The rain outside La Viña had stopped.
But inside the restaurant, silence reigned.
The candlelight hadn't returned. The lights still flickered—once, twice—and then held steady, but the air remained heavy, electric. Something was watching.
Aveline gripped the glowing pocket watch, her fingers trembling. Its soft pulse had dulled, but the damage had already been done.
Lucien stared at her.
His voice came low, wary. "Aveline. Tell me the truth. What is that?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Where could she even begin?
He leaned forward, his expression a mix of confusion and rising fear. "This isn't just about the journal, is it? You knew about Dr. K… you knew about the MRI. You said you didn't want to lose me again."
"I know how this sounds," she said. "But please. You have to trust me."
"Then say it," he demanded. "Say what you're not saying."
"I'm not from this time."
The words escaped her in a whisper—fragile, trembling, suspended in the space between them.
Lucien blinked.
"What?"
"I was sent back," she said. "Or… I wished myself back. I don't know how exactly. But five years from now, you—" Her voice cracked. "You die. And I couldn't live with that. I begged the universe, time, fate—anything—to give me a chance. And now I'm here. Back at the start. Trying to stop it."
She watched the disbelief spread across his face like a crack through glass.
"That's insane," he said finally. "That's not—people don't just… time travel."
"I know how it sounds," she repeated. "I wouldn't believe it either. But I remember things. Things I shouldn't. The journal entry. Your diagnosis. You pulling away. And then later, the treatments. The hospital. Watching you… fade. I lived it."
Lucien shook his head, the color draining from his face.
"This is a joke," he said. "This is some cruel—"
"It's not a joke."
"I don't even have symptoms. I feel fine."
"You did too, the first time," she said. "But you didn't tell anyone. Not even me. You kept it hidden for too long, and by the time you let me in—by the time you tried to fight—it was too late."
His hands curled into fists on the table.
"Stop," he said.
"Lucien—"
"Stop!"
He stood so abruptly his chair scraped backward across the floor, drawing glances from nearby tables.
"I don't know what this is," he said, voice shaking. "But I need air."
He walked out into the street without another word.
Aveline stood frozen in place. The world blurred around her. Dishes clattered. A couple laughed somewhere in the corner. A waiter apologized to a patron for the power flicker.
No one else had felt it.
No one but her.
And Lucien.
She looked down at the pocket watch. The glow had dimmed, but the ticking had grown faster.
As if time was running—not backward, but away.
Outside, under the streetlight
She found Lucien pacing.
The wind tousled his dark hair. His hands were deep in his coat pockets, shoulders hunched, as if trying to hold himself together.
She approached slowly. "Lucien…"
He didn't look at her. "I don't know if you're lying or if you believe this."
"I believe it," she said. "With everything in me."
He turned to her, eyes blazing. "Then you tell me. If I believe you—what does that make me? Some poor doomed man you pity enough to save? What if this isn't about me? What if this is just about you not being able to let go?"
She recoiled, like he'd struck her.
"That's not fair."
"No," he snapped. "It's not. But you're here telling me I'm already dead. How the hell am I supposed to react?"
She took a step closer, eyes stinging. "I didn't come back for pity. I came back because I loved you. Because I still do. Because losing you broke me in ways I didn't know a heart could break."
Lucien stared at her, breath shallow, chest rising and falling like a storm was trapped inside.
He didn't say anything.
So she added, softly, "I don't want to scare you. I want to save you."
"I don't know if I believe in time travel," he whispered. "But I believe you're hurting."
They stood like that in silence, beneath the glow of the streetlamp, with the rain beginning to fall again—soft, cold, relentless.
And from across the street, under the shadows of the bookstore awning, something watched them.
Not human. Not entirely real.
A flicker of a figure. Tall. Wrapped in black. Eyes like hollow clocks.
The Observer.
It tilted its head, fascinated.
"She's waking the past," it murmured to no one. "Pulling the thread. But does she truly understand what unravels when she does?"