It'd be something that he remembered, a flashback sequence as he fervently prepared //Chasing Amy//.\n\nHe and Alyssa would talk about Silent Bob's story, perhaps after mentioning Aristophanes and Plato's //Symposium//: taking it as a metaphor and a parable. Alyssa wouldn't like it: at all. Holden would tell her that it was like philosophy. She'd look at him, challenging him, asking him how. \n\nHolden would tell Alyssa that philosophy is translated to mean "a love (philos) of wisdom (sophia)." He'd then tell Alyssa that Sophia was often portrayed as a woman, a feminine principle that men of learning, in Western philosophy, often sought and learned from gaining and losing.\n\nPerhaps, he'd admit, lookng at her, that even artists seek this as well in the form of their muse. \n\nHe can just see it now as Alyssa rolls her eyes in front of him, under his comics panel in black and white and say in a subtitle ... in [[a dialogue bubble]]:

//"What's in there?"\n\n"Only [[what you take with you]]."//\n\n

//Holden sits down on the couch, and holds [[his head in his hands]].//

Holden sighs: surrounded by a throng of more people. He feels crowded now. He wonders if he should have [[a smoke on the rooftop]], or [[just go home]].

Obi-Wan's blade cuts through Vader's legs and his remaining biological arm: [[leaving him to fall, limbless]], near the edge of lava below.

Padme is crying freely now. \n\n"Stop! Stop now... come back! [[I love you!]]"

Holden exhales the smoke slowly before [[his breath can catch]] in his throat.

"Looks like a personal story."\n"I finally had [[something personal to say]]." \n-- Alyssa Jones and Holden McNeil, //Chasing Amy//

It's strange. Holden wonders if it was just nicotine in that cigarette. The woman is in a dress. She kneels down beside him and cradles his head in her hands. \n\nFor some reason, she looks like Alanis Morrisette. \n\n//You always make it about you, Holden.//\n\nHer lips never move. But [[Holden understands]].

Maybe Holden would still be afraid. He'd still feel inadequate, under years of his conservative shell and indoctrination, and walk away. Perhaps he'd say those words.\n\n"[[A normal couple]]."

Maybe he'd walk away and phone her later after meeting Silent Bob and keeping his monologue the same. \n\nOr perhaps Alyssa would call him on it. She'd shriek at him in a pitch that accentuated her voice -- a tone that sounded like she'd blown one of the Chipmunks on helium at some formative moment in her life -- that he'd learned to love. \n\nMaybe he'd call himself on the bullshit. \n\nA normal couple? What the hell is that?\n\n[[What. The. Hell. Is. That.]]

Padme Amidala confronts her erst-while husband Anakin Skywalker, now Darth Vader, on the hellish planet of Mustafar.\n\n"Come away with me. Help me raise our child. Leave everything else behind [[while we still can]]!"

Or Alyssa leaves and Banky won't talk to him anymore, and Holden creates one last comic, [[one last ideal]], on his own before killing himself.

Finding Alyssa

//Alyssa lets go of Holden and [[slaps him, hard, across the face]].\n\n"But I'm not your fucking whore!"//

//"I know you feel doing this will broaden your horizons and give you experience. But I've had those experiences on my own. I can't accompany you on yours. I'm [[past that now]]..."//

[[Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away ...]]

Vader, still wearing Anakin's face in an intense mask of pure fury, grasps his black gloved hand into a fist: telekinetically [[strangling his love]].

Padme cries in front of the being that used to be Anakin, "I don't know you anymore! Anakin...you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I cannot follow!"\n\nDarth Vader looks around, seemingly confused, "Because of Obi-Wan?" \n\n"Because of what you've done! [[What you plan to do!]]"

Maybe, after a while, Holden tentatively suggests that they take their relationship to the next step. Maybe it's Alyssa that's there as a positive female presence for Banky and Holden to explore each other: just watching and being supportive as they dismantle the black armor of toxic masculinity that's hidden their broken, fragile, pale insides for [[so long]].

//"[[We've all got to have sex together]]."//

As Darth Vader reveals his deluded plan to supplant the Emperor and rule the Galaxy with Padme, betraying everything she believes in and everything he once did she backs away.\n\n"I don't believe [[what I'm hearing!]]"

Holden laughs, and as he does so, he feels something he didn't really know was still there lift off of his shoulders.\n\n"Oh. Well, I'm getting old. Really, it's all just some franchise I used to know." \n\nHolden McNeil smiles, putting his hands in his pockets as he goes on his way, leaving the girls to their party, their time together, and remembering better memories and [[the end of a better movie]].

