Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Their second dinner was a week later. They’d both been busy. Moxxi, moulding the casino into something resembling her own vision for it, and Timothy, high off the best pain medication on offer and the luxury of a feather bed after years of sleeping in whatever dank corner he tossed his bedroll.

As the stump of his wrist began to heal though, and he sobered up enough to stop drooling onto his pillow all day, he could think of only two things. Firstly, jumping on the first ship he could find and leaving the casino light years behind, never to return. Secondly, the fact that the girl of his dreams was living on the same station and had given him the clearest signal he was ever likely to get that he might not be chasing a fantasy.

So, after a wretched hour battling his own indecision, he’d pulled on his jacket and ventured outside.

It was a disconcerting experience. Much had changed in a matter of days - trash cleared out, graffiti scrubbed from the walls, all of Jack’s golden statues conspicuously absent, none of the roving gangs that had long been a staple of the Jackpot. 

There were new additions too - traces of fresh carpeting or soft lamplight, signage he didn’t recognise. 

The shape was still there though. Halls he knew like the back of his hand. Long stretches of open space he’d dreaded setting foot in, corners that had sheltered him as he reloaded his pistol and caught his breath.

Even now, he couldn’t shake the urge to pull his hood down low and keep to the shadows. Felt as if a thousand eyes were on him. Devouring him, piece by piece. Every stranger was an assailant, every passing figure waiting to strike…

By the time he finally made it up to Moxxi’s temporary office, he was sweating hard. Worse, he found he’d completely forgotten whatever it was that he’d planned to say, so he stood there opening and closing his mouth in utter horror until he managed to mumble something about food.

And Moxxi… bless her soul… She dropped her chin into one perfectly manicured hand, and said, “I was beginning to think you’d never ask.”

So four hours later they sat in a recently refurbished venue of Moxxi’s choosing, eating a gourmet three course meal, sipping wine, and Timothy should have been on top of the world, but found to his despair that he was somewhere just shy of the high tide mark.

The suit that the Mayor had supplied him with itched at the collar. He knew the exact rafter that a body had been strung from six months back - a common warning to rival gangs - and how many exits there were.

His thoughts went back to his stockpile. Kept trying to calculate what he needed to grab. Food. Bullets. 

The wine was nowhere near strong enough, and he drank it like water.

It wasn’t Moxxi’s fault. She was as charming and effortlessly sensuous as always, dressed in a low-cut little number adorned with a sea of red lace. She talked about business - about her bar, about the underdome, about her plans for the casino… Sometimes she mentioned people - some of which Timothy knew and others who were a mystery. She confided in him the secret ingredient to her most popular cocktail, and told him that COV had blunted her taste for the ECHOnet despite her passionate following.

He clung to her words like they were the only thing keeping him afloat. Thought about the sound of her voice - melodic. The way she said his name. The fact that the nearest teleporter was a two minute walk, or a short jog away, and that he was down to his last pair of socks with nothing but debt lining his pockets.

She asked him if he’d heard the news about Atlas, and he couldn’t remember what he said. Had eleven witty rejoinders lined up, and all of them were Jack’s. Chased food around his plate with his fork and discovered his appetite had fled. Funny, considering the diet he’d endured for the last seven years. He would have killed for a good steak.

He heard her sigh. 

“You know,” she told him, as she popped a delicate bite of food between her lips and slid it off the fork, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say I was boring you.”

That caught his attention. He straightened up, the back of the seat digging into his spine as he stared across the table at her. “That’s not… I mean - no, never. It’s just…”

Just what? he asked himself, but unable to put a name to the feeling that dragged at his heels. He settled for something palatable. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For… I don’t know, screwing this up? I guess I thought… I don’t know, that I’d be less me?”

“And what’s wrong with being you?” she asked.

He laughed, a little, at that, but she didn’t join him and after an awkward moment he grabbed for the wine instead, and cursed as his stump clunked uselessly against his glass.

“Besides the obvious? I’m… Look, Moxxi, you’re… gorgeous. You’re goddamn perfect, and you don’t need me to tell you that. And this should be a dream come true right here. But I just… I can’t…”

And he still didn’t know how to put it. To tell her that she’d always had a little piece of his heart since the day she’d stepped into his life, and he could die happy in her arms… That he might, truthfully, be in love, and that right at that moment he still wanted to run far away and hide himself somewhere no one could ever reach him. That he hated himself for it. The inadequacy, against such a goddess. The uncertainty, still, that swirled inside him. That he’d outlived Jack, survived the casino, and yet he couldn’t shrug off the chains in full, nor escape the reminder that waited in every mirror…

Timothy dropped his head into his hand, and his voice was as tired as he felt. “I think I need some time away from this place… from everything.”

Moxxi said nothing for a while. He didn’t dare look at her, just studied the tablecloth - too clean to have come from before. 

Then her hand touched his arm - and he startled at it, but relaxed soon after, peering through his fingers at her.

“You still want that ship, sugar?” she asked softly.

Timothy managed a wry grin. “Yeah, well… I can’t exactly walk out of here.”

