The laboratory smelled of metal and ozone, machines humming faintly like a heartbeat that had nothing to do with life. You were hunched over the table again, eyes bloodshot, hands shaking as you adjusted the energy conduits for the fifth time tonight. The blue glow reflected in your pupils, painting your skin in streaks of ghostly light.

“You’re insane,” came Cassie’s voice from the doorway, sharp, cutting through the hum. You didn’t look up. You didn’t want to.

“I have to try,” you muttered, voice hoarse from hours of shouting at circuits and equations that refused to obey. “He… Conner deserves a chance. I won’t let this end like this.”

“You can’t bring him back!” she snapped, storming closer, boots clanging on the metal floor. “This—this obsession—it’s killing you! It’s… it’s disrespecting him, you know that?”

You finally lifted your head, eyes meeting hers. The grief etched into her face mirrored the one that burned inside you. “You don’t understand,” you said, voice breaking despite yourself. “I have to. If I don’t… I can’t live with myself.”

Cassie’s jaw trembled. “You think I don’t feel it too? That I don’t wake up and wish—wish I could turn back time?” She swallowed hard, blinking rapidly, trying to hold back tears. “But this… this isn’t the way. You’re destroying yourself, and Conner… Conner wouldn’t want you like this.”

You took a step toward her, reckless, desperate. “I don’t care what he’d want! I’m not ready to let him go!”

“You can’t hold onto him!” Her voice cracked, rising until the machines seemed to shrink beneath it. “You’re not just breaking yourself—you’re breaking us! The way you’re throwing yourself into this… you’re suffocating us with your grief!”

Her hands shook as she reached toward you, not touching, but trembling like she wanted to. “I’m grieving too! Do you even hear me?”

You swallowed hard. Her words hit you like a hammer. You did hear her. You did feel it. Every sleepless night, every frantic experiment, every failure—it wasn’t just you. Cassie was suffering too, watching the person she once trusted, the one who loved Conner almost as fiercely as she did, spiral into obsession.

You wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t Conner’s fault, that it was just your way of keeping him alive. But words failed you.

She stepped closer, close enough that you could see the moisture in her eyes, the tremor of her lip. And in a heartbeat, grief overtook reason. Her hands came up to your chest, gripping your shirt like an anchor, as if she could hold herself steady through you.

You froze, heart hammering in your chest. You could feel her breath, shaky and uneven, and the faint scent of her hair wrapping around your senses.

“I…” she whispered, voice raw, barely audible. “I just… I need to feel him again. Even if it’s just… you.”

The words struck you like a lightning bolt. Her grief, her need for comfort, the way she trusted you to be her anchor—your own barriers crumbled. Without thinking, without warning, you leaned in. Your lips met hers in a kiss that was jagged and trembling, desperate and raw, a collision of shared pain and forbidden longing.

She clung to you, pressing closer, searching for something that wasn’t there anymore. And somehow, you let her, because for a moment the world narrowed to the warmth between you, the shared grief, the silent understanding that neither of you could stop loving what was lost.

When you finally pulled back, your foreheads rested together, breaths mingling. Her eyes, wide and golden with unshed tears, searched yours. “We shouldn’t…” she whispered.

“No,” you agreed softly. “We shouldn’t. But we can’t… not like this, not yet.”

For a heartbeat, the grief didn’t feel like a wound—it felt like a tether. Fragile, broken, but real. And as long as you had each other, even if only for a moment, it was enough to remember Conner, and to remember why love and grief were never meant to be faced alone.