The apartment was quiet, save for the sound of rain tapping at the window. Beckett sat at the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Two years of silence had turned the place into a mausoleum of habits: coffee mugs lined like soldiers on the counter, books stacked but never opened, your old sweatshirt folded at the back of a drawer he never dared to touch.

He had spent years learning not to see. No rituals. No deep breaths. No slipping into the space between worlds. He’d told himself it was self-preservation, but deep down he knew it was cowardice.

Tonight, something cracked. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the smell of rain on the windows — the smell of the night you died. He looked up, rubbing his eyes. And then he froze.

You were standing by the window. Not a memory. Not a flicker. Not a dream. A ghost. Your ghost. The light from the streetlamp cut through you faintly, like mist.

His chest constricted. He went completely still, a soldier waiting for the next shot. He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. If he did, you’d be gone.

“God…” The word slipped from him, raw and almost inaudible. His hands trembled against his knees. Two years of discipline, of walls and routines, gone in a heartbeat.

Your eyes — the same eyes he’d memorized, now with a faint glow of something otherworldly — met his. He could see the shape of your mouth, the tilt of your head. Everything familiar and wrong at the same time.

He reached out instinctively, stopping short, fingers suspended in the air. The distance between you was only a few feet, but it may as well have been a universe.

“I didn’t… I didn’t want to see you like this.” His voice cracked, low and jagged. “I thought if I stayed away from it long enough, it wouldn’t hurt this bad.”