She made a sound he took to be agreement and retreated back to her side of the table, where she watched him critically while twirling one loose curl around her finger. “Know where you’re going?”

“Not yet,” he admitted. “I… actually haven’t thought that far ahead, if I’m being honest.”

He’d told himself he would get off the casino. That he wouldn’t die there. But maybe he’d never truly believed it. Maybe, even if he did, the future wasn’t something he knew how to plan for beyond a single goal. 

For years his life was only what Jack decreed. His path was laid out, and Timothy walked blindly along it because he hadn’t the will to fight. Even after his boss was long dead at the bottom of some volcano, he stumbled onward from one immediate objective to the next without sparing a thought for what lay ahead.

Seven years he’d spent trapped in this hellhole, and when he closed his eyes and pictured freedom it had no face, no name he could call. He could go anywhere… not where someone else told him to go, but anywhere he chose… and the terrifying truth was that he had no idea where that was. 

“You know…” Moxxi said slowly, “if you’re looking for a destination, there might be room up on Sanctuary for a man like you. Word is something’s brewing, and they could always use more vault hunters. Even one with a face like yours.”

Timothy made no attempt to hide his grimace. “The flying city?”

“It’s a spaceship now.”

“Oh. Of course it is.”

“I can put in a good word for you, if you like,” she said.

She probably meant it, too. Might be mad enough to think they actually wanted him there. But… maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. It would be a place to go. And she had a bar up there, she’d told him that much… 

He could just say yes, and it would be easy. An answer to an ambivalent future he hadn’t the skill to navigate. Just do what someone else told him… 

He poked at the stem of his wine glass, but made no effort to pick it up. “Can I think about it?”

“Sure thing, sugar,” she said with her classic coquettish smile. “Just don’t keep a girl waiting too long.”

“Thanks. I’ll, uh… still need that ship though. And another favour if that’s okay?”

Moxxi raised her eyebrows, but the smile remained. “For you? I think I can make an exception.”

There was little to pack, and even less to bid farewell. He left a few notes for the people he might generously describe as friends. Trent and the Mayor, mostly. But Ember… well, he owed her more than that, especially considering the abrupt way he’d stepped out of her life all those years ago.

So he waited in her dressing room as her show wound down, pointedly avoiding his own reflection. 

She came in still painted up - all glittering eyeshadow and impossible lashes - with a costume he didn’t recognise and the mephitic scent of kerosene. If his presence was a surprise she didn’t show it.

Timothy chose to take a page from Athena’s book. He skipped the formalities and told her only that he was leaving, as if those words alone were worth the trip.

Ember just nodded. She sat down at her dressing room table and set to work removing her stage makeup, and told him that she’d suspected as much, given that it had been his greatest obsession for the last seven years. 

It stung, a bit, but not because it was untrue (it certainly wasn’t), perhaps only because of the way she said it. Idly. Like it was immaterial.

Timothy supposed he deserved that. He’d been a poor friend, a poor… whatever they had been, and here he was without so much as a gift, ready to shatter the camaraderie they were just beginning to test the mettle of again. He thought of all the things he wished he had told her - all the things he might take with him to the grave.

In the end there was only one that counted. “I’ll miss you.”

“Then come back and visit sometime,” she told him. “I am not hard to find.”

“Right.” 

Perhaps she read something in his face then, a truth he dared not speak - that once he left the casino, Timothy had no intention of ever setting foot on it again.

Her expression softened. She put down the cloth she’d been using to clear her makeup off, and gave him her full attention, considering him in silence.

“Or,” she said at last, “you could write to me, no?”

Timothy ventured a smile. “I… think I could manage that.”

Her lips turned up. “Then I look forward to it. Tell me of your adventures, mon cheri,” Ember said, and stepped forward, stretching up to plant a gentle kiss on his jaw, “and make it a good story.”

He parked the ship under a sharp slope of overhanging rock, somewhere it might escape the notice of any watchful eyes. There, Timothy waited. His fingers grew stiff around the trigger of the laser cannons. Hours passed. No one approached.

The sky was turning to a livid, burning amber by the time he finally cracked the hatch open and emerged.

The air tasted different. Timothy was hesitant to describe air on the Jackpot as clean, but it had a sterile quality, recycled and purged so many times there was nothing left to it but a hint of dust picked up from the vents. Always still, always the same balmy temperature.

But the air on Pandora was dry enough to suck the moisture right from his skin, and the breeze that swept over the parched landscape pulled a deluge of scents along with it, all the dirt and putrescent stench of local wildlife. Foul, but not… stagnant. Alive. Real. It filled his lungs like it was something new entirely.

Taking up a post beneath the wing of the dormant ship, he watched from the shadows as the sun slunk its way from view. His first sunset in over seven years. Of course it would be on a shitty planet like Pandora.

He’d be lying if he said his eyes didn’t water a little though, as golds and reds fought for canvas across the scattered clouds, the final rays of light silhouetting the jagged hills and canyons like a gleaming halo before fading to a brilliant pink…

Yeah, real sap he was, getting misty eyed over a sunset... Keep it together, Tim.

