Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t Zeke.

He looked like Zeke, albeit younger. He talked like him. He smiled like him. His laugh had the same softness around the edges, a rough sound fading out. He even locked eyes with her in nearly the same way. His gaze heavy and warm, as if he could look straight into her soul.

But it wasn’t him. 

He wasn’t the one she married, wasn’t the one she’d watched dying in her arms twice.

And at the same time … he was. Just … without the memories.

It was confusing. And even that was an understatement.

Michaela had to remind herself of all that every few seconds, gripping her own hands so tightly they’d started to hurt. But she knew that if she’d let them loose, they would try to grasp for some part of the man in the driver’s seat beside her. Just so she could convince herself that he was real – no longer part of the glow, no longer out of her reach, but here and alive. 

Up to this night, his memory had been all she’d left of him.

Her heart had splintered the moment he’d died, and had broken again and again more times than she could count ever since. And its shattered pieces ripped through her insides now as that same and at the same time so different person sat so close in reach.

And even though her heart was racing in her chest and despite the urge to touch him being so strong she could barely breathe without blurting out with it, she held herself back. Now that he was right here, she was more afraid than ever. So, so scared that she’d do or say something that would scare him away. 

Because even though she used to know him so well, she couldn’t fully grasp this version of him yet.

Because he wasn’t the same. Clearly. 

Michaela had realized that pretty quickly the moment their eyes met for the first time that evening through the half-open window of Zeke’s cab. Even though offering a bemused smile, seemingly amused by her effort to drive away the other man, he’d seemed puzzled, to say the least. Glancing around as if only waiting for the cameras to show and reveal him to be the victim of some tv show’s prank.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that he was clueless. But some tiny piece of her had clung to the silly, unlikely hope that he’d be an exception. That he’d remember, even when everyone else outside the plane didn’t. Even now, she couldn’t shake the hope that all of a sudden he’d turn to her, say her name, and really see her.

Against all odds, against all logic, she was still hoping.

So far, though, in his eyes, she was just some random lady taking a cab home.

Though he wasn’t taking her home. She could barely remember the place she called home in this timeline. That cramped apartment only a stone’s throw away from the precinct, with the leaky bathroom and Jared’s crime novels on the top of her bookshelf and his clothes in her drawers. They hadn’t officially lived together but after Evie … he’d kind of moved in, she remembered it now. How he’d been there every night, holding her as she cried-

She looked over to Zeke, every thought, every memory of Jared suddenly washed away.

She knew she’d made the right choice. She’d known that even before finding Zeke again.

And now she was more sure than ever.

Because even if there was only a slim chance that Zeke … well, she just had to try.

Michaela couldn’t help but stare at Zeke’s profile, though she couldn’t see much more than the rough outlines, with the night closing in around the car. The brightly lit, bulky shape of the airport had moved so far into distance behind their backs, there wasn’t a trace of it to be seen anymore. And ahead there was only road, headlights, and a handful of other cars, making their way into the city. They all were blending right into the endless hum of the city’s growing heartbeat. Michaela glanced out of the smudged window, for a second tearing her gaze away from Zeke. 

The night was clear, the sky tinted in a black so dark it made her shiver for inexplicable reasons. But there were no stars. She’d hoped there might be some. Thought that their twinkle might bless this, give her a sign that all she needed was to have faith for everything to fall into place. But it seemed that the universe was as ambiguous in its choices as always; it wasn’t trying to recreate their story.

And the longer it stayed quiet between them, only the blips on the meter and the purr of the motor to fill the silence, the more Michaela’s will to do that in its stead started to waver.

“So…” 

Michaela flinched at the sound of his voice. 

She’d dreamed of that voice, night after night. She would still drift to sleep on the waves of their last conversation, his words caressing her into dreams where they never said goodbye, and where his melody was still alive. She’d heard its echo inside her head even when she hadn’t been asleep, even when she’d been with Jared. And even now it took a beat to register with her that this time it wasn’t inside her head.

Her heart trembled at the recognition of the sound.

She tried to sit up straighter. But the sponginess of that well-worn seat pulled her down again, into the leather, cracked in various places. A pattern so similar to her own mind which was running down a hundred paths at the same time.

“Where can I take you?”

“I’ve told you.” Michaela pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She caught Zeke throwing a brief look her way. Some irrational part of her still hoped he’d recognize her face should he just get the chance to see it more clearly. “Just … keep driving.”

A laugh burst through Zeke’s lips, and Michaela closed her eyes, just for second, trying to pretend that everything else was also the same as it had been. Their life, it hadn’t been perfect, far from it. Whose life was? But it had been their life. They’d lived it together, and that was all that had mattered, ultimately.

“Now … seriously. Where to?”

Michaela opened her eyes again, stealing a quick glance at him, only to notice that they’d stopped at a red light and that he was staring right back at her. One half of his face was illuminated by the yellow gleam of a near street lamp, the other by the red of the traffic light. As both lights touched it, his brown hair shimmered with hints of dark amber, reminiscent of autumn leaves ablaze in the sun's last rays.

He was smiling, but it was rather a grin, an uncertain, incredulous one, as if he was trying very hard to figure her out. Michaela didn’t dare to blink. She held his gaze for as long as she could before she felt her eyes starting to burn. Her lips twitched to mirror his grin, as she bit back the tears that threatened to pool and spill over the corners of her eyes.

Her gaze fell to her lap, on the hand that used to wear his ring. She blinked against the rising tears.

“Do you know how expensive taking a cab around New York is?”

Michaela couldn’t help but giggle, hot burning air escaping her airways. She brought a hand to her face, wiping as discreetly as possible at her eyes, but only smearing the hot traces of tears on her cheeks. Only then, when her skin felt taut under the drying liquid, she looked over at Zeke again, realizing that he must have observed her all along. A slight frown had started to form on his brow. 

His body, though, had loosened against the backrest, with his hands having fallen off the wheel. Not just his face but his entire torso had opened towards her. His eyes were moving fast over her face, as if he were afraid she’d forbid him to stare at a piece of herself for too long. With any other stranger she would have. She would have found it strange to be looked over in that way, in the middle of the night, trapped together in a car; but he wasn’t any stranger, of course. 

She’d been deprived of Zeke’s looks for so long that she never wanted him to stop taking her in. She would have let his eyes trace patterns over her face the entire night if that was what it would take for him to remember. And even should it not work … she just liked the way even that Zeke looked at her. Like her face was an enigma worth to unlock, like he found something new in it each time he did so much as blink.

At least that was the way looking at him made her feel, even now.

Even after she‘d spent months staring at his pictures, tracing the lines of his face with he tip of her finger, wishing she could feel his skin and the light stubble on his chin instead. She could still remember the feel of him under her palms; every curve, every line. Burned into her memory, for all time.

Her fingers were itching now to trace those lines in real life. She didn’t, of course.

She had some sense left within her.

But not enough to remember what it was that Zeke had asked her. She knew she’d laughed about whatever he’d said, but she’d forgotten the question. Only saw the echo of that question mark blazing in Zeke’s slightly drawn together eyes. Asking what it was he’d asked her didn’t come to her mind though, so she merely stared back at him. Neither of them said a word. 

They both jumped at the sound of a horn honking behind them. The lights in front of them had changed to green. Zeke fumbled to get his hand back on the wheel, loosening his foot’s grip on the brakes. The cab started rolling again, gradually accelerating pace. Zeke had no choice but to stare back at the street. He lifted a hand in silent apology as the car, that had beeped at them, passed them in twice the pace. 

Michaela, however, kept her eyes and attention on Zeke. Light within the cab was poor but Michaela suspected to see a flush creeping across the cheek he faced her with. He took one hand from the wheel again, after a moment, pulling at the collar of his shirt. He didn’t turn to meet her gaze again. Even when they stopped at another traffic light. Instead, his gaze only flickered towards the meter, before landing on the lights again, staying there as if glued to the spot. His fingers tapped a rapid, irregular beat on the wheel, perhaps the melody to a song she didn’t know.

As Michaela followed his gaze toward the growing red number on the small black display, she at least remembered his last question. Do you know how expensive taking a cab around New York is? It would have seemed odd to answer it now, after such a stretch of time, but she wanted to say something. Something meaningful. But what? This wasn’t the way she’d imagined it. Though, to be fair, she’d never imagined their reunion in this way anyway. She’d thought she wouldn’t be able to stop chattering now that he was here to listen. But all the things she wanted to tell him now, she couldn’t. 

He’d declare her insane. 

He wouldn’t understand her words in the way she meant them.

She’d felt a soft comforting heat radiating through her chest and felt oh so light the moment she’d first spotted Zeke in his cab. That was why it’d been so effortless to smile so brightly and laugh so easily and talk so casually when she’d first slipped into the passenger seat. 

The ease of it all had left her, bit by bit, the longer she sat here. So close and yet so far away from the man she loved; the man that didn’t know, didn’t remember all the things she did recall. He hadn’t lived the same life she’d lived yet. Seeing him the glow had been blessing and curse already, talking to him but being unable to wrap her arms around him. Now she could have touched him, could have felt him in her arms, purely physically that would have been possible. But it wasn’t for anyone in their right mind. And now she could not even talk to him to way she used to.

Because he didn’t seem to know her.

No matter how long he’d been willing to take her face in.

Suddenly, Michaela wanted to be anywhere but here.

Maybe she could try to slip away. No, not out the door, but into another dimension. Into one where he still remembered. 

The seat belt suddenly seemed to cut too tight into her body. Michaela leaned against it but it only tightened in response. She sagged back into her seat, barely resisting the urge to pull her knees to her chest and putting her shoes on the cushion. She tried her best to keep her eyes glued to the tail lights of the car in front of them but the lights had started to blur, smearing to one bulk of red that blinded her so much she had to press her eyes shut. 

That didn’t keep the tears in check though; they squeezed though the cracks under her lids, a horrible stinging sensation on her already tingling skin as they flooded her cheeks. Michaela felt the silent drops trailing down, quietly trickling down her chin. But the hand her mind implored to move to catch them wouldn’t move out of her lap. Instead, when it finally started to move, it leapt to her chest, clutching her shirt there with a frantic urgency that only increased the sharpness building within. Each beat of her heart was met with a cutting sensation as if her heart was stabbing itself, so eager to end it all. And at the same time, her heart had become like melted wax in her chest. It hurt to even breathe.

She couldn't breathe. 

Michaela opened her mouth, desperate for air, but all that escaped was a choked sob.

“Hey, you okay?"

Michaela barely heard him over the noise overwhelming her insides.

She didn’t think she would ever be free of this noise. Constant, jarring, grabbing. It was everywhere, pulling her in different directions. And it was growing, forcing everything out.

“Yeah," she choked, her tight throat refusing any more words to leave.

Her mouth was full of tears. She had no idea how they’d gotten there. But it felt like they were all spilling through her lips as she tried to breathe through her mouth now, somehow longing for it to take the load off her lungs. It only made it worse. When she breathed she could only taste the sea, choking on it. Her gasping turned into sobs that threatened to fully take over her airways.

And what was worse, she couldn’t move. It was like someone was holding down her limbs, pressing them down into the cushion of the seat. Pressing her even deeper into that misery, this dizzying blur of something crushing, tearing, threatening to cut through the only precious things left stowed in a corner of her heart.

Something brushed her arm, a brief grip that tightened and loosened just as quickly again.

“Zeke…"

She was almost sure he couldn’t decipher the sounds she made to mean his name.

It felt as if the car was lurching to the side, Michaela’s body pressed to the side of the door before slumping back into her seat as the car came to a halt. She neither heard nor saw anything else, with her eyes still clasped shut so tightly. She didn’t care what was happening either, until cool air smashed into her side and warm hands gripped her arms firmly.

“Breathe," a calm voice instructed her. “Deep breaths, deep breaths. In and out."

Michaela latched onto the sound of that voice, trying to comply. Her chest constricted so painfully she doubled over, her body folding in half. Her ragged breathing turned into sobs again. But the hands on her arms lifted her again, carefully, holding her torso upright, even as her body wobbled so much she thought her bones might snap right now and scatter on the floor of the cab.

“I- I c-can’t-"

“Yes, you can."

Michaela shook her head. It only made the hands on her arms tighten their grip.

She couldn't stop sobbing. She tried. But hot, desperate tears kept streaking down her cheeks, blurring her vision. Her head was pounding. She felt like she was dying. Maybe this was some belated version of the death date catching up with her; maybe death had changed its mind and had come back to claim her.

“Can you look at me?"

No

That was what she wanted to say; she couldn’t imagine any worse state for him to see her in for an almost first impression. Rationally, she should have been aware that just because she couldn’t see him it didn’t mean that he couldn’t see her tear-sodden face. But that one tiny word of refusal never left her anyway, and her body was too weak to resist the sound of his voice for long. 

With effort, Michaela tore her eyes open, one after the other. 

At first, she didn’t see much, only the hazy outlines of a figure crouched in front of her, the open car door in its back and the blurry glare of a flickering street light wobbling behind that. Zeke‘s shadow fell into her lap and his fingers dug into her arms, through her jacket, but there was no pain coming from that end. She barely felt his touch, only saw how his muscles tensed from holding onto her. Her vision gradually adjusted enough to see a little clearer through the tears that were still coming.

There was so little light falling on Zeke‘s face that it almost seemed colorless.

Gray

Just like that night when he had faded away next to Cal‘s bed in her arms.

The memory only brought new tears to her eyes. 

It would forever pervade the deepest parts of her mind, seemed incorporated into her very core. Like something clingy, alive, a parasite she couldn’t seem to shake herself free from. Losing Zeke … losing his soul had sucked the color and life out of her own soul. And it had made her quiet, oh so very quiet, like only grief could make you after the immediate very vocal phases of anger and denial. 

She was doing it all wrong. 

She wasn’t supposed to crumble like that in front of the stranger that he was now-

“Easy," Zeke murmured, his brows drawing together, as his eyes swept over her face.

It wasn’t the look of somebody repulsed by the disastrous state she was in. It was rather … concern.

Or was she starting to imagine things now? Clinging to any illusion that seemed a little too real?

Of course, he seemed concerned. He was kind and he was compassionate and she was one of his passengers. It didn’t have anything to do with her being special. Just the reminder of that made breathing even harder. When he looked at her now, he didn’t see the reasons, he didn’t see her. Only a troubled woman, hyperventilating inside his cab and staining his cushions with her tears.

Michaela stared down onto his hands on her numb arms, wishing she’d feel his touch a little more. 

Zeke seemed to follow her gaze, drawing his own conclusions. He withdrew them hastily, backing away.

“Sorry,“ he muttered, avoiding her eye. His back hit the door, he almost lost his balance. “I was only…"

The sudden lack of having him close left Michaela cold and shivering, aching for his attention. The hand cramped into her chest fell limply into her lap. Breathing had gotten easier, so gradually she’d barely noticed the improvement. Her chest felt wider now, the stabs in rhythm with her heartbeat having died down to a soft pounding. But the tears kept coming, albeit silently now again. She brought a hand to her face, wiped her cheeks dry only for new ones to slip through her clumsy fingers.

“Here." Zeke held out a wrinkled paper napkin. “Sorry, I don’t have any tissues in here I think…"

He turned to rummage through the glove compartment as if to prove his point, while Michaela pressed the napkin to her drenched cheeks, sponging up scattered tears. The rough paper smelled off something fried, something greasy. But she didn’t mind, too distracted by studying Zeke anyway. 

He seemed very eager to not look at her again for so long, angling away from her, as if ashamed by having touched her without her consent for so long and with such ferocity. As he returned from the glove compartment empty-handed, Michaela almost followed the instinct to just grab his arm and compel him to look at her. To assure him that it was alright, that they’d already spent hours laying together in their bed, studying each other’s faces with the rising sunlight filtering through the blinds.

Probably the only reason why she didn’t do that was that she felt too drained to even lift an arm.

“Zeke," she said instead, softly, voice almost steady again.

His eyes snapped up to her. The frown carved into his brow was even more prominent than before.

“How … how do you…?"

He shook his head, more to himself it seemed. He even seemed to forget that he had meant to avoid her eye.

“Know your name?"

“Yeah." Zeke rubbed the back of his neck, squinting up to her. “Did we … you said we've met before. Kinda?"

Michaela smiled despite herself. The situation was just too absurd. What was she gonna say? Another cryptic line from Never Ending Story? Another reference to his life, something only she could now? No. Too weird. Too much too soon. Weirdly enough, it was Ben’s voice she heard in her head now, warning her off.

“Kinda," Michaela echoed, smiling softly.

She allowed her body to curl deeper into the cushions. They were comfortable.

Zeke, though, looked far from comfortable. His body remained crouched in front of her, on the pavement with a soft breeze pulling at the hem of the unbuttoned check flannel he wore over his shirt. For some reason, only his gaze changed position, wandering to and away from her face, before finally, thankfully, settling on it for a longer span than just a handful of seconds. 

He caught her gaze, caught her smile, her word. He gave a short, slightly embarrassed laugh, pulling at the ends of his sleeves until they covered his knuckles.

“Where did we … and when? I’m sorry I don’t…"

He was shaking his head again, but his frown had softened into something more intrigued.

He hand’t kicked her out off his cab yet, so maybe that was a good sign.

But as she saw his gaze cloud in a way she’d seen before, she was almost sure to know what he was thinking of. And her heart ached for him when she even imagined that he would consider that his addiction was to blame for the lack of memory … it made her skin crawl in devastating wrongness.

“It’s okay that you don’t remember," she said, and then, for once failing to suppress it, reached forward to place her hand on his arm. She didn’t put any pressure on it, merely let it rest there, deciding she would pull it away if he showed that he wanted her to. But Zeke’s gaze only brushed the sight of her hand touching him, instead settling on her face again.

“How could I…" Zeke blinked, as if torn from a dream. “I’m sorry … I wish I could remember."

Michaela was still fumbling for words meaningful enough to express at least an ounce of how much she wished that too - more than anything - but Zeke was already withdrawing again. His presence, his warmth was slipping through her fingers, and not just in the figurative sense of things. Her hand was caught by nothing but air as he pulled his arm closer to his side, and Michaela felt the lack of touching him deep in her core. Another splinter of grief she thought she’d left behind, somewhat at least.

Zeke cleared his throat. It had a final, decisive note to it.

He was pushing the topic away, she realized. 

Was he scared? Had she scared him? Had it been too much too soon?

Suddenly, it came to her mind that maybe he already was dating someone. She hoped not.

But what if he did? Would it be like with Jared and Lourdes all over again? Her in love with someone just out of reach? Would this be the universe’s cruel sense of humor? Bringing them back together just to make a joined future impossible? 

At least, now, he wasn’t avoiding her eye altogether. And he was still here, still by her side. Close enough for her too see even the smallest twitch of his mouth. God, she wanted to kiss him so badly. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? I could … I don’t know … drive you to a hospital or something. Or call a friend, family…" Zeke’s gaze was roaming over her face, over the traces tears and emotional distress had left, the ruins of what not so long ago had been a bright smile. She’d lost that somewhere between the airport and wherever they were now. “You shouldn’t be alone right now."

"I’m not alone, am I?"

She was doing it again. Speaking before thinking it through. Jumping forwards too fast.

Inwardly, Michaela cringed at her own bluntness, her insides constricted as if she’d swallowed something too sour. She squinted over to Zeke’s face, afraid what she might see. To her surprise and immense relief, he hadn’t run away yet, only kept staring at her through narrowed eyes. As if trying very hard to figure out wether she was joking or not.

“I’m sorry," Michaela said before he could decide on that. She covered her face with her palms, wiped at the tears and the foolish smile working its way down to her lips as she heard him shift but not leave. Her voice was slightly muffled as the words started to fall. “I … I know I’m not making much sense. It’s just … it’s been hard and…"

-and I’ve missed you.

