Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PROLOGUE 

The old machine whirred. A mix between a vibration and a hum as it worked, churning the numbers. Testing the samples, rejecting the unviable options and moving on to the next test batch. Despite the age of the equipment, the process was seamless and almost akin to listening to an opera. Click, whir, hum, *bzzt*. Click, whir, hum, *bzzt*. Each option a rejection; a failure.  A sigh escaped the room's sole occupant, as the stooped shoulders of an old man in a lab coat straightened. His face illuminated from the computer terminal, the light bathing him in a dull blue. Click, whir, hum. The light glowed red momentarily *bzzzt*. The man raised a hand to his tired looking eyes and rubbed. The lids felt heavy and the dark shadows testimony to the days of work and lack of sleep he had endured. 

As the machine clicked another sequence, he took a slightly battered metal flask from the inside of his lab coat and lifted it to his mouth. It was empty.

“F-fucking dammit,” he swore and slammed the flask onto the desktop, then pulled the display panel closer towards him. Eyes darting down the list of DNA sequencing, searching for the mistake. It looked clean. He growled somewhere deep in his throat and stabbed his fingers across the keyboard to re-initiate the program. The computer worked for a while, then turned red again. With a roar of rage he swept the equipment to the side and watched it crash onto the floor. Vials smashing and electronics sparking. He stood huffing a moment in the now dark lab. 

Rick Sanchez was the smartest guy in the universe. The smartest guy in the multiverse. The things that he had done; that he had accomplished and invented were innumerable in the halls of genius. And terrorist, some would say. He said what he thought and acted the way he wanted to. It was his greatest asset… and his greatest flaw. People either loved or hated him for it. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t care either way. Or at least that’s what he used to tell himself, sometimes still clung to. Because he had changed in the years since returning to the Smith Household. He had allowed himself to soften; to feel. It was this feeling that had resulted in his current predicament. And, not that he would admit it, but it had also made him afraid. In fact, often it was fear that drove his actions, fear of being too close to anyone else. Fear of abandonment, of allowing himself to be vulnerable and of the inevitable end to that openness. Of finding himself where he currently was. 

He was Rick Sanchez. For something so simple to now elude him was unthinkable. Infuriating. Idiotic. But it had to be perfect. Had to be. He gripped the sides of his head, his nails clawing slightly at the thinning hair and skin. 

The door to the lab swished open. A pool of yellow light casting it’s judgemental eye on the scene of the scientist's breakdown. “Dad? Are you…are you ok?” a tentative voice enquired from the doorway. Its owner choosing not to intrude any further. 

Rick sighed as his heart rate slowed and bent to start picking up the pieces of his equipment. “I-I-I’m f-f.. everything’s ok, Beth. I just hit-hit another snag. I’m fine. You’re not sterile…I do…don’t want to recalibrate this mess and sterilise the lab. Stay- s-stay behind the-the forcefield,” he said without turning to face her. He could sense the hesitation in her presence but let loose a breath of air when the door closed again and the light level returned to the semi darkness he now existed in. He dumped the handful of equipment back onto the desk and set about repairing what he could. 

It took an hour to repair and replace everything and ready the experiment to start again. He stayed his hand however as he looked at the samples he had left. Six, six attempts to get this right. Six. Six was a stupid number. He was missing something and he needed more than six attempts to get this right. And it had to be right. Had to be perfect. 

He rubbed a shaking hand over the stubble across his face. It had been two days since he had last had a drink. Two days and here he was sober as a judge. Sobriety sucked. Sucked giant fat alien monkey balls. Everything was in sharp relief, which just made his months of failure in this case all the more raw. Like a festering wound he couldn’t mend. With that came other pain. As memories of Morty filled his head, he shook it hard to clear it. No, that was pain he couldn’t dull until he was done. Pain that this was supposed to fix. Would fix. If he could get it right that was. 

Six attempts. It would be weeks before he could try again…months maybe depending on if he could get all of the materials needed. And that only delayed things even more. He ran his hands through his hair, his dry tongue feeling like sand in his mouth and the craving for liquor stronger than ever. There had to be something he was missing. Something elusive. Each time he thought he had it in his grasp…the computer turned red. 

