Nightfall knew that infiltrating the Galaxy One was a piece of cake by that point. That wasn't to say that there was no challenge in doing it whatsoever. She still had to get past the SAMES and find Mooncake, but she knew what to do, and any sorts of variables that came up were easy to solve anyways. Once she reached Mooncake and put what she needed into KVN, she continued to hope that this time – for once and the last time, it would all work out. It had to…for Gary.
Longer than anyone would think, Quinn knew Gary. She knew him since the first time she met him in front of a Manhattan bar. The kindness, the humor, the humanity he had given to her gave her a new purpose to include in the life of defending the galaxy and complex equations she set up for herself long ago. As she got to know Gary more and more, everything else suddenly became that much dearer to her alongside him…which was what made the losses so much worse when they happened. It was all a matter of when. There was no stopping it. First, it was the Earth. Then, Gary followed right after.
But she couldn't stop. There was no stopping. Even if there was, she didn't want to, not after seizing the biggest opportunity she could get from the enigmatic titan Bolo. She didn't know who this Bolo really is, what he really is, where he really came from, or why he'd talk to her of all people. But was there anyone left for her to trust anymore? One thing was for certain though. The one chance she gets after years upon years of trying to build herself back up from what had been torn from her core, her very being, she knows it's likely the only one she's got and will ever have. There was no going back to the Quinn she thought she'd be forever.
Once Quinn figured out the existence of multiple universes and timelines, it was a definitive one-way trip. It was almost like heaven to somehow see Gary again – alive – even if this one lived on the other side of a boundary, a barrier she probably wasn't meant to cross. But what could a wall in time and space tell her what should be? She was there now, he was here, and she could make it all hers again. This new Gary is somewhat different, noticeably different from the Gary she knew from what she felt was a lifetime ago. It likely had to do with the fact that in this other reality, things happened a bit differently, moved forward in ways unlike the ones she was used to. But regardless how progress was made, Gary was still Gary. There was no mistaking it.
But somehow, someway, the tragedies of the world she left behind followed her into the one – and the ones after – she escaped to. If Gary didn't die from closing a breach in space, he died from facing a threat, an enemy, he had no chance of winning against. She might arrive on the scene after it happens or even witness it herself, seeing him lying dead at the hands of the Lord Commander, someone undoubtedly evil and twisted by the powers that invaded reality after reality, version after version, with just as doomed a fate as the one Quinn loved. In the end, Quinn was back to where she started, with a man losing his life for a cause unfairly greater than himself and everyone else around him while she was left to pick up the pieces. What else could she do? She had the means. All she had to do was get in, go for a trip, and do it all again. Maybe she'll get it right this time around.
This Gary she talked to aboard the Galaxy One was more drastically different than most other Gary's she had met by far. He was a lot more goofy, flirtatious, and his background was so unlike the first one she ever knew. She did admit to herself that he did prove a little difficult, but since when was Gary, the man she loved, ever really easy? But even if he wasn't her Gary, he was still Gary. It had to hold true that he's still himself, that a life and future could be made while he was here, while he was still here, if she was trying to be sensible. She opened up to him, telling him all about herself and building a bond back up even if one was already there, so to speak. She tells him things that her Gary said to her, what his Quinn said to him. She fights alongside him in his battles, even feeling willing to go so far as to fight them all for him, against random individuals who'd do him harm to enemies from past and present to even his own mother. She didn't know how all of these efforts will turn out. It was a different universe with different variables, which she had landed in with nowhere to go but ahead. She could only hope, for the umpteenth time, that things would turn out differently…the way she wanted them to be.
But it seemed, whether Quinn knew it or not, every different Gary she met still had their differences, and they were not slow to challenge her own, especially since with every Gary, there was another Quinn. It was obvious that she lived somewhere with a Gary of her own, while somewhere else, another Quinn had a Gary of her own. It was Quinn but not quite Quinn, Gary but not quite Gary – Quinn loved Gary and Gary loved Quinn. But as much as she felt she loved this Gary, he loved Quinn, but only his Quinn, not her. Many times, she had seen it. Perhaps this time, she now sees it for what it really is. Maybe she and Gary were fated to meet again and again, maybe she decided to fate it so. But it was clear that while they were meant to be together, they were never meant to be.