She couldn't say that. And yet it sat right on the tip of her tongue.

Was all she could think about. The thought, the impulse pounded within her like a second heartbeat.

She listened to him breathing; it was the only thing assuring her that he hadn’t left yet.

“Look … I was gonna grab something to eat anyway. If you’re hungry…"

Michaela lowered her palms from her face. Zeke fell silent the moment their eyes met, as if his mind was wiped off words right then. She knew he was biting the inside of his cheek, saw it in the way his face twitched slightly to the side.

She didn’t dare to move for a beat, terrified he’d take his half-spoken offer back.

That it had only been a product of her imagination, of wishful thinking on her part.

“I’d like that," she said, after a moment, her heart pounding so hard it should be bruising.

She was holding her breath until Zeke’s shoulders relaxed. The corners of his mouth twitched.

“Oh, okay," he said, a semblance of a smile flickered onto his lips. He rocked to the back of his heels, pulling himself up on the side of the door. “Just fast food, though. Nothing fancy cause-"

“Sounds great," Michaela said, and she meant it.

They didn’t really speak again until Zeke pulled the cab onto the parking lot behind the fast-food-restaurant. Two bags of fried food were sitting on the center console, the smell of it crawling into every corner of the cab. Countless neon orange lights hovered above the hazy lot, illuminating their faces in strangely distorted ways; they painted Zeke’s skin in a brightness that made it look more than alive, almost out of this world.

They’d only exchanged a few sentences in the drive-through, when he’d asked her what she wanted to eat. He’d payed before she had even though of searching for her own purse and even when she had, she’d suddenly remembered that she’d left it with all her other things at the airport. She just hoped that Ben and Grace had taken her stuff with them; she should’ve probably texted her brother just to be sure but she didn’t want to waste a second of being in the same space as Zeke with texting of all things.

So she didn’t.

Zeke leaned forwards to switch off the meter.

Then he handed her one of the bags. Their hands brushed, knuckle against knuckle. A brief warm touch. She savored it, made it last as long as she could. She wanted nothing more than to grab his hand with her own and rub soothing circles on the base of his thumb with hers. But of course, she pulled away before any of this could happen. God, she was trying so hard to act normal.

It was only when Michaela held the burger in her hand that she realized she wasn’t hungry at all. She set it down again, nibbling at a few fries instead. But her gaze seemed to be wafting over to Zeke more often than not. She didn’t want to stare, didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable, but it was hard not to stare when the man you loved and had seen die sat right next to you now, chewing on a cheeseburger like nothing ever happened. Like he’d never known her. Which of course, he hadn’t.

Not yet.

And still. It was so strange, so absurd, that they were here now, on some parking lot, eating greasy food when mere hours ago she’d still lived in a world where he’d been gone for good. And where she’d not been sure if she too would be gone as well pretty soon.

And now here they were.

Alive. But … strangers.

She wished she could laugh about it all. With him.

And she almost wished that she too had lost all her memories. 

Then it wouldn’t be so painful. Wouldn’t feel like he was fading again in front of her eyes.

“I lost someone."

She couldn’t tell where the words came from. Only that it had been her voice that said them, and that Zeke looked over to her now, the hand with the cheeseburger in it slowly sinking to his lap.

Michaela held his gaze, soaking in every detail of his changing features. The way they softened; the way she imagined to see his eyes mirror her own pain, behind the walls which she’d climbed once before, behind the fragile shield of indifference that she knew so well from herself. 

She felt like she was going to be sick, but not from the fries, not from the deep-frying fat. 

She wanted to get out of here, get away, but not without him, not without Zeke.

“Shit," Zeke muttered. He reached for one of the paper napkins, wiping his fingers clean. But his eyes never left her face. Michaela felt her lips starting to tremble, her teeth chattering into her flesh. “I’m sorry to hear that. That … sucks."

Michaela let out a laugh, a desperate, breathless little thing.

“Yeah … it really does."

She clung to Zeke’s eyes, just as pained as her own, and she knew. The distant look in his eyes, she knew what it meant, knew what place his mind was in. She knew he was thinking of Chloe. She knew what caused that flicker of hatred for himself pushing the light out of his eyes. She knew and she couldn’t say that she knew. So what was she gonna say?

“My husband…"

Zeke’s eyes drew closer together, for just a beat, barely noticeable. 

His attention was all on her. Like back when he’d made her feel like she was the only thing that mattered.

Michaela closed her own eyes, her throat closing up, her voice breaking.

“…that’s … that’s who I lost."

She saw it play out all over again, in front of her inner eye.

She saw herself on the phone, everything draining out of her face the moment she realized - the moment she knew that whatever Zeke was doing, it wouldn’t end well. Not for him.

She saw herself in the car with Ben, her brother behind the wheel because she couldn’t even walk straight ahead with her eyes so blurred. Now, in her memory, it all seemed to move so fast, but back then, time had seemed to slow down, the car only creeping through the streets. She remembered jumping out of the car before it had even stopped, and she remembered running, just running.

But she’d been too late. Too late to stop something she couldn’t have stopped anyway.

And nonetheless she’d screamed and sobbed for the universe to take its choice back.

She still remembered how her throat had been so sore for days she could barely make any sound.

It hadn’t killed her, but something inside her had died that day, with him.

“I’m sorry," she whispered, and she didn’t know who she was even addressing.

“Don’t apologize," Zeke’s response was instant, soft but firm.

Michaela blinked against the tears, against the protection of darkness, until she was back to fully focusing on the Zeke across from her. The one with the same face but not the same story.

“You can’t apologize for something that happened to you," he said, sounding even more like the version of him she lost the last time. After a pause, as an afterthought, he asked, voice all serious despite the grin sneaking through, “Or did you kill him?"

Michaela laughed, more tears spilling from her eyes. “No. God, no."

She pressed her sleeve to her eyes, soaking up the stray liquid, her own smile lingering, despite the heaviness of it all. “But he died saving my nephew … me … all of us. So…"

“Sounds like hella of a great guy."

“Yeah." Michaela nodded, smiling fondly. “He really was."

She locked eyes with Zeke again, a fluttery sensation in her belly building, intensifying. She was surprised and at the same relieved that he held her gaze even now. Most people wouldn’t, would crumble under the weight of her words, her story. His expression was serious but she liked how it softened slightly when he looked at her. Like even now, the way he looked at her was different from how he looked at everyone else.

“I know it doesn’t mean much when coming from a stranger but … I‘m really sorry you lost him."

She’d studied his body language often enough to know that those were not empty words.

He really meant them; they were as genuine as the graveness in his face, and for the first time in too long there was this feeling again that someone understood her, truly, inside out. It made her feel warm and fuzzy. She’d have liked nothing more than to act on the impulse and blurt out her - their - entire story. But she didn’t, regained control before it could slip away too far.

“Thank you," she whispered, and she ached to just reach over and take his hand. Because it was so close in reach, in his lap; she could have easily stretched out her own arm and touched it. The impulse was there, even stronger, even more compelling than before. She tried to ignore it.

Instead, her hand formed a fist around the napkin in her lap. 

It was no replacement for his hand in hers. But it was something to hold onto at least.

Her gaze flittered through the windshield, for a moment. She watched a group of teens huddled against the hood of an old rusty Sedan, only the glow of their cigarettes revealing how young their faces really were. Evie, Lourdes and her used to do the same, hanging out on these kinds of places, out of sight of everyone who would have told them not do it.

God, those times seemed to be ages in the past.

Michaela blinked, bracing herself against the memories and returning to Zeke.

“Can we … could we maybe talk about something else?"

“Sure," Zeke agreed immediately. 

He leant back deeper into the cushion of his seat, his hand clumsily reaching for his half-eaten cheeseburger. His eyes, though, remained on her, and the fast food that had probably gone cold by now anyway sat forgotten in his grip as he kept staring at her. Sauce dripped from the side of it down his hand; he didn’t seem to notice. 

“You still haven’t told me your name."

Michaela shrugged, unable to suppress a grin.

“You still haven’t asked."

“Alright." Zeke laughed, the sound warm and unguarded, with the side of his head bouncing against the headrest. His gaze never left her face. “Since I can’t seem to remember … you wanna tell me your name?"

“It’s Michaela."

“Michaela," he repeated her name, softly, carefully, and his brows drew together. She knew he was probably wrecking his brain trying to remember it when he clearly couldn’t.

Still, she hoped for one ridiculous second that her name would spark something.

Something that hadn’t been there before.

Something she could work with.

“Most people call me Mick though," she kept talking now, rambling, only desperate at this point.

For even the tiniest shred of recognition in his eyes, his face. But Zeke remained to seem clueless, interested, but clueless, as the words kept coming from her mouth. 

“I think it was my brother’s idea, but honestly I think just because he doesn’t like long names in general. Can’t think of a time he ever liked his own full name…"

While talking she clung to every twitch of muscle in his face, tried to read recognition or memory into each move, fooling herself, of course. Zeke seemed to listen intently to every word coming from her mouth. He had leaned slightly forward in his seat. As far as she could tell, there was even a twinkle of amusement there, but that was it. There was no deeper sense there, and her voice faded out.

“Michaela has nice ring to it, still," he said, voice so light she wasn’t sure if he meant it as a comment just to lighten the mood or more than that, a compliment maybe. “But I get the need for a shorter name. Zeke’s short for Ezekiel." He pulled a face, dramatically wiggling his brows. “Never liked the name."

I know, Michaela thought. You’ve told me that before.

And she said the same thing she’d said back then.

“Then use whatever you feel more comfortable with."

There came a sharp ringing sound from her pocket before he could answer. Michaela fished her phone from her pocket, saw Ben’s name in white letters and, as she pushed the call aside and unlocked it, a row of texts, most from him, only one from Jared.

Can we talk? I’m at your place

She muted and pocketed the phone again, ignoring the call, the texts, problems for another time.

“You can answer that, you know," Zeke said. “I don’t mind."

“No, it’s okay." Michaela turned to face him again. “It’s just my brother."

Zeke tilted his head, eying her in that strange way again. As if he still couldn’t decide on what she was.

“Shouldn’t talking to your brother be more important than talking to some random stranger?"

“You’re not a stranger," Michaela replied simply, picking up one of her cold fries, taking a bite, but never leaving him out of sight. As if he would disappear the moment she did.

Zeke laughed, then slowly shook his head.

“What?" Michaela asked, smiling.

“Nothing. You’re just…" He paused, seemed to search for the right word, eventually settled for a simple, “…different."

Michaela lifted a brow. “In a good or bad way?"

“In a way I … didn’t expect."

She was burning to ask him what he’d expected her to be the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.

But Zeke changed the topic before she could.

She couldn’t help but notice that it looked like he was blushing a little. But maybe it was only the light from the near streetlamps and another car’s taillights illuminating his face the wrong way.

“So what were you doing at JFK?"

“I … was coming home from vacation. With my family."

“But you didn’t have any luggage," Zeke pointed out. “And … you were alone."

Michaela laughed a little, chewing on another pair of fries while considering her answer.

“Let me guess." Zeke smirked, taking advantage of her silence. “You were so burned out from vacation with your family that you ran from them the moment you got the chance. Am I close?"

“No," Michaela replied, still stuck halfway between laughing and growing serious again. “Not exactly running from them but…"

She thought about Jared, about the hurt flashing across his face the moment she’d closed his fingers around his ring. After all these years, all the heartache, all the back and forth, it had felt like relief. Like freedom. At least for her. And still, his stung expression haunted her even now. She’d never wanted to hurt him, to hurt anyone. 

“But yeah … running from something," she admitted quietly, after a pause, realizing that it was true, in parts at least.

Most of it had been her running towards something though.

Something she couldn’t let slip through her fingers now, every second precious, despite it being different. She couldn’t waste even a moment of it feeling guilty about Jared. She knew that things like that had a way of catching up with you eventually but, as for now, it didn’t matter.

“What about you?" She asked without much thinking, if only to push the Jared topic to the edge of her mind.

“What about me?" Zeke lifted a brow, chuckling. “You asking me what I was doing at JFK?" He gestured around the cab, movements exaggerated, slightly comical even. “Isn’t it obvious?"

“No, I mean … are you running from something?"

“Me?"

Zeke’s light-hearted grin cracked in half, his mouth going a little slack. But his rough composure stayed firmly in place otherwise; the distance still there, still between them, even as he searched her gaze for confirmation if she was asking in serious.

“What would I be running from?"

“I don’t know," Michaela said, her mouth dry. 

Her heart was pounding faster as she wondered how much further she could probe. She wasn’t even sure what it was she was trying here; doing light banter with Zeke had almost felt natural, almost like it had the last time they’d had a beginning, but this was more dangerous ground now. She was trying to probe deeper, build a sort of connection, something where he would open up as much as she had. But it was tricky. And she wasn’t sure if she’d gone too far already.

“But you knew what to do when I was … you know … spiraling. How did you know what to do?"

Zeke exhaled sharply. For the first time in a while, he took his eyes entirely away from her, and for a moment Michaela feared that she’d lost him now. That he would throw her out right here on that parking lot, pulling his brick walls even higher, so high she would never get to glimpse behind them.

But then-

“Panic attacks. My- I've just seen them before. That’s … all there is to it."

Zeke was rather talking to the steering wheel than to her, lips tightly pressing onto one another the second the last word left them. As if he was physically restraining himself from spilling more.

His eyes found the digital numbers on his dashboard.

“It’s late," he said, voice firm but not impolite. But what they implied hit Michaela like a slap anyway.

His lips stretched into a thin grim smile, and she knew she’d lost him right there. 

“I’m-"

“Look, I gotta get back to work."

Zeke didn’t look at her now, busied himself with stuffing the burger he hadn’t even finished and napkins and wrapping paper into one of the bags, pushing it into the leg room of his side of the car. 

“Where can I drop you off?"

He wasn’t directly, verbally kicking her out … but he still was.

Cold shivers ran over Michaela’s shoulders, like ants made of ice crawling across her back.

And at the same time, an earthquake hitting her freshly mended heart, cracking it right down the middle, tearing the fresh glue apart. There was no universe in the world where any of that could be a good sign. Where it wouldn’t mean that she’d screwed up. She felt like the world was going to swallow her whole. No, this couldn’t be happening, why did she-

Michaela thought of Jared’s text, of how running into him now would make this night even more of a disaster. And by the time she remembered and told Zeke her brother’s address her vision was swimming in tears, so much she had to turn to look out of the side window to hide it.

She’d been too bold. And this was the worst. She had only herself to blame for this.

He didn’t know her.

 And she’d rushed things, had overshot the wrong aim.

No wonder he was pulling away. She would have too. She should have known better.

And now he was silent. So, so silent. It only made her feel ten times worse. 

Her fingers tingled with pain, the result of gripping the napkin too tightly for too long.

Michaela stared out into the swirl of moving light, waiting. Waiting for the inevitable, and at the same time waiting for the impossible.

She had no idea how close they’d been to her brother’s house but the drive only seemed to take minutes. She stared out of the window, at the house she thought she’d never set a foot inside ever again. Not after Grace’s death; not after they’d sold it. She was trying to pull herself together, to make a decent exit at least, but coming face to face with that house and the memories it harbored didn’t exactly make things any less complicated.

“Here we are," Zeke said after a moment of them just sitting in the still-standing cab, the radio still chattering faintly in the background. The steady hum of it veiled his tone, made it sound almost more than neutral, almost as playful as before.

Michaela swallowed, pushing the tears away, before she turned to glance at him.

He wasn’t avoiding her eye any longer, but there was something wary now, something more careful.

“Um … I’m sorry. How much is it? My purse is inside but I’ll go and grab it and pay-"

Zeke shook his head.

“Nah, it’s okay."

“Zeke, you just wasted an entire evening of just-"

“It wasn’t a waste," Zeke interrupted, softly. A beat went by until he continued, holding her gaze. “I’m sorry for…" He shook his head, gesturing vaguely. “For being so harsh on you. You didn’t do anything wrong. Actually … this was the nicest evening I’ve had in a while. I guess I should thank you. So," he took a deep breath, exhaled with effort, “thank you, Michaela."

He gave her a crooked smile, running his hand through his already ruffled hair.

Michaela almost didn’t dare to breathe, her heart clinging to the fragile meaning behind the words.

He’d enjoyed spending time with her.

Michaela knew he was expecting for her to say something in return, the way his hands rubbed down the front of his pants telling her that he grew more uncertain the longer she stayed quiet. But her voice seemed locked into her throat, unable to crawl its way outside. It was as if someone had pressed the mute button on her voice, leaving her unable to utter even a single syllable.

Her hands grabbed one of the unused paper napkins, then a pen from the slim rack above the glove compartment. In sloppy, uneven writing she noted down the numbers of her old phone number, the one she still knew by heart. Carefully, she folded the napkin, handing it to Zeke, with a smile that she hoped was as inviting as his own.

She wanted to say something witty, something funny, but it all got stuck in her throat.

She didn’t want this night to end. She didn’t want this moment to end, because she wasn’t ready to leave him yet. She might never be, now that she had found him again. He had found her the first time, following her words. Now it was her turn. But how was she supposed to make this right? Just trust that the universe would bend the odds to make it fit somehow?

She didn't want to leave him now but she knew that she had to.

“See you," Michaela croaked, barely getting out the words.

Her heart splintered again into a million pieces as she climbed out of the cab and there was no hand, no word to hold her back.

Chapter Text

Even as Michaela walked up to the house, she heard no sound of the cab driving off. 

She didn’t turn around too see if she was right, if Zeke was still there, the fear too big that she would be wrong and he would be gone already, she forgotten as much as the napkin with her number on it. 

Just now she realized that should he never make use of that number, she wouldn’t know how to reach him.

She tried to focus on what lay, literally, ahead of her. 

There was no light behind either of the windows, all blinds lowered; it was late after all. She had no clue what time exactly it was, but at least late enough for the suburban street to be deserted and dark, apart from the few scattered streetlights and their poor white light. The purr of the cab’s engine was the only thing crushing the illusion of an entire world dipped into sleep. That and Michaela’s own steps on the gravel; they sounded impossibly loud, no matter how softly she set each foot down.

Despite the lack of light inside, she’d never thought she’d see the house in front of her so homely ever again. And yet here she was, walking past the few wild rose bushes Grace tended to, past Olive’s little purple-green dotted bike propped against the side of the stairs. Peeking out over the fence leading to the backyard she could see the shiny green swing set that hadn’t succumbed to rust and sun yet.

Everything was so … ordinary.

It was like they’d never moved out, like they’d never had to sell it.

As if those walls had never seen a tragedy.

Michaela’s eyes stung. She told herself it was only from the smoke the veering wind brought over from another house’s barbecue. Maybe it was; she thought she could smell the charred scent of something burning for too long.

The house itself, no matter how ordinarily small, towered over her like one mass of dark waves under a midnight sky. Leaving her alone with the memory of flashing blue and red lights, reflecting in the windows and on their teary faces. The memory of a black body bag being wheeled out the front door and then carried down the few steps. Of Olive sobbing and Ben screaming and Zeke doing his best to hold all their pieces together while the world as they’d known it shattered to their feet—

She was relying solely on muscle memory to get her down the path and up the front steps.

Michaela bent to lift the sun-bleached garden gnome beside the front door, the one under which they’d always kept the spare key. Her hand was already moving to grab it when her eyes caught up with the sight. She was too late to pull her hand away, it grasped at nothing. Because the spot underneath it was empty. No sign of a key.

“Damn it,” Michaela muttered, straightening again. She leaned against the handrail, looking around.

Only briefly her gaze got stuck to how the cab was still in front of the driveway. She thought she even met a distorted version of Zeke’s gaze through the glass and distance before a sound pulled her attention away again. 