This should have been so simple. So simple it hurt. He could have pulled this off in the garage at home for fun! For fun dammit. And yet when it actually mattered, when he wanted it…failure. He had built and made things more complex with worse resources before. The liberation of Bird World from the galactic federation had seen him working with the crudest tools imaginable by his standards and he had still succeeded there. 

Frustrated rage battled the black shadow of depression inside, as he habitually fiddled with the vials he had left. How had he become this? This mess of a man who couldn’t protect his family and could come up with the plan to fix it but not implement it. It was as if he had lost his mojo, lost the spark when he had lost…

“D-Dammit… Morty…” he whispered.

Six attempts. Carefully he rummaged through the remaining vials. Extra Stabilisers…anything to get the process to stage two. Using the data from each previous failure as a guide, he made alterations. Like an artist adding details to a masterpiece no one would ever see if the thing was a success. His hand closed on the final vial in his collection. Unlike the others, it’s stopper was sealed in wax. 

Bringing it to eye level, Rick felt a wave of longing, grief and guilt wash over him. He had forgotten he had this sample. And yet…yet. 

Eyes wide, manic almost, he began tossing paper aside, looking through the mass of readouts, notes and information until finally he found the data he wanted. The stoppered vial still clutched in his hand. It could be this…it could work. He considered looking at it again. But…it was a gamble of the worst possible sort. The cost of failure was almost unbearable. 

Six samples…six attempts. One in six was all he needed. No matter what weirdly dressed, floofy women in pink said…the odds were never in his favour. Not these days. If he played poker he would have folded his hand and walked away days ago. But that wasn’t an option. Wishing he wasn’t sober he opened the vial with tumbling fingers and added it before he could think better of it. 

The computer started up the sequence again as Rick lowered himself onto his stool and waited. Nerves on edge. Frayed…

…click, whirl…hum…bzzzt. Red light. 

“No…come on,” Rick growled aloud. 

Click, whirl…hum…bzzzt. Red light.

“No, no, no,” he spat. “Don’t - don’t f-fucking do this to me.”

Click, whirl…hum….

He felt his hopes soar. “Yes…come on baby…come on…” 

Bzzt. Red light. 

“Motherfucking bastard…come the fuck…what the fuck!”

Click, whirl…hum…bzzzt Red light. 

Rick slammed his fists down on the desk. “What the fuck do you want f-from me. What a-am I doing wrong? Why-why are you doing this? I ca-can do this in my fucking sleep!”

Click…whirl…hum…bzzzt…Red light. 

Rick felt the anger and frustration drain from him. He dropped his head onto the desk. He had wasted the DNA sample. Kept it with him all these years and wasted it on nothing more than a moment of desperation. Gone all in and lost it all. 

Click…whirl….hum…

He looked at his hands in his lap. Old, calloused skin, wrinkled and scared. Long digits that had once held the power to create anything in their grasp. Useless sitting on his trousers, bathed in green light. Pathetic. 

Wait…his head snapped up. The computer screen was green….the second process now engaged. 

Rick stared at the figures as the computer began to form the information and samples into stage two. It proceeded into stage three in rapid succession. 

Rick hit the communicator panel. “Be..Beth…it..it worked,” he croaked and felt his eyes prickle as the unmistakable sound of a heartbeat filled the lab. 

###

48 hours later, Rick took a swig from the newly refilled flask. He looked down at his creation. 

“I’m gunna level with you kid….” he told it. “…Y-you nearly caused your Grandpa Rick a breakdown. T-that’s not cool. I-I-I mean that’s totally …it’s fairly fucked up. So…so you and I, we…we need some ground rules. Ok? Rule one. Don’t you ever fucking do…fucking do that to me again. Do you understand.”

Rick peered down at the tiny human under the screen and force fields of the incubator. It kicked slightly. And while there was no possible way for it to understand him, it’s heartbeat responded to his words. Slowing in response to the sound of his voice. 

He put one long digit through the field, a small blue spark harmlessly ensuring it was sterilised, before he made contact and stroked it along the small arm. 