When dark finally settled he pulled his helmet on. Then, he walked.

It was surreal - open terrain stretching out further than he could see, and the dry earth crunching beneath his boots as the distant cry of wheeling rakks echoed mournfully through the night. Not a wall in sight. And Elpis loomed above… larger than he remembered, fresh scars over its pale face, but a familiar sight nonetheless.

Two miles out it struck him. Not a presence, but an absence. Helios - gone.

He stared up and the stars with a strange tightness in his throat. Could an entire space station be moved? After Jack’s fall, had the company set their eyes elsewhere, and taken it to their next prospective planet? Did it haunt another distant sky?

These were not questions he had answers for though, and not the reason he’d chosen to touch down on the planet his former boss had terrorised until his very name became a curse. 

Timothy drew a few steadying breaths. They were musty through the helmet’s filter, but he felt a measure of calm returning.

He continued to walk.

Hollow Point had escaped the brunt of Jack’s wrath by virtue of location - the city bloomed like a fungus, hidden in the eternal dark of a vast cavern. Somehow the hodgepodge of scrap metal and wooden beams coalesced into a multi-story metropolis, complete with cobbled thoroughfares, rudimentary streetlights, and more bars than working toilets. It was in equal parts a monstrosity, and a testament to the perseverance of the eternally downtrodden.

Timothy was just glad he’d brought his pistol.

He’d told himself it was for the local wildlife - Pandora’s fawna took its lethality quite seriously - but it was a reassurance now, strapped securely to his thigh within easy reach of his only hand. Getting mugged wasn’t on his checklist.

He put a little of Jack’s old swagger into his stride - confidence that spoke of a man who knew where he was going and didn’t appreciate interruptions. It helped. The many eyes of passing residents still brushed over him, assessing the stranger in their midst, but they saw the gun and the broad-shouldered strut and searched instead for easier pickings. Then, as he found a secluded doorway or narrow back alley to duck into, Timothy would frantically check his ECHO for directions before stepping out and resuming the act. Like this he progressed, and the only sign of the anxiety pooling inside of him was the itch of sweat beneath his helmet and the ragged pant of his own breathing, loud in his ears.

Then it stood before him and he found he could not move. Could only stare, lock-limbed and frangible, caught in the quick-running spiral of his thoughts.

Should he be here at all? What if his information was wrong? What if it was right? Wouldn’t it be better to turn around, while he still had the chance? What good did he do, emerging from the past like an omen of misfortune?

Hilarious, that. Having a crisis in front of a garage. 

He counted to ten. This accomplished, he persuaded his legs to move, stiffly at first but soon finding their pace. By the time he made it into the well-lit interior he was fairly sure he was moving like a normal human being again.

It wasn’t much to look at - the standard fare as far as garages went - a lot of concrete, a lot of tools, and several vehicles in various states of repair. There was a woman working on a motorbike at the back, and she peered over the seat at him before calling out a cheery greeting.

“Be with you in just a tick!” she told him. “Hang tight.”

So Timothy hovered as far in as he dared, turning his head in an arc to slowly absorb his surroundings. The posters, the old radio, a photo of a man he didn’t recognise posing in front of a caravan, a half-eaten sandwich…

He’d just about crept close enough to begin deciphering the mess of handwritten notes scattered over the workbench when the press of a blade to his throat cut him short. Timothy froze.

With painstaking slowness he lifted his hand well clear of his gun.

“Easy,” he said, “I’m not-”

“Athena!” 

The voice snapped right through the tension, and he barely had a moment to think before Janey Springs popped into view, frantically trying to scrub engine grease from her hands.

“We’ve talked about this,” she said, in a tone that suggested they very much had talked about ‘this’, “you can’t go threatening every-”

“He’s not Crimson Raider,” a familiar voice said from behind him. “His helmet is, but he isn’t. I can tell.”

Janey paused. The rag in her hands stilled - he thought she might have forgotten it completely as she cocked her head to the side and gave him a once-over.

“Oh. Is that so?” she said. Then she seemed to shake herself, and a bit of her usual pep returned. “Well, one way to settle this then, stranger. Who are you, and what’s your business?”

Timothy felt like his tongue had turned to lead. He swallowed. There were a thousand things screaming through his head, but none of them wanted to emerge. He could say ‘ it’s me ’, or ‘ Timothy Lawrence ’, or ‘ can’t you tell? ’, or ‘ why are you living in a cave? ’ or ‘ did you ever look for me? ’, or ‘the ghost of the biggest asshole in the galaxy ’, or ‘ you didn’t forget me, did you? Did you? ’, or… or…

Or he could stand there like a lemon and get his head chopped off because he was busy running circles around a question that should have been the easiest in his life to answer.

“A friend,” was what he went with. “I think. Or, I hope I still am. I’m… going to take the helmet off now so uh… maybe don’t? With the sword?”

Taking care to keep his movements as unthreatening and deliberate as possible Timothy inched his hand up to the back of the helmet until his unsteady fingers managed to find purchase, and pulled. It came free.

A scream was the only warning he got. Or, a shriek really - high pitched and girlish - and then suddenly Janey tackled him.

