🦇 pepbers (your choice 😊)
Hopefully you like this spooky spacey fic!! 😊😊
The signal projector battery was at 11%.
Peppa growled, shoving it into the dashboard of their spacecraft and flicking it on for just enough time to send a beam into space, then tugging it back out.
10% now. It flashed for critically low battery.
For the hundredth time they pinched their fingers into the bridge of their nose, cursing not having just picked up the charger in Jo's room that morning when they'd both left. Now they were left with a signal indicator, the only one that matched Jo's, with such a low battery that they didn't have much time left to find her.
But there it was again. A flash on the screen in the exact same placement.
Another signal. Is it Jo this time?
Hastily Peppa put in the coordinates, plotted the quickest and safest path across the universes, and shoved the accelerator joystick forwards.
The tiny craft shuddered, low on power herself. Peppa growled again - of course they had managed to steal only the biggest lump of shit from the spacecraft docking bay, the night they had finally left the ship and gone to search for Jo -
"Come on, come on!"
They slammed their fist into the control panel and that seemed to wake it up; with a roar the craft blasted through several hundred layers of time and space, hundreds of universes, their heart lifting when the signal grew stronger on the screen -
This is it this is it I've found her finally -
But when they arrived, all they found was a microwave.
An antique, twenty-first century microwave that someone had probably thrown out on an escape from the burning planet humans had fled from centuries ago. Floating in a sea of rubbish that hadn't been destroyed or disintegrated.
They took it into the spacecraft, wondering if it had any way to charge the signal projector she had already, but it didn't.
Peppa lay back in the pilot seat, hundreds of millions of miles from home, too exhausted to cry any more than they had this past … however much time had passed since they'd lost her…
Even if time actually mattered now.
What was the use in measuring things in time, anyway? They'd lost Jo at some point over the last few million miles, in between the layers of a few hundred different universes, but it had happened in the blink of an eye.
It wasn't my fault.
Peppa had had to put the craft into overdrive, to outrun the space pirates on their tail, but at some point the tether connecting Jo to the craft outside had disintegrated, hurling her away into a darkness so complete that it swallowed her whole.
They had returned, reported her missing, but there had been no suggestion of a search by their superiors.
Just an almost casual resignation to her being lost. A resignation that Peppa refused to acknowledge.
Leading to them stealing this tiny, shitty craft from the dockyard and running away.
Maybe there was still time to turn back. Bring the ship home with their tail between their legs. They'd probably have to spend a bit of time in the intergalactic prison for theft, not to mention the various lifeforms they'd struck a bargain with in return for news about Jo, and a promise to call them if anyone saw her - they had made so many alliances it would attract attention.
Maybe they could still stop this.
There was still plenty of food and water for them, and the oxygen converter meant they would always be able to breathe; but the engine capacity for these old model spacecrafts was incredibly small.
Even smaller than the signal power they had left.
Jo's signal transmitter might gave even run out by now.
Peppa could be just chasing signals that would never come from her.
She might even be …
No.
They closed their eyes, reclined in the chair.
Peppa could still hear their name in her voice. They knew her laugh even though it couldn't be real, still echoing in their ears.
They heard her laugh in a memory from - a week ago? - as she had looked for an earring she'd dropped on the floor of her room. She'd taken far too long to find that earring, laughing at Peppa teasing her, until she'd found it, straightening up and kissing their cheek.
"Thanks for waiting for me."
"I'll always wait for you, Jojo."
And they'd gone down to the coffee house in F-deck and Jo had ordered her usual caramel latte and paid for Peppa's mocha and the slice of cake they liked, and they'd picked up another fork for her to share with them and -
And they had wanted to tell her then.
"Love you."
Jo looked up, her fork frozen in mid-air. "Pep?"
"I love you. I do, I - I don't know why I didn't tell you before."
She was silent, and the rest of the coffee shop faded around them as the stars of the universe were creeping back in at the edges of their vision.
"You wanted to tell me when I was there. Did you?"
Peppa put their face in their hands. "I'm sorry. I - I should have -"
"I knew. I promise."
They raised their head to look at her, see her eyes, even though their own clouded over. "I thought I could save you. I'm failing."
The fork in Jo's hand vanished.
"You haven't failed."
She reached towards them.
"Maybe it's my time to save you."
When she grabbed their shoulders, they jolted awake from that usual nightmare, just in time to raise the seat and grasp at the joystick.
Where did that planet come from -
By the skin of their teeth, the craft raised above the planet, narrowly escaping its gravity, and lifted back towards the endless stars.
Once the craft had stabilised they clutched their chest, heart pounding.
If she hadn't woke me up …
She had to be still alive.
They grabbed the projector again.
It said 9%.
Peppa swallowed. There wasn't much time left to find Jo.
What if her signal ran out? What if she can't project it to me, and she's lost forever?
But they shook their head.
They couldn't think that.
So they flashed another signal into the endless darkness, hoping to find Jo like Jo had found her earring, in a macrocosm far larger than their old room.
They had to keep going.
SPACEY PEPBERS 🥰🥰🥰
