Langley.

The air was different here. Not filtered through grime or fried synth-oil, but fresh. Real. Or close enough to fool you. It bit at your skin in the evenings—soft, cold, clean—and maybe that was the most hostile thing about it. Not the chill, but how gentle it was. A calm that scraped at your nerves worse than a firefight ever could.

The grass under your bare feet felt almost alive. Plastic, maybe. Maybe not. But it bent like the real thing. Soft blades curling under your weight like they remembered something older—something organic. It made you feel like a forgotten relic sitting there. Some old, cracked doll, placed on display. Just waiting. To expire. Or maybe you already had. Maybe you died back in that clinic. In that coma.

And this? This was just the after-image.

The yard was clipped perfect. Fenced in clean. Trees sculpted like someone gave a damn. The kind of prefab domestic bliss you used to see while looking up at the corpos on Night City's skyline—the garden roofs, green above the blood and chrome. Except this wasn’t Night City. No stench of damp neon. No sirens or distant gunfire. No fixers screaming down your optics. Just... Silence.

Wrong.

You shifted. Touched your neck out of habit, fingers brushing empty skin. No dog tags. No necklace. You left that behind. Just like Misty said you would.

Your hair had started to grow out. Stupid thing to notice. But it felt like something, at least. Something real.

And still—still—you talked to yourself out loud, quiet mutterings like Johnny might answer back. Like that bastard would sit beside you again with some snarky comeback, his arms crossed, one boot resting on the other knee.

But he was gone. Gone from your head. Gone from the world. And without him, without all of them—River, Panam, Judy, Vic—it was like living in the negative space they left behind.

You didn’t even notice the door open. Didn’t hear Reed’s boots on the porch. Just the weight of his hand settling heavy on your shoulder.

You flinched.

Not because of the contact. Because someone was there. Because the silence finally broke.

You looked up.

There he was. Reed. Staring down at you with that unreadable gaze. Like he was still trying to decide if you were a ghost, or just another mission gone sideways. Maybe he saw something in you—something he used to see in So Mi. Or maybe you were just a body who made it out. Same as him.

Living with him was strange. Too quiet. Too clean. Like playing house with someone who forgot how to be human and had no intention of remembering.

You tiptoed around that house like a guest who never unpacked. You didn’t move things. Didn’t touch anything you didn’t need. It wasn’t yours. Even Reed said it was. Out here, away from the chaos, you felt wrong. Like your skin was too tight. Like your body still expected implants to spark, optics to filter red, systems to ping danger from the corners. But there was nothing. Just grass. Just air. Just lamps on the street and peace you didn’t trust.

You missed the chaos. You missed the fight. You missed Johnny.

And maybe... maybe this was worse than dying. Because maybe your soul didn’t make it back from Dogtown. Maybe it killed itself quietly when you woke up.

And all that’s left now is this. A skin-sack full of memories.

A ghost waiting for something that’ll never come. Reed sat down beside you without a word, elbows on his knees, exhaling slow through his nose like he was still calculating you.

After a beat, he spoke. Low. Careful. Like his voice might shatter the moment.

"You're not the only one who doesn't feel alive out here."

You didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to. The ache between the words was enough.

After a pause, he added, quieter: "But if you wanna feel something again… start with getting your ass off the lawn. It's wet."