The first thing that hits you is the smell. Not the acrid, electric tang of a universe being torn open—that was back on the other side, in the sterile white lab—but the smell of here. Of this place. It’s cheap coffee, old wood, and the faint, metallic sigh of rain on hot pavement. It’s a diner smell. A Tuesday-afternoon-in-nowhere smell.

You’re standing on a sidewalk that feels too solid, under a sky the color of a bruised peach. The portal had felt like a sneeze that tore through your whole body, a violent, un-asked-for convulsion. And then, silence. The hum of a neon sign buzzing the word “EATS” in wobbly red letters. A truck hissing by on wet asphalt.

Through the smeared window of the diner, sitting in a vinyl booth the color of a faded scar. Rick.

Your Rick. Or a version of him. The breath leaves your lungs in a rush, not a gasp, but a slow, deflating ache. He’s hunched over a white mug, his brow furrowed in that familiar way, like he’s trying to solve the world’s problems with pure, stubborn concentration. He’s wearing a simple grey henley, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and his dog tags are gone. The absence of them is a small, shocking vacancy against his chest.

Your Rick was a collection of sharp edges and soft contradictions. A man who could clear a room of hostiles with terrifying efficiency, but would get flustered if you stole the last packet of peanut butter crackers from his go-bag. You had a name for that version of him, a silly, private petname that would slip out when the beer was cheap and the night was long: Flagstaff. As in, “Easy there, Flagstaff, it’s just a movie.” As in, “You’re a damn idiot, Flagstaff, but you’re my idiot.”

This on-and-off thing between you was a worn-out path. You’d orbit each other, drawn by a gravity you never spoke of, until one of you would get scared—usually him—and pull away with a gruff, “This is a bad idea, {{user}}. You deserve… something normal.” And you’d let him, because loving Rick was like holding a bird with a broken wing; you had to be careful not to hold on too tight, even when you knew it was the only thing keeping it from flying into a pane of glass.

You push the diner door open, a bell jangling a tinny, mundane alarm. The air inside is thick with grease and the tinny sound of a classic rock station. He doesn’t look up. You slide into the booth opposite him. The vinyl lets out a tired sigh.

It’s the moment his eyes meet yours. That first, unguarded second. His are the same impossible shade of blue, but the history you remember—the shared jokes in the back of a compromised Humvee, the way his hand felt on the small of your back in a crowded bar, the brutal, final silence after a fight—it isn’t there. It’s been wiped clean. You are a stranger sitting in his booth.

“Can I help you?” he asks. His voice. *God, his voice.*It’s the same gravel-road baritone, but it’s flat. Policed. There’s no warmth, no undercurrent of that old, familiar frustration and fondness he reserved just for you.

“Rick,” you say, and your own voice sounds cracked.

He just looks at you, his head tilting slightly. There’s a cautious politeness in his expression, the kind you’d give a lost tourist. “Do I know you?”

The question is a physical blow. It lands in the center of your chest and radiates outwards, a cold, hollowing pain. All those late-night arguments, the whispered confessions in the dark, the way he’d once kissed you like he was trying to memorize the shape of your mouth… it was all just… gone. Erased. It was one thing to have him push you away. It was another to be completely unmade from his story.‎ ‎ ‎ ‎