The garden didn't change overnight.
It still had weeds.
Cracked tiles.
A fountain that wheezed like an old man on a treadmill.
But now, it remembered.
And so did Anne.
It had been three months since the Collapse.
Since Kira's consciousness dissolved into the code of the project she created.
Since Anne and Javier woke up in the garden—no longer just a place of memory, but a sanctuary of truth.
"Let me get this straight," Javier said, flipping through Anne's leather notebook, "you're actually calling this thing I Told You Not to Fall for Me?"
Anne, seated under the twisted tree with a steaming mug of tea, didn't look up. "Why not? It's the most honest thing I've said since kindergarten."
"Kindergarten Anne also used to eat glue."
She smirked. "Still tasted better than half my relationships."
Javier grinned. "Fair."
In the weeks following their return, Anne had written everything—her sister's research, the simulations, the collapse, even the damn ant.
She painted the memories she thought were lost.
She rebuilt the studio that used to belong to Kira.
And when people asked where she'd been for a year, she told them:
> "Grieving. Remembering. Falling in love."
…Which, to be fair, sounded more normal than "I was inside a corrupted digital memory graveyard powered by guilt and sibling trauma, thanks for asking."
Javier stayed. Of course he did.
He joked about leaving—claimed he had "a guy who knew a guy who could get him a job in Canada selling maple-scented NFTs"—but every night, he fell asleep next to Anne in the little room behind the greenhouse. And every morning, he helped her replant something new.
He didn't always understand the pain, but he understood her.
And that was enough.
One chilly afternoon, as golden light spilled across the garden floor, Anne stood at the center of the clearing with a canvas in her arms.
The painting was simple.
A single black ant.
Walking across cracked stone.
Surrounded by dark, dreamy, gloom-bloom flowers.
It was the last painting.
The one Kira never finished.
Anne didn't say a word as she propped it up on the stone pedestal.
Didn't cry. Didn't laugh.
Just stared.
Until Javier walked up behind her and whispered, "You finished it."
"No," Anne said softly. "We did."
He looked at her.
She was stronger now.
Not the kind of strong that walks around with steel armor—but the kind that knows she can fall apart and still rebuild. The kind that remembered every shattered version of herself and didn't flinch.
He reached for her hand.
"Where do we go from here?"
She smiled.
> "Anywhere we want. I've got memories to make now—ones that don't glitch halfway through."
"And," Javier added, nudging her with his shoulder, "maybe you can finally tell people how I knew the ant story before you told me."
She chuckled. "You really want me to put that in the book?"
"I mean, I did carry your trauma like a USB stick. That deserves at least a dedication page."
Anne raised a brow. "So you want to be immortalized as 'the guy with unresolved trauma and emotionally suppressed jokes'?"
He grinned. "I'd take it."
They both turned to the painting one last time.
And then…
Anne whispered:
> "This time… let the version of me that loved you stay."
---
End of Final Chapter