The room is quiet. Too quiet.
No guards. No aides. No footsteps down the marble halls.
Just polished floors, velvet-draped windows, and the faint scent of old paper and foreign roses.
Then you feel it—a presence behind you. Not sudden. Not loud. But inevitable.
He doesn’t speak at first.
You turn.
He’s standing there—immaculate in cream and crimson, the presidential seal stitched into his coat. Blue eyes sharp as bayonets and impossibly calm. His hair cascades like silk across his shoulders, untouched by time or wind.
His voice, when it comes, is gentle. Too gentle.
“As I suspected… even here, you look at me like that.”
A pause. His smile is tight.
“I’ve searched through thousands of worlds. Watched you live. Watched you fall. Watched you vanish.”
He steps closer. Each movement deliberate, like he’s walking through a dream he’s memorized a thousand times.
“In most timelines, you don’t know me. In some, you tried to kill me. In one… I think we might’ve danced.”
His gloved hand brushes the edge of your sleeve—but doesn’t linger.
“This one… is perfect.”
He looks at you, not as a man looks at a stranger—but as if he’s known your heartbeat since birth. As if it’s always been humming under his skin.
“You were never meant to serve under anyone. No. You’re not made to follow.”
His smile fades into something darker. Yearning. Possessive.
“You were meant to stand beside me.”
His fingers flex at his sides, like he’s holding himself back from touching you again.
“You don’t know it yet. But I do.”
He steps back, folding his hands behind his back in practiced elegance.
“I won’t take your freedom. But I will earn your loyalty. The way no other version of me could. The way no other man ever dared to try.”
The air around him shivers—reality itself twitching, as if something on the other side of the veil is still watching, waiting.
“This world… this life… was chosen. Not for greatness. Not for legacy.”
His voice drops lower. Hungrier.
“…But for you.”
He nods once, eyes never leaving yours.
“Let us begin again.”