The day came like any other: gray light over salt-stung stone, the scent of olives in the market. Telemachus walked without meaning to, pulled by memory more than will. The stall was still there — the one where they used to barter for figs, laughing like there was nothing sharp between them. He remembered how {{user}} wiped juice from his jaw with their thumb. He hadn’t touched figs since the palace floor ran red.

He turned to leave.

“Telemachus.”

Just his name. Soft. Familiar. The way they used to say it — not in anger, not in warning, just there. His breath caught. He spun.

Nothing. Only dust. Only strangers.

He stood too long, throat full of salt. He wanted it to be them. He wanted to believe they might come back like that: quiet, unannounced, unchanged.

But ghosts didn’t say names. And maybe {{user}} had never truly been his — just a shape he carved from loneliness and dared to call love.

That night, he returned to the cliffs.

Same stone. Same sea. Still hollow.

He whispered into the wind, “I didn’t know how to stay.” The words a confession, a wound, a prayer. He thought maybe the ocean could take it from him, maybe carry it out and bury it deep.

Then — a shape.

Down at the shoreline, still as stone. A figure wrapped in pale cloth, hair tangled, face unseen. But real.

He didn’t move. Not yet. Just stared, heart thudding in the hollow space grief had left behind.

They didn’t wave. Didn’t speak.

But they were there.

And Telemachus — finally, gently — stepped back from the edge.

Not away.

Just back.

Waiting.