Generations

Epilogue: Always

A/N: And here it is, after a few weeks. This was written recently, a couple weeks ago as opposed to the time between Generations being written for the first time and being posted. Thanks as always to Wyntirsno for editing this chapter, and all the rest of them for that matter.

Also, this chapter is dedicated to DebZirOeZ. Despite not reading this story, she did inspire a lot of the second scene here.

Generations Epilogue: Always

50 years of war.

More battles than he could count.

More family dead that he wanted to remember.

Always the same.

He’d think they’d found peace, and for a time he’d be right, only for an even bigger danger to appear.

And who was he to see the light of a new day when so many others fell before their dream of a world at peace could be realized.

He truly wondered if this was for the best, why it was that he was chosen so many times. In many ways it made his life worthwhile, from a young age, he dreamed of making a difference in the world, and looking back on the years, he knew that he did.

But at what cost?

“Justin, what would you like for lunch?” his wife asked him.

“Oh, um, ham would be great.”

“Thinking about something?”

“Yeah. All these battles, Simon and Dani dying made me think back to Peter.”

“I understand,” she said, setting aside her lunch plans to sit beside her husband, wrapping her wrinkled hand around his.

Even though he was the one who fought all those battles, his wife went through just as much pain, sometimes even more so as she never knew if her husband would be one of those who didn’t return alive.

“What if this isn’t the end?” he asked. “I won’t be around much longer.”

“Come on, you’re not that old,” she said. “Because we’re the same age, and if you’re old, than that means I am, and I most certainly am not an old lady.”

He gave a gentle smile to his wife. She always seemed to know the right thing to say to him, a simple joke to make him smile, a stern word when he took things too far, all throughout his life, she was the one who kept him grounded.

A knock at the door tore him out of his thoughts, so he went up to answer it. Pulling the door open, he saw two familiar faces standing there. “Andrew, Walter, what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked, his professional demeanor underlying his fear.

Rose walked behind him, afraid of what their visit might mean.

“We have done the investigations that you requested, on the Nightwings’ realm.”

“And?”

“There are no signs of any life remaining, the entire world is in a state of quantum flux, other than the angels and the Guardians they have protected, nothing can exist there.”

“I see,” Justin said with a smile. “What about the Nightwings who came through the portal during that battle. Did any of them escape?” he asked.

“No,” the other answered. Justin and Rose never were able to tell the two guardians apart. “We confirmed that none of the residue that came from those who went through the portal left the ruins, other than your grandson of course.”