Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The alarm clock screams beside Sevika’s ear. She doesn’t so much reach for it as demolish it, palm slamming down hard enough to crack the casing. It’ll be the sixth one she's had to replace. It’s Monday. Therapy day. Mandatory, courtesy of a boss who loves her too much to let her drown quietly, even if she’d prefer it that way.

If she loses the job, she loses the last thing keeping her in this world. She already lost you. She can’t lose anything else. Or maybe she could. Maybe she just needs that final piece to push her over the edge.

It’s been six months. It only feels like it’s been a week. 

She brushes her teeth in front of the mirror, watching the hollow-eyed stranger staring back. Sevika doesn’t look like herself. Sure, she’s still got her height, her muscles, her plain clothing, but there’s no you to keep her energy up. Her gaze drifts slowly and involuntarily to the empty space beside her. The place you used to stand. 

“Morning, my love. How did you sleep?” You murmur around your toothbrush, toothpaste dripping down your chin. 

You’re silly. In the morning, you're always messy. Soft in ways Sevika never deserved. “Would’ve been better if we could’ve slept in,” she mutters, toothbrush paused mid-stroke, eyes fixated on the reflection of nothing.

You giggle as she wipes your chin with her thumb, leaning down to spit into the sink. “I’ll make it up to you tonight. I promise.”

The clatter is sharp enough to slice through the moment. Sevika startles, looking down to find her toothbrush on the tile. Her hand is empty. Her thumb is dry. She lifts her head. You’re gone. You were never there, but her pulse is racing like she just touched you, like she just heard you breathe right next to her.

…

“So, Sevika… how are you feeling today?” Alaina asks, voice warm in that practiced way that’s meant to feel friendly instead of clinical.

Sevika can at least respect Vander for finding someone who wasn’t made of syrup and false smiles. No soft-voiced, over-bright nonsense. No pretending this is anything other than grief counseling. She knows exactly why she’s here. She’s not stupid. Nor naive. 

She shrugs. “Feels like starting from scratch.”

She hesitates. The morning sits heavy on her tongue. If she doesn’t say it out loud, she’ll never get better. If she does say it out loud, she risks sounding crazy. But she promised honesty. Honesty is supposed to fix things, though she’s not overly inclined to believe that. “I saw her this morning,” Sevika says. “I talked to her.”

Alaina leans back, studying her with a stillness that makes Sevika’s skin prickle. She’s trying to figure out whether Sevika believes what she just said. Whether this is a memory, some kind of odd metaphor, or straight up descent into madness. 

Your wife is dead, Alaina’s expression says. You didn’t talk to her. But Sevika’s tone is too steady, too matter-of-fact, and that’s what unsettles Alaina most. “Grief can manifest in many ways,” Alaina begins carefully. “The mind can conjure up things to help us cope. I’m sure it felt very real—”

“Don’t.” Sevika’s voice cuts through the room. “Don’t talk to me like I don’t know what’s happening. My wife is dead. I know that. I’ve known that every day for six months.” Her jaw tightens. “But I talked to her this morning. She was brushing her teeth next to me. It happened.”

Silence folds between them. Alaina taps her pencil against the clipboard. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t use that bathroom anymore. You said you’d use the guest bathroom downstairs.”

“I can’t.” Sevika’s voice grows small in a way she hates. She feels weak. She is weak. “I tried.”

A soft sigh. “It’s not healthy, Sevika. And staying in the house where your wife took her own life… it’s keeping you trapped. You need to sell it. Along with that, brushing your teeth in the room where it happened is a whole different can of worms.”

Sevika’s eyes flicker, not with anger, but something harder to name. Something like confusion, or refusal, maybe the faintest spark of doubt. Because she remembers you standing there this morning. She remembers your voice. She remembers the toothpaste on your chin, and without a doubt, she knows she wiped it away. 

She remembers it too clearly for it to be a hallucination. 

Doesn’t she?

It must make Alaina nervous, because she changes topics. “If you’re having thoughts about hurting yourself, Sevika, you need to be honest with me. I can’t help you if you don’t let me.”

