"-ARY!"
"GARY!"
A sound of a voice. High but at the same time, distant. Someone was calling him. He didn't bother to know who that was, everything seemed like in a dream.
Feeling a pleasant warmth on his skin, a comfortable feeling around him, he felt himself floating with the lightness in which his body was. His eyes opened at once.
Reluctantly, his eyes got used to the clarity of the place, the light was so bright that it could almost blind. Taking away the hands that previously covered his face from the luminosity, Gary examined the place he was.
Nothing.
It was nothing.
He didn't see anything but white. Light, stronger and stronger. Gary covered his eyes with his hands again. He took a few steps back when he heard the sound of someone approaching.
"Gary."
He shuddered. That voice, which he hadn't heard in more than twenty years. The voice of someone he loved, someone too important to him.
Gary opened his eyes, with no reaction sketched on his face.
"Dad?"
The man smiled gently.
"F-father? Dad! It's you!"
He ran into the man's arms. He started sobbing when he felt him hold him over him.
"Gary, my son. What are you doing here?"
More tears came down his face already wet by previous tears. He rubbed the sleeve of his shirt over his face, trying to wipe and stop the flow of tears that didn't stop.
"I don't know, I don't care." He started sobbing again. "Dad, I want to stay here with you."
He fell to his knees, John bent down and put his hands on Gary's shoulders.
"Gary, why are you here?" John firmed his gaze. Gary looked at the man in front of him and covered his face. Ashamed.
"Gary, please tell me, tell me. Did you happen to cause this?" Gary started crying and sobbing loudly. John pulled him close to him, and hugged him.
After what seemed like half an hour, Gary stopped crying. He looked at the man with a serious expression in front of him, but he couldn't look him in the eye.
"I want to be with you."
"But you shouldn't, Gary. At least not yet. You're young. You have your whole life ahead of you, why stay here?" Gary looked him in the eye this time.
"I don't want to live anymore. I want to stay here with you, dad. I don't want to lose anything else." He looked away when he felt a tightness on his shoulder.
"After you died, I felt the world collapse. Everything has changed to the extreme. You are the most important person to me, dad, and when you were no longer there with me, nothing made sense anymore. Mom didn't look at me anymore, said it was my fault. She left a few days after the funeral. She left me."
John sighed.
"I don't want to lose anything else."
"Staying here won't help you win anything either."
John gently held his son's chin and lifted him up so that their eyes would meet.
"Listen to me, despite everything, Gary, shrinking and crying won't help you. Having pity on you won't help you. Isolating yourself won't help you. Dying won't help you. No matter how small the reasons to be alive, they are worth it. Life is precious, every second of it."
He dried with a finger a tear that ran down Gary's cheek.
"You are important, you are the most precious thing I have, Gary. I love you, more than anything. I can't change what happened in the past, no one can. That's life, it can be unfair to those who don't deserve it. We need to learn to accept and overcome injustices, because in life not everything is as it should be, or as we would like it to be."
John smiled and held Gary's face with both hands.
"Promise me something, Gary. Promise that you will come back, and you will remember everything I said, and you will not forget. I also want you to never forget that I love you very much, and I wish you only the best. Promise that you will change your thinking, and that you will value life to the fullest. And that you won't do what you did anymore. Promise."
Gary smiled.
"I promise. I love you, Dad."
They hugged each other. And they stayed like this for a long time. The warmth of the hug was cozy, and Gary felt like when he was a child, and John would come back from work and he would run to his father, throwing himself on his lap. He smiled and let go of the hug.
"Thank you, Dad."
John got up, and reached out for Gary to support himself and get up as well.
"How proud I am of you. My son. Last time we saw each other, you were so small, half my height. Remember you were excited when talking about butterflies? I loved hearing you talk. A curious and smart boy. Now look at you, a man. How old are you now?"
"Uh, 33." Gary smiled shyly.
"Are you interested in someone lovingly?" John raised an eyebrow, with a smile on his face.
"Huh, yes, ah, there is this very beautiful, intelligent, determined woman, and, well, I don't think she sees me the way I see her."
John put his hand on Gary's shoulder.
"I think you're a catch. Very handsome and charming."
"Do you think so? Do you really think so?" He smiled from ear to ear.
"Of course!"
Gary quickly undid his smile.
"Oh, and there's this guy, well, actually he's my best friend, I care a lot about him, I even helped save his son. But I don't think he likes me very much..."
Gary looked at his father again.
"I think anyone would be lucky to have you as their friend." John gently smiled.
"Well, and that's it. I'm doing well. I finished high school, graduated from college, well, by a mistake of mine when trying to impress a woman I ended up where I was, but if it weren't for that I wouldn't have met my friends."
"I see that you really care a lot about them." The man took a step forward.
"Yes." Gary undid his smile and looked at the floor.
John suddenly gave his son a tight hug.
"And I suppose it's time to go. You've been here for quite a long time. I'm sure your friends are worried waiting for you." He smiled calmly. "I love you."
"I love you, Dad!" Gary smiled slightly, teary eyes. "Thank you."
He then closed his eyes, feeling the lightness take over him, and the white light of the place illuminate blindly.
"-ARY!"
"GARY!"
"GARY!"
"Gary, come back!"
"Don't leave me. I-
I love you."
"GARY!" A scream echoed in one of the corridors of the Galaxy One.
Siren sounds joined the chaotic environment in which the ship was. S.A.M.E.S. robots ran in the same direction.
"He never seems to understand." The AI's monotonous voice sounded.
Avocato couldn't stand the worry, opening the door to Gary's room, stopped in shock.
Too scared not to realize that Quinn was by his side, telling him to take care of Gary while she would stay with Little Cato to keep him away.
"GARY!"
Arms lifted him from the cold of the ground.
"Gary, open your eyes!" Avocato started to shake.
"Gary wake up! Come on, answer!"
No answer.
"GARY"
"GARY!"
"GARY!"
"Gary, come back!"
"Don't leave me. I-
I love you."
The last part sounded like a whisper.
Clinging against his body, he notices a pair of blue watery eyes staring at him.
"I'm sorry..." and the eyes closed again.
Avocato smiles as he held him in his arms.
Staring at the ceiling, he slowly sat down. Analyzing around, he noticed a small green being on his lap, saying 'chookity' when being perceived awake by him.
"Hi, Mooncake."
Where was he?
Medbay.
Another day waking up under the white walls and dim lighting of the infirmary.
Gary felt hot drops come down on his cheeks.
Why did he have to be like that?
Doesn't he get tired?
It's just a disappointment.
He's tired of it.
Gary looked down, seeing that he was without a shirt, and his arms, from his pulses up to the height of his forearm, were covered by bandages.
More tears dripped and stained the thin fabric of the blanket placed on top of him.
He can't take it anymore.
This absurd will to die.
For once, Gary wants a sense to want to be alive.
"Gary!"
He turned in the direction of the voice.
Quinn and Avocato were frantic, dark circles under their eyes, they probably waited until he woke up.
"Gary! You're alive!" Quinn was about to have an attack of concern.
"I-" he was interrupted by a hug from the two friends at the same time.
That was a trigger for the tear dam to open.
"Don't do that anymore! Never again!" Quinn squeezed him even more. Avocato doing the same.
They let go of the hug.
"Oh, sorry-"
"And you really owe us an apology! You can't imagine how worried we were! Gary, don't you understand?! We love you and care about you! Don't do that anymore! What a scare you gave us!"
Quinn hugged him again. Avocato shook his hand gently.
Gary smiled.
"I love you too."