//"I look at you and just find you really handsome. And you know, it has very little to do with your look, per-se. Your look is fine, don't get me wrong. But it's more your outlook. The things you say, the way you// see //things ..."// \n\nAs he looks at his two fans, a different kind of visitor to this home team, he imagines the other four hundred and ninety-seven readers of his comic and what they might have found: what he might have gave them.\n\nAnd Holden realizes that he isn't chasing Amy anymore. \n\nNow, more than ever, he sees that he is [[finding Alyssa]].

Despite his Catholic background, or because of it -- Stephen Dedalus ... dirty James Joyce started out as Catholic after all -- Holden has always read widely. And after everything that happened, he has experienced even more than what he read. \n\nAnd even more than that ... Holden is an artist. [[Holden is a writer]].

//Holden is caught in the moment, absorbed by the quiet, manic energy that's been building inside him for a while.\n\n"I did some serious soul-searching, it came at me from out of nowhere, and suddenly it all made sense - a calm came over me. I know what we have to do. And then you - Bank, you Alyssa, and I - all of us... can finally be... alright."\n\nAlyssa whispers under her breath.\n\n"[[Please don't say it.]]"//

"Let me stop you right there, Holden McNeil. I'm not a symbol. I'm not some ideal, and I'm not a lesson. Anything you learn comes from our experience, and how you decide to share it. It's bigger than us. That onus isn't on me. I'm just another shitty human being, like you. Like all of us. \n\nWhatever change you find, //that// comes [[from you]]."

Or, again, Alyssa leaves but at least -- this time -- despite some anger there is an acceptance to it as their [[time comes to a close]].

But there is one thought, one interaction, that sticks out at Holden, for some reason: [[another conversation]]. \n\n

//Holden looks down at the ground in front of Alyssa.\n\n"I want us to be something that we can't."\n\n"And what's that?" Alyssa demands.\n\nHolden pauses, "A normal couple."\n\nHe walks away, trying not to hear Alyssa slam at her car door, sobbing, and [[screaming]].//

"F-found ... you." \n\nALTERNATE ENDING

Holden is tired now. Ever since he'd moved to that barnhouse all those years ago, all he had were idiots for company: and the internet. \n\nHe shakes his head as he leaves the theater, pondering over these finer distinctions, before he hears someone calling at him.\n\n"Hey! [[Hey dude!]]"

//"... my life's been [[pretty small in comparison]]."\n\n"That doesn't matter to me ..."\n\n"[[Come away]] with me."//

//"You've taken your first step into [[a larger world]]."

Because now Holden definitely knows he's in the world of What If comics: of [[Chasing Amy Infinities]].

//"You were right." A broken, old and scarred Anakin Skywalker says from the ruins of his black armor, seconds away from a smile of genuine peace and dissolution into the Force. He accepts his faults, the end of one journey and the beginning of the next as a small, tentative smile forms on his face. "You were right about me."// \n\nTHE END

[[2005]]

//"Regardless I can't be a part of this." Alyssa pauses. \n\n"Or you. Not anymore." \n\nShe holds Holden.\n\n"I love you. I always will. [[Know that]]."//\n

He would get Banky and Alyssa to meet with him. Or maybe he'd talk to them separately. \n\nHe would gently, but firmly confront Banky over his behaviour. [[Over his feelings.]]

"It's over, Anakin." Obi-Wan Kenobi tells him, soot-stained and weary ontop of the black hill. "I have the high ground!" \n\nVader glares from his platform hovering over the lava. "You underestimate my power!" \n\nObi-Wan shakes his head in sheer disbelief. "Don't try it." \n\nDarth Vader, once Anakin Skywalker, flies at Obi-Wan Kenobi: trying to leap over his lightsaber blade. Obi-Wan squeezes his eyes shut, swings his blade into an arc and, for a moment, there is [[a flash of azure light and ...]]

Holden blinks. Only been five hundred of those had been in print, and hadn't really been on demand. But how ... \n\n//Never tell me the odds.// \n\n"Oh, well, I'm glad you liked it." He smiles. "Thank you." \n\n"It was profound." The Sith tells him. "In fact. It's how //we// met."\n\nShe puts her arm around her shorter captain's shoulder, and they exchange a look. \n\n"Yeah." The captain blushes. "We both [[found her]]."

Then Holden breathes out, shakily, and walks to the exit, stage left. \n\nIt's time to [[just go home]].

Holden turns. He sees two blonde girls. One of them is wearing what seems to be a dark Sith robe. She has gothy white made-up skin, pale long hair, and yellow eye-contacts. Her companion is shorter than her, but she wears an olive Imperial officer's uniform with the rainbrow bright rank insignia. A cap of the same colour adourns her head: her golden hair down up in a severe bun. \n\nHolden smiles a bit more. There are so many more girls openly out in fandom now since he'd left the comics-making business. \n\n"Yeah?"\n\n"We were wondering ..." the Imperial captain says.\n\nHer Sith companion breaks in eagerly. "[[Are you Holden McNeil]]?"

