This story had been largely constructed around the availability oftheirInto the Bluecastmates. Toni was now a series regular on one of HBO’s dark comedies and had only a week to spare.
Xiaobo had taken AJ’s vacant seat atSNLlast year when he and Dave had moved in. Because the two of them had the full summer off, the captain and Pete had the largest cameos in the film.
AJ had interspersed their various appearances at strategic points along the heroes’ journey of the new cast, including a short but vital sequence for Ana and Rho.
She looked up at Noah and caught him rubbing his face tats.
“I forgot how much these itch,” he said.
“You’ll miss them when they’re gone,” she said.
Their characters were about to sacrifice themselves to save the Gilarise crew.
This had been a major point of contention with the studio.
“The fansloveArho,” one particularly irritating exec enjoyed pointing out.
But AJ and Noah had stuck to their guns. They didn’t want to ruin what had been so visceral about the original show by trying to replicate it. This was the truest trajectory for their characters, who had been living on the run for years as vigilantes.
And they had won. Today would be a wrap for Ana and Rho.
They were shooting in front of a green screen, but AJ could see it all in her head: Ana and Rho would lead the young rebels through an abandoned Naval shipyard in search of a vital map. Then, just as they unearthed it, they’d trigger an old explosive. Using their powers, Ana and Rho would seal themselves in with the bomb to protect the others.
AJ watched Noah flex the fingers of his right hand. His tremors were still subtle enough that no one but the two of them noticed, but they were consistent and fairly frequent. Their therapist had encouraged them to try to embrace each symptom with analytical detachment, “like a science project.” Sometimes this worked for AJ, and sometimes it made her want to scream.
As with all of HD, they were taking it one day at a time.
AJ now reached for Noah’s left hand. They had opted to leave on their wedding bands for the scene, as they felt it likely their charactersalso would have married. Noah closed his fingers around AJ’s and squeezed. AJ smiled at him.
It hadn’t been a full moon circle in the end, just a small service in the backyard at Drew House. Most of their wedding photos were of Noah and AJ’s dad gazing fondly at the grill.
Okay fine, there was an amazing one of AJ and Noah in the entryway by Eudora’s urn. And a great one of Storm officiating the ceremony. And a hilarious one of all of AJ’s siblings forcing Noah into the pool. The Graveses had welcomed Noah like a brother, and while he consistently ghosted the family text thread, he was overjoyed to never have another quiet holiday.
AJ and Noah were particularly close with Elle and Patrick, in whom Noah had confided his diagnosis last year. It had been an emotional conversation—all four of them had cried—but the results had been transformative. AJ no longer felt she had to carry the burden on her own, and Patrick and Elle could uniquely understand some of their challenges. Both men had deeply benefited from the friendship.
Noah never expressly told AJ this, but she had confirmed that Patrick and Elle’s debt had disappeared shortly after he joined the family.
This information had come by way of Melissa, Patrick’s former nurse, who had recently become Libby’s first girlfriend. AJ didn’t know which made her like Melissa better: that she was a sweetheart who had made Libby genuinely happy, or that she was a fellow Nautical who had made Libby watch all ofAstronauticals.
Mike, meanwhile, had made the bold choice to move to the city, where he was consulting with Revell Games & Toys, areal-lifegame publisher (in addition to reigning supreme online). In typical Graves family fashion, AJ did not know what was going on in his personal life; however, she had her eye on a certain spunky cosplayer Mike constantly retweeted.
Within the family—and probably within his cinematic oeuvre—Noah’s favorite role by far was uncle. This included a lot of play with Charlie, Claire, and Cody, Patrick and Elle’s third.
But none of AJ’s siblings loved Noah like Emily. They were up at Drew House all the time now, so rather than pursue the kitchenrenovation, Noah had Davis turn his talents to a second suite of upstairs bedrooms, a dedicated space in their house for Emily to sleep over. They spent many weekends as a trio, and it was hard to say who liked this best, AJ, Emily, or Noah.
Their family had suffered one major loss: Bud passed at fourteen. AJ and Noah’s grief was acute and there was nothing for the pain. For a while, it felt as if the sun had gone out of their sky.
However, one weekend some months later, they happened upon an animal shelter, where a six-month-old shepherd mix with paws the size of coasters had looked up at Noah in just the right way, and he had fallen again. He named the dog Mac (for Macbeth), and Mac had long since earned his name by proudly depositing a surfeit of dead birds at Noah’s feet.
AJ and Noah’s best times were still those they spent in their own world. They had been inseparable since they closedFire & Water.
It happened just as Eudora had predicted: Noah hadn’t known it was a mistake until he’d walked out. He’d made it across Forty-fourth Street when his legs refused to carry him further.
“I told myself I just needed to see you leave,” he later confessed. “Then it would be done.”
He’d waited in the alley across from the Hayes, Bud asleep in his arms as the audience then crew seeped onto the sidewalk. When AJ still had not appeared by midnight, he began to panic.
“I had no right to worry. But when you didn’t come out, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I just stared and stared at the stage door, thinking how I’d fucking lied to myself. I love you. There was no end date that could make this hurt less—no plan that could fix it. And if I walked away thinking that would somehow lessen the pain, then I was not only a coward but a fool.”