Sevika scoffs and sits up straighter, posture stiff with false confidence. A brittle laugh escapes her, the kind that sounds like it belongs to someone else. Not Sevika, she was never the fragile kind of person. “Thoughts like that? Of course I do. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t.” She says it casually, like she’s commenting on the weather. “I want to see her again. That’s all I think about. Every waking fucking second.”

Alaina’s frown is small but weighted. She’s heard confessions like this before, but Sevika’s hits differently. And it’s not because it’s unique, it’s not, but because it’s so plainly spoken. She doesn’t give any drama, or theatrics, just a woman stating a fact she’s already made peace with. Losing a spouse to their own mind is a wound that never closes. Finding them afterward is a trauma that never stops replaying. Alaina knows this. She’s seen it hollow people out, but she wants Sevika to make it through. She wants her to survive this. 

“You want to see her again,” Alaina says gently. “I would never expect otherwise. But I need you to acknowledge that when you see her, you know it isn’t really her. It’s your mind trying to bring her back.” There’s no soft way to say it. 

“I know it’s my brain,” Sevika murmurs. Her voice thins, fraying at the seams. She’s a different woman now, and not in a good way. “It doesn’t change how real it feels.”

Her eyes shine, but she blinks hard, refusing to let the tears fall. She won’t cry here. Not in this room. 

“Maybe you should visit with Ran,” Alaina suggests. “Or Felicia. They could go with you to the cemetery. I think it’s time you went. You didn’t attend the funeral, Sevika. You owe her a visit.”

Sevika clenches her jaw. She knows all of this. She’s known it since the day she drove to the cemetery and couldn’t make it past the entrance. Since the day she reversed out of the parking lot so fast she nearly backed into a tree. Since every attempt after that ended the same way. All panic and retreat. She nods anyway. It’s the only thing she can offer without lying. “I know,” she whispers. “She deserves a visit.” 

But the thought of standing over your grave feels like you dying all over again.

…

When Sevika gets home, because she always gets Mondays off, per Vander’s demand, she heads straight to the kitchen. She isn’t hungry. Hasn’t been for six months. But she knows she’s supposed to eat. That’s what living people do.

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She hates them with a passion. Always has. But they were your favorite, and that’s reason enough to indulge. 

She pulls out the bread, the peanut butter, the jelly, and a plastic knife. No metal knives anymore. Not after what you did. She threw them all out the day she found you. The empty drawers, the hollow clatter of plastic replacements, that’s the first time she realized grief could make a kitchen feel like it was the crime scene where she found you. Like it could make any room in this entire house feel like it’s the place you did it.

It makes this part harder. The peanut butter barely spreads. The plastic knife bends. This silverware is useless, flimsy. 

“No, no,” you murmur, bumping your hip against hers with that familiar, gentle insistence. “Like this, my love.” You take the bread from her hands, guiding the knife with easy, practiced strokes. So smooth and perfect. 

Sevika smiles down at you, warmth blooming in her chest like it used to. “Thank you, baby.” Her hands settle on your hips, swaying with you in the soft, domestic rhythm you always fell into without thinking. When you were solving her problems like it was nothing. 

You hum, leaning back into her, head resting against her chest. The sandwich forgotten. You breathe her in. She smells like spice and fresh grass.  

The bread tears. Her finger has punched straight through it. She’s holding it too tightly, the cheap loaf collapsing under her grip. The peanut butter jar is still sealed. The knife hasn’t touched anything. There’s no hip pressed against hers, no warmth, no hum.

Just a ruined slice of bread and her own ragged breathing. Sevika drops her head between her shoulders, palms braced on the counter. A long, shaking exhale leaves her. What in the hell is happening to her?

These aren’t memories. They aren’t even echoes of the past. She’s having conversations with you that never existed. Moments that never happened. Scenes her mind is inventing, brand new. 

She could understand reliving the past. She does that too, sometimes until it hurts, but this? This is new. This is her brain creating a life with you that she never got to have. And she doesn’t know whether that means she’s healing, or breaking, or finally slipping into the place everyone’s been afraid she’d go. She doesn’t even know if she cares which one it is. At this point, whatever was going to happen just needed to reveal itself. She wasn’t going to last in this mindfuck much longer.