His breath left him in a rush.

“Oh Timothy, you absolute bastard!” she cried. “I knew you weren’t dead! Athena always said you probably were, but I knew it! Why didn’t you call us?”

“Hi, Janey…” he managed to wheeze out from her crushing embrace, “it’s… it’s kind of a long story.”

The blade at his neck was long gone. Athena stepped into view, and they studied one another for a moment. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, her face a little older - a line had finally managed to set between her brows where her scowl so often sat, and another fainter one at the corner of her mouth. 

No more of the sturdy leathers and battered armour she’d used to favour. Now she wore something lighter, looser, possibly even casual if that was ever a word he could apply to her, though the conspicuous absence of sleeves at least showed the years had done nothing to dull her strength.

“The mask’s new,” she said eventually.

“Oh, yeah, got it not long after you left. Had to match Jack.”

“Jack’s dead.”

“I know.”

“Did he…”

“Yeah.” His smile felt as brittle as his tone. “Like I said, had to match.”

Her lips tightened at that, but she made no response.

“Athena?” Janey asked, looking between them. She’d finally loosened her death grip on him, having settled for clasping both his arms as if she feared he would disappear the moment she let go.

“Later,” Athena promised. Her eyes lingered on Timothy. “You should come in. To the house. It’s best if no one sees-”

“Believe me, I’m very much aware,” he said dryly.

The house connected to the back of the garage, and had most of the qualities he’d come to expect from Hollow Point. The architecture was slapdash, the windows narrow, and there was a peculiar number of storage crates. There were also touches of character though - the colourful choice of curtains, cushions that looked to be handmade… Several framed pictures of both women were mixed in with the posters lining the walls, and Timothy tried not to drift off course as he admired them.

It had been a rare occurrence to see Athena smile back on Elpis. She smiled in these photos.

They ended up in the lounge and Janey brought drinks (not strong enough for Timothy’s tastes, but he accepted the can she pushed his way nonetheless). There he began the unenviable task of narrating the last decade. He gave them the abridged version, the parts he could share without indulging too deeply in self-pity and poisoning the mood.

When he was done he asked very quickly what they had been up to rather than waiting for a round of questions.

Mercifully, they humoured him.

Turned out the pair of them had been a lot of places since he’d last seen them. Janey always fancied putting down roots though, and a local Pandoran mechanic looking to begin a franchise seemed like a good opportunity for a job. 

Then of course things got weird, there was another vault, and Athena was briefly kidnapped and sort of rescued by an Eridian before her girlfriend could storm up guns blazing and demand her return, and Janey now ran the garage since her boss had been blown up in space…

And they were married!

His fumbling and belated congratulations was met with smiles.

“We would have invited you if we’d known how to reach you,” Athena told him.

“I would have been there if I could,” he returned.

Janey tugged at her wife’s arm insistently. “Oooh, the pictures! Show him the pictures!”

So they huddled around the coffee table while pouring over photos of the wedding, which had the added benefit of allowing him to put faces to some of the name’s they’d tossed around, and Janey waxed rhapsodic about the magic of the day until Athena was visibly blushing.

Amongst the strangers that bustled in the background was something familiar though. Or someone, he should say, though he had to blink several times to persuade himself they weren’t a phantom of his imagination.

“Wait, Claptrap’s-”

“Yep,” Athena confirmed. “Not dead.”

“But I thought…”

“That Jack killed him? He did. He just… got better.”

The little yellow robot had collected a few more scratches and dings to his chassi, but there he was, dancing away with the rest of the wedding guests without a care… Claptrap outlived Jack. Maybe the universe had a sense of humour after all.

“Oh. That’s… that’s good,” Timothy said, stifling the urge to laugh. “I’m glad, really.”

“Would you like to mee-”

“Nope. Absolutely not. Super hyped to hear he’s not dead and all, but unless he’s picked up a new personality matrix along the way…”

“He’s still Claptrap.”

Timothy let out a breath of air - still not quite a laugh, but close to it. “Yeah. Figures.”

Not a bad thing though… he’d known Claptrap better than he’d admit, better than he wanted to, and the thing that had always struck him was his sheer resilience. 

It was quicker to write a list of people who didn’t despise him. He was a nuisance, a failure, constantly stumbling from one unwitting disaster to the next, barely one step ahead of all his mistakes. But he always picked himself back up. Always returned with a positive attitude and childlike enthusiasm. Trusted in his friends… Believed in the future.

It was a shocking discovery to realise that a part of him actually envied the little robot.

Timothy was still grappling with this revelation when Athena broke his train of thought.

“Do you remember,” she asked, “when Jack digitised our consciousness, sent us into his mind to find that code he wanted, and Claptrap had that song stuck-”

“God, don’t talk about the song! I had that thing in my brain for weeks…” he moaned.

“And you kept humming it, and Wilhelm-”

“Said if I didn’t stop he’d put me between two jump pads and let me puke myself to death.”

“So you stayed up all night listening to some weird folk-metal stuff-”

“And I finally had it out my head-”

“And then Nisha started humming it.”