"Well, we'd better go now." The Sith says. "We got an After-Party. It was excellent seeing you."\n\n"Yeah." Holden says. "And thanks again."\n\n"Hey!" The captain turns herself and the Sith around again. "What did you think of [[the movie]]?"

//"Let her [[go]], Anakin ..."//\n\n

It'd open up like a panel too: visually rising to the eye. At first there'd be Hooper X and his hilarious diatribe about Darth Vader. But then he'd meet Alyssa again. \n\n[[But it'd not end there]].

To Kevin Smith and George Lucas. And to one film from which I ran away, and the other than I ran towards. While both of you ended in a similar place, both of you broke my heart in different ways. \n\nThis is both my homage and [[my apologies]] in advance.

Obviously this new story of their lives will take place long after 1997, or perhaps in a parallel world of [[wishful thinking]].

Maybe she saw something was bothering him and, this time around, he told her that they'd talk about it [[after the game]].

And Holden loves to read. Even as the comics panel, and Alyssa annoys Banky but continues dialogue, he'd learn to understand more about Alyssa. He'd do research into the person who would become his friend. \n\n[[They would read together]].

He'd find out that even though Alyssa liked some superhero comics as a child and, of course Neil Gaiman's //Sandman// (upon which Banky would say something disparging about "chicks dig that lit") she really appreciated works like //Love and Rockets// and //Strangers in Paradise.//\n\nHe could imagine Alyssa saying something profound, earlier this time without the sports, about [[visitors again]].

[[Finding Alyssa]]

He should [[just go home]]. \n\nHolden's hands begin to clench. He turns away to [[look at the sky]].

And he can see himself writing a screenplay for a movie. Not the awful piece of shit that he heard //Bluntman and Chronic// had become, but something closer to home. \n\n[[He can see it now]].

Or maybe they worked it out. Maybe Banky had some time, or they had some time. Perhaps they got back to playing video games again.\n\nMaybe Banky saw how happy Alyssa made him. Alyssa and Banky become friends with their "war stories" and genuine moments. \n\nOr they would form [[a closer bond]].\n\n\n\n

//"Obi-Wan Kenobi." Old Ben muses. "Obi-Wan ... Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time."//\n\nHolden, realizing he's not wearing Jedi robes, decides not to quote Star Wars at these ladies. Instead he nods. "Yeah. That's me." \n\nBoth girls look at each other and squeal. "Oh, that's fucking awesome!"\n\n"Yeah." The young captain says. "We didn't bring [[our comics]], though."

Maybe Holden would realize he has feelings for Banky too. \n\n[[And Alyssa]].

Holden throws his half-smoked cigarette down and [[grinds the heel of his shoe down]] on it.

Holden always loved her series. As it made him feel inadequate in his work on //Bluntman and Chronic// and even, to himself, as a fully-formed human being, it challenged him and what he thought of gender, sexuality, and [[love]].

//Holden watches as Banky gets up from the couch and walks away without so much as a snarky remark, or even [[a glance in his direction]].//

//Holden stands in front of Alyssa and Banky, blocking out the glowing aquarium set in its old television frame. His girlfriend and his best friend. He can still see the shock on their faces, particularly Banky's after they kissed. But that's the least of it. Holden's on a roll now. He thinks he knows how to resolve the tension between the three of them. He is about to get to the point. \n\nAlyssa shakes her head. She speaks one word, quietly.\n\n"[[Don't]]."//

But Alyssa would still be strong and willful: just as much as she'd been when she came after him after the bar with her girlfriend. She'd refuse to let something like this hover over their heads. \n\nThey'd leave the hockey arena, with its rink that devolved into fighting, and they would have [[a long and hard talk]].

Then there'd be a nice parallel scene: perhaps each at cross-purproses with each other. As Holden slowly asks questions of an irate and angry Banky, leaving a subtext to audience with regards to where his homophobia and misogyny come from, Alyssa would tell him -- again -- about what happened when she told her circle of friends about him.\n\nWhen one of her friends calls her on the use of the pronoun of "they" to describe him, one of the women will wonder whether or not Alyssa's new lover is transgender before giving way to [[disappointment]], elitist silence, and biphobia.

//Holden remembers placing// Chasing Amy //in front of Alyssa back at her signing booth in 1998: one year after they broke up, one year before the return of Star Wars and [[the end of a century]] ...//

Somehow he still manages to smile. It's almost genuine, feeling the bristles of his goatee shift and stretch across the skin of his facial muscles with his lips. As he looks at the girls dressed as Ewoks, the kids and adults with neon plastic lightsabers, he can almost remember feeling that [[pure, innocent nerdy wonder]].

