After

Alice ducked inside the empty classroom, giving the door a gentle push to close it behind her.

The moonlight shown through the broad glass windows, illuminating the tables in a bluish glow.

A steady beep, beep, beep was the only noise that cut through the silence.

"Jim?" she asked, taking another step forward.

The young adult sat on one of the tables, his chest bare except for the wires attached to his skin.

The heart monitor continued its beep.

"You're doing it again." It was much less of a question than a statement. Jim bobbed his head in a nod. Alice walked over and took a seat on the table beside him. They were silent for a while.

"I'm not doing it because you think," Jim finally spoke, his voice quiet and strained.

"What do you mean?" Alice asked. Jim took a deep breath through his nose.

"There's something else that the dream machine found the time we went in together. Something I didn't believe still existed," he said. Alice opened her mouth to shrug it off when Jim stopped her. "I know you know what I'm talking about, Alice." Alice released her breath of air and nodded.

"The memory of your father."

Jim stared straight ahead, his blue eyes unblinking as they caught the moonlight.

"I thought Silver helped you," Alice said, taking his hand. "I thought you were finally feeling okay." Jim let the corner of his mouth twitch upward as he shook his head.

"I know he's never coming back. That's not the part I'm afraid of. I've been thinking it over. Real hard. Ever since our recent voyage…where I could have lost you –"

"Don't," Alice warned, squeezing his hand. "Don't you go there, Jim. You won't lose me." Jim didn't respond to this. He continued speaking as if he hadn't heard her.

"The memory has intensified. And I don't know why it gets worse every time I see him leaving again." Alice watched as Jim ran his index finger and thumb over his eyes. He let out a breathy laugh. "You'd think it would get better with time, but I just don't know, Alice. Whenever I see him leaving, I just…I think about things I know he shouldn't remind me of, but I do. I think about the loneliness and the hopelessness I felt for those seven years after he left. And I just can't take it. I think about what life would have been like if I had never met you and Silver. I think about losing you, losing Silver, losing my mom, losing…losing the people that really hold me together." Jim gave a chest choke as he tried to restrain from crying.

Alice said nothing as she watched him, giving his hand a little squeeze to let him know she was still with him. Jim cleared his throat and continued.

"I remember everything I felt before my life changed. I remember what I thought every day, how much I thought if I had only tried harder to be the best for him, get his attention, then he would have stayed. I wished that there was some way for me and my mom to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. And I just stayed silent, trying to telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what had happened. And I thought about all of the grief and sadness and messed up stuff in the world. It made me want to escape." Jim's voice drifted off, getting quieter and quieter as he continued. "I wished with all my heart that I could just leave the world behind: rise like an angel in the night and magically…disappear." As Jim finished, his voice was little over a whisper. The tears were racing down his cheeks now like tiny streams cutting through the countryside.

He ran his arm across his face, folding his fingers between Alice's as he slid off the table, pulled the wires from his chest, and beckoned her to follow. Alice joined him beneath the window as they stared up at the sky. The full moon in all its brilliance still could not conceal the light of the stars.

"What happened that summer," Jim started again, his voice wavering as he turned to look at Alice beside him. "Changed me. Because of you and Silver, I became someone I thought I'd never be. I found a light when I never thought there could be one." Jim sucked in a shuddering breath as he took both of her hands in his and stared down at Alice's compassionate expression. "And I'm scared, Alice," he admitted, clenching his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut releasing a few more tears. "I'm scared to face these fears alone. I don't want to face anything alone anymore."

Alice was quiet as he opened his eyes revealing those cerulean irises as never-ending as the Etherium itself.

"You don't have to face anything alone anymore, Jim. I'll always be here," she smiled, putting a hand to his cheek and wiping away the tears. Jim smiled back, holding her hand to him as he reminisced on Silver's words.

"…I mean look at yeh! Yer both glowin' like solar fires! Yeh two are something special. I just know yer gonna rattle teh stars you are."

Silver and Alice had filled a void in Jim's heart. Where he was once empty, now he was full. And he never ever wanted to get rid of that feeling.

"He really loved us," he told Alice as they stood underneath the celestial sky. Alice smiled as she nodded her head and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his warm bare chest. Jim hugged her back, both of them feeling the other's heartbeat.

There would always be a dark.

But happiness could be found…

…if one only remembered to turn on the light.

The End

A/N: Okay I would like to say that this (chapter...?) was inspired by the most amazing Jazzy-B-Real's youtube video which can be found if you go to youtube and type in: Jim Hawkins Mysterious Skin.

The dialogue is taken from a movie starring Joseph Gordon Levitt called Mysterious Skin and she just fit that dialogue so well into her video that I cried a little. It's so beautiful, so please check that out!

So yes, I just adapted some of the dialogue from that movie and youtube video to fit this little After scene.

(PLEASE CHECK OUT THE VIDEO)

Anyway, that's it guys! It's finally over! The Eternity Star is done!

WOOOO!

But the story is far from the end. Jim and Alice's adventures...oh boy, they are about to take a massive turn in the next story! So please stay tuned for The Battle at Procyon!

(Yes it is based off of the computer game with my own twists and characters)

Soooo, stay tuned everyone! And thank you so much to everyone who has followed this story, reviewed it, read it, favorited it, drawn pictures for it, or anything else! You guys are truly amazing! :tighthug:

Special Thanks goes to: EVERYONE WHO HAS AMAZINGLY REVIEWED, READ, FAVORITED, ETC. THIS STORY! You guys are sooooooo freaking awesome! On to the next story at last!