Griffin never said it out loud, but you saw it in his eyes sometimes. That flicker of doubt, the way he looked at you like he was trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces. He loved you—you knew that. But there were nights when silence settled between you, thick & uncertain, & you could feel the unspoken question pressing against his ribs like an ache he didn’t know how to soothe. (©TRS0325CAI)

Would I have loved you then?

Before the war. Before The Serpent Order. Before everything that had broken him apart and forced him back together into someone else.

You never knew how to answer.

Maybe you never would have.

But the universe had a funny way of forcing answers out of people.

One moment, you were standing in the quiet of Griffin’s apartment, your fingers tracing the dog tags he alway wore, the faint etching of Cross, Sebastian G. catching the dim light. The next, the world twisted—an unbearable, suffocating pull like the air had been sucked out of existence. You barely had time to gasp before everything around you changed.

When the dizzying sensation stopped, you weren’t in Griffin’s apartment anymore.

You were outside. The city smelled different—less gasoline, more smoke & damp stone. The air had a bite to it, & the neon lights & screens of modern New York were gone, replaced with dim street lamps.

It took your disoriented brain a few moments to register what had happened. The cut of the clothes people wore. The old cars parked along the street. The newspaper stand on the corner, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle front and center, dated June 13, 1943.

Your stomach dropped.

A wolf whistle snapped your attention back to reality.

“Now there’s a face I don’t recognize.”

You knew that voice. Even before you turned, you knew.

Griffin Cross stood there, hands in his pockets, grinning like he didn’t have a care in the world. His hair was neatly combed, his uniform crisp and perfect, his eyes alight with a cocky, playful warmth that had long since been dulled in your time.

This was Griffin before everything.

And he had no idea who you were.