The dulled sound of steps on the other side of the door. Only a beat later, the door was yanked open, a rough sound in the quiet night of the otherwise so muted neighborhood. Ben’s face appeared in the doorframe, grim and strained, darting in all directions until it landed on her. He was holding an umbrella of all things, outstretched like a weapon about to strike.

He lowered it abruptly the moment he seemed to recognize her, his shoulders slumping.

“What the hell, Mick?”

He was whispering but he could as well have shouted, disturbing the thick silence cramped around them, anyhow. He pulled her inside by her arm before she could say anything, frantic fingers digging into her arm. Michaela stumbled after him into the dimly lit entryway. She nearly tripped over a pair of kicked-off shoes — Cal’s, if the green dragons printed on them where anything to go by. 

“Where have you been? I’ve been-”

“The real question is-” Michaela’s gaze flickered down to his other hand, the one still cramped around the umbrella. She struggled to contain a giggle. “What where you going to do with that?”

“I heard some noises outside,” Ben muttered, voice defensive. He put the umbrella back on the rack near the door, gesturing vaguely towards it. “And I grabbed the first thing I found. I wasn’t going to use it. It was just meant to be … a deterrent.”

“Uh-huh.”

Michaela lifted a brow, taking in her brother’s mismatched appearance. His hair was ruffled, as if from a night spent tossing and turning, but then again he was wearing shoes and one of his scratchy sweaters, tucked into the waistband of his pajamas. And he had his glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. He didn’t look like someone who’d just been pulled from sleep by a startling noise outside.

And surely she hadn’t been that loud for him to hear her all the way from upstairs.

Registering her scrutinizing him, Ben harshly pulled his glasses from his nose, stuffing them into his trousers’ pocket without looking, missing the pocket’s opening a few times.

“I was just being careful,” he muttered, avoiding her eye.

“Just careful, huh?” 

Michaela’s gaze flickered through the still half-open door towards the garden gnome outside. Without meaning to, her eyes also grazed the view of Zeke’s cab still sitting there. He hadn’t left yet, and she didn’t know what to make out of it. She tried to focus back on her brother, but Zeke’s persisting presence made that nearly impossible. 

“The spare key … you took it away, didn’t you?”

Her brother refused to meet her eye.

“Ben.”

He let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair. Even as he looked at her now, he only let his gaze linger for a beat before slipping away again towards the wall behind her.

“It’s just a precaution.”

“Angelina is gone, Ben,” Michaela countered softly. “For real this time. It’s over.”

He clenched his jaw, still looking anywhere but at her. His fists trembled at his sides. 

“I‘m not saying it’s rational, it’s just … I can’t take any chances, Mick. Not when I just … I just got her back.”

“That also the reason why you’re still up?”

Ben huffed. For the first time ever since pulling her inside with him, his gaze seemed to linger on her face for longer than a handful of seconds. His brow furrowed slightly, a crease so shallow she could barely see it.

“You’re one to talk. I’ve been calling you. Where did you-”

Her brother’s wandering gaze landed on the cab still neatly parked on the edge of his lawn. He squinted his eyes, and Michaela could tell that he had trouble to recognize whoever sat behind the wheel through the distance and the dark, but then, after the few seconds it took him, he froze.

“Is that-”

“Yes, it is,” Michaela whispered, following his gaze.

She tried to smile. Not for Ben, not for herself, but for Zeke. She had no idea what was still keeping him out here but she didn’t want him to think she was any weirder than he might have already thought.

Ben made a sound; not a cough, not a laugh, but something softer in between, a sound of surprise and disbelief that echoed Michaela’s inner state of mind better than any word could have.

“Does he … does he remember?”

“No.” Michaela exhaled, that one word burning her throat long after it had already left it. “No, he doesn’t. And that’s why you should stop staring at him like a total lunatic.”

She grabbed her brother’s arm with one hand, pulled him back, and grabbed the door with the other. Behind the glass, she thought she saw Zeke lift a hand, as if to wave, but her hands were already full. She gave a smile she hoped he could see, then slowly pulled the door close.

For a moment, the world around them was so quiet, muted so much she swore she could hear the engine of Zeke’s cab howl and then start to lose in volume.

She’d kept it together, or had tried at least, ever since that one breakdown in the cab. But now that she stood shielded from the world, protected in her brother’s hallway, with one of the few people who did remember just as much as she did, the walls no longer seemed so steady. Michaela swallowed against the rising bile, tried to push everything back down, but it hurt so bad, burned in a way she hadn’t expected. She stumbled. The framed family photos on the walls tilted and blurred in sync with her wobbly limbs, mocking her for crumbling when this was already more than she could have ever asked for. At least considering that only hours ago she’d thought she — all of them — might be dead soon. She should be thankful that they weren’t.

Michaela closed her eyes for just a moment too long, trying her best to breathe like Zeke had told her to. In and out. Deep breaths. That was by far easier said than done. With that burning ache ebbing first through her chest, each heartbeat intensifying the agony, before clawing its way all up to her throat. Her head was spinning, the pain lurking in the dark behind her closed eyes making it hard to focus.

She’d always thought should she ever get the chance to see Zeke again it would be an exclusively happy affair. That was what she’d been clinging to.

She hadn’t expected it to be so difficult.

“Mick?”

Michaela was aware of the noises stumbling from her mouth; choppy feeble sounds that were too loud in a house so quiet, so peaceful, so normal. Once again she didn’t belong. She was just as out of place as when they’d come back last time — she realized that just now, right here. Things were supposed to be better now. She was supposed to be better. More poised, having a lock on her own life. Or at least she was supposed to know how exactly to use this new chance, with all that knowledge, all that experience. She used to believe in second chances. But … what were the rules for third chances?

“Michaela?”

Her brother’s voice again; it sounded closer now. More urgent.

Blindly, she reached out for him, thought she found what could have been his arm. Her nails dug through the fabric; she held on because otherwise she wasn’t sure where this wave would make her drift and how far it would pull her under.

“I’m so sorry, Mick,” Ben whispered, and it was his pity that tipped her over the edge.

She stumbled forwards, against him, still only facing the dark twisting and bending behind her own eyes. Her brother’s arms caught her just as the tears started to tumble again; it took another moment for Ben’s arms to tighten around her, as if they had expected this so little that they couldn’t comply right away. Michaela buried her face in his shoulder, the wool scratching against her nose as she was trying to muffle the embarrassing reality of those sobs. They still rang out impossibly loud.

“He doesn’t know,” Michaela croaked in between sob and breath, voice low and strained. Each word was an effort to push out, and at the same time she needed to get them out of her system so desperately, needed for someone else to hear them so she wouldn’t lose her mind. “He doesn’t … he looks at me and he … he doesn’t see me…”

Ben sighed. She could feel his shoulders lift and sink with her body sagged against him.

Michaela exhaled slowly, eyes remaining shut as the world around her dissolved into her own thoughts once more. It was the only way she could escape, even if just for a moment. Because right now, slumped in her brother’s embrace, crying, barely caring to keep herself on her feet on her own, it all felt a little too close to when she’d been first torn from Zeke’s lifeless body.

“I know,” Ben muttered. His palm brushed over the back of her head, trying to soothe where nothing right could be said. “I know it’s hard.”

“No,” Michaela protested. She pulled back sharply, as if bitten. “You don’t. You don’t know.”

“Mick-”

“Your wife still knows who you are,” she pointed out bluntly. Her tone resembled something accusing, though she knew it wasn’t his fault, though she knew a better sister would feel only happy for him. “Your children still know who you are. You just … got your life back. You can just move on with that, slip right back into it. I … I can’t.”

Ben’s gaze hardened and his hand, still on her shoulder, gripped it more firmly.

He leant forward just a tad, lowered his voice. His whisper was sharp despite the low volume.

“But I am not the same. And I don’t know how Grace is gonna deal with that. I don’t know if Saanvi’s treatment will work this time, if Cal will be cured just like last time, if I will meet Eden ever again … and you know what? I am terrified. Terrified that I will screw this up, Mick. That I won’t be able to use this chance in a way the universe wants me to and it will take everything from me. Again.”

Ben exhaled shakily, his face so tight the wrinkles seemed to dissolve. He looked younger. Well, of course he did. So did she. They all did. They were younger.

“So don’t tell me I don’t know what hard is.”

Michaela closed her eyes, exhaling as well.

She tried to mold her voice into something quiet, sober.

“I get that, Ben, but it’s not the same.”

“I never said that it was,” Ben shot back, his voice softened then. “But we both need to figure out how we fit into our lives now. And it’s not always going to be easy but … we are alive.”

A small, tentative grin broke through Ben’s serious demeanor. He used his grip on her shoulders to shake her a little, his gaze searching hers, imploring her to listen to his words. “We made it, Mick. We-”

Abruptly, he fell silent, and it took Michaela a second to understand why.

Light had flared up behind them, and only a moment later, Grace’s figure slowly stepped down the stairs. She’d thrown on a night-blue dressing gown, pulled it tighter around herself as she stopped halfway down the stairs, a frown etched into her tired face.

She took in both their faces, lingered a little longer on the half-dried tears spattered on Michaela’s cheeks and on Ben’s hands gripping her shoulders. Michaela felt ashamed all of a sudden, so exposed in the light, like a cell trapped under the lens of a microscope; the blood rushed into her cheeks, burning. She pulled away from her brother’s grip, hastily wiping the tears off her face.

“What’s going on?” Grace asked, voice surprisingly clear and focused for someone who’d apparently just woken up. Raising two kids probably did that to you, sharpened your senses even in the middle of the night. “Did something happen?”

“Um, no. Everything’s fine,” Ben was quick to assure. 

Nonetheless, Michaela could feel his eyes search hers, and she scrambled to regain her composure enough to turn and face Grace again. She could still feel the blood shift and crawl beneath the flesh of her cheeks as the light in the hallway seemed to drill a hole into her head.

“I … uh … broke things up with Jared,” she muttered, the closest thing to the truth right now.

“Oh.” 

Grace’s mouth fell open, surprise so plain in her face she couldn’t even try to mask it. 

Her gaze, perhaps involuntarily, searched her husband’s, as if waiting for him to confirm. Ben nodded, almost imperceptibly. Trapped between their gazes, Michaela felt like a child again. Younger than she’d been those last five years and even younger than she’d been before that. She could tell that, at least in Grace’s eyes, she still was that. Too old to not have a good grip on her own life and at the same time too young to make the right decisions to change anything about it. Simply too impulsive, too inexperienced and reckless — all those things. 

Michaela knew that this version of Grace, probably without even intending ill will, still judged her for it.

And it made her feel small in a way she didn’t like.

Because saying no to Jared hadn’t been a rash impulse she’d acted on. It had been a decision evolving within her for over five years.

Of course, Grace couldn’t know that.

“You can crash here for the night,” Ben offered now, thankfully, before Grace could say anything else.

Grace nodded, supporting her husband’s offer, and if only with slight delay.

“I’ll go set up the bed in the basement,” she said, rushing down the stairs and past them down into the basement, before Michaela even had the chance to accept the offer. Her sister-in-law seemed glad to  have an excuse — any excuse really — just to escape the situation; perhaps before she wouldn’t be able to hold back her own opinion on the matter anymore.

Michaela knew exactly what said opinion looked like, though they’d never specifically talked about it. No talk was needed to disclose the obvious. She knew she’d see the same distinctive expression plastered on her parents’ faces once they would learn about her rejecting Jared’s proposal. 

But she couldn’t think about that right now, with her head already so full it felt like her thoughts had barely space to move as it was.

Michaela’s gaze clung to Grace’s back, even after she’d already disappeared down the stairs, passing the luggage still lined up in the hallway. Michaela recognized her own yellow suitcase among it; for a sliver of a second she was distracted again, wondering what sort of clothes she’d even liked to wear over five years ago. Would they still feel like her clothes? 

Then she heard Grace’s soft footsteps, moving around down in the basement and her thoughts started to retrace their steps.

“I’d forgotten that this is the version of Grace that still hates me,” she muttered.

“She doesn’t hate you,“ Ben objected. “She never has. She just…”

“Thinks that I’m a lost cause that keeps on sabotaging her own life.”

It seemed that Ben couldn’t argue with that because he remained silent, shuffling in the back for a moment, before pulling her attention back to himself. He gripped her shoulders once more, turning her to face him. His voice he had lowered even more; it only just scratched the surface of being audible, though it wasn’t any less intent.

“Did you tell him anything?”

“Zeke?“

“Yes. Zeke.” Ben nodded, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, the spot where his glasses had sat not so long ago. “Did you tell him anything? About the plane, about what-”

“No. I didn’t.” Michaela watched as his shoulders sagged, his stance loosening slightly. “But I’ve been thinking about it,” she added, after a beat, seeing him tense up all over again. “And I think I might.”

Ben groaned, shaking his head. “Jesus, Mick. You can’t."

Michaela thrust out her chin. She hated when he did that. Acting as if he knew everything better than her just because he had a few years more and an academic degree on his résumé. Somehow she’d thought they were past this, after everything. But maybe being back in the old timeline made it so very easy to just slip back into the familiar groundworks already laid out for them. It was annoying, anyhow. She pushed back her shoulders, just out of his reach. Ben’s hands fell to his sides, empty now, clenching aimlessly as she backed away a step.

“Why not?”

Her brother grimaced, rubbing his brow as if attempting to ward off a looming headache.

“People vanished on this flight, Mick,” he finally said, voice so strained as if it were squeezing through clenched teeth. “Just think about how it went last time when something inexplicable happened. They tried to find someone who was responsible for that, someone they could pin the blame on.”

“I don’t see how this connects to Zeke,” Michaela replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“What if you tell him and then he tells someone else and then, in no time, word gets out to the wrong people, maybe even the media, that something strange happened … what do you think is gonna happen then? History’s gonna repeat itself. We’re gonna end up being guinea pigs all over again, all of us. Cal too. We can’t risk that.”

“I trust Zeke,” she said, pausing, even the implication that he would rat them out stinging. She narrowed her eyes at her brother. “And you used to trust him too.”

“But this is not him,” Ben snapped, stepping closer. “I’m sorry, Mick, but it’s not. We don’t even know  who he was five years before we met him, before his experience in the cave. We don’t … we just can’t know how he will react. And I gotta protect my family-”

“Your family, of course,” Michaela scoffed, taking another step back. “Good to know where I stand.”

Ben sighed, briefly closing his eyes. 

“I didn’t mean it like that, you know that. This is not just to protect them,” he gestured up the stairs, to where his children were asleep, safe and sound, and even though Michaela knew she was being unfair, she felt the sting of jealousy flicker in her chest. He’d gotten it all back, just like that. Her jaw hurt from clenching her teeth so tight. 

“This is to protect you as well, alright?” Ben searched her gaze, and begrudgingly Michaela met it, held it, even as he went on. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Michaela swallowed, her shoulders twitching. “But this … not telling him … that hurts…”

“I know,” Ben muttered, tilting his head to the side, but again Michaela doubted that he really could know.

He knew what grief was like; how destructive it could be, how painful and consuming, sucking all color from your life. But this? This was something else entirely. This was being so close to the person you had loved and lost and being unable to act like it. 

She wanted to ask Ben what he would have done had Grace not recognized him as her husband the moment they stepped through the glow back into the airport; if he hadn’t been able to hug and kiss her and tell her how much he loved her right on the spot. But she bit it back; she didn’t want to be cruel.

Ben’s firm posture formed first thin cracks; maybe he could read more from her face than she liked him to. His shoulders sagged slightly, arms creating an opening, a sense of familiarity that made it harder to blame him for having now everything she’d ever wanted him to have.

“Come here,” Ben muttered. 

But it was him who stepped towards her now, pulling her into his arms again.

Michaela didn’t resist. However, it took her a moment to relax, to shake off the anger and frustration she’d felt only moments ago. And even as she finally hugged him back, the feelings hadn’t fizzled out entirely yet; they kept her eyes open and dry this time, kept her from crumbling once more in his embrace. Her brother had his flaws; he could be patronizing and tended to defend his opinions to the death, but one thing she couldn’t accuse him of was that he didn’t care earnestly about people. About her. Rationally, she knew that; that her mind was wrong to doubt his words.

And still, not even that could tamp down all the anger at the world that was surging up inside of her.

Still, her muscles were quivering, complaining about how helpless they were in all of this.

Her brother’s arms tightened around her; perhaps he could feel her shaking, too.

“You know I’m alway there for you, right?”

Michaela didn’t answer, wouldn’t have been able to without the tears breaking free again.

The sound of steps on the stairs drawing closer pulled them apart again.

Grace had reappeared at the head of the stairs leading down to the basement.

She was smiling. But it was a little too bland, a tad too polished; the shallow crease settled between her eyes betrayed her.

“I suggest we should all try to get some more sleep before it’s too late,” she said.

The reproach behind those words, though carefully veiled by her polite tone, was so obvious that Michaela winced, a tight knot forming in her stomach.

“Grace, I’m sorry. I…”

“Good night, Michaela,” Grace cut her short, voice not exactly rude but decisive without doubt. She turned towards her husband next, a little more unconcealed irritation to her tone as she asked, “I’m going back to bed. Are you coming too?”

“Of course,” Ben said softly, catching his wife’s hand as she passed them. He placed a quick kiss on her knuckles. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” he promised. Grace only sent him a tired smile in return. 

Then she disappeared up the stairs. Ben waited until they heard a door close upstairs, then he turned back to Michaela. She could practically feel his imploring gaze cutting into her.

“Please, please, keep it to yourself, okay? I know you don’t like it but … promise me you won’t tell him yet. We gotta at least wait until things have cooled off a little. Give it some time…”

For a moment, Michaela was juggling with possible answers. She could say she wouldn’t tell him just to appease Ben, but she knew she’d be lying. To him as much as to herself. Because in her head that decision had already been made, unaffected by her brother’s reasonable concerns.

“I can’t promise that, Ben. I’m sorry.”

Ben let out a deep sigh, nodding slowly, his expression nothing but somber.

He reached for her hand, giving it a quick squeeze.

“I gotta give a lecture tomorrow morning. Apparently, I still have a job in this life.” Ben laughed but there was no trace of genuine humor anywhere near it. “Let’s meet up for lunch? Or … talk things through over coffee?”

“I can’t,” Michaela said, suddenly remembering that she, too, still had a real job in this timeline.

It was a welcome excuse, to be honest. Because she knew that neither of them would simply change their mind overnight. And talking it through again would lead them nowhere, except perhaps into a second round of discussion, one she was far too tired for.

“Be careful. Please.”

Michaela nodded, watching as her brother walked up the stairs. 

It was only when he’d disappeared out of sight that she herself turned around and climbed down the worn wooden steps descending into the opposite direction, right into the dimly lit basement. What an irony that this first night after coming back would end with her in her brother’s basement — again.

The universe really had an enigmatic sense of humor. And inscrutable timing. 

Michaela took a quick look around the room laying to her feet.

It looked more cluttered than she remembered. More like a place where everything landed that had served its time. Shelves crammed full up to the ceiling, and so much more stuff scattered on the floor, making undisturbed steps nearly impossible. So all in all, a place quite different from the one where she’d lived last time. 

Slowly, Michaela made her way over to the pull-out-sofa, careful not to trip over any of the objects lining the floor. She scanned the room once more, focusing on the details this time. Her eyes found a jumbled row of paint cans, colors they’d used to paint the twins’ rooms. And a set of camping gear they would probably never use because she knew how much Ben hated sleeping outdoors (though this might have changed now, too). And then, tucked into the corner next to the dryer, she spotted the giant  askew cardboard box fort she recalled building with Cal a while before Jamaica, back when the cancer hadn’t devoured most of his energy reserves yet.