They were both grinning, but he saw the moment it hit her. Watched as the expression froze, and slid slowly from her face. And he knew, before she even spoke, what she was going to say.

“She’s dead,” Athena told him.

“I know.”

“Wilhelm too.”

“I know.” Timothy stared down at the empty can in his grasp. “Aurelia?” he asked.

“Haven’t heard from her in a long time.”

He sighed. Elpis was far behind them. He could still remember it though… possibly the earliest he could remember with any clarity, and while he might not mourn the people, he could mourn the loss of their eclectic gang. They had been a part of something, in those days. Now they were just the shrapnel.

“Well. Claptrap’s alive. That’s something,” he said.

“And both of you as well,” Janey cut in. “Let’s not go forgetting that.”

The melancholy he’d inadvertently introduced was not easily dispelled, but they made some headway as she leapt into an anecdote about their honeymoon and an unfortunate choice of footwear, and later dragged out several children’s books she’d written for him to flip through.

Athena informed him he would be staying for dinner. Not a question, a statement, and he thought it rude to protest. 

Then Janey went and made up the couch for him to sleep on, and Timothy was beginning to suspect they were conspiring together but could think of no way to prove it.

So he was staying the night. Not what he’d planned, but that was fine. Certainly he’d slept in worse places. It would have been nice if the couch was just a bit longer though, so his feet didn’t dangle obstinately over the end.

As it turned out, this was not the biggest issue. No. The problem… the part that really sunk its teeth in… was the darkness that lurked behind his own lids. In that lightless void a terrible conviction came crawling - the thought that he had never left the casino at all. 

If he only stretched his fingers out he would feel the unwelcoming cold of embossed metal beneath his touch. The walls that had entombed him were there, they were there, and he huddled under his flimsy blanket and tried to will them away, like they would ever concede to his whims. Like they weren’t inevitable. Inexorable.

He closed his eyes, and the jaws of the Jackpot snapped shut around him. 

Timothy got up and turned the light on. For a while he just stood by the switch, breathing, soaking in every detail around him - the peeling wallpaper, the wooden floorboards, the posters tacked up with old pins - anything he could catalogue. It wasn’t the casino. It so tangibly wasn’t the casino. Yet the thought of returning to the couch was too much, he knew the moment he let himself drift it would all come crashing back. 

Instead he picked his way quietly through the house and found the ladder to the roof.

The air outside was cold but still. Keeping well back from the edge where the sudden drop was sure to set his stomach churning he found a place in the centre and lay down, hand folded over the stump of his right arm. 

There were no stars to be seen above, just the ragged, pockmarked ceiling of the cavern, and this was something Timothy was grateful for. The glittering vastness of open space was the only view the Jackpot had ever provided, the only piece of the outside they could ever observe. Here, it could not touch him. There was the openness he craved - free from the walls and doors that sought to contain him - but not tainted by that sight.

Soaking in the darkness he found a measure of calm. He lay like that for a while. 

Timothy wondered if this was what contentment was - peace, perhaps. It didn’t feel like it. 

Was this the future he’d clawed his way toward, all these years? Was this it? His prize, his reward for every misery inflicted upon him, the blood he’d waded through? Was this all there would ever be?

He’d won, Jack was dead, he was free, and it still wasn’t enough… still didn’t fill the hole inside of him, that emptiness that surged up in these quiet moments, or the anger there was no one left to answer for. 

But what was he doing but lingering? A ship as far away as you can dream, Moxxi had promised, and as soon as he had it he chased the past because it was the only path he could see…

The chapter closed, the page turned, and the question was: what next?  

Yet the words would not flow. Maybe he was still trapped in a way, reaching for something he would never find… 

Was it madness? Selfishness that drove him here? Athena had a life, and what good did he do, stumbling into it now with nothing to give? Thinking only of the time he’d known her, over seven years ago. Did he think it would restore some part of him, return what had splintered off since their time as colleagues?

No. No, he knew where this line of thinking went. It twisted him up when he let it. The simple truth was that Athena mattered, and they had been… well, she had deserved to know he hadn’t kicked the bucket, to hear it in person and not as some idle gossip passed between acquaintances of acquaintances… 

And it soothed some piece of his mind to see her. To see her happy. Janey, too. A conclusion he could appreciate. The ending they deserved.

And still the question yawned, open and ineludible - what next?

There might be room up on Sanctuary for a man like you…

Staring up at the cavern’s ceiling Timothy tried to picture it. Would it be so terrible to go along with the proposition, just for the meantime? Maybe not… but it wasn’t what he wanted, either, was it? Was it?

He was still lost in thought when the sound of the roof’s hatch opening came from behind, and Timothy startled, head jerked back to assess the new threat.

It was only Athena. She met his gaze squarely, and after a moment Timothy relaxed. Let his hand go back to where it had been, folded over his stomach.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked him.

“Something like that,” Timothy said, with a half-hearted smile. “You?”

She seemed to contemplate this for a moment. “Yes. Something like that.”

Without waiting for an invitation she emerged the rest of the way onto the roof, closing the hatch softly behind her. 