The baby reached its tiny digits out and clasped around the finger. Rick felt his expression soften. “You…your…a fighter…kid. You’re…you’re...supposed to be…a real…real fucking Captain America, Marvel…avengers…sort of shit…but but better…bec-because I made you. It's gonna be me and you kid. And we’re gonna s-sort out this fucked—fucked up mess. Just you wait.” He took another drink from his flask. “You’re not like him…you're as smart as they come..because you’re like me. And this world…this world is full of idiots that don't understand what's important. But if you stick with me, you’re gonna accomplish great things. The outside world is our enemy. It's gonna be you and me kid a - a hundred years...”

He gently ran his hand over the blond fluff across the baby’s head and sat in silence watching the small infant who had no idea of the purpose they had been born for. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Life Is a Highway
13 Years Later
The command room flickered with inconsistent blue light, as if the failing fusion core beneath the floor were breathing. Exposed cables jittered overhead like the nerves of a dying god. The walls—half metal, half epoxy-patched composite—groaned with every minor gravity surge from the mini-verse’s decaying pull, like a spine shifting in its sleep.
Space Beth stood at the main console with her arms crossed, boots planted wide, the faint green glow of her holomap lighting the tight line of her mouth. One knuckle twitched against the edge of the panel. Just once.
To her left, Birdperson stood motionless, wings dim under the low ceiling vents. To her right, Ziggy—the command AI—projected his avatar into the stale air. He flickered slightly, arms folded like a sarcastic bureaucrat in a lab coat Rick never finished coding. A scorch mark trailed across one sleeve. His tie was pixelated into a static blur, like it was permanently stuck between two timelines.
The target: a half-ruined Galactic Federation outpost orbiting a dead planet. Rusted turrets, decayed atmosphere locks, blinking red in the endless black.
“Vessel has entered approach vector Delta-Four,” Ziggy announced. “Impact in thirty-seven seconds, give or take five—depending on whether she ignores all your instructions or just most of them.”
Beth ignored him. She pressed two fingers to the comm patch clipped just under her chin, trying not to lean forward.
“Red Arrow, you’re coming in too hot. Bleed speed and shift axis yaw—approach vector needs soft-dock, not crash-pry. Repeat: soft-dock.”
Silence.
“Red Arrow, confirm—”
“The shuttle is under attack,” Birdperson said, with all the calm of someone narrating his own funeral.
Indeed, on the outer cam, the ship was being lit up—turret fire splashing across the shields in bursts of bright green plasma. The hull sparked with every hit.
Inside the shuttle Dawn puffed a stand of short blond hair out of her face, slowly and without concern. She popped her gum, jaw ticking lazily as the entire cockpit shook. One of the interior lights snapped out above her with a bzzt.
From her headset, Beth’s voice came again, too loud.
“Dawn, you’re taking flak. Manual override landing sequence and strafe the west hatch.”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “I know.” She flicked a switch lazily—more like flipping off the universe than following protocol.
“You’d think I’d never done this before.”
“Not on this base! You haven’t!” Beth yelled, voice crackling. “Don’t lose focus, you’re on a rescue mission! Find the target!”
Dawn sighed and swung a leg up onto the console like it was a hammock.
“Yeah, yeah. Your voice is really not vibing with what I need right now.”
Beth blinked in the command room, visibly exasperated.
“Excuse me—”
Dawn grinned. “You’re officially… muted.”
She pressed a button with theatrical precision, then slotted a battered cassette tape into the Walkman clipped to her belt. Its sticker label—“CHAOS MIX”—was scrawled in thick red marker over layers of old tape, half-smudged and fraying at the corners.
In the control room, Ziggy rolled his holographic eyes. “Oh god, not again.”
The tinny opening chords of “Life Is a Highway” burst across the comms channel. The sound wasn’t filtered—just loud, unapologetic, distorted through mismatched wiring. The command room vibrated with bass as the chorus hit.
Dawn smirked. “Okey-dokey,” she muttered, cracking her neck. “Let’s do this.”
She rolled her shoulders and kicked her boot off the console.
