Chapter 66: The Worth of a Human Heart
The air in the Wheeler family living room was a vacuum, all sound and motion sucked into the vortex of Joey's stunned, silent arrival. He stood frozen in the doorway, a ghost returning to a home he no longer recognized, filled as it was with impossible beings and cosmic stakes.
His mind, already a maelstrom of self-doubt and fear, simply could not compute the scene. It was a glitch in reality, a tear in the fabric of his mundane, predictable life.
Finally, his voice, raspy and thin, broke the silence. "Why… why are you here?"
The question was not accusatory. It was one of genuine, profound bewilderment.
He looked past his mother's worried face, past his brother's awkward stance, and at the collection of women who had driven him to flee. At Himeko, the calm scientist. At Mirajane, the gentle empath. At Lyra, the lost elf whose tears were a direct result of his cowardice. And at the two warring titans, Erza and Hancock, whose very presence seemed to warp the familiar dimensions of his home.
Why would they care? The thought echoed in the desolate chambers of his heart, a painful refrain from a song he knew all too well. I left. I made it easy for them. They have Erza, the legendary warrior. They have Hancock, the terrifyingly powerful Empress. What could they possibly want with me?
He remembered the sting of being left out of games as a child, the "friends" who stopped calling because he was too quiet, too anxious to keep up with their easy banter. He was the one who was always left behind, the one who was easily forgotten.
For this pantheon of goddesses and warriors to actively seek him out… it didn't just seem unlikely; it felt like a cruel joke, a fundamental violation of the laws of his own universe.
Clara was the first to move, rushing to her son and enveloping him in a hug that smelled of rose soil and maternal love. "Joey! Oh, thank goodness! We were so worried! Where have you been?"
"I… just went for a walk," he mumbled into her shoulder, the lie feeling flimsy and absurd.
"A walk? You left this note!" Léo said, stepping forward and waving the crumpled wrapper. "Saying you were leaving, that you couldn't help! We thought you'd run off for good!"
"I… I did," Joey admitted quietly, pulling away from his mother to face the room. His gaze fell on Lyra, whose face was a portrait of misery and relief. A sharp pang of guilt, hotter and more painful than his fear, stabbed him.
"Why?" Mirajane asked, her voice impossibly gentle, devoid of the judgment he expected. "Why did you feel you had to leave, Joey?"
Joey's eyes darted towards Erza and Hancock. "Because… look at you all," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "You have powers. You fight monsters. You're… important. I'm just a guy who gets panic attacks in the grocery store. I read your note, Himeko. The things you're up against… a 'Conqueror of Worlds'. What am I supposed to do? Offer him a cereal bar and hope he goes away?" The attempt at self-deprecating humor fell flat, tasting like ash in his mouth.
"Your perspective as a native of this particular reality is an invaluable data point, Joey," Himeko stated, her tone calm and analytical, as if discussing a scientific principle.
"You understand the nuances of this society, its people, its geography. You were the first to make contact with Lyra, the first to notice Kael. Your observational skills, honed perhaps by your quiet nature, are not insignificant."
"Observational skills?" Hancock let out a short, sharp laugh, a sound like shattering glass. "The boy looks as if he'd be startled by his own shadow. You are grasping at straws, Navigator. We are wasting precious time that could be spent locating a route back to my own world, coddling this… this runaway."
"He is not a 'runaway'!" Erza's voice was sharp, cutting across Hancock's disdain with surprising force. She took a step forward, her armored boots making a soft thud on the hardwood floor. Her gaze on Joey was intense, almost fierce.
"He is a civilian who has been drawn into a war he did not ask for. His fear is not cowardice; it is a rational response to an irrational situation."
Hancock blinked, momentarily taken aback by Erza's impassioned defense of the boy she'd been so quick to dismiss. "My, my, Titania. Have you developed a fondness for lost puppies? It hardly suits your… severe aesthetic."
"What I have," Erza said, her eyes still locked on Joey, ignoring Hancock completely, "is an understanding of duty. And the informant who sent us here, the man from the future… he seemed to believe your role in this was not yet over." The words of the future, scarred Joey echoed in her mind: "Don't let me abandon her again. Nor you." She didn't fully understand it, but she understood a charge when she heard one. "Fleeing your post is not an option."
"My post?" Joey asked, bewildered. "I don't have a post! I have a part-time job shelving books at the community college! That's it!"
