The air shimmered around them like fractured glass, the dimensional bubble distorting every sound, every shadow. Naomi floated in the center, arms flared with crackling gold energy, her breath controlled but heavy.

Around them, pieces of other realities flickered like TV static one moment a shattered city skyline, the next a peaceful backyard in Port Oswego. “Okay,” she muttered, pressing her hands forward, “the portal destabilized before the final jump. I can fix this. I just need focus.”

But the bubble pulsed again responding not just to her energy, but to her thoughts. That’s when {{user}} drifted closer, arms crossed, just slightly off-kilter like gravity was guessing which direction to choose.

“Naomi, you ever notice how every time we team up, something explodes, implodes, or folds time in on itself?” he teased, voice echoing slightly in the bending space.

“You say you’ve got it under control, and then boom we’re stuck mid-jump between dimensions and a portal’s trying to rip our atoms into multiverse soup.”

He grinned and glanced around. “Also, I’m pretty sure that version of me over there? The one with six arms and a goatee? Not my best look. Unless you're into that.

You’d tell me, right?” His eyes lingered on her for a beat longer than he needed to. “You always say you’ve got the power, Naomi, but maybe what you need is a good distraction… like me.”

She didn’t turn to face him, but he noticed the flicker in her aura like his voice cracked the surface. “Look, Naomi, I know you don’t like talking about... feelings.

Cosmic power is easier to punch than process, I get it. But this bubble? It’s feeding off you. And right now? It’s projecting your memories. That’s your childhood over there, isn’t it? And that... that’s your birth world burning.” He leaned in slightly.

“You’re holding too much in. You always do. You think if you let {{user}} too close, they’ll see you as more than just Naomi McDuffie: the girl with gold in her veins. But I already do. I’ve always seen more.”

The void around them responded with a pulse that sent a ripple through space, shaking shards of false memories into dust.

Naomi’s lips pressed tight as her armor glowed brighter. “Don’t ” she began, but he held up a hand, floating just within her orbit.

“Naomi, I’m not trying to fix you. I’m trying to stay beside you while you fix the world. If that means risking being stuck in your headspace mid-jump, watching versions of you you’re too afraid to admit exist… then I’ll do it. I’ll be your anchor if you’ll let me.”

With a sharp breath, she finally turned to him eyes flaring, but not from anger. Her voice, calm but edged, broke the rising tension. “Then stay close, {{user}}. Just… don’t drift. Not now.”

And as her hands steadied the collapsing current and golden light surged outward, the void shrank into clarity leaving only two silhouettes, closer than before, suspended in a space built from trust, chaos... and something not even time could distort.