Hollywood, California
AJ and Noah stood off camera, waiting for the lighting technicians to finish taking the levels on set.
Production on a major film was a lot more involved than the janky, do-it-yourself laboratory that had been Into the Blue, but with added red tape came some improvements.
Namely, they had a story this time, thanks to AJ’s script, and a cohesive vision, thanks to Noah’s direction.
After Em Tyner publicly washed his hands of any Into the Blue sequel, AJ and Noah had optioned the rights for Mooncalf Pictures, their production company.
The fans had also mounted a massive Kickstarter—this hadn’t helped with the actual costs of production so much as it had convinced their studio to green-light the project.
In AJ’s opinion, the film had all the makings of a satisfying sequel.
The plot centered around five all-new leads living on the outskirts of Naval space in their own crale, Gilarise.
After some fun pirate hijinks, the Gilarise crew stumbled upon a dastardly conspiracy that could only be defeated with the help of the now-scattered former Gilamede crew.
This story had been largely constructed around the availability of their Into the Blue castmates. 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 at SNL last 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 fans love Arho,” 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 characters also 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 of Astronauticals.
Mike, meanwhile, had made the bold choice to move to the city, where he was consulting with Revell Games 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 kitchen renovation, 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 closed Fire & 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. ”
He had found her onstage moments later, and they never looked back.
For six months after, they lived in AJ’s apartment so she could do her job. Then they flew to Barcelona over the summer for an indie film Noah had agreed to shoot mostly for the three-month schedule and the chance to get out of the country.
News of their relationship had broken that spring—dog-walking photo, classic—and AJ had never experienced anything like it.
She had gone from being a civilian to being tabloid fodder overnight, and it had thrown her back to her worst days of “No” (which naturally revived like a militant zombie out of GIF hell).
It was worth it to be with Noah, but AJ couldn’t help but feel she had lost some of her credibility and all of her privacy in the process.
Spain had been an ideal escape. Noah was happy to be at work, and AJ was happy to hang out all day watching soccer and eating croquettes. She gave little thought to New York, until it came time to fly home, and she found herself having the second-worst anxiety attack of her life.
It was the tabloids and the creepiness of being a public person. It was having to watch Noah while away his good years so he could stay physically close to her. And it was the stress. The job took so much, and AJ no longer needed work to be her everything.
She was beside herself. She had hustled her entire life for this gig, only to find that she no longer wanted it.
Her off-ramp came later that week in the form of an email from Otto, beseeching them to support the Into the Blue sequel Kickstarter in the wake of Em Tyner’s public denouncement.
Apparently, Arho’s real-life romance had been the juice the base needed to finally mobilize a full-scale reboot campaign, but they didn’t have a face for it.
When AJ showed the email to Noah, he took one look and said, “What if we do it?”
AJ had agonized over quitting SNL, but in the end, it was time.
She had achieved the dream, but dreams changed.
Humor had given her a voice as a kid, but it had also been her defense mechanism, one that had served its purpose.
Now there was a range of projects she wanted to explore—with Noah, while she could.
Plus, when you ran your own production company, no one could shoot down your pitches.
Mooncalf Pictures now had several films and one show in development, all quietly positioning Noah behind the camera as much as in front of it.
In the past year, he’d shot two more big-budget projects, the first of which would release that fall. AJ felt sure it would garner Noah his third Oscar nod.
But there would only be a few more years of that. Noah’s intention was to go public with his diagnosis at forty to do some advocacy, then settle into stage work until he started to fail. He felt no self-pity on this score. “It’s five years longer than most female actors get,” he told AJ grimly.
Beyond this, they had no set plan.
There were good days and bad days carrying the diagnosis.
Sometimes, Noah would still get overwhelmed and want to walk away, and sometimes AJ would still want to ignore what was coming.
But in the end, they always showed up for each other.
AJ knew that nothing she could say to Noah would ever be wrong, and Noah knew that AJ had his back, no matter what.
Neither of them took a second they had together for granted.
And they never would.
“Okay, we’re good,” said their lighting tech.
Their assistant director called Places, and all around them, people scrambled to get into position. Still holding hands, AJ and Noah walked to their marks.
Noah gave AJ the once-over. “Are we doing this?”
AJ nodded. “Yes.”
She could feel the pulse in his thumb, strong and sure and vital. They were older now, but so were their characters, and that was how it should be. No one should stand still too long in time.
AJ adjusted her robes, and Noah his armor. She watched his eyes light as he stepped into Rho for one last scene. Then she herself slipped into Ana like a dance combination, a well-worn shoe.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breath. Then, Noah called Action, and all at once, the two of them were racing, hands clasped, into the wide-open future.