"And yet," Mirajane added, her voice a soothing balm after Erza's fierce declaration, "you showed Lyra kindness when she was alone and terrified. You left supplies for Pip without asking for thanks. You tried to understand, Joey. You didn't turn away. That… that is a strength not everyone possesses."
"But I did turn away!" Joey cried, the words bursting out of him, raw and painful. "Just now! I ran! Because I'm not like you! I see you two," he looked at Erza and Hancock, "and you're like… like forces of nature. You fight, you have this… this fire. All I have is… this."
He gestured vaguely at his own chest, at the knot of anxiety that lived there permanently. "I'm not a warrior. I'm not a hero. I'm the guy people stop inviting to things because he gets too quiet and makes everyone uncomfortable. I'm the one who gets left behind." The final words were choked with years of remembered slights and quiet loneliness.
Clara put her arm around her son's shoulders. "Oh, honey," she whispered, her heart breaking for him.
Hancock observed this emotional display with a mixture of impatience and a strange, flicker of something else. Weakness, yes. Pathetic, certainly. But his words… "the one who gets left behind." A dark, cold memory stirred in her, a memory of chains and the brand of a celestial dragon, of being utterly abandoned by hope.
She violently shoved the thought away. This boy's pathetic social anxieties were nothing compared to her trials. "If you are defined by being 'left behind'," Hancock said, her voice dripping with her usual scorn, "then perhaps you should consider the alternative. Being sought out. As tedious and inexplicable as it may be, we are all here. In your… charmingly cluttered hovel. Clearly, for some unfathomable reason, your presence is deemed necessary by forces beyond your limited comprehension. To flee from that is not only cowardly, it is profoundly illogical."
It was, in its own way, the most bizarrely encouraging thing anyone had ever said to him.
"She's… not wrong," Erza admitted, looking as surprised as anyone to be agreeing with Hancock. "The dynamics of this situation are complex. Your future self, the informant, he set events in motion. You, as his past self, are intrinsically linked to them. To remove yourself from the board is to forfeit a piece without knowing its value."
Joey stared at them, his mind reeling. They weren't yelling at him for being a coward. They weren't dismissing him. They were… arguing for his inclusion, each in their own impossibly strange way. Himeko with logic, Mirajane with kindness, Erza with a fierce sense of duty, and Hancock with… disdainful, backhanded reasoning.
Lyra, who had been listening to the strange torrent of words, finally broke away from Mirajane. She walked up to Joey, her small hand reaching out to take his. Her silver eyes were pleading.
"No leave," she whispered, her small vocabulary imbued with immense feeling. "Joo-ee… safe here." She patted his hand, then pointed at herself, then at Mirajane and the others. "We… safe. With Joo-ee."
And that was the final crack in his resolve. Not the logic, not the talk of duty, but the simple, undeniable truth in Lyra's eyes. She felt safe with him. Him. Joey Wheeler, the anxious mess.
He had, somehow, become a point of safety for this lost, magical creature. And in her simple declaration, she had turned his own logic on its head. He had run to keep them safe from his weakness, but she was telling him that his presence was safety.
He looked around the room, at the faces staring back at him. His mother's love. His brother's concern. Himeko's calm curiosity. Mirajane's boundless empathy. Lyra's absolute trust. And the two warring queens, whose very presence was a testament to the fact that his life had irrevocably changed.
"I…" he started, his voice still shaky. "I don't know what I can do."
"You can start by staying," Himeko said simply. "By sharing what you know about this town, by lending us your eyes and your quiet perspective. And by returning with us to the Little Express so we can ensure your safety and continue our work."
"And if you ever pull a stunt like that again," Erza added, crossing her arms, a hint of a warning in her voice, "I will personally drag you back myself."
"Hmph," Hancock sniffed, turning to inspect a lampshade with great interest. "As if any of us have the time for such menial retrieval tasks." Her protest was noted, but the fact that she hadn't already stormed out of the "commoner's hovel" spoke volumes.
Joey took a deep, shuddering breath. He looked at Lyra, squeezed her hand, and nodded. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay. I'll… stay."
The collective sigh of relief in the room was almost audible. The crisis, for now, was averted. But as Joey stood there, surrounded by this impossible family of strangers and gods, he knew his simple, quiet life was over. He had tried to run from his part in the story, only to find the story had come home to wait for him.
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