Okay, but platonic, familial Jack and Ashi.
You think it would have made the last episode a gut punch? Just imagine what we could have had.
Nothing really changes, per se. It’s still Jack’s declaration of love that brings her back, and it still makes all the difference. They still hug in the sunlight. But in the end, and at the end, there’s just no way to get around it...Ashi disappears in Jack’s arms.
Consider Jack riding out into the forest alone, mourning the daughter he never expected to have...the one he never thought he’d love so much. He still stands beneath that tree and takes that ladybug on his finger, and remembers her. It still occurs to him, for the first time since he lost her, that everything might somehow be okay.
Consider a distant future. Consider a girl with dark hair and eyes and the softest, brightest smile going about her normal, everyday life in a world where dogs talk and cars hover and robots mill around on the street corner. It’s a good planet to grow up on, and a good world to live in -- peaceful and clean and alive. There always seems to be something shining, always some kind of music playing (which is good, because oh lord, how she loves to dance). It’s not perfect and maybe it’s not the most exciting life, but the sky’s literally the limit for her, and she’s happy.
Consider Ashi, who Jack tried so, so very hard to save.
Consider, just for a moment, that he did.