The exterior camera feed traced the shuttle jerked into a corkscrew dive, metal groaning as inertial dampeners failed to catch up. It clipped the edge of a long-abandoned Federation defense tower—on purpose.
In the control room, Beth froze. “Did she just—”
“Confirmed,” Ziggy cut in, deadpan. “Red Arrow has initiated comm silence protocol. External audio override: playlist…” He sighed, flickering with judgment. “Chaos Mix.” A beat passed the silence heavy before he added. “Why is that still active?”
Beth closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Birdperson stood as still as ever. “I believe she prefers music to your voice,” he offered.
Beth leaned forward over the console. The nose-cam feed showed the shuttle spinning wildly, passing beneath a shattered satellite cluster. A rusted long-range turret fired a lazy plasma burst into her flight path.
Dawn didn’t flinch.
She angled into the shot, then ducked beneath the outer comms ring of the derelict station, vapor trailing off the hull.
Ziggy threw up a vitals feed across the glass:
• Heart rate: 81 bpm
• Blood oxygen: Optimal
• Cognitive tempo: Elevated. Focused.
• Mood: “Contemptuous”
“Fifteen seconds to impact,” Ziggy said. “Five until she finds a new way to void the warranty.”
Inside the shuttle Red lights strobed across the cracked panels. Stickers peeled in slow motion—one said “PILOT IN TRAINING” with the word training scratched out. Duct tape fluttered from ceiling seams. The emergency oxygen unit had been converted into a soda can holster.
Dawn sat like the ship was a barstool. One leg slung over the edge, lollipop stick between her teeth. A tiny scar ran just beneath one eye, clean and white. Her thumb rested casually on the crash throttle.
The chorus hit again.
She didn’t sing.
She just smirked.
With one flick of her wrist, she yanked the stick hard left.
The shuttle screamed—metal on metal—spinning ninety degrees. It slammed through the hangar shield like a sledgehammer dipped in grace. Crates exploded on contact. Maintenance drones dove for cover. Sparks danced across the smoke-flooded deck like it was New Year’s on a warship.
The shuttle skidded, bounced, bounced again—hard enough to leave a dent the size of her ego—and finally ground to a brutal halt in a semicircle of carnage.
The internal AI chirped calmly: “Landing complete. Disregard structural integrity warnings.”
The hatch popped with a mechanical hiss, half of its hinge protesting, the other half giving up entirely. Smoke spilled in around the doorframe, curling like lazy ghosts around her boots.
Dawn stepped down from the wreckage like she was getting off a commuter bus.
The Rascal Flatts chorus roared behind her—
“Life is a highway…”
—echoing through her boots, her bones, the bulkheads.
She slung a modified shock baton onto her back and holstered the plasma slingshot at her hip. A duster flared behind her, stiff with smoke-dried coolant and stitched in six places by Summer’s less-than-sober tailoring.
The first Federation goon stumbled into view—standard issue blue armor, visor cracked, stun rifle trembling in his hands. He blinked once.
“Wait…You’re just a—”
Dawn fired a single pulse shot through the nearest steam vent. The backdraft knocked him unconscious before he finished the sentence.
Pop. Gum.
A flash grenade bounced to her feet.
She looked down at it with complete indifference. “Cute.” She kicked it back into the hallway with perfect timing.
BOOM.
White light bloomed across the corridor like God had a camera flash.
Back in the control room, Birdperson raised an eyebrow. “Her form has improved.”
Beth stared at the feed, eyes narrowed. “She’s not even breathing hard.”
“She is listening to country music,” Ziggy said. “Her adrenaline thresholds are… confusing.”
Dawn moved like she was dancing. Like this wasn’t a mission. Like this was the only thing in the world that made sense.
She vaulted over a collapsed support beam, slid into a crouch, and caught two agents mid-charge. One got a stun-dagger to the thigh, the other a brutal uppercut followed by a roundhouse that sent him flying into a broken light fixture.
Her boots never stopped moving.
“There’s room to breathe if you break the chains…”
She grabbed a pole from the elevator shaft and dropped straight down four stories, coat whipping like a flag. Landed hard in a crouch. Rolled to absorb the impact.
Two agents rounded the corner.
Snap—whirrr.
