Encounter One Hundred did not arrive with ceremony.
There was no thunder. No swelling music. No sudden understanding that this was the moment everything had been bending toward. It arrived the way most important things do: quietly, almost apologetically, like it wasn't sure it deserved attention.
They met at a bookstore.
Not a large one. Not the kind with sleek displays and coffee counters. This one smelled like paper and dust and time. The shelves leaned slightly, like they'd grown tired of holding themselves upright.
Elias was there because he'd needed somewhere to sit that didn't ask questions. Somewhere that didn't smell like antiseptic or expectation. He stood in the narrow aisle marked Essays & Letters, tracing his fingers along spines he had no intention of reading.
He heard her before he saw her.
Footsteps. Familiar. Unhurried but purposeful. He didn't turn immediately. He didn't want to spook the moment, like it might bolt if he acknowledged it too fast.
"Please tell me that's you," Mara said behind him.
He turned.
She was holding a book against her chest, hair slightly messier than usual, jacket unzipped like she'd forgotten to finish getting dressed.
"It depends," Elias said. "Are you hoping it's someone charming or someone who steals hospital chairs?"
She smiled. "I knew it."
Encounter One Hundred.
The number settled inside him, solid and unmistakable.
They didn't say it out loud. They didn't need to.
"I didn't think you'd be a bookstore person," she said, stepping closer.
"I'm not," he admitted. "I just like places where people whisper. It feels respectful."
"Of what?"
"Of thinking."
She nodded, like that made perfect sense.
They wandered together without direction, their shoulders brushing occasionally. Elias felt acutely aware of his body, of how present it was, how cooperative it felt today. Like it was offering him a temporary truce.
He stopped in front of a table marked Poetry.
"Do you read poetry?" Mara asked.
"Not really."
"Then why-"
"I like knowing it exists," he said. "Like proof that people felt things strongly enough to write badly about them."
She laughed, soft and genuine. "That might be the most honest review of poetry I've ever heard."
They sat on the floor between shelves, backs against opposite cases, legs stretched out until their shoes nearly touched. Elias watched dust float in the afternoon light.
"Mara," he said.
"Yes?"
"I need to tell you something."
She looked at him, instantly attentive. Not alarmed. Just present.
"I'm not great at… continuity," he said carefully. "I disappear sometimes. Not because I want to. Just because I think it's easier for people if I do."
Her expression didn't change, but her posture did. She leaned in slightly.
"Elias," she said, "you don't get to pre-apologize and then leave me guessing."
He smiled faintly. "Fair."
He took a breath. Then another.
"I've been seeing you for a long time," he said. "Before we talked. Before you knew my name."
Her brows knit together. "Seeing me how?"
"Running into you," he clarified quickly. "Repeatedly. Accidentally. Except eventually it stopped feeling accidental."
She didn't interrupt.
"I counted," he admitted. "Every time. I told myself that if it kept happening, it meant something."
"How many times?" she asked quietly.
"One hundred," he said.
She exhaled slowly. "You're serious."
"Yes."
"That's…" She searched for the word. "A lot."
"I know," he said. "I didn't follow you. I didn't interfere. I just… adjusted. I wanted to believe that if timing allowed it enough chances, it would let me speak."
"And now?" she asked.
"Now I'm speaking."
She studied his face. Not with suspicion. With care.
"You know," she said after a moment, "most people would call that fate. Or coincidence. Or mildly alarming."
He huffed. "I was aiming for fate. I'll settle for mildly alarming."
She smiled, then sobered.
"Why tell me now?"
Elias looked at the floor. At their almost-touching shoes.
"Because if I don't," he said, "I'll regret it. And I don't have room for more of that."
The honesty in his voice seemed to reach her before the words did.
"Okay," she said slowly. "Then tell me this too."
He looked up.
"What do you want from me?" she asked.
The answer came easily. Terrifyingly so.
"I want to know you," he said. "Properly. Without counting. Without almosts."
She nodded, eyes soft. "Then let's start there."
They didn't kiss. Not yet.
They walked instead. Out of the bookstore. Down a quiet street lined with trees shedding leaves like they were tired of holding on.
They talked about small things. Favorite breakfasts. Bad movies they secretly loved. Elias made a pun about nurses having "patients," which earned him a glare and a laugh. "That was terrible," she said. "You should be monitored."
"I already am," he replied, then bit his tongue.
They sat on a low wall near the river as the sky shifted colors. At some point, Mara reached for his hand. Not carefully. Not tentatively.
Just honestly.
And Elias, who had spent months bracing for endings, felt something begin.