As the blinding light fades, Finn finds himself back in the city square of 2285, silent and still. The rift is gone, no sign of the chaos that threatened to unravel time itself.
"Sam?" he whispers, turning to look at her.
She stands beside him, wide-eyed realization dawning on her features. "We did it. We really did it."
Relief washed over Finn at the view. "You are home. We are home. It is over."
As they hugged, the weight of what they'd just done struck him. They'd reset the timeline, and that meant all that had been in his and Sam's past, all those adventures they'd shared, were erased from history. They had changed reality itself.
"Do you think we'll be remembered?" Sam asked her voice heavy with sorrow.
"Maybe not," Finn said, stepping back into her eyes. "But what we did- saved the timeline, stopped Cairn-that's what matters. We choose for the greater good."
Sam nodded slowly, letting the weight of the moment settle on her. "We get a chance to start anew. To keep time, to guard it as we've always dreamed to do."
Finn smiled. A spark of hope lit up in his heart. "Together."
He turned to gaze toward the rising sun, the sun itself about to peer over the horizon, its bright rays bathing the city in golden warmth. A new day had sprung to life with endless possibility.
Their past was rewritten, but purpose remained. And so, into the light they stepped forward, their eyes on all that was to come.
Time had begun to flow once more; it would take measures to continue doing so, for its unguarded and infallible watchful sentinels, who would keep peering anxiously over into the shadows that chased to threaten its fragile rhythm.