She stopped in her tracks, taking a shuddering breath.

Her fingertips grazed the side of the fort. Dust sifted into her face.

Everything would turn out well. It just had to. If not for herself … than at least for Cal.

Michaela flopped down onto the bed. She removed her shoes but kept the rest on, ignoring the pair of pajamas that ever-thoughtful Grace had laid out for her. 

She stared up at the low ceiling, trying to make sense out of what was her life now. 

A new chance, that was what it was. The question was — what was she gonna make out of it?

The answer to that had been swallowed up by mist, leaving her to wander through the fog with her arms outstretched and any sense of direction dulled so much she couldn’t rely on it any longer.

And now, as she lay alone in her brother’s basement, alone for the first time ever since that last night in the other timeline, her body replicated the way it had felt after Zeke had been torn from her arms —from her life. The same thickness in her throat, signaling the onset of tears; she tried to wipe them away before they even had the chance to fall. 

She was lonely. It was as simple as that. 

Nonetheless, admitting it stung like a sharp knife twisting through her chest, riddling her body with more ways to let the cold in. She wasn’t lonely, she corrected herself — she was merely alone. There was a difference. Because there were people around her, in her life. She still had Ben, her parents, Saanvi, many of the other passengers they’d made friends with over the years— there was absolutely no reason to feel so damn lonely.

So abandoned.

Automatically, Michaela’s thoughts wandered back to Zeke. 

She was thinking of him again, couldn’t force her thoughts in another direction even as she tried. 

It was the same as after his death. Those first months without him, even whenever she’d been with others, she’d only been thinking of him. Remembering him as much as trying to adjust the here and now to fit an illusion. She’d pictured them together, walking around, dragging each other along, especially on those dull days where the walls of the detention center locking them up had been especially close to suffocating her between them. She’d pictured them together, just him and her, hand in hand, all the time and everywhere. Her thoughts hadn’t been able to move an inch without bumping into some piece of him.

He’d been her never ending thought.

And now that he was first there and then gone again, a sick feeling of déjà vu lingered. Like she was  starting to drift in and out of this same fog no one had seemed to be able to pull her out back then. She couldn’t shut her eyes against the memories.

And the flashbacks hurt, made Michaela’s limbs tremble.

Flashbacks of a funeral she couldn’t attend, with flowers on the casket that she only knew from pictures.

Michaela wanted to scream, to let the universe know of her frustration.

She just wanted to be with him; it was as simple and as complicated as that.

When the silence became a little too suffocating, the emptiness too loud, she pulled her phone from her pocket. Aimlessly, she flicked through the unanswered texts. There was one from Lourdes now as well. Lourdes. Right. They were still friends. Best friends. It didn’t feel real anymore, after everything that had happened. How could she ever go back to how it had been? 

Michaela’s attention lingered on Jared’s text next. She thought about answering, about telling him to just go home. His — not hers.

Another text message came in before she could, distracting her.

She clicked on it without a second thought.

The number she didn’t recognize but the name underneath the message she noticed before even reading the text itself.

Zeke

Her vision blurred. Michaela pressed the phone to her chest for a moment, unable to do anything but trying not to forget to breathe.

When she turned the phone around again, her fingers trembled so much she could barely unlock it.

Zeke’s text hit her the moment she finally managed to do so. It was plain, short and simple, but even these few words made Michaela’s heart flutter stupidly. She read and reread the words so often they  started to receive a deeper meaning at some point; something that was probably all in her own head.

Hey, not trying to be a creep but just checking in. You okay?
Zeke

The text was already half an hour old when Michaela’s fingers finally hovered over the keyboard, trying to draft an answer that wouldn’t make her sound like a creep.

I gotta tell you something. Can we meet again?

The reply came only seconds later, Michaela barely had time to reconsider what she’d written.

Just called it a day. Wanna take another ride?

Michaela smiled. She thought about it for a moment, then typed an answer.

I’ve got a better idea

Chapter Text

Zeke knew he’d find the place without much trouble. 

He’d been there before. Though not as often in the last couple of years where he hadn’t seen much of New York outside of the walls of his cab. He’d forgotten how bright the lights were at night when not dampened through the fogged windows, and how loud the city was even here, with the main streets out of sight.

Some people liked to call it a concrete jungle; he’d heard some of the tourists he’d been driving around use the term once, and he liked the metaphor. Because even with all the stone and metal, there was life thrumming through the city; even now, when it was glowing with neon veins, casting a strange, electric light over anything that moved.

Zeke had parked his cab a few streets away. It’d been hard to find an empty spot, and he hoped they wouldn’t find a reason to tow it away, but then again, he was surprised to find how little he cared about that at the moment. His heart was only beating faster with the tingling trepidation of what he would find when he got there. He wandered through the almost deserted but never quiet streets, hands shoved deep into his pockets, trying to make sense out of what the hell he was even doing here.

He should have been in bed, resting after the long shift he’d had. Or even in a bar, knocking back a beer he didn’t even like the taste of, just to have more and more and harder stuff follow until he’d find himself somewhere else, in the best case his own bed. Waking with a stabbing headache, a foul taste and the certainty that he’d failed once again. And — not to forget — the uncertainty whether this time the spiral would end with him down in a place so bottomless he would never be able to drag himself up from there ever again. 

A place where things would end for good.

He’d thought about it more than once, considered it, had turned it around in his head often enough like others would mull over what to have for dinner. Especially during those nights when it got late again, then his mind, well, it went places. Some of them worse than others. He knew he was already killing his mind, every substance he took gnawing at his cells. Might as well let the rest of his body follow at this point.

But tonight — for perhaps the first time in years of this constant push and pull between self-destruction and feeble attempts of recovery — Zeke had ended his shift feeling something else. Something akin to … alive. And it scared him to realize how much that seemed to have to do with that mysterious woman from the cab. Michaela. She had something … he couldn’t place his finger on it, wasn’t sure if he even wanted to put a label on whatever it was she’d sparked in him. 

He just knew this:

Ever since she’d left his cab he’d been nothing more than a stumbling mess. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything. So much that he’d been driving in the wrong directions a few times over, with customers in the back complaining, thinking he was only trying to wangle more money out of them. And in between short breaks, his fingers had hesitated above the napkin Michaela had given him, trembling as if afraid that even the slightest touch might cause the ink to bleed away and put her out of reach.

And now … now he was on his way to meet her again.

In the middle of that same night. Outside. A stranger he barely knew.

Zeke couldn’t even say why he’d agreed. Why he was doing this now. What it was he was hoping for.

If he hadn’t known any better, Zeke would have thought he was drunk. Or — even better — high.

Yeah. It had felt a little like that, around her. Like being stuck in a moment where his thoughts were whirling so slow, impossible to grasp, impossible to untangle their meaning. As if he were close to … hallucinating.

But he hadn’t taken anything. He was so sure of that. He’d tried to stop again, had been going to meetings, had flushed the pills and booze down the toilet. But … there were three shiny pills still sitting in the back of his razor. Just in case … but he hadn’t taken them. Or had he?

Was any of this even real? Even happening?

Zeke stared down at his feet. He saw them moving with purpose, circumventing broken glass and crushed takeout cups littering the sidewalk, and navigating towards a place where he was supposed to meet a woman he barely knew. But there was something … something about her that had drawn him in. That made almost his every thought now revolve around her, trying to figure out what it could be that made him feel so … so connected to her. 

Could it be that they both lost someone?

No, Zeke thought grimly, he had never lost anybody. Too passive. He had killed.

Maybe this unexplainable, almost eternal pull towards her wasn’t even real. Or maybe it was but it was away from something, away from her. Maybe the intensity of it was trying to warn him off. That he was just doomed to replace one kick with another, not any less destructive one, in the end.

He passed the flickering neon sign of a bar just then. He stopped. Stared up at the sign, at the two guys huddled near the entrance. The smoke of their cigarettes formed a thick, sweet cloud around their heads. Zeke could smell the cheap booze on their breaths, heard the dull beat of music vibrating through the stained windows. He could almost replicate the sour taste from drinking too much before throwing it all up on the sidewalk. The bass beat through him, shaking him up, even as he stood on the other side of that door. 

How easy it would be to just walk in there and have a drink. Just one. Just … to loosen up a bit.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t look away.

The door flipped open for just a second; he caught a glimpse of small round tables covered in stained napkins and collections of shot glasses, some still half full. Cold smoke smashed into his face. It was luring him in, and he was almost tempted enough to take a step towards it … but then the door snapped shut again, locking him out.

Zeke knew the drill. He knew — from a purely rational point of view — that no drug in the world was filling or mending in any way; he was well aware of that, at least in the clear moments after.

They might make him feel whole for a few hours, but all they were really doing was carving that cavity in his chest deeper and deeper. Just like the misplaced anger he carried with himself, using was nothing but a shield for pain, as if he were a cornered soldier in the field randomly throwing out grenades, scared for his life, lonely and desperate.

He thought of how his breath would smell, of how one drink wouldn’t suffice, and of how he didn’t want Michaela to think he was a drunk — an addict — which, of course, he was. He shouldn’t feel the need to hide that because … why would he even feel the need to impress her? He didn’t know her, and he doubted that she would ever want him to. He wasn’t even sure if he would want that.

Sure, she was pretty. He couldn’t deny that. And Zeke would be lying claiming that he didn’t find her mesmerizing in ways he had never felt about any other woman.

But that didn’t do anything to change the fact that he was insane for even considering that someone like her would…

And then the thing with her dead husband. 

She was grieving, for God’s sake, and here he was thinking about-

Zeke shook his head. Maybe the drugs had done major irreparable damage to his brain already.

He assured himself that this feeling — whatever exactly it was — it would only be temporary. It would go away again. Like everything in his life ever had.

Zeke pulled his phone from his pocket, read her last message. He checked the time. He could still make it in time. He stared back at the bar, at the cloud that remained even as the two guys had disappeared back inside. Weirdly enough, he pictured Michaela’s face just then. Those light blue eyes that reminded him of watercolors, of how Chloe used to mix blues and greens to paint the ocean. And the way she’d looked at him with those eyes … like there was something in him worth looking at.

He brought a hand to the back of his neck, rubbed the spot without sense, as the cold stabbed his insides, a weight plummeting to the depths of his stomach. Suddenly, irrationally, he felt disappointment settle in. A sharp but icy beating that he took without complaining because he deserved it for those weak-minded thoughts alone — for being tempted. A coward, that was what he was, because he was still here stalling, still considering to pretend that none of this had ever happened.

Still pretending he wasn’t picturing Michaela’s crestfallen face whenever his thoughts wandered back to that bar so close in reach. 

Even now, he imagined to spot her face across the street, watching him, watching what he would do.

“Zeke?”

He blinked. Peered into the blackness, straining his eyes. 

No, he hadn’t been mistaken. There she was … wasn’t she?

She moved towards him now, and she seemed as real as when she’d been sitting next to him in his cab.

Another car even stopped to let her pass the street. She lifted a hand to thank the driver.

Not a hallucination then. Others could see her too.

She came jogging towards him, and suddenly, Zeke felt sullied even standing in front of that bar.

His face flushed, burning with shame. At the same time, his heart had started pounding against his chest with frightening ferocity, surely ready to crack his ribs open at any moment. It was difficult to think, difficult to do anything else besides watching her close up to him.

She couldn’t know about his history with addiction, about how much it took for him to not enter that stupid bar; he was very careful to let at least his cab not mirror the reality he was struggling with day in, day out. Standing here now, he just hoped she wouldn’t suggest they go inside there to talk. He wouldn’t be able to say no. And he would drink and fall and she would have to witness it all. How pathetic he really was. How he wasn’t a man even worth talking to. Zeke’s insides cramped together, and he held his breath, almost a reflex by now, until she had reached him.

Michaela’s forehead was furrowed, her gaze so compassionate he could almost not believe it.

Her eyes flickered to the bar, then back to his face.

Why was she looking at him like she knew about the turmoil raging inside of him?

“Zeke,” she spoke his name the same gentle way she had spoken it in his cab. 

Like there was something more to it, some deeper sense or understanding he couldn’t even begin to see himself. But now there was also an urgency to it, one that he’d expected to hear even less. She searched his face. For what exactly he could only wonder. 

“Are you okay?”

The question confounded him. Why would she care?

What was she seeing on his face that made her ask that?

Zeke brought a shaky hand to his temple, pressed his fingers against it but the pressure didn’t ease, only kept growing, pounding. Michaela’s face, glowing in the dark before him, blurred a little; the dim light coming from the bar reflected on her fair hair, making it glitter like in a cartoon. Life felt very unreal for sure now, very much fictional. 

He was temped to blurt out his doubts, to utter a raspy silly little, Are you real?

But he ended up saying nothing at all, only staring back at her, taking her in.

Zeke couldn’t seem to take neither his eyes, nor his mind off of her. It was almost infuriating. 

She looked only marginally different from how she’d looked in his cab. She was wearing the same clothes, that same jacket, that same necklace. Only her hair she had changed. She wore it in a low ponytail now, with strands of hair already spilling out of it, curling around her ears, framing her face. There were hints of soft scarlet drawn across her cheeks, and her eyes were awake, attentive, despite the late hour.

“Zeke,” she said again, stepping closer.

She held out her hand towards him. There was no hesitation there, no tremble in her fingers.

Zeke’s eyes flickered towards it. It seemed to be the only steady thing in sight.

Before he could think any better of it, he had reached for it. 

Michaela’s hand slipped into his palm; her skin was warm, almost feverish against his own, and she was latching onto him as desperately as if she’d been the one afraid to slip away. Into something stupid, something reckless — like he almost had before she’d showed up. Zeke, despite still unsure if it was the right thing to do, returned the pressure on her hand, squeezed it, rewarded by a smile of hers that made his heart flutter, for some reason. From the moment her fingers had touched his, it’d felt like … like he felt lighter than air. It was a fizz under his skin, keeping him afloat.

Quite different from the one threatening to take control over him only seconds ago.

“Come on,” Michaela said, and gently pulled him with her by their joined hands.

They started walking, side by side, almost strolling, towards the place Michaela had originally suggested they meet up. To outsiders, they must have looked like a couple walking home from a night spent in some bar or club, and Zeke almost laughed at how far away that was from the truth.

Michaela never let go of his hand, and he didn’t mind, even liked the way her hand felt against his palm, and how it never once made him waver that leaving that bar behind untouched had been the right thing to do. 

They didn’t talk, neither of them, until they reached the slightly more open space behind rows of townhouses. And behind that the concreted path snaking along the East River as if it were embracing the dark trail of water and the city with its skyscrapers towering in the distance, on the other side of it. Their neon lights reflected on the calm, black surface.

They paused near the railing as if on cue, both taking in the sight laid out before them.

The stagnant smell of water wafted into Zeke’s nose.

Just in front of their eyes, the skyline stretched sharp and unbroken, towers of glass and steel rising in clean, geometric lines against the dark sky. Some windows still glowed softly, each one a story of someone working late or an empty office left on standby. Staring out over the world, you’d never realize just how disgusting it could be. The glitter of artificial lights hid the pain and the shit and everything else that people hated to see.

And so Zeke’s eyes only skimmed over the city and its bright, superficial lights that reminded him too much of reality, of the jungle of lights he was driving through day in, day out. 

Soon, he rather found himself craning his neck to see what was above, to catch a glimpse of the sky. A dark piece of cloth pulled tightly over their heads, just one shade of black, only punctuated by a handful of stars, tiny bright dots beaming down on them. They were glittering, distant, isolated even among each other.

Zeke’s free hand went up to his throat. His fingers found the necklace that he hadn’t taken off in years; he rolled the small golden star between his thumb and index finger, feeling his throat grow tight.

He stole a glance over at Michaela, who stood by him just as still, and who, to his surprise, was doing the same as him, gazing up at the stars. Maybe it was the lack of light or the sheer opposite of it streaming over from the skyscrapers but he swore he could see her eyes gleaming, trying to ward off tears that threatened to form. He just couldn’t understand why. But then again … why would he? He knew probably as little about her story as she knew about his.

They were strangers, as far as he could tell, and yet they were holding hands under the stars now.

How absurd.

Chloe would have found it hilarious.

Even after all these years, he still couldn’t stop picturing her reaction to events in his life.

Some days, his sister’s memory — painful as it was — would wipe away the fog between them and they would see each other clearly. Their eyes would meet. Maybe she would even smile and ask how his day was. Other days, his mind was so fogged that he forgot she was even there on the other side. Or had ever existed at all.

“I like it here,” Michaela said softly, breaking through his thoughts.

It was the most she’d said ever since she’d approached him in front of that bar.

Zeke thought it was a strange thing to tell him. And yet he found that he felt the same way about it, even though he hadn’t walked here in years, hadn’t even thought about it before she’d suggested it. He wanted to ask her what she liked about it but lacked the courage to go through with it.

“Me too,” he said instead.

Their eyes met. Michaela smiled and he couldn’t help but smile back.

Zeke watched a breeze brush loose strands of her hair over her shoulder, and was caught in her gaze for a long moment. He knew he was staring but couldn’t help himself; instead he let himself become tangled up in that deep blue of hers for another beat, always promising himself he would look away the next second but never actually going through with it. It didn’t help that Michaela stared back just as intently, showing no sign of irritation.

And so their stares remained interlocked, neither of them making a move to cut the connection.

“So…” Zeke cleared his throat, trying to find the words while still looking at her. “What … I mean … you said you wanted to tell me something?”

Michaela’s smile faltered a little but then she caught herself, nodding, as if trying very hard to encourage herself. Her face, albeit still soft, grew more serious, adapting to whatever it was she was about to tell him.

“It’s kind of a crazy story,” she said slowly, grimacing at her own words.

She had this lilt to her voice that made it sound like she was asking him a question.

He just couldn’t tell what it was she was asking of him behind those words.

Michaela used her free hand to push hair from her face, and Zeke couldn’t help but notice that now her fingers were trembling slightly. He was tempted to take her other hand as well, ease the shaking, reassure her, but he didn’t want to overstep.

“I’m driving a cab,” Zeke said lightly. “I hear all sort of crazy stuff every day.”

That made Michaela laugh, some of the tension melting from her shoulders. Her body slumped slightly forwards, towards him, and Zeke was almost prepared to catch her when she bounced back to her heels.

For some reason, Zeke ached to keep the mood light, to make her feel better.

He pointed towards the path opening up to their right, traveling alongside the river. They weren’t the only ones that had gotten the idea to go for a walk here at that time. A handful of other pedestrians were still strolling along the edge, pausing to take photos or enjoy the city’s lights reflected in the gentle ripples below. Zeke figured that wouldn’t make either of them too uncomfortable; though Michaela seemed very little concerned out here in the dark with a man she barely knew holding her hand.

“Why don’t we go for a little walk while you tell me that story?” he suggested. “I do enjoy a good story.”

“I don’t know if you’ll think it’s a good story,” Michaela said slowly, forcing a smile. Her eyes followed the direction of Zeke’s hand. “But it’s a long one for sure.”

“Okay. Well.”

Zeke didn’t really know what to make out of that, so he took one, deliberate step down the path, looking back at her to see if she would follow. Their hands were still intertwined. He’d almost forgotten about it at that point; it had started to feel so natural. But he didn’t want to pull her, just waited until she closed up to him on her own. 

They started walking, side by side again. Zeke didn’t push, even though his curiosity was piqued now. He wasn’t usually one to stick his nose into other people’s affairs, and he didn’t care much for most of the stories he got thrown at him, unasked, by his daily passengers. He only listened to most of them half-heartedly, too deep immersed in his own shit.

But Michaela was an exception in so many ways.

He wanted to know what she had to say.

And even more he wanted to know why she seemed so nervous to share it with him.

