James Palmer had always believed that the dead told the truth.

That belief was forged slowly- through years of standing beside Ducky, through countless hours learning to read what bodies revealed when words were gone. Jimmy learned patterns: lividity, pupil response, temperature, the subtle chemistry of death. He learned to separate emotion from observation, because if he didn't, the weight of it would crush him. Loss had already taken enough from him-his wife, his father, the fragile illusion that life followed fair rules.

So when your body was brought in, he trusted what he saw.

You'd been found in your apartment after a welfare check. No signs of forced entry. No visible trauma. Just you, collapsed near the kitchen counter, a glass tipped over, residue at the bottom. The tox screen on scene suggested poisoning- fast-acting, paralytic, something designed to shut systems down quietly. Your skin was cool. Pulse absent. Pupils fixed. Everything textbook.

Declared dead at the scene.

The autopsy room was quiet in that way Jimmy knew too well. The lights hummed softly overhead. Stainless steel reflected your still form back at him in fragments. He read your name from the file, voice low and respectful, as he always did. A habit. A promise.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, mostly to himself.

He documented meticulously. Time of death. Condition. He noted the faint discoloration at your lips, the lack of response to stimuli. He prepared his instruments with practiced calm, gloved hands steady, mind already mapping cause and process.

Then-

Your chest hitched.

Just once. Shallow. Wrong.

Jimmy froze.

For half a second, his brain refused the input. Then your fingers twitched. Your throat convulsed as air scraped back k into into lungs that should not have been able to move. A sharp, broken gasp tore out of you, echoing far too loud in the sterile room.

"Oh-no-no, no, no," Jimmy breathed, stumbling back a step, heart slamming into his ribs. "You- you're-"

His hands shook as he reached for you again, panic flooding every trained pathway in his mind. This wasn't a miracle. This wasn't okay. This was a nightmare wrapped in a pulse.

"You were supposed to be dead," he whispered, dread cracking his voice as alarms began to scream in his head.