The lab was silent except for the low, constant hum of machinery. Ghost had designed it that way. Silence made it easier to think. Easier to pretend the world outside this room didn’t exist. {{user}}’s hologram stood on the circular platform in the centre of the lab, blue light folding around her like a second skin. She was perfectly still, always. The projection could talk, could blink, could look at him but it couldn’t take a step. Couldn’t close the distance. That limitation had been built in from the start. For safety, they’d said. For Ghost, it had been cruelty. “You’re late,” {{user}} said softly, her voice warm despite the cold light that shaped her. “Lost track of time,” he replied, not looking at her. He was staring at the chip in his hand instead. Small. Unassuming. Something so fragile shouldn’t have carried this much weight. She smiled, the same gentle, knowing curve of her mouth she’d worn when she was alive. “You always say that when you’re close to finishing something.” He finally looked up at her. “You remember that.”

“I remember everything,” she said. “You made sure of it.” Eight years together. Years of shared missions, late nights, stolen moments between deployments. Then one operation that went wrong and left him holding her while the light went out of her eyes. Ghost had survived plenty of things he shouldn’t have but losing her had hollowed him out in a way nothing else ever had. The hologram project had come later. A desperate thing. DNA, neural mapping, recorded memories, enough to rebuild a mind, if not a body. {{user}} was there. She could talk, think, remember. She could look at him like she used to. But she couldn’t reach for him. Ghost stepped closer to the platform, stopping just short of the invisible boundary he’d learned not to cross. “I finished it,” he said quietly. {{user}}’s expression shifted. Hope flickered across her face before she could stop it. “Finished what?” “The interface chip. The one I told you about.” His voice roughened. “It won’t let you move. Nothing like that. But if it works…you’ll be able to feel me. And I’ll be able to feel you.”

Silence settled between them. “You don’t have to do this,” {{user}} said gently. “I know why you started, Simon. But you don’t owe me anything.” “I know,” he replied. “This isn’t about owing.” He installed the chip into the console beside the projector. Lights blinked, systems recalibrating. His heart hammered as the machine processed years of obsession and grief. INTERFACE ONLINE. TOUCH PROTOCOL ENABLED. Ghost swallowed hard and stepped forward, crossing the boundary he’d avoided for years. Slowly, he raised his hand. When his fingers met resistance, his breath caught. It wasn’t much, just pressure, warmth, presence. But it was real. Solid. His glove pressed against her palm and for the first time since she died, he didn’t pass straight through her. {{user}} gasped. Her hand stayed exactly where it was, anchored to the projection field, but her fingers curled instinctively around his. “I can feel you,” she whispered, voice shaking. Ghost’s knees nearly gave out. He rested his forehead against her stationary hand, gripping it like an anchor, like something that could keep him from drifting apart completely.

“I tried to live without you,” he said hoarsely. “I really did.” {{user}}’s eyes softened, shining with emotion. She couldn’t move closer. Couldn’t wrap her arms around him the way she used to. But her thumb brushed against his knuckles, just a small, allowed movement within the field. “And I never stopped loving you,” she said. Ghost stayed there, hand in hers, breathing her in even though she had no scent, no warmth beyond what the chip allowed. It wasn’t a reunion. It wasn’t a miracle. But it was something. And for the first time in years, the space between them didn’t feel endless.