Timothy went back to staring upward. A few seconds later he heard Athena sit beside him, and a few seconds after that another sound as she lay down.

So, apparently they were both just going to lie on the roof then. As ridiculous as it was he felt no inclination to move.

She didn’t speak. He appreciated that. No ‘are you okay?’ or ‘do you want to talk about it?’, just her presence, as solid and immovable as ever. Athena never faltered no matter what the universe threw their way. She braced herself, dug her heels in, and powered through. He hadn’t even realised how much he’d needed that, leaned on her those days back on Elpis, not until she was long gone and his life fell to pieces…

Over seven years, and she filled that absent space without question. Over seven years… and lying beside her, she still made the world feel steady, like it was something he could traverse without the ground falling away beneath him.

He let a long, slow breath out through his nose. “I can’t remember my face.”

“Timothy…”

He didn’t stop there. Feared that if he might, the words would dry in his mouth and never emerge at all. “I know I had freckles, and I think my hair was kind of… frizzy? But that’s all I’ve got. The rest is a blank.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Glancing over, he saw that she had pushed herself up on one elbow, angled toward him but looking uncertain whether she was supposed to shift closer.

Timothy shrugged. “Because I want to,” he said. “I mean I know I probably didn’t look like much, but I was still me... Now it’s just Jack. That asshat took that from me, and I’m probably just going to have to get over it someday.”

He looked away, then, unsure what expression she would wear and entirely unwilling to find out. The darkness was a far more welcome confidant.

“You remembered your face while we were on Elpis?”

He focused on the rugged stone above him and forced his tongue to move. “Yeah.”

“I never should have left you behind, Tim. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I told you to go. I’m not digging for pity here, I just wanted to tell someone.”

“You could still change your face, you don’t have to look like him anymore. If the bomb’s deactivated we can find someone…”

Timothy pulled himself upright. “ Nooottt the biggest fan of surgery these days. Besides, what would I change it to? I don’t remember what I looked like. At least like this there’s a few people who recognise me. You, Janey, Moxxi, Ember, the Mayor, those new vault hunters, maybe even Pickle… god, how old is Pickle now? Actually don’t answer that, he was hard enough to deal with as a kid, I don’t want to imagine the alternative. All I’m saying… all I’m saying is it’s better than nothing.”

A beat of silence descended. 

“You’ll still have to hide it, on Pandora at least.”

He managed to turn his head toward her at last. There was… something resembling pity in those eyes, a hurt that was not her own, but there was still the strength he’d come to appreciate too, the well-disciplined scrutiny of a soldier - acknowledging the state of things, and turning to the practical. Thoroughly Athena.

His lopsided grin had more warmth than he’d anticipated. “Oh, yeah, totally, don’t have to explain that one to me.”

“Will you still be here tomorrow?”

“I guess? Wasn’t planning to just disappear in the night.”

“Good,” she said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

When they rose it was still dark. Partially because of the whole ‘being in a cave’ thing, but also because Pandoran cycles were ninety standard hours long. 

Janey cooked rakk eggs for breakfast. Once Timothy was obediently shovelling them into his mouth, and she began to fill a bag for him, ignoring his protests.

“It’s easier to just let it happen,” Athena said, “otherwise she’ll hop on a bike and follow you.”

“I should!” Janey retorted. “Wandering off without even any spare food? How do you expect to survive out there? Do you have to go?”

He almost regretted filling her in on that part of the plan. He poked at the remains of his scrambled eggs. “I’ll be coming back.”

“Too right you will. But if it’s in another ten years don’t think I won’t be pissed.”

Timothy sighed, and took another bite. “It won’t be ten years.”

“You’ll look after him, right, Athena? Make sure he gets where he’s going?”

“Of course.”

The pack she eventually shoved his way was heavy enough to unbalance him, and he nearly asked if she’d put enough rocks in it before he caught her expression and thought better of it. Janey gave him a bruising hug.

“You take care of yourself, you hear me you big jerk?” she mumbled into his shoulder. “And I better get postcards! Lots of them!”

“Totally,” he promised.

With one final squeeze she released him and went to kiss Athena goodbye before they set out.

They took one of Janey’s bikes. It was an unsightly beast to Timothy’s mind, with an engine that thrummed like a live thing beneath them, but it was fast, he was assured, and burned less fuel than a four wheeler. He clung to Athena’s back as best he could around the shield and thanked the heavens for his helmet.

As soon as they made it out of Hollow Point she twisted the accelerator and they tore through the dirt with a trail of dust billowing behind them.

Sometimes they were fortunate enough to take roads, but most of the journey was cross-country. He got used to the rough quiver of the bike’s suspension. Spent his time watching the sawtooth shadows of the craggy landscape rush by under a darkened sky.

It was… strange. Difficult to comprehend the distance they ate up in any concrete sense.

For a painful stretch of time his world has encompassed the length and breadth of the Jackpot, which while hardly insubstantial still limited movement in a very real way. You could walk from one side to the other. He’d been everywhere there - from the vice district to the compactor. Travelling by foot could get you from one section to the next in a matter of minutes.

