After Fate Fell

61 • SAM

Hey guys! Just a quick message. I hope you guys are enjoying this story and I really apologize for the extra long wait for this chapter. The end is near! Only a few more chapters!
Also quick shoutout to Ember9158 for helping me out with their expertise of the series, I really needed and appreciate their help!!
-Braden

1 year, 3 months, and 21 days after it all
•SAM•

We go in through the entrance of the cave where John and I went in when we rescued Nine. It's surreal, being here in this same place, all this time later. Everything is so, so different. Then, I had just had the truth confirmed to me, that aliens were real, that they were here on Earth, and that my dad was somehow caught up in all of this, that his disappearance meant more than what people always assumed, that he had abandoned my mom and I, staged it to look like some type of abduction. But that's exactly what it was, and I knew it all along, somehow. After meeting John and finding out the truth about him and everything else, I was thrust into this world of aliens, secrets, hiding, and eventually, war. I say I was thrust into it, but I chose it. I knew that this was what my dad would want in me, I knew it's what I wanted in me, and deep down, I had hoped that he was somehow still alive. Last time I was here, I had no idea he was the face I would see when I looked into those prison cells deep in the Mogadorian cave.

Everything has changed. We hadn't even found the others at that point, I only knew John and Six, and the war hadn't even started. Now, I have met and even said goodbye to so many others, and the war is over. All of that happened so fast I didn't even have time to blink. And now, I'm getting ready to leave behind the planet I've inhabited my whole life. But I'm not leaving anything behind here. Only memories. Memories that I sometimes want to forget, other times I lie, looking up at the stars, longing for. But one of those stars I lie under, gazing upon, is Lorien's sun, and I know that that is what I long the most for. Somehow, although I've never seen it, never breathed in the atmosphere, never stepped on its now dusty surface, I know that from the stories the others tell me, their eyes glistening and their heads in another galaxy, Lorien will be my home. Maybe it was always meant to be.

The cave is darker than before, most of the lights are burnt out or broken, but some come on when we walk through and down the wide hallway. This place looks destroyed, but it also looks kept up. Somewhere deep in my mind I think I know someone resides here, but who? And then I know, or I hope I know, and my walking steps turn into running ones and before anyone can stop me, my heart racing in my ears, blocking out the sound of their confused exclamations, I'm at the other end of the hallway, looking into one of the labs, not knowing what to do or say.

What finally comes to me is

"Dad?"

"Sam!" he runs to me, hugging me, his smile wider than I've ever seen. "I knew you'd end up here someday."

"What is this?" Six says, standing in the doorway now, out of breath.

My dad gestures behind him, and I was so surprised to see him that I didn't see the others behind him. Lexa, Rex, and dozens of Chimæra, smiles on the two's faces, the Chimæra all in the most welcoming form I could think of, all tail-wagging dogs and fluffy little animals, some which I can't think of, but welcoming all the same. I could hug them all and feel their soft fur against my face. I'm so happy to see them all.

"Lexa, Rex and I came here a few months after the end of the war. Rumor was, most of you were in the Himalayas of northern India, but we knew, or at least hoped, you'd end up here, looking for a way off this planet. A way home." He says this last part with a smile, but it's a sad smile. I frown.

"So what have you been doing all this time?" I ask, looking up at him again. The others are now standing in the doorway, looking just as surprised as I'm sure I was just moments ago.

"Preparing for our journey back home," Lexa finally speaks up, standing up from the table she was sitting on, looking at some types of diagrams with Rex on the opposite side as her. "We had a lot to work on. Any of the viable candidates for ships that could make the trip back to Lorien had been pretty badly damaged. Good thing is, we had almost a year to fix one of the finest ones up, and we even had some time to make some upgrades," she says, smiling and raising her eyebrows.

We all laugh excitedly, and I still have so many emotions running through my veins that I don't even know what to say.

"Well then let's go check it out!" Nine says, him and Five pushing each other as they (for some reason) lead us down a different, better lit hallway, down to the hangar where all the ships are kept. I walk alongside my dad, not saying anything because I don't know what to say, but his presence is all I need now. I'm just worried for what we'll say when we do speak. I try not to let these thoughts creep in, but with so little time until I'm sure the ship leaves the ground, I don't have time not to worry, not to think about any of what's on my mind. I just hope that when the words come out of his mouth they aren't goodbye.

We stop in front of a sleek, silvery ship that towers over us. Lexa opens her mouth to speak but she doesn't have time to say anything. The sound of an alarm rings through the hangar and the rest of the cave, echoing off the cold concrete walls and floor.

"What is that?" Adam asks, grabbing onto Rex's hand, fear in his eyes for one of the the first times in probably over a year.

"So I guess we're gonna do this the hard way," Lexa says. "Everyone board the ship. Now."

A huge ramp lowers and we all run up and into the dark entrance. I look around me, counting heads, saying names in my head, the alarm blaring over my thoughts. I can only think of one name that matters right now: Dad. And he's the only person I can't find. Everyone else is here, even all the Chimæra are accounted for. The ramp begins to raise, and I can't hear myself but I'm screaming his name, looking frantically. I can't let this be the end. I can't let this be our goodbye.

I close my eyes and then they're open again, the ramp clicking closed, the lights coming on inside the ship, and a face glows in front of mine.

"I'm here Sam. You found me all that time ago, and you'll never have to look for me again. We're going home."

And with that, Lexa yells back to us to hold on, as she presses some buttons and more light floods in through the windows of the ship, the roof of the hangar opening. The thrusters jolt us, but I'm holding on. Holding onto the one person that I thought I would never find again, never see again, taken from me just as he was by the Mogadorians all that time ago.