Twin nunchucks hissed out of a magnetic holster on her right thigh. She cracked one against the wall just to get their attention. The other cracked into their faces.
One. Two. Down.
In the control room Ziggy tagged three body heat signals in the next hallway.
“Watch it!” Beth said uselessly into the mic
Dawn didn’t slow. She spun low, slid beneath a ceiling turret, and lobbed a gravity grenade into the far end. The hallway buckled in slow motion, bodies floating helplessly before slamming down in a pile.
“That’s not standard issue,” Ziggy muttered.
“She modified it herself,” Beth replied. “Again.”
“You seem. Irate at this change to protocol.” Birdperson added.
“No.” Beth said tightly
“Ah,” Ziggy said dryly. “Then the teeth grinding is joy.”
Meanwhile Dawn took down a second set of patrols
She laughed, once, sharp and clean, as she leapt onto a hover-crate. It bucked beneath her weight. She crouched low, legs wide, using the momentum to surf it down a flight of metal stairs while picking off stunned drones with her slingshot.
One went down.
Two.
Three.
The crate crashed into a security checkpoint. Dawn jumped clear, landed in a roll, and shoulder-slammed into the next set of blast doors.
“Life is a highway—I wanna ride it all night long!”
The chorus hit as she burst into the main target room. Red lights. Sirens. A Federation tech dropped their gun and ran.
The flashing blue core for the station stood like an obelisk of scifi lore.
She scanned the core. Raised one eyebrow as she dropped onto her back and slid under the console. Pried open a hatch. There it was. Labeled in bright yellow tape:
“MAIN CORE CHIP – DO NOT REMOVE”
“Sure,” she muttered. “That’ll keep people out.” She yanked it clean and standing, chucked it into a glowing plasma vent.
The alarms cut out instantly. The station power, gone. Disarmed. Dead/
Some five minutes later She strolled to the holding cells like it was an afterthought. Stopped in front of one. One hip cocked. Lollipop still bouncing in her teeth.
Inside, Summer—early 30s, tied to a chair, one leg crossed, soda in hand—looked up without moving.
“Took you long enough,” she said, deadpan.
Dawn grinned, took a protein bar off her belt, and bit into it while fishing a pin from her duster pocket. “Traffic.”
Summer raised her can in mock salute. “You know this wasn’t supposed to be a music video, right?”
Dawn popped the cell’s lock and began undoing the restraints. “Yeah, well tell that to the hallway cams.”
Back in the command room, Beth watched the playback footage, jaw tight, arms crossed.
Rascal Flatts was still faintly audible over the comm channel.
Birdperson didn’t blink. “The mission was a success. Despite the fact She turned you off.”
Beth closed her eyes. “I know.”
“You can be kind of annoying,” Birdperson offered as if this excused the behaviour. “I have found in child-rearing that the best option is often to allow the chick to lead, and you to follow.”
Ziggy tapped the display panel.
“Simulation completed in 15 minutes, 22 seconds.” He paused. “No fatalities. High property damage. Three concussions.”
Beth didn’t answer. She just watched the feed: Dawn drinking Summer’s soda, crouched near the now-open cell, boots smoking slightly.
“Run it again,” she said. A beat. “This time… increase the difficulty.”
***
The station gym had been repurposed into a field debriefing zone nearly 5 years ago—half the overhead lights dead, mats frayed, and an old locker door being used as a whiteboard.
Dawn sat sideways on a bench press, peeling open a pouch of what claimed to be “hydration protein paste” but looked like old grout.
Summer stood across from her, arms crossed, still in her tactical tank top, soda in one hand. Her braid was coming loose, and her shoulder was bandaged—non-simulation injury, sustained fixing the recirculation fans for the third time that month. There was a hollow kind of tension in her stance.
Beth leaned against the console table at the edge of the room, flicking through the simulation report on a battered tablet. The hum of the failing fusion core throbbed faintly through the floor, a reminder that time was running out—outside and in.
“You blew out the left hover duct,” Beth said without looking up. “Again.”
“Mm,” Dawn muttered around a spoonful of paste. “Worth it.”
Summer watched her for a beat “That grenade was risky. You timed the gravity spike by feel?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because it looked like muscle memory, not math.”
Dawn shrugged. “Is there a difference?”
