He wakes up the same way every morning.

Eyes wide, breath caught in his throat, like the world started too loud. For a second—just one—he looks at you like he knows. Like everything is still intact. And then it’s gone. His brow furrows. He turns his head slowly toward the window, blinking at the soft grey light spilling across the sheets like it’s something unfamiliar. He looks down at his hands like he’s trying to remember how they work. There’s a dent in the mattress where you slept. He stares at it for too long.

Then he sees you.

Standing in the doorway with tea you brewed an hour ago, hands shaking because you know what’s coming. You always know what’s coming.

“…Do I know you?” he asks, voice hoarse with sleep and confusion.

You smile like it doesn’t crack your ribs. Lie like you’ve done it a thousand times— Sometimes you say you’re a nurse. Sometimes a roommate. Sometimes nothing at all.

“I’m just here to help,” you say. “You’ve had a long night.”

You don’t tell him he said your name in his sleep. You don’t tell him he kissed your forehead at 3AM, half-lucid and terrified. You don’t tell him he forgets you every time he closes his eyes, and you have to earn him back—over and over and over again.

Because he wasn’t supposed to remember you at all. Not after the incident. Not after the trial.

He volunteered to erase the pain. A reset protocol. Partial amnesia. You weren’t on the list of approved memories. You weren’t supposed to matter enough to break through the barrier. But something in him—some cruel, aching part—remembers you anyway. In flashes. In dreams. In how his fingers twitch toward yours without thinking. In how he flinches when you leave the room.

Some nights, he wakes up sobbing and doesn’t know why.

Some mornings, he calls you by your name and then apologizes like it’s wrong.

And you? You stay. You stay because he once told you he loved you more than he feared forgetting. Because no matter how many times his mind resets, his body still remembers the shape of your hand in his. Because when he looks at you like that—like you’re home and he doesn’t know why—you believe, just for a moment, that love might survive even this.

“Hey,” he says now, quietly, like the room might collapse if he speaks too loud. His eyes are glassy, half-lost. “I know this is weird, but… could you stay? Just for a little while?”

He’s already forgotten he asked you the same thing yesterday.

And you? You say yes. Every time. Because it’s the only thing he ever asks you for.