All of the original kids, post-scratch, retained little bits and pieces of their memories from the beta timeline. Dave remembered the most clearly. He and Rose meet sometime after he’s just out of high school (because I’m assuming she’s older than him in this universe?) and it is EMOTIONALLY FRAUGHT, THE END.
I need Rose and Dave to have met. I just believe that a world doesn’t exist where Rose and Dave — even devoid of memories — wouldn’t someday just bump into each other. No matter how low the odds.
Rose would destroy that. Very little of that would be left standing other than a few stumps of walls and the charred bones of a tree.
But man, I actually feel Dave wouldn’t be that bad as a teacher? He’d probably be the worst of the four kids, but I don’t think he’d be a disaster. He’d be the laid-back, cool teacher who everyone loves even though no-one’s totally sure how he still has a job (answer: the headmistress is one Dr R. Lalonde, MA, B.Ed, and her office has a very capacious sofa and is comprehensively soundproofed). I know in Herobound he taught Music, but I sort of see him as History. He’d be really good at making it memorable: once you’ve had Mr Strider talking about the French Revolution or ancient Rome for thirty minutes, you don’t forget it. It’s almost like he was there. He spends a lot of time sitting at the front of the room with his feet on his desk delivering long, rambling lectures which turn out to be weirdly relevant. His marking is sketchy as fuck – he just puts a big scrawly red tick at the end of your work if you didn’t screw up too badly, and if you did screw up you just get a ‘wtf’. (Meanwhile Dr Harley over in Biology has a bewilderingly complex system of coloured ink stamps with smiley flowers and suns and slogans like WOW! and SUPER COOL! and A BIG IMPROVEMENT!)
(Backstory: noted fandom author urbanAnchorite sent me the following two images, with the caption ‘Finally, Dave has a birthday present suitable for Jade, Rose and John.’)
(I replied with the following, which I am posting here on her specific request.)