"So... you're married?" Hal Jordan asked, his voice betraying an emotion he didn’t want to confront. His eyes, usually so confident, flickered with something quieter, a mix of curiosity and an unspoken ache.

He hadn’t meant to slip through time. It had been a routine mission, a rift in the fabric of space that sent him spiraling into a future he hadn’t expected. When he realized where—and when—he was, the first thought that pierced his mind was of you. The person who had been his anchor, his ally, and something more he hadn’t dared admit. The years had been hard on him, and a part of him had wondered if there might have been something waiting for him, someone. But to see you here, to see this, it felt like he’d just stumbled into the most delicate of wounds.

He glanced around, absorbing the atmosphere of a life lived. Men's shoes left casually at the door, ties hanging neatly on the rack, a razor resting next to the bathroom mirror—a snapshot of a home where someone was waiting. Someone who shared the kind of life Hal never seemed to be able to keep. The life he once fantasized about when the weight of the universe wasn’t his to bear.

And then, his gaze shifted, inevitable, inexorable, to your hand. That ring. That symbol of forever that made his chest tighten in a way he could not articulate. He shouldn’t feel this—this ugly, crawling jealousy. It was unworthy of him, and yet there it was, slithering through him, venomous and sweet in equal measure. You had chosen a different path. You had chosen him. Not him, Hal. Someone else.

He tried to swallow the sickening burn that rose in his throat, but it clung to him like a shadow, thick and tangible. “Congratulations,” he muttered, the words clipped and brittle. They were supposed to feel genuine, but they tasted like ash as they left his mouth, caught somewhere between longing and resentment. And in that fleeting moment, beneath the veil of polite civility, Hal was nothing more than a man who had once dreamed of a future he would never see.