Over and over again, Nightfall wondered how many things had she not tried already. She saw all the types of futures that resulted from her personal tragedy. It wasn't just Gary and the Earth that were lost. Most other times, it extended to every other planet across the entire galaxy, maybe just a portion of it if luck was on their side. She wasn't the only one who could have gone mad with loss. In realities where a friendship with Mooncake was made, Mooncake proved to be just as prone to the despair that so easily nipped at Nightfall's heels, only he wasn't as resilient. Nightfall had grown to care about Mooncake in her own way, enough that she was willing to make enough time to think about what to do with him, for better or otherwise. She even thought of the Quinn Gary knew and was used to, the one who was the reason Nightfall could never be with the Gary she accompanied now. But one could only care for so many at a time, and at some point, one or two might just fall off the pile. At least she was grateful that there were those around her who were willing to come and put those friends back onto the pile, to help her when she needed it whether she knew it or not. It reminded her that for all her experience, she didn't have all the answers. One just had to try.
One thing was for certain. Nightfall made it further than she could recall having done already. She, Gary, and everyone else part of the journey had made it with all the Dimensional Keys and were ready to go free Bolo. Then they all could make it to Final Space and put an end to this endless cycle of destruction, chaos, and suffering once and for all. But maybe some things were just too good to be true, and any good things that were true were too good to last. To free Bolo, there was a sixth key – the sacrificing of a life, for what power could be greater than that of a life? Nightfall was not just scared but confused. After everything she relied on thanks to Bolo, was there a point to her trials anymore. What future could she hope to create when someone won't be there to see it? Alas, it just couldn't be easy.
Nightfall took time to think of everything she did out of her love for Gary, for every Gary across time and space, how she had to make sacrifices so things could turn out better for him, and as a result, her too. She looked back on how she loved Gary and what it meant to actually love him. She remembered that the Gary she got to know was not the same Gary from before, from every timeline she had met Gary again and again. He was Gary and she was Quinn, but she was not his Quinn…perhaps it is so, that not only was this Gary not her Gary, he can never be her Gary, not now or ever.
She looked down at the fight taking place. There Gary was, in another battle in a series of battles deciding the fate of his world and every other world out there connected to Final Space. For the person he is, he was still a brave warrior willing to put his life on the line for those he cared about. He was willing to get hurt, even die, because he can't bear to see the ones he cared for go through the same thing. That was when Nightfall remembered…it's how she felt for Gary too. In loving Gary, she wanted the best for him. She didn't want anything bad to happen to him, which was why she had been fighting for all this time. She fought for what she wanted, but remembered that he was doing that too. Would loving him mean considering what he wanted? Nightfall remembered, and she knew, that Gary's Quinn was still alive, trapped in Final Space after having done what her Gary did in her place. The difference was that her Gary had died but this Quinn was still alive. This Gary knew that too, and he was out there fighting to get her back.
It was decided. Nightfall would perform this one act, this one final act, because she loved Gary. Even though he wasn't hers, she still loved him and she needed him to make it through. He was not her Gary, but he was still Gary, and that was enough for her. There was one last chance, and she knew Gary needed it more than her. She turned to Mooncake.
As the five Dimensional Keys were lined up in front of her with Mooncake at the other end, Quinn thought of everything she and Gary had been through together, the things that reminded them of what once was and what has been but never could be. She didn't know what would happen next. She never got this far until now and there wasn't anything more she could do at that point. But she at last realized that even after all this time, she may have forgotten who was really important to her, and with remembering that, she was now as ready as she could ever be. She encouraged Mooncake to do it, and even while watching him hesitate before finally firing his beam through the keys and into her, she listened to Gary call out to her, pleading to her not to do it. She smiled, knowing that perhaps her feelings were not in vain after all.
Always meant to be together, but never meant to be.
When you see Quinn, never let go.
And that was it. She felt a large weight come off her shoulders as the light enveloped her. She closed her eyes, feeling rest come to her after years of weariness, of repeating that same cycle for as long as she could remember. At last, she could finally stop. In those last seconds, she thought of Gary, her Gary, the one from since the beginning and whom she really and truly loved in the first place, and dreamed of how things would go once she sees him again. She was finally going to see him again, and once she did, she was never letting him go.