There was a silence between them—long, awkward, weighty.
Amira stood in the doorway with a bottle of vitamins in one hand, staring at the man whose eyes looked like Rayan's but whose face bore the lines of grief and time.
She narrowed her eyes. "You're not… You can't be…"
Rayan's throat felt like it had closed up. His voice cracked as he tried to speak.
"I am," he whispered. "I'm you husband. From the future."
Amira took a small step back.
"That's not funny," she said.
"I know. It sounds insane. But I swear to you—it's real. I came back to… to fix things. To save you."
Her brow furrowed. "What are you talking about? Save me from what?"
He took a deep breath, trying to steady the tremble in his fingers. "You have a brain condition. It hasn't been diagnosed yet. It's slow, and silent, and… it's going to kill you."
Amira's expression shifted from confusion to disbelief. Then to something harder.
She folded her arms. "Why should I believe you?"
He didn't blame her. Who would believe a stranger claiming to be your future husband? But he reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out something she would recognize instantly—a faded, worn sketch.
A drawing of her sitting at the window with her tea.
Her eyes widened. "Where did you get that?"
"I kept it. After you died." His voice broke. "You never finished it. You used to sit by the window every morning, sketching the world… waiting for me to come home."
She looked at the drawing for a long moment, then up at him.
"…How long?"
He swallowed. "Ten years. You die in ten years."
Her eyes dimmed. "And you're trying to stop it?"
He nodded. "I developed a treatment. But it takes a year to work. I've already started giving it to you—hiding it in supplements and your tea. I didn't want to interfere too much… but now—now you've seen me, and I can't disappear again."
Her hands trembled. She stared at the bottle in her hand, as if seeing it for the first time.
"You really think I'm going to die?"
He closed the distance between them, slowly, afraid she might vanish if he moved too fast.
"You don't have to."
Tears welled in her eyes. "But if this is real… what about you? What happens if you stay here too long?"
He hesitated.
Amira saw it in his face before he spoke.
"You're dying, too," she whispered.
Rayan nodded slowly. "The more time I spend in the past… the more I lose. My cells are aging faster than they should. I'm not going to last long here. But I'd rather die early and know you'll live."
She looked like she was going to collapse.
He caught her gently.
"I just wanted to see you again," he said, pressing his forehead against hers. "Just once more."
Amira didn't let him go.
She took him into her apartment—into the life they once had. It was surreal for Rayan to sit on that old couch again, to see the plant she loved still alive and green. To smell the scent of her shampoo in the bathroom, to hear her humming in the kitchen.
She didn't ask too many questions that night.
He told her what he could.
About the future. About the night she died. About the moment he found her cold on the floor, alone, and how the silence in the room that day never left his soul.
Amira cried quietly.
She reached across the table and touched his hand.
"I would've waited a hundred years for you," she said. "But I didn't know how to ask for more time."
He squeezed her hand. "You won't have to."
For the next few weeks, Rayan stayed hidden in the past.
He lived in a rented room nearby, away from his younger self. Amira kept the secret. She saw her husband twice now—one man with fire in his eyes and dreams still untainted, the other aged by loss, carrying her memory like a wound that never healed.
At times, it felt like a dream.
At others, a countdown.
The cure was working—slowly. Rayan tracked her vitals in secret, took samples, adjusted doses. Every time she smiled, he felt like he'd stolen a piece of heaven.
But the cost was catching up.
He collapsed once in the street—vomiting blood. Another time in the shower, dizzy and weak. His fingers started to tremble. His hair turned almost completely white in weeks.
He kept the worst from her.
But she wasn't stupid.
She saw.
She noticed the way he walked slower, how his breath hitched after climbing stairs. How he stopped eating much. How he stopped sleeping altogether.
"You need to go back," she said one night. "You've done enough."
But he shook his head. "Not until I'm sure you're safe."
"What's the point of saving me if I lose you in return?"
He looked away. "That was always going to happen. I made peace with that when I stepped into the machine."
She sat beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"I don't want a world without you."
He said nothing.
They both knew he was running out of time.
One night, six months into his time in the past, Rayan woke up coughing blood again. This time, it wouldn't stop. He stumbled through the hallway, collapsed onto the kitchen floor, and for a moment—he thought this was it.
He lay there, staring up at the flickering light.
And then the door burst open.
Amira.
She screamed his name, rushing to his side, tears already falling.
"Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?!"
He smiled weakly, blood staining his teeth.
"I wanted to… to see you reach the end of the year."
She clutched him, holding him tightly.
"I don't want to lose you again."
"You won't," he whispered. "Not really."
She shook her head violently. "Don't say that—"
"I've saved you. I did what I came for." His voice was softer now, fragile. "You'll live. You'll have a future. Maybe… maybe tell my younger self to listen more. Love harder. Stay home once in a while."
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"I'll tell him everything."
He reached up with shaking fingers and touched her cheek.
"Thank you… for letting me see you one more time."
And with that, Rayan Lion—scientist, husband, and the man who bent time to see his wife again—closed his eyes.
And never opened them.
Amira buried him in a small grave near a quiet hill.
No one knew who he really was.
She told the world he was a distant cousin. A traveler. No one asked much more.
But every year, she visited the spot with fresh flowers and sat beside him, sketching.
The cure had worked.
She lived.
And in time, her younger husband grew to love her even better than before—guided by her mysterious warnings, her tearful embraces, her whispered prayers at night.
She never told him the whole story.
Not until he was old and gray.
Not until he was ready.
To be continue...