He had not the slightest clue what said story might be, or why she would want him to hear it. But he was intrigued, there was no denying that.

“I need you to listen,” Michaela said, eventually, her voice earnest, “until the end. No matter how crazy you might think it sounds, no matter how little sense it makes to you right now. I just need you to know. Whatever you make out of it, that’s up to you. Just … it’s important you keep it to yourself.”

Zeke gulped, startled by how quickly things had turned into something so serious. Something that required him not to breathe a word.

This story was crazy before it had even started.

“Okay,“ Zeke said, after a moment. “Go ahead.”

And ahead Michaela did go. 

She dashed forwards, not literally, but the words came tumbling so fast, so much, with so little pause, that it took Zeke’s brain a moment to adapt to her pace. Some words he missed, some meaning probably got lost along the way from her mouth to his ear, the wind tearing at both their bodies and clothes, but the basic ideas stuck. A little too much. Considering how mind-boggling it all sounded. 

He wasn’t even sure what he found harder to believe. 

The bits about a plane vanishing and then reappearing, with passengers that hadn’t aged a day, weird voices in their heads, a date of future death looming over their heads, the apocalypse, of course — all that science-fiction mystery shit that sounded like scraped directly from a cheap Hollywood film that sent his head spinning or…

…the other part of it. The part he was in. Or … some version of him at least.

He felt Michaela’s fingers digging deeper into his hand, perhaps unconsciously, as if afraid that she had frightened him away now. That he would run the moment the words registered. There was something in those words, a subtle sort of pain, drifting right below the surface of a fondness he felt underserving of.

Zeke was almost sure that this wasn’t the end of the story yet, but he couldn’t hold himself back any longer, even though he’d promised he would. He stopped in his tracks, turning to look at her. Michaela stared back at him, unblinking. He searched her expression, but found not the slightest tinge of amusement. She didn’t look like someone who was trying to hoax him. And she didn’t look like someone who was on something either. He would know. 

So that only left the option that … was she telling the truth?

“I’m sorry- what?” Zeke scratched the side of his head, blinking twice as much as usual. “You’re telling me you’re my girlfriend-“

“Your wife, actually.”

Zeke chocked on a laugh.

“…how did that happen?”

“I’ve told you,” Michaela said softly, and she was right. She had. It just didn’t make any sense.

A labyrinth of thoughts tangled in Zeke’s mind, each path leading to a dead end of even more bewilderment. His thoughts remained stubbornly scrambled, defying all attempts at unraveling. Involuntarily, his mind went back to the moment she’d called him her husband at the airport, before slipping into the passenger seat of his cab; he’d taken that for nothing more than a bold attempt to catch a free cab. But maybe…

“Um, okay.” Zeke was trying to gather his thoughts, digging through the pieces, when a thought struck him. He felt icy on the inside, all of a sudden, as if an icicle had just been thrust through his insides. “Wait. Your husband … you said he … did I-”

The tears in Michaela’s eyes were answer enough.

She turned her face away but he saw the tears escape anyway, leaving trails on her cheeks. She sniveled, and when she spoke again, her voice was strained; a whisper so broken he wanted to make it all undone, even though he wasn’t even sure if he believed any of it.

“You died in my arms.”

And what do you say to that?

There was nothing appropriate to say, Zeke decided, and so he remained silent, trying to process.

The steady slap of a jogger’s footsteps caught up with them, passed them, receded again.

Zeke watched Michaela intently, trying to discern the too-serious expression on her face. Tears were still in her eyes, but her face was rigid with focus. She was completely in her right mind, as far as he could tell, but her emotions were pouring out through the cracks. The longer he replayed her words and tales in his head, the more questions came in, flooding his thoughts like a tsunami.

He felt a little lightheaded all of a sudden. Cause … what the hell?

“I’m not making this up.”

Michaela was back to looking at him. Her gaze was drilling into his head, so desperate, so frantic, her entire body seemed to be shaking. Her lips trembled after having tossed out all the words. She was still crying, silent steady tears making their way down the sides of her flushed face, before dripping from her chin into the collar of her jacket. Even her throat, just one strip of fair skin exposed, was littered with red blotches, air only passing through obstacles.

It physically hurt him to see her like that. 

It was like he could feel the tightness mirrored in his own throat.

“Michaela…”

“I’m not crazy,” she insisted, instantly. 

Michaela’s palm was sweating in his, slipping, but he held on. He was somewhat afraid what it would do to her should he let go now. Her gaze remained firmly set on his, the only stable component of her wobbling body at this point. 

“I swear to you, Zeke, I am not making this up. I’m not crazy. I know it sounds as if I were, and that it’s a lot to take in but-”

“That’s an understatement,” Zeke interrupted, gruffly, immediately regretting his choice of tone as he saw her flinch. He tried to soften his voice. “I’m sorry it’s just … hard to believe…”

“I know, I know.” Michaela nodded, tears still glistening on her cheeks. “But … what if … what if I could prove to you that I know you? That … I know things about you no one else knows.”

“Like what?”

“Like … I know you still blame yourself for your sister’s death. That you think that you killed her.”

She could as well have punched him.

Zeke staggered backwards, but he couldn’t go far with his hand still entangled in Michaela’s.

He couldn’t breathe, or at least it felt like he couldn’t. His lungs were refusing to comply, his throat still so tight; his gaze, wild and puzzled, darted over to Michaela. Michaela, who was shaking still, her mouth half open as if ready to take the words back. Zeke wished that she would — that she could.

“How,” he choked on a word so little, so meaningless compared to everything else. “I’ve never … never told … anyone…”

Michaela shifted slightly. “You told me.”

Zeke shook his head. He wanted to deny with words as well; because he never had, he’d never told a soul, not even his mother, not even during a meeting — those words had never left the walls of his own mind. He had never spoken them out loud, he was so sure of that. Not even high or drunk off his ass they’d ever left his mouth. He wasn’t certain about a lot these days, but that he was certain of. 

He would remember had he ever spoken these words and he certainly wouldn’t have forgotten the person he had said them to. He couldn’t recall either. But she knew. How if not through the craziness she’d just tossed to his feet? 

But … he didn’t believe in stuff like that, never had.

It was the stuff movies were made from, certainly not his own life.

Maybe she’d heard about Chloe’s death somewhere and this was just a wild guess of hers.

“Do you need more proof?” Michaela asked, as if able to read what was going on in his mind. She didn’t even await his answer, just went on. “I know that there is a memorial for Chloe in the place where she died. I know that you’ve never gone there to see it because you feel too ashamed about what you think you did. I know that your dad left after her death, and that you … I know that you’ve been struggling with drugs and alcohol ever since … Zeke, I know. I know you. And you … you used to know me like that too.”

Zeke’s thoughts were spinning as he tried to keep up. 

Part of him wanted to believe everything she was saying because she was right about so many things, and it would have explained a lot. Part of him even wished for it to be true because the things she’d told him about the life they’d had together … it sounded too good to be true. For someone to love him like that, so unconditionally. A life outside the ache for just another kick, a life where he would wake up to a smile, a family, real friends — and not just to an empty, untidy apartment filled only with his own clingy guilt and no one to call that would care.

But that was just it … it sounded too good.

Albeit, he had to admit that the whole death thing chipped the corners of something otherwise too smooth.

So maybe it was imperfect enough to be true after all.

But Michaela … at least Michaela seemed a bit too little flawed.

He couldn’t imagine himself falling into perfect rhythm with someone like that.

Someone who kept giving and giving, compassion to spare even for the likes of him. What had he been able to give back to make her feel like he was worthy? 

He recalled what Michaela had told him earlier about her husband’s death. That he’d died a hero’s death, saving her nephew and them all — whatever that in detail was to supposed to mean. She’d talked about him like he’d been the one to put the stars in the sky. He wasn’t like that. And he couldn’t imagine ever being like that. He who was selfish enough to take a phone call while his own kid sister tumbled into imminent death.

“I know how you feel,” Michaela said, voice gentle, imploring him to meet her eye again. 

Zeke felt his own eyes burning, and he couldn’t even say why. Perhaps he was grieving a life he couldn’t remember, a life he would never have. He opened his mouth to contradict her words, because, no, he highly doubted she could understand even an ounce of it, all compassion aside, but she beat him to it. 

“Those are not just empty words, Zeke. I know guilt. I know how it feels to live with that, to think it will consume you completely someday and how it comes up, over and over again, until you feel like you can’t take it anymore. I know. I know.”

Her words were so on point, so honest, Zeke considered for a moment that maybe that was her profession. That she was a shrink or something in disguise. Like the one his mom dragged him to after Chloe’s death, hoping that it would help. It didn’t. Again, his fault. He hadn’t tried hard enough.

But then Zeke was struck by the pain in Michaela’s eyes, and it was so familiar, so close to his own.

She started speaking before he had mustered up the courage to ask.

“My best friend … we were in a car accident and I was driving. I shouldn’t have been because I was drunk … not plastered but drunk enough to know that I shouldn’t have been behind that wheel. I crashed the car into a tree. She-“ 

Michaela exhaled, her breath shuddering, her voice trembling as she went on. The words tumbled out in a rush. “She was instantly dead. And I wasn’t. The first thing I remember seeing was her … she was looking at me and she had her eyes open but … there was so much blood and glass everywhere and … I knew … I knew that I had killed her. No matter what everyone tried to tell me. I knew. And … it took me a long time to forgive myself for that. It still … still hurts.”

Zeke raked his fingers through his hair, the weight of her story settling in.

Despite the horror of it, he was amazed by her unrestrained honesty. Impressed by how she found the courage to utter the words that his own tongue kept repulsing.

“Michaela … I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said softly, trying to smile but he could see the cracks now. And the exhaustion nestled deep in her core, spilling through the way her eyelids drooped slightly as she looked at him now. Her story had changed some of the light he saw her in; it was a face that looked washed out, as if drained by an invisible tide. She looked tired.

He felt that.

And then-

Michaela’s voice, brittle and strained.

“Can I hug you?”

She glanced up at him shyly, her upper lip trembling as if expecting rejection.

Zeke didn’t trust himself to say anything. All he knew was that, for some reason, he wasn’t averse to the idea of feeling her arms wrap around him. He wasn’t even sure at this point if he was considering it for her sake or his own but … the thought alone of holding her … he didn’t know where it came from — if it was merely the idea of that past life Michaela had painted so vividly for him or something else, something they hadn’t touched on yet — but it emitted the inherent pull of something he just ached to get closer to. No matter what…

His vocal cords, though, had seemingly turned to stone, rendering him mute.

And so he felt himself nodding.

Michaela didn’t even wait for his head to fulfill the movement. Her body had crashed against his own before Zeke could do even so much as blink. She clung to him with such firmness; her arms immediately slung around his neck, like she’d been waiting a lifetime to do so. And it was almost too much, just almost. 

She was shaking. Zeke could feel her tremble bleeding into his own skin; he shuddered, though he was far from freezing, with her warm body pressed so tightly against himself. Slowly, after what had felt like entire minutes of him just standing there, letting himself hugged and wrapped up in her warmth and affection, Zeke’s arms regained some sense of own life and he lifted them, carefully wrapping them around her.

His palms lingered in the air behind her back for a moment; he was unsure where to put them.

Eventually, he settled them on her lower back, increasing the pressure when Michaela didn’t exhibit any trace of discomfort at his touch.

They moved on their own from there, traveling up her spine, rubbing soothing little circles.

Because Michaela was sobbing again. 

Either that, or she was breathing very heavily, her fingers clutching at the cloth of his flannel shirt. 

Zeke could feel her unsteady breath bouncing against the side of his neck, with his own face nearly swallowed by her hair. Her pony tail had loosened during their walk, strands of blond cascading down the sides of her head, pressing against his nose. 

He could smell her shampoo or maybe even perfume, something sweet and flowery. But then there was something else, too, something that reminded him of the beach days Chloe and him used to do with their dad. Of the coconut-scented sunscreen their mom insisted they should take with them, even on cloudy days. He could almost taste the salt splashing up from the foaming waves on his tongue now. 

Not only the scent of Michaela’s hair reminded him of the sea. She had, from the color alone, hair like the sand on the beach, and again, it reminded him of those better days. Of those summer days and the music his dad used to play for them, melodies he could still hum to this day.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he could still hear his dad sing them, those melodies, overlapping with the sound of gentle waves lapping against shores he had not seen in years. It had been a simple, peaceful time, although he’d still been blissfully unaware of that back then. Now, with his conscience all scarred, he knew there was something to the simplicity of that life he wished he could return to — to live it one more time. Just once. In these moments.

Zeke closed his eyes, forgetting all restraint for a moment. His head sank fully against her hair.

If that was how it had been … he wanted to remember so badly.

Even if it sounded insane.

Even if it made no sense at all.

Michaela’s breath had started to slow. She seemed calmer now, more settled. But she remained pressed so tightly against him. With her face buried even deeper into the crook of his neck, Zeke started to worry that breathing might hurt her; he knew that it caused a tight squeeze inside in his own chest whenever he dared to draw it out a little too long.

Zeke’s hands stilled between her shoulder blades. He opened his eyes again, after a long moment of just reveling in how little weird it felt to be so close to someone he couldn’t even assign a name to only hours ago. 

It wasn’t just physical, this connection, this closeness. In fact, this might have been the least component to how near he felt to her right now, in this moment. Michaela could have stood at the other end of that path, and still he figured he would have felt the same hazy warmth settle in his stomach. A strange, inexplicable sort of familiarity that made him want to abandon and forget all his doubts and natural skepticism and join in. 

Made him wanna believe it all, every single tiny bit of her crazy story.

Michaela had bared her heart to him, and didn’t seem to expect anything of him in return because she seemed to know it all already. Zeke wasn’t sure how he felt about that part yet, to be honest. For someone so stunning to know such depths within him like the pockets of her jacket … but he couldn’t reverse it and take the knowledge from her. He couldn’t ask her to forget. And so he tried to see the good in that. That way, at least, he didn’t need to hide, didn’t need to pretend so much. Maybe only a little bit. Because it was hard. It was hard to let go.

He hadn’t let go in years in a way that didn’t involve any kind of drug.

He hadn’t even considered it with anyone else.

But now, as he held Michaela in his arms — that beautiful, brave, quick-witted woman — it suddenly didn’t seem so impossible anymore. Maybe, it occurred to him now, maybe he just needed to be brave as well, and speak his true mind, for once.

“Michaela,” Zeke started with her name because he liked the way it sounded. The way it rolled down his tongue, sharp in the beginning and then soft when fading out.

Michaela stirred. Sluggishly, her head lifted from his chest. She leaned back slightly in his embrace, her hands loosening around his neck, sinking and gripping his shoulders instead. Her face was still wet from tears, but she was smiling. Albeit it was an uncertain, shaky grin already chipped at the corners; as if she was only waiting for him to pull out the rug from under her feet.

Zeke’s determination almost crumbled at the sight of her deep blue eyes, blinking up at him.

He inhaled deeply through his nose, then exhaled through the mouth.

The reminder of long-over beach days lingered in his nose, made him weak in the knees.

His body tilted forwards, just a tad, but Michaela didn’t seem to notice, her eyes too fixed on tracking the shifts in his face. Pull yourself together, Zeke commanded himself. But just looking at Michaela unleashed a certain tranquility within him that would have felt good had he not been trying so desperately to say something meaningful.

Again, Michaela got the jump on him.

“You don’t believe any of it, do you?”

“No, that’s not-” Zeke stopped himself mid-sentence. He didn’t want to lie; she deserved the truth. He could at least give her that. He sighed, his eyes tracing perhaps for the hundredth time this night the shape of her face, reattempting to force his brain to remember it. “I want to. I really do. It’s just…”

“…unbelievable,” Michaela finished for him, nodding. She offered a small smile even now.

“Yeah.”

Michaela withdrew a little more, her hands falling down to hold onto his arms. She never broke eye contact with him, genuine curiosity to her eyes as she asked very softly, “So … what now?”

Be brave you goddamn coward.

Zeke coughed, and if only to buy a few seconds of time.

His palms were still on her back and he swore he could still feel her tremble.

She was afraid he’d mark her down as crazy and move on just like that.

“I think…” 

Zeke barely recognized his own voice, hoarse as he sounded. He cringed, gulping down the sandy texture that had developed in his mouth. He started over.

“It’s probably the craziest story I’ve ever heard and still … despite it all … I … I would like to hear more. And … I would like to … learn how it is to know you. Of course only if you want-”

“Yes,” Michaela whispered before he had even finished. She beamed at him, and Zeke couldn’t help but return the smile, the muscles in his jaw aching from how wide the corners of his mouth pulled at his face. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”

Her quick approval, her radiant smile, both made his insides swirl, made Zeke bolder that he’d thought he could be. Before his mind could pick apart how the question could imply a hundred inappropriate things he didn’t necessarily intend it to mean, his mouth had already asked:

“Would you like to see my apartment?”

Chapter Text

At the latest on the shaky metal stairwell leading up to his one-room-apartment on the sixth floor Zeke regretted making the offer for a whole other reason than possibly misleading intentions.

They ran into one of his neighbors halfway up. 

A lanky guy who was bald despite his baby face indicating that he had to be much younger than Zeke. Zeke didn’t know on which floor exactly he lived, and neither could he remember his name, but what he did remember were the small bags of shiny pills he used to sell him down in the shabby lobby — the one with the smudgy velvet carpet that used to be red. Also he did remember how they’d smoked a joint or two down in the backyard once. 

It was him who’d told Zeke all these stories about how this place used to be some sort of hotel. That was hard to imagine now, with some of the windows even boarded up, making the building look nearly abandoned from the outside.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” lanky guy remarked as he squeezed past them on his way down the narrow staircase. His breath, though it merely brushed them, smelled moldy, like he hadn’t used a toothbrush in days. He stopped just a few steps below them, his eyes flickering back and forth between Zeke and Michaela.

Zeke gripped her hand tighter, and he felt her eyes on him. As if she could sense just how uncomfortable the situation made him feel.

“Well, yeah. Busy life,” Zeke replied, forcing a casual tone. 

He was already moving upwards, pulling Michaela with him.

Lanky guy, whose name Zeke still could not recall, laughed, a gruff sound that followed them.

“Oh, I see. Trying to stop again, huh? Well, good luck then. You know where to find me when that goes to hell like last time…”

Before Zeke could decide if ignoring or confrontation would be the best way to get through this, Michaela behind him had already stopped, whirling around to glare down the stairs at the guy still nonchalantly propped against the banister as if he owned the place.

“Mind your own business, will you?” she said, voice not exactly unkind but firm, authoritative.

Zeke attempted to tug her further up the stairs, but she remained where she was and so he had no other choice but stay as well, marveling at yet another side of her he hadn’t expected at first sight.

The guy smirked, his brows pulling together as he eyed her.

“Says who?”

“Someone who will call her colleagues at the NYPD and have you arrested for illegal selling of substances.“ Michaela smiled now, sweetly and perhaps a little too brightly. The expression in her eyes, though, was worlds from the softness with which she had ever looked at him. “Or do you have a license for that?”

Lanky guy’s smug face fell in a matter of seconds; the words NYPD and license enough to tear a hole into his casual façade. He muttered something under his breath, maybe an insult directed at Michaela. But it certainly didn’t seem to be enough for him to stand his ground. He craned his neck one last time, giving Zeke a look.

“Got yourself a cop, huh? Daring.”

He was thudding down the stairs the next moment, with his hands in his pockets. Soon he was out of sight.

Michaela turned back to look up at Zeke. To his bewilderment, she was chuckling. Not at all what he would’ve expected. But then again, she hadn’t ceased to surprise him all evening.

“Come on,” she said, still laughing. She squeezed past him up the stairs, pulling him with her.