Beth tossed the tablet onto the table. “There is when you’re planning to survive what comes next.”
Silence.
The mix tape sat on the table beside Dawn. Half-rewound. A strip of the label was curling upward. She fiddled with it absently.
“You’ve got the numbers,” Summer said, more gently. “We know you’re ready. But that doesn’t mean we have to—”
“You’re sending me back,” Dawn said. Not a question.
Beth didn’t answer right away. Then her expression hardened  “We don’t have the luxury of time to keep running simulations. The timeline’s narrowing. The longer we wait—”
“The more He locks into the loop,” Dawn finished for her. “Yeah. I know the speech.”
“It’s not a speech.” Beth frowned
“Uh it kinda is when you’ve said it every single day for the last year.” Dawn rolled her eyes and stood. She tossed the protein pouch into the corner with some venom.
Summer flinched. She Looked at the teen and her expression softened. “You’re still raw,” she said. “We should wait. Let your cortisol levels stabilize. You haven’t slept in two days.”
“I’m fine.” Dawn muttered, turning to Beth.
Beth looked at the expression on the girls face and turned stern. “Don’t even say it.” She warned
“Tough I’m saying it. I’ll go but, let me go find him first.” Dawn pleaded
“No.” Beth crossed her arms.
“If you’re going to let me out of the mini verse to do the time jump anyway! What harm can it do!”
“It’s been six days, Dawn.” Beth said coolly “Rick might still come back.”
“Six days out there!. It’s been six years! Inside this stupid box. Six years!”
“He may still come back.” Beth said again though summer looked skeptical. She had been on the raid when they had been overwhelmed and knew deep down that she had only gotten out because Rick had allowed himself to be taken to buy the rest of their team time. Beth not so much.
“This is his plan! How can you just leave him. What if  he’s not just missing what if he’s been taken? What if he’s been taken to the citadel?”
“What if he has? The plan continues without him. We don’t need him. He leaves, that’s what he does best!” Beth flared
“Maybe he leaves you, but not me!” Dawn yelled back
The silence that followed that hit harder than any plasma round.
Summer stepped between them, palms out slightly. “We’re not saying he doesn’t matter—” she started
“He made me,” Dawn snapped.
“He engineered you for one reason!” Beth snapped back
“You think I don’t know that!? I didn’t ask to be born in a box with a mission but I was, but that doesn’t mean I have to hate him the way you all do.”
“You should!” Beth yelled
Dawn scowled at her  “yeah? And how are you any better?”
Beth bristled “excuse me?!”
“He made me. He taught me, but you? You trained me like a soldier.”
Summer’s voice cracked slightly. “Dawn, Beth did that because we’re trying to keep you alive.”
“No, she did it so when I go back I will stop him from ascending and then she can go back to her cavalier life of ‘saving’ the galaxy. Like some marvel avengers wannabe!”
Beth slapped her.
The teenager didn’t raise her hands or stop the hit. Just took it, her head snapping back slightly with the impact. A large hand print on her cheek.
“Oh yeah because your so original with your starlord in leather and leggings persona?!” She breathed heavily.
“Mom!” Summer said, standing between them again.
Dawn just shook her head “you just hate the fact that he wanted to raise me. Even if it was deep down just because I was his ultimate weapon.”
“Yeah? How’s that one working out for you?” Beth said
“Works out fine for me, because I understand something you just never seemed to get.”
“Which is?” Beth demanded
Dawn laughed hollowly, the hand print on her cheek still burning. “That he doesn’t really care about you or me deep down. Because ultimately? Neither of us matter. Not you, not me. We don’t matter because we aren’t HIM. And you can pretend all you want that you don’t want his approval and his love and whatever bullshit that helps you sleep at night when the fucking wines gone but you just went and made yourself into him in a different dress.”
Beth shook her head “you’re just like him.” She said
Dawn nodded “yeah.” She agreed “yeah. We both are.”
Beth’s expression hardened. Dawn didn’t flinch.
A long beat of silence followed before Ziggy’s voice chimed from the wall speaker, quieter than usual.
“Estimated time window for temporal entry: twenty-four hours. Risk of loop lockout: rising.”
Beth looked away.
Summer rubbed her eyes.
Dawn stepped back, scooped up the Walkman, and slotted the tape inside without pressing play.