But Pandora zipped by endlessly, and the vastness of it was breathtaking. It was only then that dawned on him - the infinite span of the universe. He could pick any planet he liked and walk until he died of old age and still not scratch the surface. He had a ship. He could go anywhere. There were no walls to stop him now.

Several hours passed before Athena pulled them over for a break. She killed the engine and left it to cool, taking long gulps from a flask she’d brought with her before passing it over to him. The water was lukewarm but quenches his thirst all the same. 

Having sated one need, Timothy turned to rummage through his pack for something to eat, and paused as his hand found instead the battered form of a book hidden amongst the cans and other parcels Janey had gifted him. At first he thought it must be one of her children’s stories - he’d always done his best to encourage those - but as he studied it closer he noted a different name on the cover. And the title…

“Detective frog?” he mused aloud, tracing his fingers over the illustration on its front.

Athena looked across. “Oh. You said you used to read those.”

Timothy froze. He wet his lips. “I did?”

“Yeah.”

He stared at the book for a whole minute before very carefully putting it back in the safety of his pack. 

There were, thankfully, sandwiches, and they took two each and sat on the most comfortable looking rocks to eat them. The bread was soft, the meat was indeterminate, but the overall result was surprisingly pleasant.

“Your wife makes good sandwiches,” he told her between mouthfuls.

“She does,” Athena agreed. “She also makes terrible pastries, but don’t tell her I said that.”

He was about to respond when something in the distance caught his attention. Nothing big, just a flash of light really. 

“Top of the right ridge, about half a mile out,” he said instead.

Athena set down her sandwich and pulled out a pair of binoculars as Timothy wrestled his helmet back on.

“Bandits,” she said after a moment.

“Have they seen us?”

“I don’t know. Better not to take the chance.” Putting the binoculars away she reached back for her shield, strapping it onto her arm. “Like old times? I’ll take the left, you take the right?”

Timothy drew his pistol. It still felt odd in his left hand, but the shape, the weight, these had not changed. A companion he could pick out in the dark by touch alone, a weapon of precision.

He glanced up at the ridge, gawing at his lower lip. He returned the gun to its holster.

“I’d rather not.”

Athena’s eyes rested heavily upon him. She didn’t ask though. Didn’t breathe life to the question he knew she must have.

“Stay here then, I’ll be back soon,” she said, and left.

With nothing else to do he methodically re-wrapped the remainder of the sandwiches and waited. A little over a half hour later she returned.

“It’s dealt with,” was all she said. 

They got back on the bike, and drove.

Timothy saw it well before they arrived. There was no mistaking its outline, the familiar pronged giant, stretching up to the sky from which it had fallen. Helios, in ruins.

Maybe a part of him had already known. Maybe a part of him still refused to conceive of it. Yet he could not tear his eyes from it, could only drown in the sight of the wreckage with his heart in his throat.

This was where it began. The backdrop to Jack’s ascent to rule, the seat of his power, a symbol of the inescapable watch of Hyperion. His home for years. The first prison he’d known. He’d never dreamed it would fall.

Athena parked the bike a mile out, up the vantage of a nearby slope. 

“I… it’s really… gone,” Timothy murmured when the sound of the engine died.

She looked at him. “Sort of,” she said, and beckoned him to follow. 

Mutely he trailed after her, climbing further up the slope until it evened out at the crest where there was flat expanse of undisturbed ground. There, she handed him the binoculars.

After a brief hesitation he removed his helmet and accepted them, lifting them to his eyes.

Helios jumped into crisp focus before him. 

Cold steel, as towering and baleful as he recalled, but ragged - sheared off at odd angles, not the sleek structure that had once struck fear into all who gazed upward. There were… patches though, discoloured stretches of metal that did not match the whole, and he realised to his astonishment that these were attempts at repairs.

More than that, there were spots of brighter colour - banners, painted portholes, washing lines… and the station sprawled. Small shacks and marquees spread from its base, forming a close knit district of wildly varying design and materials. People moved amongst them.

He could see a gathering practising what looked like some kind of yoga with guns. Kids chased one another under the careful watch of several adults, while older individuals bartered and haggled at the fringes.

“They call themselves ‘the Children of Helios’,” Athena said from beside him. “Ex-Hyperion, survivors of the fall. Man called Vaughn leads them. They’re not corporate pen-pushers anymore, but… they’re not really Pandoran either. A new breed, I guess.”

Slowly Timothy lowered the binoculars. He swallowed. It took him longer than he would have liked to find his voice. “It’s… different. They look… happy. I don’t… I don’t think I ever expected anyone on Helios to look happy. Not unless someone else was suffering.” 

“It’s not the same place, they’ve changed it… also outlawed the colour yellow for some reason, which I think is part of some weird cult thing they have going, but I didn’t ask for details.” She gave him a quick smile, but he couldn’t quite get himself to mirror it, and her expression quickly sobered to something grave. “Helios doesn’t belong to Jack anymore. And from what I know about Moxxi she’ll wipe every last trace of him from that casino. Everything that Jack built, people are making their own. He’s disappearing one day at a time.”