They ran up the dusty stairs, bouncing like children. Zeke felt younger than he had in years as he stuck close to her giggling form. It was only when they reached the sixth floor, and both leaned against the wall, trying catching their breath, that Zeke got the chance to gather his thoughts.

He looked over at Michaela next to him, her cheeks flushed, and her hair glowing.

“That true?” He asked, pointing towards the stairs they’d just climbed. “You really with the police?”

“Yeah.” She smiled even wider as she measured his reaction. “Why? Does it intimidate you?”

“No,” Zeke said promptly. “Just … I guess the police is not exactly my biggest fan.”

“A few minor busts don’t make you a full-blown criminal, Zeke.”

“How-” Zeke blinked, remembering who he was talking to. He shook his head, a small disbelieving smile creeping in as he kept looking at her. “Of course. You know about that too. And … you don’t mind?”

Michaela raised a brow. “Would I have married you if I did?”

Zeke couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess not.”

He let go of her hand in order to reach for his keys in his pocket, turning towards the door leading to his apartment.

As he fiddled with the lock, he threw a quick look over his shoulder.

“Just to jog my memory … do you know this place already?”

“No.” Michaela shook her head, her gaze wandering around the narrow hallway, taking it all in. “By the time you came out of that cave you didn’t have a place of your own anymore.”

“Well, at least one thing you don’t know about me yet, then.”

Zeke pushed open the door with the tip of his foot, then moved to the side for Michaela to enter first.

He kinda wished he would have had the time to clean up at least a little bit.

But if neither an assault charge nor addiction had scared Michaela away he doubted a few scattered clothes, dirty plates and dust on the shelves would. At least, he hoped so.

As Michaela walked past him into his apartment she squeezed his hand, as if again she could feel how nervous he was. She’d mentioned among many things that in this other life he’d developed some sort of empathetic vibe skills. But right now, it rather felt as if she was the one to possess them.

His apartment consisted only of one cramped room with low ceiling, piled up with chipped mismatched furniture and a whole lot of stuff he didn’t actually need or that had already been there when he’d moved in years ago. Apart from that main room with the small kitchen unit and just one grimy window facing the backyard, there was only an even smaller bathroom with a faucet that he could hear losing water even from where he stood at the entrance. 

Zeke watched Michaela step inside. He closed the door behind them, hovered awkwardly near the door as she came to a halt in the middle of the room, looking around. He couldn’t see her face and so he was left to imagination as to what she was seeing and thinking.

He tried to see the place that had become so ordinary to him out of her eyes.

Walls that had no particular color anymore; only a shade that looked slightly different during different times of the day. Drawers not closing properly anymore with his clothes spilling out, down onto the floor and over other furniture. And then, the sounds. He’d gotten used to the noises coming through the walls; the ones that were easily identifiable as much as the ones that weren’t. The same way that he had come to ignore the smell of cigarettes wafting in through the window whenever his neighbor leant out of his own to take a smoke, and the rusty taste of water from the tab.

It wasn’t much. New York wasn’t exactly kind to the ones who didn’t earn much, and driving a cab definitely didn’t make you rich. He’d never seen a reason to be ashamed of that, but he had never met anyone who made him want to make a good impression so badly either. And he had seen the house he had dropped her off earlier. That spotlessly pristine suburban two-story house with the porch and the perfectly cut patch of grass in front of it. He hadn’t thought to ask whose house it was — if it was hers. But it was clear, anyhow, that she lived in a whole other world.

“It’s not much, and it’s not the best neighborhood either but…” He made a move to a least pick up a few scattered pieces of dirty laundry. As if that would make the floor look a little less worn and buckled. “At least it doesn’t have mold, huh?”

Michaela turned toward him. She was still smiling as her eyes traced her surroundings, and that reassured Zeke a little.

“It looks cozy,” she said, stepping closer to inspect the only picture he had ever hung up, on the wall right next to buzzing fridge with the Rome magnet attached to its front. It had already been there when Zeke had purchased the fridge second-hand years ago. 

He had never been to Europe, let alone Rome.

Zeke laughed, trying to hide how nervous it made him feel knowing she was looking at that photo. He never invited anyone in here, so normally there was no one to hide it from.

“Cozy? That’s one way to put it.”

Zeke walked over to the window, the dusty glass covered in his own fingerprints. He yanked at it to crack it open at least a slit to let some of the stale air escape. In bis back, he was aware, Michaela was still staring at the only photo he had ever bothered to unpack from the box of memories his mom had forced into his arms the last time she’d let him in. 

He knew what she was seeing.

A happy family that was nothing but a group of ghosts now.

A sister that was dead, a father that was gone, a mother that was broken and a son that was one big disappointment. What a depressing picture they made. He didn’t know why he put himself through having the eyes from that picture follow his every move inside his own walls every single fucking day.

The shadows in this place, for him at least, they writhed and flickered on the walls.

And all that coming from just one photo he couldn’t bring himself to put away.

Zeke tried to keep himself busy. He moved to what could barely be called a kitchen, only a row of mismatched kitchen units and impaired accessories. Mindlessly, he stacked dirty dishes into the small sink, opened the fridge door and closed it again without even looking inside. His attention was more on Michaela, who had left the picture aside without questions, and he was thankful for that. She stood near the window now, peeking down into the dark backyard.

“Are you hungry?” Zeke asked, his mother’s voice sitting in his neck suddenly, lecturing him on was proper and what was not. He was asking rather out of courtesy, and was quite surprised when Michaela nodded, after a moment of consideration.

“Um. Okay. Well…”

Zeke opened the fridge again and peered inside. A few eggs, catsup and milk sat in a row. Not much to work with. He opened one of the two cabinets nexts, pulling out a bag of pasta. He looked over at Michaela, who was smiling, just looking at him.

“You okay with pasta and … well … catsup?”

“Sure.”

Zeke was glad that his hands had a purpose now. He filled a pot with water, set it on the stove. All movements he was used to doing, some normality within all this madness. But even as he turned to the stove, stirring the water, he was always aware of Michaela moving through his apartment. She had approached the kitchen part of the room and when he turned again. He saw her with her arms propped on the opposite counter, watching him with a fond smile.

“I always loved watching you cook,” she said, eventually.

“Well, I don’t know if you can consider boiling pasta cooking but…”

“Oh, anything that’s not takeout or coffee is cooking for me,“ Michaela said with a laugh, settling her chin on her hands. “You always make it look so easy.”

Zeke set the wooden spoon down, leaning against the counter next to the stove to get a better look at her. Even in his cramped, rundown apartment she radiated something light, something positive. She didn’t look as out of place as he would have thought.

“You don’t like to cook?”

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t like it. I’m just terrible at it. You know like … things get burned in pots and blood gets all over onions — that kind of terrible.”

Zeke chuckled. Somehow, it was hard to imagine that a woman as tough as she seemed would be beaten by the likes of a chopping knife and a pot.

“So I imagine you always make it look more like a disaster zone?”

“Something like that … you tried to teach me though,” Michaela said, her gaze distant for beat, as if remembering those moments.

“Did I now?”

“Yeah. There was little improvement though.”

Zeke kept smiling, his mouth finding no reason to give up the angle.

“So I better not trust you with my kitchen, huh?” he joked, putting salt into the water that had started to foam a little already.

Michaela laughed, the sound reverberating through the space; a contagious, joyous rhythm. Zeke thought it was probably the nicest sound those walls had ever heard.

“Yeah, that’s probably safer for all of us.”

Zeke didn’t argue with that, only chuckling as he put the pasta into the water, stirring it slowly.

When he turned back to her, she had grabbed one of the flyers scattered in a mess of unopened mail and paled receipts on the counter. Zeke recognized the beige background and the logo imprinted in the corner; his sponsor had pushed it into his hand last week, insisting on the usual shit of how he could be making more out of his life. Zeke hadn’t read it, had only put it on the counter and not touched it ever since. Partly, because he was afraid that he would like what he would be reading.

Driving a cab had never been the dream but who would want to be counseled by an addict?

Not many he could imagine.

He ached to change the topic before Michaela could even bring it up.

“So how’s your family like?”

He had no idea why he was touching on this topic — out of all the things he could have asked.

It was dangerous ground because of the questions she could return but then again Michaela seemed to know it all already, so the fear was muted somewhat at this point. And he really was curious.

“My family,” Michael repeated, thinking about it for a second, before she pulled her phone from her pocket. 

She opened a picture on it, turned the phone around so Zeke could get a better view at it. It had been taken at a sunny beach, with the ocean faintly glimmering in the background, and showed a row of people standing arm in arm. Zeke leaned forward, squinting his eyes to see the faces that Michaela pointed at a little clearer. Almost in the middle of the photo, he immediately recognized Michaela, grinning like the sun. 

“So those,” she said, pointing at two gray-haired people, a woman and a man, “are my parents. Dad’s real easy-going, he’s the one who would mediate whenever there was trouble at home. And Mom, well, Mom she is the spiritual one. She likes to embroider cheesy bible verses onto every piece of fabric she comes across.”

Her finger wandered to the guy beside her on the photo. Zeke recognized him as the one he had seen when he had dropped Michaela off earlier; the one that had looked at him as if he were an alien. That, at least, might make a lot more sense right now.

“That’s my older brother. Ben. He was on the plane with me, so he remembers it all, you included. He’s … oh, well, he used to be a real sticker to the rules. Math guy, extremely rational, always searching an explanation for everything, and so on. He’s different now, less narrow-minded but … still likes to pretend he knows everything better than me.”

Zeke stared at the brightly grinning guy on that photo, and then at Michaela right next to him. 

He could see their similarities; Ben seemed to have those same blue eyes that made Zeke wanna stare at Michaela open-end. Involuntarily, his thoughts wandered back to Chloe, and he wondered  —not for the first time — how close they would have been now, as adults. And if they would have looked just as alike as Michaela and her brother did; as kids at least they’d heard that a lot.

“You okay?”

Michaela had tilted her head, had lowered the phone.

Hastily, Zeke nodded, swallowing against the lump even thinking Chloe’s name brought up. 

His mind, however, rebelled against his head moving, wanted to beseech him to open his mouth and spill the truth instead because from her it didn’t sound like the casual, superficial inquiry that it was from others. His mind wanted her to know how it looked inside of him; how most of the time it felt as if he were stuck in one endless loop with every day being the same, with no clear path ahead, with no memory of how really living your life had to work. He wanted to tell her about all the mistakes he’d made that he couldn’t fix, even the ones she may not know about already. He wanted to let her know that at times his mind was a place so dark that the only thing left to do was falling, down, into the inevitable abyss. 

Zeke wanted to tell her all that. But he caught himself just in time. 

He reached for a kitchen towel, wiped his already dry hands dry, just to gloss over the tremble.

Zeke’s chin jerked towards her phone, quickly returning to the topic.

“Are you two close?”

Michaela blinked, perhaps still too caught up in worrying, before her gaze flickered back to her phone.

She fiddled with the edges of it, sliding it up and down the short, cluttered surface of the counter.

There was a distant look in her eyes, as if the present were a mere shadow of the vivid memories playing in her mind. In moments like these, he thought to see a glimpse of her true age, the years she claimed she’d lived in the future. They did not show in her skin nor her hair, but it showed in her eyes, right now. They looked shadowed and haunted by something that for him had never happened. He couldn’t just make the memories reappear for himself, but he couldn’t tell her to forget them either.

“We used to be not so much,” she said, after a moment. “You know, before the plane. He had this super normal life with the wife, the kids, and I … we just didn’t have much to talk about, you know? But going through what we did … that really binds you together. I mean … Ben lost his wife and then I lost you … it was hard and I’m just glad we had each other.”

Michaela smiled a little, staring down at the counter as she added, “I really don’t think I would have made it through losing you without him there.”

Zeke’s throat felt tight, the casual mention of a death he could recall as little as everything else but one that seemed to have left deep, painful marks on Michaela’s mind petrifying him for a beat. He felt terrible for putting her through this and that even though he’d never done it. Some part of him, the bolder one, ached to reach out and touch part of her, to reassure her that he was here now — that she hadn’t dragged herself through hell and back for nothing… 

But then he heard the water behind him sizzle, and he whirled back around to the pot on the stove, stirring before the water had the chance to over-boil.

When he turned his attention back to Michaela only seconds later, she’d already collected herself again. Her phone was back in her hand as if nothing had ever happened. She pointed at another face on the picture as soon as she saw him face her again. It was the face of another woman with dark curls, tugging a younger girl with striking resemblance to her side. She smiled even wider than the rest of them.

“This is Grace, Ben’s wife. They’ve been together since forever, at least it feels like that for me. She’s one of the kindest souls alive, really, though in this timeline she still thinks I’m sorta of a mess. But I’m working on that…”

Michaela shifted to point at the two kids on either side of the line of people.

“And, last but not least, their twins. Cal and Olive. Olive’s a sunshine like her mom.” She pointed at the girl next to Grace. “And Cal…” Her fingertip moved on, lingered on the little boy next. He looked smaller than his sister, frailer even, his little head almost entirely bald and his skin pale despite exposed to the sunny weather. Zeke had an uneasy feeling even looking at him. 

“He has leukemia. But,” she hurried to add, perhaps picking up on the way Zeke’s face softened immediately, “he’s gonna be fine. We know a doctor, a friend, also from the plane. She’s working on a cure. She healed him with that before-”

“Let me guess: in that other timeline?”

Michaela nodded, putting down the phone. Despite all her optimism, she looked a little scared.

“And your nephew … Cal,” Zeke tested speaking his name, and his mind immediately conjured the face of that little, bony boy from the photo. He felt a sudden tightness in his throat, as if something was blocking the way there. “He’s the one your- the one I saved?”

It still felt weird to refer to himself as someone he didn’t know himself.

And maybe he was wrong for indulging in this. For supporting something that might as well be only a fantasy. But Michaela didn’t struck him as a liar or a lunatic. Irrationally and unbelievably so, he had to admit that it got easier to believe it all the longer he found himself in her presence. It was just so easy, being with her, around her, listening to her and her stories about her family.

“Yes,” Michaela said quietly, an answer to a question Zeke had almost forgotten he’d asked. “Cal got sick again, years later, and you-” She swallowed, fighting the tears, losing. He saw a few escape, although she immediately lifted her sleeve to make them disappear behind fabric. “I’m sorry. I think it’d take hours to explain it all.”

“I’d listen to you for hours.”

The words were out before Zeke could stop them.

He felt his cheeks grow warm. Hastily, he turned back to the stove, checking on the pasta.

But he was sure to see Michaela smile just before he turned away.

They settled down on the floor not much later, each balancing a plate with steaming pasta and red blotches of catsup. 

It felt insufficient, in Zeke’s eyes at least. He knew his mom would’ve called it an insult to Italien cuisine, but Michaela didn’t seem to mind, and her reaction was all that mattered to him, for now. 

She had — for lack of any sort of table or chair — quite unceremoniously plopped down onto the floor first, and Zeke had followed suit. They sat across from each other now, both cross-legged, their knees brushing, just barely. Zeke was leaning against the back of the kitchen counter, while Michaela was propped up against the side of his dresser. She had taken off her leather jacket; it was on the floor beside her, still holding the ghost of her shape. Her gray sweatshirt made her torso melt with the diffuse dark of the back of his room.

She was eating as if she hadn’t done so in days. Zeke recalled her barely touching her food in his cab earlier; no wonder, she seemed nearly famished now, finishing her plate twice as fast as he did. On the other hand, Zeke was aware that he himself ate very slowly, chewed very prolongedly because he was still too mesmerized watching her. She was like a twirl of light even when she sat still, her presence alone illuminating his gloomy day-to-day, and he could have spent hours just looking at her; he was sure he would have found something new, something exciting, each minute.

Michaela got up as soon as she’d finished her first plate, helping herself to a second portion, already acting as if she were at home here. This time she slumped down to the floor right next to him. It was a little cramped, their elbows bumping into each other each time they used their forks, but Zeke couldn’t find it in himself to complain. 

And then, halfway through the meal, Michaela’s head sunk down on his shoulder, just like that. She lifted it again, after a few seconds, probably sensing him tense.

The muscles in Zeke’s jaw stilled, some half-chewed mashed pasta stuck halfway down his mouth.

“I’m sorry … is this too much?”

Michaela’s voice was soft and warm, ghosting over the side of his neck.

“You can say it if-”

She broke off the moment Zeke set his own plate aside. He turned slightly to look at her.

Her body was twisted halfway between leaning on him and sitting straight, her head hovering awkwardly in the narrow space between them. She was so close, and yet so far away, caught between the apparent fear that he would push her away and the gentle understanding why he could. 

“Michaela … what are we doing here?”

Michaela’s lips were painted red, the only reminder that she’d just been busy eating.

She shrugged slightly, her lips quivering, attempting to form a smile but not quite winning.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. Then, even more quietly, “What do you want it to be?”

“I don’t know,” Zeke echoed, his voice sounding so harsh compared to hers.

Liar, his mind screamed. He pushed the voice aside, refusing to give illusion space.

“I’m not … I’m not someone you should … date.”

“Yes, I know.” Michaela’s eyes firmly tackled his own, holding them in place. “You’re someone I should marry.”

A strangled laugh escaped Zeke’s mouth. He nearly choked on the half-processed food still sliding down his throat. Michaela, ever helpful, clapped on his back, as he was coughing. Her hand lingered on his back even after; Zeke wasn’t even sure if she even noticed that she was doing that.

“I’m not him.”

He held his breath, paused for a beat, just long enough to see the words reach her.

“And I don’t think I can ever be.”

Michaela’s head moved as she swallowed, processing the words.

She didn’t look angry or disappointed, just … sad.

It nearly made him wanna take back each word. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

He couldn’t take the truth back without lying. And she deserved more than that.

“I don’t expect you to be or become someone you’re not,” Michaela said, after a long moment of just sitting beside him in silence, wringing her hands. “I’m not trying to change you. I just want you to be you. And I want to know that you’re okay, wherever or whoever you are or decide to be. That you’re happy.”

“I’m not happy,” Zeke admitted, the confession slipping out without him meaning to.

“Then change something. You can do that. I’ve seen you do it.”

Zeke snorted. “I’ve told you … I’m not like whatever better clone of me you’ve known before-”

“Nonsense,” Michaela cut in, firmly, her eyes blazing with something sharp, intense. 

She gripped his hands, held them firmly, shaking them at every full stop she reached. 

“Please don’t talk about yourself like there’s something wrong with you. You may not be the same, alright, I’ll give you that. But you are not incapable of changing things for yourself. You are a good person with a damn good heart, and it’s time you start believing that. You are worthy of good things, too, alright? Zeke, you are. No one expects you to suddenly get better over night, I know that’s not how this works. I’m just asking you to try. For yourself. Don’t let one bad call ruin your entire life.”

She sounded like plucked straight from an AA meeting.

He’d heard almost those exact words before, often enough. They’d never meant a lot. Had never been individually tailored to his story, his situation. Only slogans thrown around like cheap advice.

But coming from her … Zeke actually listened for the first time.

Actually considered that his life could take another turn. Whenever he would start pulling his face up from the gravel and steer actively, that was. It sounded a lot easier than done, a lot easier than even Michaela made it sound. But from her mouth, at least, it didn’t sound impossible.

“Zeke?”

Michaela squeezed his hands, her gaze searching his face.

“I can leave if you want me to.”

He could tell, from her body language alone, from the way how tightly she was still gripping his hands, that she didn’t want to leave. 

But she was offering, nonetheless. Because — the realization came with a sharp jolt to his chest, stabbing the organ there  — because she loved him. Had loved, may as well still loved him — him. The man he was not, but apparently could be, maybe, in the future. In a future that was so cloudy he had no orientation whatsoever. Michaela had what he lacked; and maybe, he got weak enough to consider it for a second, she could lead him there.

