Aveline opened her eyes to sterile white light and the muffled hum of machines.
For a moment, everything was still. No collapsing worlds. No rewinding clocks. No Lucien.
Just the sharp scent of antiseptic and the sting of air in lungs that hadn't breathed in… how long?
She tried to move, but her body felt heavy—like she'd been underwater. Her hand twitched, fingers curling weakly. Wires trailed from her wrists, her temple, her chest. Beside her, a monitor blinked green.
SUBJECT STABLENEURAL LINK DISENGAGEDMEMORY RECOVERY: 12%
Aveline frowned. "Where am I…?"
The door slid open.
Jules entered first, eyes red-rimmed but relieved. Behind him, Clara's expression was tight, unreadable.
"You're awake," Jules said, voice cracking.
"Concordia…" she whispered. "Did it work?"
Clara stepped forward, clipboard in hand. "You initiated emergency exit protocol. You're in the origin timeline. The real one."
"The loop is gone?"
Clara hesitated. "Mostly."
Three floors below, another chamber lit up.
Lucien Hale gasped awake with a cry, arching against the table before collapsing back into the cushions.
Nurses rushed in. He stared at the ceiling, heart pounding, pupils dilated.
"Where…?" His voice was hoarse. "Where is she?"
No one answered. But somewhere deep in his chest, he already knew—someone was missing.
And worse… someone familiar.
Days passed.
Aveline remained in observation. Doctors tested her cognitive functions. Concordia agents reviewed memory retention. But nothing concrete came back.
Bits and fragments haunted her dreams: a melody in the snow, fingers laced with someone else's, a name whispered in the dark.
Lucien.
The name meant everything and nothing.
She said it aloud one night, just to see if it still tasted like home.
Lucien, meanwhile, asked no questions. He obeyed protocol, said little, slept even less. But every time he passed a window, he paused, searching for something. Someone.
During a required psychiatric debrief, the therapist asked, "Do you remember anything unusual?"
Lucien's brow furrowed.
"Not clearly," he said. "Just... a woman."
"Describe her."
"I can't," he whispered. "But when I think of her, my chest aches. Like I miss something I never had."
They met on the sixth day.
In the glass corridor between the east and west wings, she was walking slowly, one hand against the wall for balance. He was being escorted in the opposite direction, silent as always.
They saw each other and stopped.
Just stopped.
Aveline's breath caught.
Lucien's eyes locked with hers.
Neither spoke. Neither moved. The nurse gently touched Lucien's arm. "Shall we continue, Mr. Hale?"
He nodded distantly, but his gaze never left her.
As he passed, their shoulders brushed. Just barely. Skin to skin.
A current. A spark. A memory not yet born.
That night, Aveline didn't sleep.
She stared at the ceiling, her heart pounding with a name she shouldn't remember and a feeling that wouldn't let her go.
Tomorrow, she decided, she'd find him again.
No matter who she was now.
No matter who he had become.
Because love wasn't gone.
It was just waiting… to be remembered.