You wake up sore all over with your head pounding. What happened? You bring your hand up to massage your forehead and your fingers are met with a soft bandage. Suddenly everything comes back to you. You open your eyes to find that Karkat is gone. Your heart sinks a little bit. You hope he didn't get mad at you or something.

You blush as you run through the previous night's happenings in your head. You really don't know what came over you. You haven't broken down like that in years. You suppose it's a good thing Karkat is gone, or he would see how embarrassed you are right now.

You push off the blanket and sit on the edge of your bed. You spot your yellow sneakers lined up neatly at the foot of your bed. You note that Karkat's shoes are gone.

You slip on your shoes and take a look in the mirror. Your usually messy but stylized hair is in complete disarray. You can't quite fix it without removing the bandage, so you don't. The bandage probably needs to be changed, seeing as a stripe of pink has soaked through it.

You sigh, pushing the soreness to the back of your mind and stepping into the hall. When you get to the kitchen, you are surprised to see that there are people already there. You would have thought everyone was still off, sulking in their rooms.

But no, there is a healthy hustle and bustle in the kitchen. Jane is guiding Jake's hand as he stirs a bowl of pancake batter so that he doesn't shoot flower everywhere. Gamzee is frying up eggs and bacon. Terezi hands him the salt and he takes if from her, placing a quick kiss on her nose. Rose and Roxy are squeezing oranges into a large pitcher. Nepeta climbs up onto the counter to grab a stack of plates. She staggers under the weight of them, but Equius steadies her and takes half of them. Karkat and Kanaya are cutting up fruit. You watch as Kanaya walks past Rose to get another bowl, kissing her briefly on the cheek as she does.

Rose looks up at you and smiles.

"There you are John, could you grab another pitcher for me? There's one in the high cupboard that I can't reach."

You nod, still in shock. You use your godtier powers to fly up and grab the pitcher from the cupboard. You land lightly next to Rose and hand it to her.

"What's going on in here?" You ask.

"Honestly? I don't know." She says, cutting another orange in half.

"We just kind of walked in to find people up making food." Says Roxy, "So we decided to help."

You watch everyone for a moment. They all work with such steadiness, helping each other as help is needed. It's hard to believe that only last night you were all at each other's throats.

"What happened?" You wonder out loud.

"We had a nice long talk last night." Rose says. "Roxy is going to help me with my… er… problem."

"That's great." You say genuinely. "And how's everything with Kanaya?"

Rose catches Kanaya's eye from across the room and smiles.

"I think we're going to be just fine."

You let Rose and Roxy go back to making juice and decide to help out yourself. You grab a bunch of silverware from a drawer.

"Hey Egderp." You look up to see Terezi grinning at you. She sports several bruises and bandages, but seems in a good enough mood.

"Hey Terezi. I'm guessing you patched up everything with Gamzee?"

She nods.

"Red as raspberries." She says, smiling mostly to herself.

Kanaya taps a glass with a knife, causing everyone to look up at her.

"Would everyone please take something and proceed to cantown?"

"Grab your shit everybody." Karkat adds.

You catch his eye and he smiles at you briefly before looking around to make sure that no one saw that. You shake your head and chuckle.

Roxy leads the procession down the hall to cantown. When you get there, you find that everyone who wasn't in the kitchen is busy cleaning up the room. A large stack of cans and books stands in the corner. Dave, Dirk and the Mayor are sitting together on the ground, wiping the blood and oil off of them contently. Vriska and Tavros are scrubbing down one wall; Eridan and Sollux are working on another. Aradia and Jade sweep while Feferi follows them around with a dustpan.

"Breakfast!" Jane calls out.

Everyone stops what they are doing and gathers around. The plates and food are distributed.

You sit down across from Dave and the Mayor with your own plate. You don't even bother to try and make conversation, as Dave is too preoccupied with fussing over the mayor.

All around you, people are happily chatting and laughing. You smile. This is the way it should always be.

When everyone is done eating, Tavros and Vriska volunteer to bring all of the dishes back to the kitchen. Tavros grabs an armload of dishes and Vriska ruffles his hair, trying to follow him out without carrying anything. He glares at her and she grins sheepishly, taking a bunch of dishes herself. You see her smile in pride as she follows him.

The rest of you start to rebuild cantown. The shorter trolls and humans work to paint the floor and walls. The taller ones build buildings and towers. Jade hands you and Aradia cans and books so that you can fly up and place them on top of the tallest towers.

When you are done, Kanaya grabs a ribbon from her room and Terezi sloppily writes "C4N TOWN GR4ND R3OP3N1NG" on it in chalk. You and Dave string it up in front of cantown and hand the Mayor a pair of scissors.

He pauses dramatically before cutting the ribbon. Everyone claps and cheers. You see Vriska push Nepeta playfully, causing her to trip and fall into Dave's arms. The two of them blush and pull away from each other. You laugh. Someone taps you on the shoulder. It's Karkat. He pulls you out into the hall.

"Is something wrong?" You ask. He shakes his head and reaches into his pocket.

"I wanted to give you something."

Karkat takes something out of his pocket and holds it out to you. It's your harlequin figurine. Somehow he must have collected all of the pieces and glued them back together. You take it from him, rubbing your fingers over it. Your eyes water a little.

"Thank you." You say, pulling him into a hug.

"No problem fuckwit."

The door to cantown suddenly opens.

"Karkles, you didn't tell me you were pale for John!" Terezi says, grinning widely.

Karkat pushes you away, causing you to stumble backwards. His face flushes bright red.

"Fuck you Terezi. It's not like that."

She cackles.

"There's no need to get all defensive." She says, "It's cute."

Karkat glares at you, his face still red. His eyes soften.

"What does pale mean?" You ask, kind of confused.

Karkat ruffles your hair.

"I'll tell you later doofus."

Your name is JOHN EGBERT and you are incredibly HAPPY. You have FAMILY and FRIENDS including a very special friend named KARKAT VANTAS. You are on your way to a NEW UNIVERSE full of ADVENTURES and SUPRISES and are glad to know that no matter what happens, everything will be ok.

Because there will always be people who care about you and forgive you even if you get bored from time to time.

Welp. That is it. Somehow this crazy train-wreck of a fanfic is pulling into the station. We are faced with the end of the journey and will search for comfort by trying to find another one like it. But the truth is, there will never be another one like it. At least, not exactly. Do not worry though, soon enough we will have forgotten about it all together and will have moved on to greener pastures. Namely, other fanfictions.

Now that I have shpeeled my sentimental thoughts that stem from exhaustion, a couple notes.

1.) There will be an epilogue.

2.) I am already working on another completely different fan fiction that I will be begin releasing maybe a week after the epilogue.

3.) Vriska 3 Meenah. (I SHIP IT SO HARD)