He wanted little less than to put the weight of his crap on her shoulders.

But then again, he was weak-

“Don’t," he said quietly, staring down at their joined hands.

“Don’t what?”

Zeke lifted his gaze, was struck once again by the gentle curve of her face and the way it sent everything else into the background. Someway, somehow, he’d missed her even though he’d never known what it was like to have her in his life, by his side.

“Don’t leave.”

Michaela let out a long, shaky breath. Her eyes were shining, his own face a blurry reflection in them.

“I won’t,“ she assured, a whisper that made the hairs on his neck stand up.

His eyes traced the curves and lines of her face, came to linger the longest on her lips. They parted but Michaela didn’t say anything, only her breath kept escaping. They were so close now that he could feel it touch down on his own face. Suddenly, he wondered what it would feel like to touch them, to-

“What are you thinking?” Michaela asked.

“I…” Probably a million half-truths crossed his mind in a matter of seconds. They all felt meaningless compared to what he really was thinking. Zeke scraped together the little courage he could still muster, meeting her eye as he said, his voice all serious, “I was just thinking about you. You … you‘re amazing, you know that? You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met. You’re…"

Michaela blushed, he could see the pink filter spreading across her cheeks very clearly, even in the dim light. “You’re pretty amazing yourself.”

Her words barely registered enough for him to fight her on it.

The blood was gushing in his ears. Was he imaging this or had they slid even closer to one another?

“You know what?” He was sure that by now she was close enough to feel his warm breath against her own cheek. “There are a lot of stupid things to do but I really want to do the stupidest thing possible.”

“What’s that?”

Zeke didn’t miss a beat, didn’t even give himself the chance to be a coward and back out now.

“I want to kiss you.”

The corners of Michaela’s mouth twitched. 

She pulled one hand free from their tangle of hands, reached out to lay her palm down on the side of his face. Zeke barely felt it at first, her touch so feather-light while her fingertips were brushing over the stubble on his cheeks. She leaned in, just a tad closer. Her face was so close to his own now that he couldn’t see anything else but it. He lost himself in the view for a moment, only woken up by the soft sound of Michaela’s words.

“Then go for it.”

She was smiling, and it was possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever come across.

Perhaps his flustered mind was exaggerating but in this moment he thought that every inch of her was breathtaking. Literally. He had trouble breathing just taking her in.

Zeke was distantly aware of his hands sweating, his heart only a drumming rock clashing against the sides of his chest. His body felt heavy, longed to angle forwards, towards her, to close the distance but his eyes they burned with the prolonged desire to take her in for just a little longer. 

He’d asked himself that often enough this night, had answered it often enough, and still his fingers tingled to confirm. That she really was real; not merely a figment of drug-induced hallucination, a wish that would never come true.

With a smile that belied the nervous flutter in his stomach, Zeke lifted his hand. It stretched out towards her face, didn’t need to go far until it almost clumsily collided against her skin. He mirrored her, let his fingertips gently graze the side of her face, her cheek that was flushed, warm and trembling just as his own. Michaela leaned into his touch, after a beat, an unexpected weight on his palm. He imagined to feel her quickened heartbeat pound under her skin, but most certainly it only was his own pulse, making every inch of him tingle and prickle.

For a stretch of what could have been seconds as well as minutes, they only stared at each other. 

Two mirrored sides of the same connection; a sensation unlike Zeke had ever felt up to this night. It was like he could feel her inside of him. Not in some corporal sort of way. Not like that. Not material. More like … she was in his bloodstream. His bones. His thoughts. In every part of him. Like a missing limb he hadn’t known he was missing up till now; one that fitted so perfectly, he never wanted to let it go again.

Never wanted to let her go ever again.

Quite the opposite.

Like magnets they moved even closer together, pressing into each other's warmth.

Zeke’s other hand wandered around her waist, gently tugging her closer, until not just their faces were so close to touch but the rest of their bodies as well. They nearly melted into one another, down on the uneven, hard planks of his shabby apartment. He was still left to wonder how that had happened.

And then, as Michaela shifted, her free hand also moving towards his face, Zeke finally acted on his words. He closed the little distance remaining between their mouths, and then — he couldn’t remember how exactly it had started, his mind having gone blank for just a handful of seconds —

— then he was kissing her.

Michaela wasted no time to return the kiss.

Air rushed out of Zeke’s lungs as he kissed her. Or she kissed him. It was a bit of both, he figured. 

He expected hesitation, maybe regret, but all he felt was instant peace. There were no more thoughts, no distractions, no outside noises leaking in — all that mattered was this strange moment of alluring instinct happening between the two of them.

Michaela had his face cupped in both her hands now. He could feel not only the warmth of her breath on his lips, in his mouth, roaming the space there, but also the warmth of her skin becoming one with his own as their mouths stuck to one another. Zeke barely got the chance to breathe, and he didn’t mind that the air was thin, because whenever he breathed in though his nose he was wrapped up only in her scent, the same one he’d already been bathing in when she’d first hugged him. Strands of her soft hair tickled the sides of his face; her hair like a curtain, shielding their kissing faces from the world.

Her lips felt even softer than her hair, so the opposite to his own, cracked ones. 

But even more than the texture it was the taste that pulled him in, deeper and deeper, until Zeke feared it might soon be too much. That inexplicable mixture of ingredients he had an explanation for —  like the salt stemming from her fallen tears and the fruity sweetness of catsup — and the things, the components that were just her own. Things, he thought, that he would taste each time. If there was even a next time; if that did not turn out to be one great hoax after all. Something he shouldn’t have fallen for but no longer wanted to resist.

And now that he’d started it, Zeke was not sure he ever wanted it to stop.

He wasn’t sure if he knew how to.

It was euphoria like he had never known. Suddenly everything made sense. This was how it had always been supposed to be. This was what everything was supposed to feel like.

He might not remember her name, her face — but somehow, he seemed to remember this.

Or his body did, at least. His tongue. His lips. They moved and he let them guide him.

But maybe all this just felt so familiar because his own body was so familiar to Michaela. Because she knew what she was doing. Maybe this was the reason why it felt so good, so right. As if their bodies had been meant to collide at some point all along. As if they’d done this before.

According to Michaela, they had.

Michaela pulled back, just slightly. Her lips shifted to kiss the side of his mouth before she rocked backwards a little more. Zeke’s eyes fluttered open, his body trembling from the lack of her lips on his his. He was unable to say anything, too busy breathing and already missing having her so close. His body was tingling all over, even in places her lips had not touched.

They were still only inches apart, both breathing hard.

“Do you want me to stop?” Michaela asked, gently running her thumb over his lips. “I mean … are you sure? Like sure, sure?”

She looked breathtaking in Zeke’s eyes even now, with her hair ruffled and her cheeks flushed and that shallow crease pulling her brows together. She looked like the prettiest mess he’d ever come across.

And she was worrying about him — even now.

“Yes,” he hurried to reply, his own voice hoarse. “Very sure.”

Michaela’s smile stretching up into the blue of her eyes was the last thing he saw before he pulled her back in. This time their foreheads fell against each other as Zeke deepened the kiss, one of his hands sliding slowly into her hair, becoming entangled there, pulling her in even more. 

Their first kiss had been more rushed, frantically firm as if they had been both equally afraid that the other one would pull away and end it any moment and that there would never be another chance. Like they’d been both memorizing the moment, just in case. The second one was different in that regard; not any less passionate, not any less intimate, no less in any regard. Just slower, more tender. Without rush.

Zeke had lost any sense of time by the time their lips parted again.

The morning sun could have already filtered through the window and it wouldn’t have surprised him.

“That was…”

“Yeah,” Michaela whispered.

She smiled at him. Her fingers trailed down his cheek. Gently, they grasped his chin, her thumb brushing over the crease below the lower curve of his mouth. Before he knew what he was doing, Zeke had reached up to catch her hand; he pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles. Michaela closed her eyes, the smile on her lips lingering.

“Was that what it used to be like?”

Michaela frowned, cracking one eye open to squint at him.

“No,” she muttered, after a beat. “Almost, but no. Better. This was … is even better.”

Zeke felt very giddy, all of a sudden, drunk on the words and the smile accompanying them.

So much he felt a smile of his own slowly creeping in. He must have looked like an idiot, grinning like that.

“Yeah?”

The firmness in Michaela’s gaze anchored him, even as his body grew lighter than he’d ever known it.

“Definitely.”

He had no doubt she meant it, though he could not explain from where he took that certainty.

All this was most likely the most absurd thing ever taking place in his life and yet it felt realer than anything else in it. Nothing felt realer than the wide smile Michaela bestowed upon him now. And he liked nothing more than to join in it; nothing had ever been easier.

They smiled at each other for a moment, reveling in each other’s faces.

Then — Zeke wasn’t even sure who had started it — they were suddenly laughing, giggling without real cause, maybe just from the utter absurdity of what had just happened. Waves of laughter kept sweeping through them, rippling through both their bodies as if they were on one and the same boat, lifted up and then dipped into the water. Neither of them seemed to be able to stop, the sound of the other’s laugh just spurring the other even more. 

At some point, though, their sounds had started to reduce to a tuned panting. Michaela’s body, still shaking from laughter, tilted and tipped sideways, against him. Her head landed on his chest, and Zeke instantly wrapped his arms around her, lightly resting his chin on the top her head.

Michaela’s hand found the front of his flannel shirt, gripping it, just holding onto it.

As if she were afraid, even now, that he would just dissolve into thin air any moment.

Zeke brushed a hand over her hair, staring over at the window. The sky was still tinted a dark shade of black, still almost starless. He had not a single clue what time it was, only that it must still be the middle of the night, if the color of the sky and the silence from the street just across the apartment block were anything to go by. He pressed a hand to his lips, feeling where her lips had just been; he tried to hold onto the warmth just a little longer.

What now?

He had no real answer to that.

They had opened a door, and now he would have expected for it all to come through. That he’d reach some more clarity. But all he knew now was that it seemed impossible not to be consumed by this feeling — whatever it might call itself. It was growing and pushing at his skin, wrapping itself around him like a cocoon. It was welcoming, in a way, set his soul alight. 

Zeke glimpsed down at her face, illuminated by the little light still falling on it, and he thought maybe, just maybe he was a little bit in love with her already. Maybe he was a fool for already starting to fall for someone he barely knew. Maybe she was — for insisting she had already fallen years ago her time. But in the end, this probably was as good a place to fall as any, no matter who did it first.

Though there was the very real fear that maybe he only wanted to call that feeling love to turn it into a new sort of addiction he couldn't seem to get away from. Perhaps he was just doomed to replace one craving with another. Perhaps he was falling for an illusion. Perhaps he only wanted to love her because it seemed that she’d loved him first, and he wasn’t used to how that could feel like.

But then again — could being with someone who made him feel like things might get better for once even be such a dreadful thing? Someone who seemed to complete the parts of him that were jagged and raw, fitting without even having to make an effort. Her presence didn’t make the wounds vanish, didn’t snuff out the lingering pain — there was no magic potion for that. But whatever this feeling was, she gave it so openly, abundantly, that he felt so much lighter in her presence.

Like he finally belonged somewhere again.

And maybe that was what made it worth trying?

Michaela’s body felt heavier against him than it had only seconds ago, her breathing calmer now. Even her grip on his shirt had slackened slightly, and Zeke realized that she was close to falling asleep tucked against him on the floor of all places.

“Hey,” he muttered, withdrawing just enough to get a good look at her face.

Michaela’s eyes hadn’t closed all the way yet, but her eyelids were drooping, with her tearing them open again with force every few seconds, apparently fighting very hard to stay awake. She blinked up at him out of glazed eyes now, jolted by the sudden intrusion of his voice, no matter how low it had been. She wore a slack expression, a sharp contrast to the vibrant, expressive one from before. Like someone had turned down the brightness, and pulled the plug.

She didn’t say a word, didn’t seem able to find or form anything resembling speech.

He wondered how long ago it’d been since she’d gotten a good amount of proper sleep.

Too long, by the looks of it.

Zeke rubbed at his own scratchy eyes. His jaw hung slack, a yawn escaping before he could stifle it. He’d done a full late shift, and had barely slept the day before that because some of his neighbors upstairs had decided to move all their furniture around for a length of full five hours. And now, with all the excitement surrounding Michaela slowly starting to fall into something somewhat normal, to claim he was tired would have been the understatement of the year. 

A sharp, stabbing sensation shot through his lower back, making him wince. His back ached from being slouched on the hard floor for too long. A tingling sensation had taken a hold of his feet, as if they were about to go to sleep before his mind could. With effort, Zeke heaved himself to his knees, always careful no to let Michaela’s drowsy body drift from his grip. He seemed to be the only constant holding it up at this point. Zeke paused, trying to catch his breath. His eyes ghosted over Michaela’s face once more. Her eyes were fully closed now, a faint twitch around the corners of her mouth. 

He still couldn’t get over the fact that he’d been the one to kiss those lips not so long ago. 

Zeke gripped the kitchen counter for support, pulling himself up before slowly hoisting Michaela to her feet. She was still leaning against him, and he tightened his grip around her waist, afraid that she would slide and fall otherwise. She seemed to trust him so completely, enough for her to fall asleep against him on the floor, and that overwhelmed him for a second.

His bed was only a few steps away, the one perk of an apartment so small.

Zeke half carried, half lead a stumbling Michaela towards it. He helped her lower herself on the nearest side of it, before bending down on one knee to undo the laces of her shoes. Carefully, he pulled them off and set them down next to the bed. 

As he slowly pulled his hands away from her, and moved to grab his blanket, crumpled at the foot of the bed, Michaela’s hand gripped his wrist, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so drowsy. She was mumbling something, but even as he stood and leaned in closer it took Zeke a moment to make out what she was saying.

“Don’t leave me.”

Zeke exhaled, his heart clenching.

Gently, he closed his own hand around the one clutching his other wrist. He lowered it back down onto the mattress but kept his own hand loosely wrapped around it.

“I’m not,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

And then, on an impulse — one he had never known he had — he leaned down to kiss her forehead.

Michaela’s hold on his wrist slackened, and Zeke let go himself, pulling away just far enough to finally reach the blanket and cover her with it. He only pulled it up to her chest; it didn’t feel too cold inside here, for him at least, the nightly chill unusually mild tonight. Nonetheless, he moved back to the window. The daily morning traffic of people leaving through the backyard was a nightmare. The window screeched as he forced it close. His face immediately whirled back around to the bed, but Michaela didn’t even stir, her body so still he worried she had stopped breathing.

Zeke was frozen, for a second, holding his own breath, until her chest slowly lifted under the covers.

He switched off the light next, then slowly made his way through the familiar darkness of his room.

He knew which corners to avoid so not to have the sharp edges of furniture prick him in the shin, and which floorboards were especially prone to creak when stepped on. Too often he’d stumbled into his apartment at night, making his way through the dark. This time, though, it wasn’t the declining effect of booze that made his pulse spike, despite the exhaustion pulling at his roots. 

Zeke tiptoed around the bed, to the side of it that wasn’t occupied by the strange and yet stunning woman he had met only tonight. He lowered himself to the edge of the mattress, the bed springs squeaking. Blindly, he pulled off his own shoes and the long-sleeved flannel he’d worn over his shirt; he tossed both to the floor, then rolled down on his back. He was tired too take off anything else.

Besides. Michaela…

The mattress wasn’t all too wide. He felt his arm brushing against the blanket she was wrapped in; it felt scratchy against his skin. He’d been tired to the bone but now that he was finally in bed, his mind seemed to come alive again, buzzing and brimming with thoughts and doubts.

Zeke tried to shove them all aside, tried to concentrate on the sounds outside of his mind instead.

The steady hum of the fridge that had seen better days, and that lulled him to sleep every night booze didn’t. God, he really needed to stop thinking about that. Banning those thoughts even from entering his mind. So. Back to the sounds; the real ones. But unfortunately, it was unusually quiet tonight, the sound of one pair of feet clattering down the stairs and the door downstairs being scraped open and then slammed shut the only things to really cling to. That and the shower being turned on in the apartment adjoining to his own, the water pipes banging, and the dulled sloshing of water.

The only thing to listen to apart from all that — the only sound that remained even when the door had already closed and the shower had already stopped running — was her breathing right next to him.

It was shallow, quiet. He could only properly listen to it when he held his own breath.

And so Zeke did that. Again and again. Until his lungs ached from the repetitive lack of air.

And then — he had no idea what had prompted her to so, he just knew that he hadn’t dared to move an inch — Michaela shifted. The springs squeaked again, and before he knew it, she was snuggled against him. 

Zeke froze for a second, unsure what to do. It had been one thing to touch and hold her when they’d both been awake and fully conscious but now … they hadn’t even thought to put a label on whatever this was yet. He wasn’t sure if the right label for what had happened between even existed. He just knew that he was again afraid of overstepping, the boldness from kissing her having already paled. And Michaela, on the other hand, had insisted they were married…

He still didn’t know what to do with that. 

What this meant for them now. If there even was something like a them in this life.

If all this was a dream, it was definitely the most creative and most colorful one he’d ever had. And in case it really was … he just hoped he would never ever have to wake up from it.

Slowly, carefully, Zeke lifted his arms and wrapped them around her, allowing himself to bury his nose in her hair, breathing her in.

Could dreams feel so real? So haptic?

“I want to believe it all,” he whispered against her hair, hoping she wouldn’t hear, so maybe he could take it back should it sound too silly in the morning light. “Maybe I can.”

Zeke sighed, feeling her warmth radiate through his palm placed on her back. It filtered into his entire body, warmed every corner of his insides. Made him feel fuzzy and safe and protected even though he was the one holding her.

“Maybe I can one day.”

Chapter Text

Waking up felt a little bit like being still asleep.

Like the dreams Michaela used to have in the months following his death, the ones that had faded out with time, had grown rarer but never had stopped altogether.

How often had she reached for him next to her in bed before realizing, too late, that no one was there. Or that if her hand found someone, it wasn’t him. The subsequent disappointment had been the same kind she’d felt every time she’d been standing outside at night, gazing up at the stars, only to remember that he wasn’t beside her, doing the same. Then she used to wonder whether somewhere else he was still looking at the same sky, the same constellations, just miles away from up there.

Waking up now, at first, didn’t feel so different from those short moments before reality decided to hit her.

Like wallowing in a dream so sweet, so soothing she just knew that waking up from it would leave her with a cold cave in her heart that would make living on impossible. The prospect that neither her body nor her mind would survive in the same shape should this burst like a bubble the next time she opened her eyes should have scared her. But her heart was light, everything was. As if she were floating in a gentle breeze as her still sleepy mind slowly started to catch up with what her body already knew.

The certainty that there were arms wrapped around her and that those arms did not belong to Jared.

And yet, those arms were more familiar than anything else, made her feel as if she were back at home, back in their bedroom in Beverly’s house. As if no time at all had passed since the morning of his death and now. As if they were still married, still in love, still partners in a reality of life too absurd to make a believable story for future kids they had never even planned to have.

Michaela cracked an eye open. Just one. Just to confirm.

She couldn’t see much with her face pressed against his clothed chest, and so she pulled away, just a tad. Just enough to crane her neck to catch a glimpse of his face. In sleep it was so still it brought up painful memories of them on the floor together, entangled limbs and tears; his lifeless body clutched in her desperate arms. But now was different, she could see that, too. His face was of healthy color, and his chest was moving, softly but steadily. Something inside of her melted at the sight of him at her side, his dark hair sticking out in every direction.

He wasn’t gone. He really was here. In every way that mattered.

Body, mind and soul and all.