“You want me to save the loop?” she said, voice low. “Fine. But stop pretending that you aren’t exactly the same as he is and the same as I am. It’s built into my DNA…literally..” she said then shook her head “what’s your excuse?” She turned for the door. “I’ll be in the hangar. Fixing the hover duct. Again.”
The door hissed open. Closed behind her.
Summer sat heavily on the bench. “Well that was a good solid debrief.”
Beth stared at the space where Dawn had stood. “She’s wrong.”
Summer didn’t answer at first, just sighed and rubbed her shoulder “Is she though?”
Beth rounded on her “oh don’t you start. You have enough to be sorry for. You and your egg donations all over the place.”
Summer bristled “well it’s not like you were willing to help! And besides, yeah ok fine it might have been my egg but only because Grandpa Rick needed a starting point. Thats all it was, He stripped like half of dads DNA out and replaced it with his own and with Grandma Diane’s and with whatever else he put in there. She’s basically more your sister than she is my daughter. Which…makes her my aunt…but also…god!” She put her head in her hands “I’m 33, I’m a fucking space rebellion leader…and still can’t work out my messed up family bullshit.”
“She’s nothing like my mom.” Beth said irritated
“She looks like every photo of Grandma Diane I ever saw mom.” Summer said
“She doesn’t.” Beth bristled
“Then what does she look like?”
Beth didn’t answer.
But Ziggy, soft and flat, did: “Someone who was built to be alone.”
***
The hangar was quiet, the way only old metal could be—restless even in stillness. Gravity flexed slightly every few minutes, enough to make the overhead lights creak and the shadows tilt like they were listening.
Dawn knelt beside the wrecked left duct, jacket tossed over a crate. The side of the shuttle was a crater of soot and melted alloy, blackened just under the wing strut. Her gloves were peeled down at the wrists, fingertips raw with old calluses and new burns.
She didn’t hum. She didn’t mutter. She just worked.
The sound of the tape winding inside her Walkman was louder than the tools—just plastic shifting in slow rhythm. The “CHAOS MIX” label was half peeled again, catching the breeze from the busted coolant line overhead.
“Every system wants to fail. You know that, right?”
His voice in her memory  hit her like muscle memory—unbidden, automatic.
“Entropy’s the only…the only honest thing in the universe. Everything breaks eventually. You. Me. This stupid ship.”
She remembered kneeling next to him in the crawlspace under the first shuttle they rebuilt. She couldn’t have been more than five. Her hand was too small to hold the plasma torch properly. He let her try anyway. She had burnt herself. He had made her hold it till she could turn it without hurting herself again. Only then had he healed the multiple burns..
“Don’t waste time trying to make it perfect. Make it functional. And then make it better than what they deserve.”
He’d said it like it was gospel. Like it was a curse.
Dawn yanked the burnt casing free from the duct panel and tossed it aside. It clanged off the far wall. A strip of broken conduit stuck out like a splintered rib.
“Functional,” she muttered, echoing.
She pulled the torch from her belt and flicked it on. The hiss of ignition filled the bay. Blue light bathed the wall in a faint glow.
Ziggy pinged through the comm: “Just for the record, using the same patch method as last time is not technically repairing it. It’s delaying failure.”
“So am I,” Dawn said.
“You don’t really believe that.” Ziggy said
“If I didn’t I wouldn’t be going.” She said
“Why do you think that?” Ziggy asked
Dawn pulled a face “Ew don’t run the psychologist protocol. Gives me the heebiejeebies.” She shuddered  She slid the torch inside the panel, jaw tight.
“I think that because it’s creating something within a paradox. Which in itself creates a paradox so if it works then I don’t exist. But for me to exist it has to fail for me to then go fix it…and off we go again.”
The metal was oven hot now. The heat didn’t bother her. The scorch smell didn’t register. She’d grown up in it. Built her first drone before she could spell her name. Learned anatomy from schematics Rick scribbled on napkins. Learned everything he could stuff into her head.
“You’re not a hero, kid. Heroes die. You’re a variable. You adapt. You survive. And you finish the goddamn problem set before it finishes you.”