“Not all of him.”

Athena didn’t waver. “Maybe not. But Jack’s dead, and I can’t think of anything more satisfying than taking even his face away. Make it yours, Timothy. Make people remember you, not him.”

He looked away before she did, studying the binoculars he still held. Studying the helmet that sat abandoned on the dusty ground. 

Impossible was a word he might have used once, but impossible was Helios, flourishing in the wasteland with its corporate strings severed. Impossible was Claptrap, dancing at a wedding while the man who’d killed him was nothing but bones. Impossible was Timothy Lawrence, still breathing, still walking, still here even if there were pieces of him that would never reform the way they had once.

He drew in the Pandoran air, savouring every execrable note. Wiped his eyes off on the sleeve of his jacket.

“Thank you…” told her, trying to keep his voice steady. “I mean it. I know I never, well, it wasn’t like there was ever a great time to say it, but uh… you were probably the closest thing I had to a friend in a long time. I’m glad I got to see you again.”

“You too,” Athena said, a little awkwardly, because that was always the way with her. She could call out enemy positions while under fire no problem, but still floundered in the face of sentiment. He loved her all the more for it.

“Do you know where you’re going after this?” she asked.

Timothy managed a smile. “I’m working on it.”

“Well,” she said, “wherever you go, don’t be a stranger.”

Timothy sat in the ship’s cockpit, legs kicked up on the dashboard and his ECHO held loosely in one hand. Athena’s bike had long since disappeared over the horizon. He’d watched it go.

The sun had yet to rise but Pandoran nights were never truly black - the luminous mass of Elpis saw to that - and he could still discern every dip and peak of the landscape. 

A hellscape, some people called it, but Timothy didn’t think it looked like that. Hell was a box with no key. Pandora was wide stretching plains and desolate canyons. He might never fully understand why anyone would choose to settle on such a planet, but he caught glimpses on occasion… snatches of something that could be described as beautiful.

His fingers tapped lightly at the edges of his ECHO. He counted to twenty, and put the call through.

The moment the connection clicked into place he was speaking. “Hey, it’s uh, Timothy… I mean, of course it is, it already says that on your ECHO and god why am I like this… Okay. Starting over. I just wanted to let you know I’ve thought about your offer.”

Moxxi’s sultry tone filled the cockpit. “Glad to hear it, sugar. I take it that means you’ve made a decision?”

“Yeah… look, I’ve been playing it over in my head a lot, you know I’d normally jump at the opportunity to see more of you but I’m also not keen on living near a bunch of people who’d shoot this face without even thinking, so that’s a lot to deal with…” 

He trailed off, wishing that he could see her, thanking god that he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to say his piece with her poised in front of him and slowly undoing him with her gaze. He was barely sure that he could manage it now, alone and lightyears from wherever she lounged.

“I spent the last seven years in a living hell, Moxxi,” he said all in one breath, “and then you showed up… might not have been what you planned to do but you saved me. Without you and those new vault hunters, I’d still be rotting in there. I owe you for that. And I’d love to pay you back for it if I can. But also…”

Timothy closed his eyes and bit the inside of his cheek. “Also, if it’s okay, I think I’d like to spend some time catching up with the rest of the world? Maybe travel? I’ve been looking at steel walls and space for waaayy too long, I think I just want to… stretch my legs... Yeah. That.”

For several seconds there was no sound at all. When Moxxi spoke, her voice was pleasantly neutral. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is. I was serious about paying you back though… and not just for the casino… I know it was just a job, but working for Jack was the biggest mistake of my life and I don’t know if I can make up for it, but I’d still like to try. If you or the Crimson Raiders ever need anything you can always call. Maybe if they get used to the idea of me I’ll join the rest of you up there someday, but I can’t make any promises. I just… I don’t-”

“Don’t want to nail yourself down,” she finished for him, and Timothy deflated in his seat.

“Yeah…”

“I hear you on that one, hun,” she said, and there was warmth to it this time, an understanding. “No harm in keeping your options open. I’ll give you a call if any work comes my way that sounds like your kind of gig, but if not, you know how to reach me.”

“Sounds good. And Moxxi… thanks. For dinner. And everything else. And just… thank you.”

“Oh Timothy,” she sighed, “you really are too sweet.”

The line went dead, but the lightness in his chest remained. He knew this would not be the last they spoke. Knew too that he would see Athena again. And Janey. And that he had a letter to write to Ember - the first of many - and she would write back with all the bountiful gossip of the Vice district and pyrotechnic plans for her show.

But in the meantime there was an entire galaxy out there, and the destination was not important, because that was something that would come in due course. All that mattered was the unshakable certainty that every direction was his to claim.

Timothy opened his eyes, took his feet off the dashboard, and pulled up the ship’s navigational program. There were no walls anymore.

He wrote of a man who could change his face to anything, and one day he looked in the mirror and realised he could not recall his own. But he remembered his name. And even when he didn’t, other people did… they saw him and they smiled, they recognized him, and the further he travelled and the more people he met, the more that new face became his in every way that mattered. 

And perhaps it was only a story, but perhaps that was okay.