tears away, then turned to him again, gave him another smile and left. She was broken inside, that much was obvious. The door hissed open again and Edward entered. His arm was in a sling. He sat down in the chair Gwen had been sitting in and took a deep breath.

"She's torn apart, just like anyone would be when they caused the genocide of the human race in a dimension. That and she thinks you hate her."

"I don't hate her. I hate the Plate and what it turned her into." Miles replied, sitting up painfully.

"You had a punctured lung. One of your ribs broke and lodged itself in it. The medics did an operation on you to get it back in position, then kept you sedated for a couple of days while you recovered."

"What about her?"

"As I said, torn apart. Medics operated on her. Found some sort of magenta gloop all around her brain and nervous system. Her DNA was a bit different from how it was before she merged, but nothing drastic. They got the gloopy stuff out and are keeping an eye on her. She hasn't displayed any sign of having any powers, so that's a positive."

"And you?"

"Reaper latched onto the Resurgence and tried to tear it apart. I got hit in the arm with a falling metal panel. The ship is totalled, but I'm not. I'll live, at least that's what the doctor says."

Miles grinned and sighed, lying down again. Edward kept talking.

"We won. As far as we know there's nobody else out there with an Ethereal Plate. Those that we have are to be taken to a vault in the core of the Quintari home world where nobody will ever get them, along with the few fragments we collected."

"I'm not worried about the Plates. It's Gwen. I have to talk to her."

"Err...I'm not sure the doctor will approve."

Miles pulled his covers off and stood up, clutching his ribs. Edward stood up with him and escorted him to his quarters.

Miles entered alone. Gwen was lying with her face buried in her pillow, her body shaking as she sobbed. He sat on the edge of the mattress and put his hand on her shoulder. She tried to shake it off but he persisted. She rolled over.

"How can you still look at me after everything I've done?"

"Because it wasn't you that did it. It was that Plate."

"I tried to kill you!"

"It tried to kill me, Gwen. You weren't in control of yourself."

"But I'll face their judgement. I have to. I destroyed everything I knew."

"Not everything, you still have me."

"You hate me. I tried to kill you with the sharpest knife in the multiverse."

"I hate the thing which possessed you, some sort of 'gloop' is what Edward said. I still love you, Gwen."

She hugged him gently, being careful not to crush his still fragile ribs. Her own arm hurt a lot but was almost healed.

"Galadriel's prediction came true. It was the thought of that child that helped me fight it the most."

"I couldn't have defeated it without you."

Miles pressed his lips to hers.

They kissed for nearly five minutes until Gwen pulled away.

"I guess this means we're together again?"

"Of course. I love you."

They were about to keep going when the door beeped. They shuffled apart a little.

"Come in."

Edward stood outside.

"I hate to interrupt, but I thought I'd let you know the resistance is disbanding. The High Council just had a quick conversation."

Gwen rolled her eyes and started kissing Miles again. Edward raised his eyebrows.

"Right then...I'll just..."

He left again, blushing a little.

"I guess they need their time." He mused.

After the disbanding of the resistance, Miles and Gwen decided to move in together in a flat in Miles' dimension. The police had asked a lot of questions when they returned, but had eventually decided to leave them alone. Miles had his work cut out trying to sort his parents' wills and getting the house up for sale. In the meantime, Gwen had managed to get a job between helping Miles and dealing with a number of mental health problems. She also discovered that one of the small tweaks in her DNA allowed her to stay in different dimensions without glitching. Despite everything, both made sure to find time to do what they did best: saving people from much more normal threats. It was good to be home and not have to worry about an Ethereal Plate coming to haunt them.

Two months after the disbanding, the pair swung through the streets of New York. They landed on top of a building to catch their breath and watched the yellow taxis roll by far below. Suddenly, the evening sky lit up in a dazzling display of dimensional warp bubbles.

"Oh no..." Sighed Gwen, certain that this could only mean something bad.

However, instead of a menacing temporal threat emerging, a sleek white ship appeared. The SGC insignia was clearly visible on its hull, along with some heavy artillery guns mounted on turrets which reminded Miles of a battleship. He read the name: SGC Valour. A beam of energy appeared on the roof next to them. They stood up to meet the gaze of Edward. He smiled at them.

"Sorry for the light show. We haven't got the watch things you two have...or had." He said, noticing the lack of the dimensional watch on Gwen's wrist.

"How are you doing?" Asked Miles, doing his mock salute.

"Not bad. New SGC flagship," He nodded up at the Valour and smirked at the salute, "my arm isn't broken anymore, I got a girlfriend. Life's good. I decided to drop by to see how you're both doing, and to give you both something. A gift from Stanley and Lisa."

"Oh?"

"Come on up. Valour, three for transfer."

Edward took them to a room. Inside stood two new spider suits. The spiders had returned to their old suits, not wanting to have to wear those which could wield the Ethereal Plates since they brought back so many memories. The new ones had identical patterns, just in their corresponding colour schemes: Miles' in black, red and a touch of gold around the hands, Gwen's sporting her black, white, magenta and touch of teal.

"Programmable matter on both. Gwen, yours has what we call phase shielding. It turns any high speed projectile to dust. Miles, yours has your venom webs, and is designed to mask your heat signature when you turn invisible. In addition, both have built-in dimensional warp capabilities, courtesy of the Quintari since, as I say, we don't have the miniaturised version at Sol."

Edward's visit was brief, since he had many things to do. The spiders wore their new suits with pride from then on, remembering the friends they made along the way. Nearly a year after the war, Miles proposed to Gwen on top of the Empire State Building. She said yes, just as she always would have, even before the war if they hadn't been slightly too young then.

"I guess we just have to stay clear of that alternate world where I said no." Joked Gwen, recalling Conall's explanation of the multiverse.

She realised now there were a lot of things he had explained which didn't quite add up, but the multiverse was a complex system and Conall had only ruled for a few thousand years of its nearly a hundred billion year old life. That being said, even the Quintari didn't have all the answer. There was still a lot to be discovered, many battles to be fought. She simply prayed they would stay away a little while longer.

Note

This is the final chapter of part one. I hope you're enjoying the story so far. But if you got all the way here you deserve a gold medal.
So what will the next battle be? Where will it lead? Well...you'll have to read part two to find out.

Crossovers in this Chapter

There weren't any.