A/N- So this is it. This is the last chapter of QoH and I know it's short and I've taken forever getting it out to anyone who's still reading. Thank you all for sticking with me and supporting this story even when I was doubtful of it myself. I wish every single person who's read this story a wonderful life and whatever else y'all want. See you guys around :)

Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own Saints Row or any of its characters. The content of this story was not meant to insult anyone in any way, shape, or form. Rated T for violence and coarse language.

Chapter Twenty One: Back to the Start

Pierce's party goes off without a hitch, but then again it's almost impossible to throw a bad party when we basically rule the universe. Now that our own impending doom isn't hanging over us, it seems that everyone I previously assumed had a stick up their ass (Asha, Shaundi, Kinzie) is letting go. Kinzie, in particular, seems to have no cares in the world as she gyrates awkwardly on our coffee table. Asha and Matt are sparring with Zinjai in a corner and I swear I saw Shaundi and Gat holding hands or something over in the navigation room not too long ago. Maybe they're together now. If so, I'm happy for them.

After all the noise and the weird lighting becomes too much for me I make my way back to my room. I must be getting old. When the Saints ruled Steelport we had parties nearly every night and I can't remember ever tiring of them.

A few minutes pass in relative peace before Gat, Shaundi, and Pierce fall through my door. Shaundi shoves Pierce away from her person and Gat ignores both of them, stepping aside and sitting on the edge of my bed instead. I move away from my soft, sleep-inducing pillows when I realize that they're here to talk and not merely to annoy me.

"What are you doing in here?" Johnny asks with his eyebrows raised.

"Specially when the party's out there." Pierce adds, gesturing towards the door. I open my mouth to answer them but words fall short of everything I'm feeling right now. I'm so so glad that we've won this stupid war but I've lost so much that I feel like pieces of me are missing. And then I feel like an idiot for thinking that because I'm the queen of the fucking universe now. Weakness is beneath me.

"Fighting takes its toll after a while, doesn't it?" Shaundi says gently, moving to sit beside me and brushing my hair out of my eyes. I nod in silence, sensing some sort of lump in my throat. It's all over but everything feels just as hard.

"Hey." Johnny brushes his hand against my knee, willing me to look at him, "I know it must have been a bitch to look for me when everything else went to shit. Thanks for not giving up."

"Um...thanks for saving me from Paul." Pierce mutters, and I let out a short laugh.

Shaundi leans her head against my shoulder. "Thank you for believing in me when no one else did. You know, back when I was stoned off my ass more than half the time."

I look around at them, my closest friends in the world and the only three people who've managed to make me feel at home since my brother was killed, and I know I'm close to tears. I've never liked this feeling.

"Did you guys just come in here to tell me how much you appreciate me or was there something else?" I manage to say around the lump in my throat. Pierce frowns.

"What, ain't that enough for you?"

Shaundi answers before I can. "She just doesn't want us to know she's touched, you know her."

"Shut up." I growl, and they snicker. I don't keep track of how much longer we sit together like this-talking a little and laughing a lot- because I know that we'll be doing it often now that Zinyak is dead. There's a lot to deal with still, but not so much that I can't enjoy my friends.

It's strange to think that I don't need to be afraid anymore.

Towards the end of the party Matt enters the room and the others file out, Pierce winking suggestively at me as he leaves last. I narrow my eyes at him and greet my...boyfriend? as he takes their place beside me on the bed.

"It's getting a bit loud out there." he comments, rolling his shoulders and arching his back. I grin as I remember him sparring alongside Asha.

"It's been loud the whole time." I tell him, reaching across the bedsheets to take his hand. He squeezes my fingers where they're wound through his and smiles to himself.

"I can't believe it's ended. It's only been a few months but I feel like I've been fighting for most of my life."

He's always had this way of putting my thoughts into words when I can't quite make them out for myself and I've never valued it so much as I do now. My lips twist up at the corners as I think of everything that brought us here, remembering that first text he'd sent me, the first conversation we'd had, the first time I'd seen him blush and the last time we'd said goodbye. I'd like to see it all again.

"We should go back in time." I begin, watching his face uncertainly, "To when we first met. There's a lot I missed out on with all that happened."

He seems to like the idea. "Why not? We have unlimited free time now, don't we?"

"We do."

Matt smiles and leans over until his breath is warm on my ear. He says my name in a voice so quiet that even Kinzie wouldn't be able to hear it over her hidden cameras or whatever the hell she has planted in my room. I feel a shiver running down my spine not because of the intimacy of the act, but simply due to the fact that this is the first time I've heard my real name in a few years. Even Kinzie gave up calling me by it when I stopped responding.