But this time, in addition to Banky's warnings, their convention would have a continuation of the panel: of LGBTQ Comics Creators talking about how their experiences informed their creativity.\n\nIt'd be a surprise. Alyssa would find him, like she always did, in that bratty and provocative way that she did half-on-purpose and half subsconsciously by her very nature. She would invite them to the panel: with a serious Hooper X and various other minority artists and comics makers. \n\nBut the focus of the panel would come to Alyssa Jones' [[Idiosyncratic Routine]].

Holden makes his way to the rooftop. It's clearer out here now. He lights a cigarette, cupping the match with his hand as he [[inhales the smoke]].

Holden finds himself back on the roof. \n\nHe blinks, rubs at his eyes, and looks down one final time at the remnants of his cigarette. \n\n"Damn. I don't think that's nicotine [[I've been smoking]]." \n\n

It would open up the same, with him and Banky as always, doing signings -- and listening to Banky's complaints. \n\nBut then [[the panel]] would start.

"You were my brother, Anakin." Obi-Wan says, after picking up his discarded lightsaber. "I loved you." \n\nWhat's left of Anakin's mutilated form screams as it ignites on fire, leaving Obi-Wan to turn away from him, and [[walk away]].

[[......]]

He can even recall sharing that [[with friends]].

//"This is all going to end badly." Banky tells him from [[another time]].//

//"Let. [[Her. Go.]]"//

Holden remembers when, long ago, this would have made him uncomfortable. But that had been another person, at another time. For the first time tonight, he actually smiles. \n\n"I'm glad." He says, and means it. Because now he sees it. He watches these two strangers in love and he realizes something. It's been years, but [[he has a new understanding]].

Holden feels bad for them, but he can't help what he says next. "Apology accepted, Captain Needa."\n\n"Nice." The Sith grins, her eyes glittering in the evening. "Yeah. We had no idea you'd be here."\n\n"Neither did I really." Holden shakes his head. "So I guess you have some old Bluntman and Chronic issues."\n\n"Actually ..." the young captain smiles, shyly. "We have [[Chasing Amy]]."

Their exchange in at the bar, with the painting, in the car, the rain, and cleaving to each other like one of the giant, powerful creatures described by Aristophanes in Plato's //Symposium// (Holden does realize that he is a wordy motherfucker after all) is something that he wouldn't change for all the world: save for realizing and acknowledging just how much more pain and trauma Alyssa had to go through to come [[through another closet]].

Perhaps Alyssa would leave him then. Maybe she thought he loved Banky over her. Or perhaps she was monogamous, as he thought he had been, and she'd done the experimental work in her life and didn't want to [[do it again]].

//"... you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path [[I cannot follow!]]"

//"It's over, Anakin! I have [[the high ground]]!"

He could [[just go home]]. \n\nThe sky makes Holden feel so small and hollow. So insignificant. He looks down from [[the edge of the roof]].

Matthew Kirshenblatt

//He and Banky are playing a video game as Alyssa watches them from [[behind the couch]].

Holden stares up at her as her dark hair seems to turn gold. \n\nHe coughs now. And even though the pain of the hastily inhaled smoke seems to flow out of him from her touch, he can barely speak.\n\nStill, even as his eyes blur and she shines, incorrigible and radiant, he manages [[a whisper]] and a smile. \n\n

Maybe, after Banky revealed that information about Alyssa's sexual history, he didn't play the shit-test on her [[in the hockey arena]].

Holden looks down at the ground at [[the simmering embers]] of his cigarette. \n\nMaybe he should [[just go home]].

Holden finds himself lying on the pavement. He seems aware of people swarming around him. But they sound muffled. \n\nHis chest hurts ... as though he inhaled too much smoke. He feels something warm and wet gathering under him.\n\n[[Someone is standing over him]].

She'd probably scream at him for a bit: her old wounds of experimentation, of the forces that made her who she is, still leery of being brought under [[potential judgment]].

And he goes. God help him, [[Holden goes]].

Holden McNeil gets out of the movie theater along with a whole lot of [[excited, and bickering Star Wars fans]].

He and Alyssa would talk. And maybe, this time around, at the bar he'd listen to Hooper X and be prepared: as prepared as any small-minded conservative who'd only read of outside experiences and disappointments could. \n\nBut he'd still be uncomfortable, perhaps even quietly humiliated in thinking he ever had a chance watching Alyssa and her girlfriend. But Banky and Alyssa would hit it off. And Holden has to admit to himself that, for the sake of in-character interactions, he and Banky would leave again. \n\n[[Then another panel]].

Perhaps they'd leave Banky for a time to accept those internalized demons that are really parts of [[who he is]].