He had taught her astrophysics. Now, was testing the recall from the insertion of the material. Subjects she didn’t need. Would never have a use for in her role. Not really.
He had been delighted when she had finished every equation he put in front of her. She had gotten a candy.
He and Beth had argued. Rick slammed a door on her.
“Apparently you’re not supposed to forget what you are.” He told her afterwards. Then he passed her a lot of junk and started a stop watch.
“Build Grandpa Rick something.”
She had. A small junk robot with a razor sword that cut oranges in halves
He was delighted with it and ruffled her hair. “That…that’s my girl.” Then his face had fallen. He’d sent her to her room.
The weld sparked bright. Dawn kept her hand steady. A drop of coolant hissed as it hit the tool casing.
Ziggy was silent for a long moment. Then: “You know he’d be impressed.”
“No he wouldn’t. Purely because of the same old reason. No matter that I do…”
“You’re not him.” Ziggy added
Dawn didn’t answer. She didn’t look up. She just kept working.
***
Some hours later the weld hissed one final time as Dawn sealed the plate flush to the duct. She let the torch sputter out in her hand and rested it on the floor beside her, exhaling slow and flat.
The ship groaned. Not from damage. From being ready again.
She reached up and tugged on the edge of the control panel. The cassette clicked gently in her Walkman—auto-rewind finished. The tape was ready for another run.
Across the bay, the door opened with a quiet hiss.
Beth entered alone.
No tablet. No goggles. Just her.
Dawn didn’t look up. “Let me guess,” she said. “The window’s open.”
Beth’s boots echoed on the deck. She stopped just behind the line of caution paint where the gravity plating was thinnest.
“Ten minutes. Maybe less. We can’t wait anymore.”
“You never wanted to wait,” Dawn said. “You were always waiting for a reason not to.”
Beth’s jaw tightened. “You think this is easy?”
“No,” Dawn said. She stood. Turned. “I think it’s war.”
They stared at each other for a beat. One built to protect the timeline. One trying to hold it together with bandages and grit.
“You said if I passed Simulation 43, I’d be ready.”
“Yeah well, I didn't think you’d break Simulation 43.”
“Then maybe it’s time to stop simulating.”
Behind them, Ziggy crackled to life over the hangar speakers.
“Temporal aperture is stabilizing. External coordinates aligned. Origin date: March 4th, 2014. Target Rick: C-137.”
Beth flinched. Just slightly.
Dawn pulled her jacket on. Fastened the belt. Checked the holsters.
“Does Summer know?”
“She’s waiting in the launch corridor.”
“She’ll cry.”
“She already did.”
Dawn picked up the Walkman. Slid the tape in. Pressed it into her jacket. She looked at Beth for a long time. “I don’t hate you,” she said.
Beth blinked. “I know.”
The miniverse exit took hardly any time and soon they stood in the real outpost not the replicated one in the box.
The platform glowed faint orange as the portal engine cycled up. Steam hissed from the rails. The stabilizers whined with effort.
Summer stood by the console, arms crossed, trying not to look like a mom. Failing.
Dawn approached, coat swinging behind her, slow and final.
Summer opened her mouth. Shut it. Swallowed. “You come back when it’s done,” she managed.
“I don’t think that’s how this sorta time travel works.” Dawn said raising an eyebrow “besides I have no return vector.”
“I don’t care. You do what I tell you and you come back when it’s done.”
Dawn smirked. “You gonna kiss me on the forehead or something?”
“Do you want me to?” Summer asked
“God, no.” Dawn pulled a face
Summer grabbed her anyway. Hugged her like it mattered. Like this was the last chapter of a book they’d both been writing on scrap paper.
“Be smarter than him,” she whispered. “Not colder. Just smarter.”
Dawn didn’t answer. She turned toward the ramp.
“What are you gonna do when I’m gone?” she called over her shoulder. “Will you guys leave the mini verse permanently?”
“Probably.,” Summer said, voice cracking. “You know rebellions to lead.”
Beth said nothing. Just crossed her arms and waited
“Yeah….” Dawn said “I know.”
The launch rail locked.
Beth’s voice came soft: “Engage when ready.”
Dawn pressed play on the Walkman.
Click. “Life’s like a road that you travel on…”
The portal ignited, gold and blue. Swirling, endless, just ahead. She stepped into it without flinching.
There was a flash and the entire station lost power.
She was Gone.