Slowly, Michaela exhaled, allowing for her head to sink into the pillow and for the muscles in her neck to relax again. 

Her eyes, though, remained glued to his face which was turned towards her, tracing every line, every curve that was exactly the way she remembered. Her fingers twitched against her side, aching to touch those same lines. Just to confirm that they wouldn’t just reach into thin air like they had in the glow. But she contained that urge, not wanting to wake him. He looked so peaceful asleep. So real.

She could have spent hours just looking at him, anyway.

And she was pretty sure she would have done exactly that had the sound of something very real too — something a lot more unpleasant though — not startled her from just quietly taking him in. 

The humming of a phone — her phone, she realized with a jolt — seemed impossibly loud, an unwelcome intruder. But one she couldn’t just take no notice of. 

Zeke’s face twitched upon hearing the sound, his brows pulling together slightly, but he didn’t wake, not yet, and Michaela hurried to pull away and get up on her feet to keep it that way. The bed groaned under her receding weight. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder, but Zeke’s eyes were still closed, his arms now slack by his side. The sound of her phone ringing was swelling as Michaela’s eyes flew through the half-lit room, searching for it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used it  — perhaps when she’d showed Zeke that picture of her family?

She reached the counter in two large steps, and there it was, slowly hobbling across the cluttered surface, bumping into a stack of unopened mail. Quickly, Michaela grabbed it and silenced the call that went to voicemail seconds later, anyway. She waited for a few heartbeats while her gaze shifted back to Zeke’s still form slouched on the mattress. He wasn’t even covered with a blanket, she noticed only now; he’d let her have all of it. 

But he seemed to be still asleep. Michaela exhaled slowly. Only then she lifted her phone again. The screen was still alight, indicating that she’d missed not only one but three calls, scattered over the last few hours.

It was already noon.

One look out through the small window confirmed the time her phone was showing in small digital numbers. The sun was already dancing in up from the horizon, bathing parts of the room in its warm glow but leaving most of it in half-lit shadows.

That and recognizing the number reminded Michaela that she should’ve been at the precinct long ago.

It was surreal to know that she still — or again — had a job. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to forget. She hadn't even set an alarm clock, let alone had been half awake enough to be woken up by one of the preceding calls.

But even more likely it had been Zeke that made her wanna forget it, or simply not care enough. 

What did it matter whether she sat behind a desk at the precinct, organizing and filing reports, when she could be here as well? With the man she loved; the man she’d spent far too long missing — mourning.

For a second, Michaela’s thumb hovered over the call button. She was inclined to call back and just quit the force altogether.

Because where had the police been when they’d rounded up the passengers? When they’d hunted them down and locked them up like criminals as if disappearing on a plane for five and a half year and coming back with visions tormenting them had been a choice. As if they and their families and friends hadn’t already suffered enough. So no, she wasn’t sure if she could ever again believe in the kind of system that let that happen the way she had before 828.

She’d done it before. She could do it again.

It would be easy. Just one quick call to get the stone rolling. 

She would find something else to do, anything really; it didn’t matter much what it would be.

Because they were alive. She’d found Zeke. She had her mom back. And Grace. The kids could be kids again, could grow up side by side. Her brother had his family back. Did anything else really matter?

Michaela bit her lip, the call icon seemed to mock her for hesitating.

“Everything alright?”

She jumped at the sound of his voice, so much the phone nearly slipped from her hand.

Compared to the glaring bright light from the screen she’d spent too long staring at, the room seemed only dimly lit, Zeke’s face just one dark, shapeless mush across from her until her eyes readjusted. He was half sitting up in bed, propped up on one elbow. His hair was ruffled and sticking out on one side while flat on the other from the pillow it’d been pressed against.

A rush of warmth overwhelmed Michaela at the sight of him and his undivided attention, his genuine concern all tunneled on her. The urge to just forget the world and go and kiss him and never stop barely kept her standing where she was. Carefully, she lowered her phone back on the counter, strangely relived he’d taken the need to decide right away from her.

Of course, she’d have to make a decision eventually. But not right now. Now … was only about Zeke.

“Yeah,” she said, exhaling shakily. “Sorry … I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Michaela was aware of Zeke’s eyes following her as she walked up to the bed again. She lowered herself on the mattress, next to him, only this time she sat down leaning against the headrest, pulling her knees to her chest. Their eyes locked, and for a flicker of a moment it felt like last night; like shortly before he kissed her or she kissed him, she wasn’t sure anymore how it had started. Only that her lips still tingled with the memory of it, and that her body ached for more of that while her mind tried to remain reasonable.

“Thank you … for staying,” she said, eventually, biting down hard on the inner side of her cheek.

Zeke chuckled, the sound still rough from sleep. His eyes, however, were so soft she wanted to plunge into whatever was behind it and never return to the surface ever again.

“Course I did. This is my apartment, after all.”

Michaela smiled. She appreciated the humor, but she was tired, too. Tired of having to dampen down the part of her that was so full of love for him she was almost shaking with it. Because there was no real outlet, no way she’d want to throw even more on him at once, too afraid she’d drown him with it, and then lose him, again, in whatever way you could lose someone who never knew you had him.

“You know what I mean.”

Zeke’s eyes flickered over her face. They moved to all corners of it, a soft crease appearing between his brows, deepening. His eyes, yet, they stayed soft. Warm. The way she remembered him looking at her whenever something painful was to come. 

“So … where do we go from here? I mean … Michaela … what are we?”

Michaela lifted a shoulder, felt her face doing a weird little twitch she couldn’t describe either.

“Tough question to answer.”

She broke eye contact, and if only to blink away the tears pressing against the insides of her lids. She stared down at her knees for a moment, tried to decide if the right words for that even existed. When she lifted her gaze again, Zeke’s stance hadn’t changed. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t shifted his gaze. By the looks of it, he seemed to expect for her to have the answer to this one too.

“I know what we were,” she muttered. “And I know that…”

She took a deep breath, pressing her trembling palms against her knees.

Could she say it without spooking him away?

Those three words that up until his death had become routine but had now never felt farer from that.

Maybe she needed to say them. Because for her, whenever she closed her eyes, it all came back so clearly. She couldn’t forget. And — Michaela realized now, though it would have been easier — she didn’t want to. Because without those memories she would have said yes to Jared at that airport; she wouldn’t have known any better. She would have married him, and surely she would have been happy, for a while at least. But she would have never had her eyes open enough to find Zeke — no matter how many more almost the universe would have thrown her way.

Michaela squeezed her eyes shut, just for a beat. Just long enough to gather the courage to speak them again, after so long. Perhaps she was out of practice. She squinted back at him, wanted him to look her in the eye as she said them. Just so that he would know she meant them.

“I love you.”

Part of her wanted to take it back. But the rest of her knew she couldn’t.

Zeke’s lips parted; she could see the words building, and she wasn’t ready for rejection.

Wasn’t ready for him to tell her that she was crazy for saying that.

“I didn’t say it to hear it back,” she added quickly, before he could say anything that would crush this illusion of a happy ending that she was still clinging too — against all odds. “I know it’s not the same now, not for you, but for me … it’s all still there. And I can’t keep on pretending that I don’t feel what I feel because I do feel it and … and I’m just so afraid that you’ll never understand just how much…”

She thought that if she just kept talking, kept denying him the chance to say something himself that it would retard the inevitable, the disappointment that would surely settle in once reality would hit her again. She wasn’t ready for that yet. Maybe never. It was nonsensical, but the words just kept rushing out of her mouth. So Michaela kept rambling. And it wasn’t hard to find the words. After all, they’d been bottling up within her for too long. For months, almost years.

“I hated the world when you passed away. And everyone and everything in it. I just … felt so lost without you. I don't think you realize how hard it was to get up, morning after morning, without you with me. At some point … I think I didn’t want to get up anymore at all. I- I learned to function, to cope, but it never got easier … never.  And even now everything still reminds me of you, because it’s you and it’s driving me crazy. I know it’s not fair to you to load all that on your shoulders but-“

“Michaela.”

Zeke sat up slowly, and she lapsed into silence at the sound of his voice, bracing for the imminent blow. For the world to collapse just as it had the night he’d left her. 

Michaela pressed her back against the wall, hard, until it hurt, somehow hoping it would catch not just her body but her mind as well. Zeke’s eyes were scurrying over her face; he was silent for another beat, the echo of her name rolling from his tongue slowly starting to strangle her. Was this it? How it ended? Was he gonna throw her out now?

“Michaela,” Zeke said again, and there was pain in his voice, not in the word itself.

He lifted his palms. Awkwardly, they hovered in the space between them, short from touching her, before he let them fall again.

His eyes followed the movement of his own hands. He swallowed, then tore his gaze back up to meet hers.

“I need you to breathe, Michaela. Please.”

“I am breathing,” she snapped, sharper than she’d intended to. 

Zeke didn’t flinch, didn’t seem repulsed by the sound — but Michaela herself was. She covered her face with her palms, cheeks burning, everything burning and writhing, until she no longer recognized the sound of her own thoughts.

All she wanted was being close to him, and yet all she seemed to do was push him farther away.

“I’m sorry. I’m messing it all up and-“

“No.” 

The mattress dipped as Zeke shifted his weight. She peeked through the cracks between her fingers, saw him closer. That way she also saw his hand before she felt it gently touch down on her arm. It stayed there, lightly covering her skin with his own, even as she stopped holding her breath. 

“Don’t be. You didn’t mess anything up. You hear me?”

His fingers were brushing a pattern down her arm that didn’t feel random.

Every fingerprint on her skin lingered until the warmth was stretching, tingling.

Until his hand reached hers, which was still pressed to her face. And very slowly, like in some sort of real-life slow motion, his fingers slipped into hers, interlacing just enough to pull away her cover. To expose one side of her face; the other hand falling off not much later. Michaela felt stripped bare under his gaze exploring her face now. Her feelings now more exposed than any of her words — even that one daring confession — could have made them. 

Zeke’s fingers tightened around hers, and he pulled them to his chest, right to his heart.

She could feel the pounding, soft but steady.

She could feel the pulse of his life beneath her fingertips.

“I am sorry,” Zeke murmured. His thumb reached up to wipe a stray tear away from her cheek. Her skin prickled where he’d touched it. “I can see how much this is hurting you. And I wish … God, I wish could remember. And that I could undo all the pain I caused you. Truly.”

“It’s not your fault.” Michaela tried to keep her voice steady, but it was shaking, unmistakably so. She wished he could read her mind again, so she wouldn’t have to say it out loud. “It’s just … I’m supposed to be happy and grateful that you’re alive and of course I am but… Zeke … I- I can’t just … un-love you. I can’t.”

Zeke nodded softly. “I know.”

“I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Zeke tilted his head, his eyes brushing the sight of their hands, still interlocked. He didn’t let go, only tightened his grip; his fingers were slung around hers, with no end and no beginning. His thumb rubbed soothing little circles over her knuckles.

When he looked up at her again, he was smiling a little, the crinkles around his eyes showing.

He lifted a brow. “Do I look uncomfortable to you?”

Michaela let out a hoarse little thing of a laugh, wiping at her eyes with her free hand.

As she lowered her hand again, she was instantly trapped in the softness of his gaze. In the way he so effortlessly made her laugh even in the saddest moments, in the way her heart was not racing when he was around, just falling back into its natural rhythm.

She opened her mouth, but was robbed off things to say, because Zeke got there first. He straightened a little, stretching his spine, his body opening even more to her. She felt enveloped in his presence, even though just their hands were actually touching.

“Michaela.” Zeke paused, and suddenly, he looked shy. “Last night … this kiss or … those kisses,” he paused once more, clearing his throat, maybe only to buy more time. His mouth stood open long before the words came actually falling out, “I don’t know why, or how any of this is even possible but … I think … I think I already like you a lot more than I like anyone.”

He frowned, maybe at his own words, and Michaela held her breath. Her own head seemed empty, devoid of any thoughts. Everything buried under the fluttering feeling in her stomach, the one you usually have before falling down from somewhere. There was not even fear at this point. She could only brace for a fall as she was waiting for more; the only open question was where she’d land then.

Zeke’s face twitched under the strain to find the right words.

He had always been better at that then her, so this was strange, being on the receiving end of it.

“I just … I want you to know that I don’t regret any of it and that … I’m genuinely happy that you’re here with me, right now. I mean I have only met you last night and still… You make me … you make me feel.”

Zeke swallowed visibly, his throat still working around the one last syllable that came out sounding faintly choked. Michaela could see the tremble in his free hand as it slowly reached out to cup the side of her face. She leaned into his palm by instinct, her own body shaking. She was indeed falling now as she’d predicted but the feeling didn’t stem from a place of disappointment or of pain. 

Only from pure, unfiltered affection for the man sitting across from her.

And for his words. And for what they meant.

Zeke’s hand moved up the side of her face. It brushed her hair from her cheeks, tucked the strands behind her ear, and all the while their eyes were like glued together, unable to let the other one go. With his hand on the side of her face the room around them fell away, the sun drained of color as he traced her cheek.

“I just can't stop thinking about you,” Zeke whispered, and he sounded amazed about that himself.

Michaela couldn’t help but smile.

“I missed you so damn much,” she whispered back, and then, again, because she never wanted him to forget it, even if it meant she was being bold, “I love you.”

Zeke’s fingers stilled against her hair but he didn’t pull away, his eyes searching hers.

“You love me,” he stated, without the question mark, but not any less uncertain.

“I love you,” Michaela confirmed, lifting her own fingers to gently brush them down the side of his face. “So much.”

He hesitated, as if trying to find the gentlest way to word it. 

“Sure it’s not him that you’re still in love with?”

Michaela shook her head, just slightly, just to not make his fingers loose touch with her face.

Suddenly, what she hadn’t had an answer to just at the beginning of past night seemed crystal clear.

“There’s no him or you. There’s just you. I didn't fall in love with who you could be. I fell in love with who you were then, and with who you are right now.” 

She exhaled shakily, her fingers tracing his face by memory. “I love every single part of you, even the parts you hate. And if you want me to … I’m here no matter what. Not just for the pretty parts and happy days. I mean everything. Today, tomorrow and every day after. I’m here with you because I choose to be. I wouldn’t want to be here with anyone else.”

Zeke let out a breath. It mingled with a laugh cut short, like his lungs couldn’t produce more than that. He was smiling, squinting his eyes a little, as if that would make all of this any clearer to him.

“I can’t believe I got to marry you. Are you sure it’s not a mix up?”

A giggle burst out of Michaela. “Yes. Yes, I am sure. Very sure.”

Zeke’s smile seemed to brighten, spurred by her laugh, but it only lasted for a moment.

“Do you really think we can rebuild what we had? Rebuild … us?”

Michaela frowned, thinking it through for a moment. She was a little distracted by Zeke’s fingers, though. They’d started to move again, tracing the path down the side of her throat as if they were following an invisible map. 

“No, I don’t want us to rebuild anything. We can be or become whatever we want. Something we both want, something we both feel. It’s not for me to decide what you do with your life, Zeke. I only know … I want this. I want you. In any way I can have you. And … we don't have to jump into it right away. We can learn together how we both feel the most comfortable.”

“I mean we did already jump last night,” Zeke pointed out with a grin, one that was contagious. Michaela was still returning the smile, her mind recalling the kisses, when Zeke went on, slightly more serious now. “You seem to know it all already. Know me. And I … it just feels like I have to learn so much and you … well.”

“I would love to get to know you all over again.”

Michaela stared down at their entangled hands, an idea coming to her mind. Gently, she pulled hers free, sat up a little straighter, sliding closer so their knees were touching on the mattress. Zeke looked adorably puzzled for a moment, his eyes following the movement of her hand as she extended it towards him. 

“Let’s just start again,” she said, smiling. “I’m Michaela. You can call me Mick if you want to.”

She could tell that Zeke was struggling to contain a laugh, as he tried to match her serious tone. He  reached out to shake her hand but didn’t let go again, keeping a tight hold on it. The softness in his eyes was slipping into hers so effortlessly as if their eyes were balancing on the same narrow rope of light, closing in on each other.

“Nice to meet you, Michaela. I’m Zeke.”

“Nice to-“

Zeke’s lips were on hers before she could finish the sentence.

Surprised, Michaela gasped against his mouth, into that kiss that felt like it took all the power he could muster. As if, unconsciously, he was trying to make up for all the months, weeks, days, minutes, seconds, their lips hadn’t been touching. And finally it felt like the world was no longer burning around her. Peace, that was what it felt like. Like home. Being back home.

She’d forgotten what that’d felt like, apparently.

Their hands slipped from each other but only the wrap around the other. 

Michaela was blind and breathless from the taste of his lips and the smell of his skin; her body had cut all communication with her mind. Her hands were out of her guidance, and she didn’t — couldn’t — do anything to stop them as they slipped under his shirt, her palms soaking up the warmth of his back, from every inch of skin they could find. She could feel Zeke’s hands doing the same, roaming down her body, smoothening her skin, while their lips never seemed to part. The carousel of feelings in her head never seemed to slow down from spinning so fast she started to feel dizzy. Maybe it was only the lack of air, maybe it was the sheer baffling joy that she actually do this again…

Kiss him again.

Feel him again.

Without the constant suffocating fear that she’d overstep, or cross a line for him.

Michaela could still taste Zeke on her lips, in her mouth, even as their lips pulled apart almost simultaneously, as if they’d silently agreed on it in advance. Like two sides of the same mirror moving accordingly.

Their bodies, though, remained sunken against each other, still sitting, but barely, only one body holding the other up, with their hands still firmly in place. Michaela shuddered with his body moving against hers. Zeke shifted his head until his brow was resting against hers. He exhaled, the breeze of it dancing across Michaela’s cheeks. The tips of their noses brushed, for just a second. Both their lips were still slightly parted, and Michaela closed her eyes again, just like she had during that kiss, staying in that moment that she wished would never ever pass.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Zeke whispered. His words seemed to melt on her skin, slipping right through the cracks into her heart, filling it with woozy warmth.

Michaela opened her eyes again, bathing in the softness of his gaze for a minute longer. She wanted to frame the expression on his face.

“Do you kiss all the people you’ve just introduced yourself too?”

Zeke laughed, a sound that made his entire body buzz, and hers with it.

“Nah. Only the ones I was married to in another timeline.”

Michaela smiled, her hand slowly moving up his back, tracing the path of his spine.

Her eyes didn’t seem able to detach from his. Like he’d disappear the moment they did.

"Please, please tell me this is real,” she mumbled.

“It is,” he assured, laughing. “At least I think so.”

Zeke’s arms moved further around her, wrapping her up, pulling her even closer — if that was even possible. His light touches traveled down her back, one hand of his in her hair, absently minded tangled in the tangled strands. She did the same, and seconds later their bodies dipped to the side, into the mattress. Both their heads hit the same pillow, that invisible force binding them even closer together. 

For a moment, they both just laid there, with their bodies so close, and their faces even closer.

Michaela tried to remember how they’d gotten here; this seemed so far away from those distant moments in the cab. But it was as if those memories were already gone, for now at least, blurred from the here and now.

As if her mind was already shielding her from the way things could have gone wrong. 

She leaned in even closer, their lips brushing for a moment. Her heart was dancing in her chest, oh so light now that there was just this moment, that space between their heartbeats, where time stood still and the universe held its breath.

Her voice was barely a whisper against his lips. "I never want this to end.”

Zeke chuckled but didn’t disagree, kissing her again, just one quick peck to the edge of her mouth this time, and then another handful softly planted along her jawline. 

Pulling away from her skin, he asked, “Do you think we could maybe stay here like this forever?”

Michaela smiled. There was little she wanted more. And this time at least there was no death date looming above them. There was just … time. They had time.

Time to figure it all out, to figure them out.

“We could try.”