I turn my head and kiss him quickly, shakily. He answers in kind but pulls away sooner than I'd expected, getting off my bed and dragging me after him by my hand. There will be time for us to be together, years and years in which we can hurtle through time and space just for the fun of it. But tonight I'd rather be at this stupid party with the few people left whom I love.

There's a boy ascending the stairs to our old Burns Hill headquarters, slight and familiar, brushing a shaking hand through his dark hair as he prepares to push through the doors in front of him. I turn to my companion, an older version of the same young man, and smile questioningly.

"What were you thinking about there?"

Matt purses his lips and tries to move a little closer to his younger self, but I grab the back of his stupid scarf/tie thing and keep him beside me. If we're seen we could disrupt the "space-time continuum". I remember specifically because Zinjai mentioned it to me thirty times just this morning.

"I'm not really sure, but I remember I felt like a failure for the first time in a while." he mutters after a long moment, "Thanks for that, by the way. You completely crushed my self-esteem."

I roll my eyes. "I should've done a better job. Wouldn't mind if you were a little less full of yourself right now."

"Rude."

Younger Matt finally grows a pair and enters my former domain, moving to a room we can't follow him into. I frown and immediately begin considering what sort of disguise I'll have to use to get in there-following our lengthy romance is what we've come here for after all- but Matt, it seems, has a better idea. He grins knowingly at me and lifts up one of those Zin iPad things.

"I've taken the liberty of asking Zinjai to have my old room bugged. We can listen in, if you'd like."

He takes a seat on the sidewalk curb closest to us and gestures for me to sit beside him. After a moment's deliberation, I decide that it's dark enough that we won't be recognized even if someone does happen to come across us sitting together out here. When I'm next to him again he presses something on the screen and, after a few more minutes, I hear my own voice sounding out through the night.

"Not really Decker style, is it?"

I glance over at Matt. "Can't you get video on this thing?"

"Sorry, love," he grimaces, "It's audio or nothing. Even at the age of sixteen, I could spot a hidden camera in my room from a mile off."

I let out a snicker. "Nerd."

He shushes me then and we listen to our younger selves conversing for a while longer. They discuss the future of their alliance and Matt's infatuation with me for some time. I can't help but smile as I remember what I'd thought of him in that moment: Small. Fragile. Sweet. I was so very wrong. Matt's taller than me now, and I understand very well that he is stronger than I am. He's just as selfish though, at least we've got that in common.

"You loved me too soon." I say softly, not daring to look at him. We're together, for real this time, and this whole relationship thing is very new to me. I'm not sure what I can and can't say.

"Well, I was only sixteen. I didn't know any better." he replies.

"I like you enough to keep you alive when everyone I care about wants you dead." younger me says tonelessly, and Matt chuckles.

"Nevermind. I think I loved you right on time."

After a while our former selves' conversation cuts out and they instead emerge from the front entrance of the building, laughing together at something we're too far away to overhear. Current Matt tucks the alien pad into his coat pocket and gets to his feet, pausing only to offer his hand to help me up. We follow ourselves down the street and into a Barely Legal where, if I'm remembering correctly, I had had to fix a stripper harassment issue the managers were too chicken to deal with themselves. I'd forgotten how responsible I used to be with the businesses of my employees.

"You were louder than I remember you being." Matt remarks happily as past me yells at a customer. I nod approvingly when she finally reaches her limit and smashes a chair against the skull of the same inconsiderate asswipe. Younger Matt looks rather alarmed but impressed too. He's always had that attitude when it came to me.

"I guess I've really matured with age." I admit, pulling the hood of my sweater tighter around my face.

Matt shakes his head. "I'm not sure you'll ever really 'mature', to be honest. But you are different."

"Different good or different bad?"

He just looks at me, his eyes bright in the strobing lights that flash across the sizeable room. By the time he answers the song playing overhead has ended and many a stripper are demanding more money for more dancing from their guests.

"There is no different bad with you. Every bit is good."

I can feel my heart beating in my throat at this, a gentle thumping that speeds up when I catch the softness of his gaze as he watches the younger me turning back to speak with younger him. And then there are words bubbling up alongside my heartbeat, moving across my tongue, falling out of my mouth of their own volition. I can't stop them now.

"I love you, Matt."

I've gotten to know Matt Miller very well in our time together. I know how much milk he puts in his coffee, I know his favorite clothing line and his favorite brand of nail polish, I even know that he likes the way I laugh when he says the word aluminum with his ridiculous accent. I know him so well, in fact, that I am near certain that he'll react to my words with either a shocked silence or a frenzied kiss or something of that sort. Matt does neither of those things. Instead he smiles and answers me so softly that I wouldn't have heard him, had he been anyone else.

"I know."