Not written in the stars.

Still overwhelmed by the flood of memories, Reed staggered back, wiping his hand through his hair and face as he recollected himself, returning to his feet on uneasy legs. All the while, the glowing woman observed his reaction to her memories. Even though she wore the face of his wife, there was nothing there to let him know she was her.

“You are still distraught.” She commented, not so much a question than a statement.

“You… You Killed them, you killed them all, you killed your Earth!”

“My Earth is still there, peaceful, serene. Galactus was the one who killed all life on the planet to sustain himself further until his next meal. I merely observed the act.”

“You could have stopped him!”

“Reed, please understand. Galactus has been consuming life since the time of the big bang, nothing has stopped him, and nothing will. Like a perpetual hurricane he has swallowed up entire planets worth of life and used that fuel to continue this momentum. The alignment of the stars around me had shown me his flight path over the course of billions upon billions of years. I simply did not recognise that flight path until I was met by his herald. It was all meant to happen.”

Still in disbelief, Reed looked around as if he did not recognise where he was or who he was speaking with. “How can you SAY that?!”

Tilting her head slightly, the soft smile was gone from the woman’s lips. “My Reed did not understand either.” Lowering herself to her feet, the glowing blue woman raised her hand and gathered the dust at her feet to create a scale model of the solar system in the palm of her hand. “He could not perceive space as I do, every mass, every object emits a presence that effects each other in a way that is invisible to the human eye. I can perceive the gravitational eddies and wakes of the planets in our solar system from its mightiest gas giants to its smallest asteroids in the belt.”

With a flick of her finger, bubbles of tinted light surrounded the tiny planets orbiting in her hand, expanding out until they collided and pressed against each other, bending, and warping into shapes as if to mark borders or territories. As they moved, the bubbles changed shape to match their locations, indicating their influence over each other. “All events that have, are and will play out for me do so in real time, I am aware of the perfectly acted orbits of this universe and its effects on itself. What you call the butterfly effect, I call the symphony of reality.”

“Does that mean you knew you were going to end up here?”

For a moment, this woman’s eyes furrowed, squinting as if deep in thought. So much so her demonstration stopped, and she lowered her hand. “No…” Looking up and around her surroundings, this Cosmic Susan continued to look confused before turning her attention back to Reed, her face unreadable. “This world is… Unknown to me, the map is all wrong, the vibrations are different, the frequencies are unfamiliar… I am lost.”

“Is THAT why you never moved an inch after arriving in my lab?”

“I did not know where here was, what to do or where to go, so I waited until you would return me to my world. To the peaceful splendor and order of my reality. To be left to not know is… Unsettling.”

It began to make sense to Mr. Fantastic. This woman had become so dependant on her omni-awareness of her native reality that the second she was ripped from it she became blind, deaf, and numb to everything else. She had essentially been waiting in the dark for DAYS until she could spot a light to follow. Taking a deep breath, Reed looked back out the exit of the lab and steeled himself for what might possibly be the most dangerous thing he had ever considered. Approaching this version of his wife, he gently took her hand in his and gestured for her to follow him.

“There are some people I want you to meet. I think they might offer you some perspective on what you’ve thrown away.”

“You are referring to my others?” She replied, following the man. “I very much doubt that, I have felt their connection to the power cosmic, compared to me they are a candle in the presence of a bonfire.”

“That may be so, but here is something that should surprise you, you say that Galactus could not be stopped?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they STOPPED him! And so did I.”

Stopping in mid stride, the blue, glowing woman went stone stiff, her mind wracked in deep thought as those words hit her. She didn’t know how to react, instead looking down and shifting her eyes back and forth rapidly, almost desperately trying to find an internal answer to what she was just told. “That… That is impossible.”

“Isn’t it? Look around, and I mean take a GOOD look. Does this place look like a barren lifeless world to you?”

Watching her look around the lab once again, this version of Susan turned her attention back to him, her face still unreadable, but he noticed something in her glowing white eyes that was not there before, doubt. “No.”

“Then maybe its time to meet the women who challenged the inevitable.” Giving her one last look, he scrunched his face in thought when he realised that the woman was still stark naked save for the lab coat hanging off her shoulders like a cape. Scratching his beard, he realised he may have jumped the gun a bit. “Maybe… Maybe I should get you some of my wife’s spare clothes…”

Looking down at her lack of attire, the glowing woman closed her eyes. The moment she did, the lab coat was disassembled down to the last thread and rewoven around her body, becoming a simple white sundress and undergarments made from the exact same material and buttons. Looking down at her work, she looked back up to Mr. Fantastic.

“Is this better?”