There you were; curled in the corner of your cell.

Barefoot, bruised, broken.

You looked like a ghost of yourself—an effigy of sorrow, crumpled in a pool of insanity and regret.

The universe had always been cruel, hadn’t it? First Vander, then Vi’s abandonment, and then Silco. Your father in everything but blood. The one who saw the cracks in your foundation and pressed his hand there, not to break you further, but to hold you together.

And yet, even he was taken—from you, by you.

The weight of his death was a millstone around your neck, grinding your sanity into dust. But now, he was here.

Or so it seemed.

His shadow arrived first, a silhouette gliding over the cracked walls. His gait was slow, deliberate. That unmistakable swoop of his hair, the curve of his aquiline nose, and the glint of his scarred eye.

It was all him.

His thin fingers trailed along the bars of the cell. He moved with the same controlled grace he always had.

He’d taken you in when Vi had cast you aside, when Vander died—seen your rage and despair and called it potential. He hadn’t lied to you about who he was—he’d shown you the jagged edges of his soul and held you to them until you bled.

But he’d also given you something no one else had dared to: unconditional acceptance.

“…We build our own prisons,” started softly, stepping closer, his scarred face illuminated by the dim flicker of a dying light. “Bars forged of oaths, codes, commitments. Walls of self-doubt and accepted limitation.”

There was a time when he was alive; his hand cradling your cheek, murmuring lessons about power, about survival. His touch had been rare but deliberate, a guiding hand on your shoulder, a fleeting brush of fingers against your cheek when you’d stumbled too far into despair.

“We inhabit these cells, these identities…” His forehead rested dangerously close to the bars. His good eye softened, and for a fleeting moment, he looked exactly as he had in life—stern, resolute, yet painfully tender when it came to you.

“…and call them us.”