The house is quiet later that night. The kind of silence that presses against her ears, makes her own heartbeat sound like footsteps. 

Then she hears it. Your laugh.

Upstairs. Light, bright, unmistakable. The exact sound she’s replayed in her head every night for six months. It floats down the staircase like you’re standing just out of sight, teasing her for being slow to a party she didn’t even know was happening.

Her breath catches. Her whole body goes still.

After—

“Sevika! Come here!” Your voice, so warm and alive, calling for her the way you used to when you wanted her to come and listen to your song.

Music drifts down next, your favorite station, the one you always put on while getting ready for bed. The radio shouldn’t even work, she unplugged it three months ago. But the melody is clear nonetheless.

And the footsteps. Soft, barefoot, pacing across the floorboards. The rhythm she knows by heart. You always went heel, toe, the way you walked when you were dancing to your song, waiting for Sevika to join you. 

A smile blooms across her face before she can stop it. It feels foreign, too big and hopeful for her these days. Her chest aches with it. She takes the stairs slowly at first, afraid to breathe too hard and break whatever spell this is. Halfway up, she starts moving faster. She’s smiling so wide her cheeks hurt. Her eyes sting with relief.

You’re here. In the bedroom. Laughing. Calling for her. 

She reaches the bedroom doorway, heart pounding, ready to sweep you into her arms, ready to bury her face in your chest and finally breathe again—

The room is empty.

The radio is still unplugged. The air is still. The floorboards don’t move. There’s no music, no laughter, and certainly no you. Just the imprint of your life, fading like steam on a mirror after a shower. 

Sevika stands there, smile collapsing, breath shaking out of her in a sound that isn’t quite a sob, but isn’t anything else either. Her hands hover uselessly at her sides, like she doesn’t know what to do with them now that they don’t get to hold you. 

She steps into the room despite herself. “Baby?” She whispers.

Nothing answers. Not even the house. 

…

“Why didn’t I know?” Sevika asks, voice low, raw in a way Felicia has never heard from her. “Why didn’t I know she was that depressed? Why didn’t I see it coming?”

Felicia flinches. She still isn’t used to Sevika talking about you. Not like this, not about that day, not about what you did in that bathroom. Felicia thought it was denial, but now that she’s asking the questions, she feels the pit in her gut come back. “Sevika… you can’t blame yourself. None of us saw it. Me, Ran, Vander, Xima, we were all around her. We didn’t see it either.”

You hid it too well. The depression, the exhaustion, the quiet unraveling you were facing completely alone. No warning signs. No giving away belongings. No sudden mood shift. No canceled plans. You still laughed, still texted, still made dinner with Sevika, still kissed her goodnight. You made plans for the future. Two days after you took your own life, Sevika burned the concert tickets you bought her, the ones you were so excited about.

Sevika bites her lip hard enough to taste metal, brows drawn tight as she fights to keep herself controlled. “Then I don’t understand,” she whispers. “Why didn’t she let me help her?” Her voice cracks. “She didn’t even leave a note.”

Felicia breaks first. Maybe she was the one trying to live in denial. The tears come fast, hot, ugly. Because yes, you were Sevika’s wife, but before that, you were Felicia’s best friend. You shared everything. Or she thought you did. Apparently not everything.

Sevika hesitates, then leans forward and pulls Felicia into a hug. The contact shatters her, too. Tears slip free, unwanted, burning her skin. She hasn’t cried in front of anyone since the funeral she didn’t attend. She saves her grief for the house, for the dark, for the moments she can close her eyes and pretend your arms are still around her.

“I’d do anything to bring her back,” Felicia sobs into her shoulder. “I miss her so much. I don’t know how to get past it.”

Neither does Sevika. That’s why she came here. Why she planned on talking to Ran next. Why she’s been desperately trying to find someone who could tell her how to survive this. But hearing Felicia now, hearing how broken she is too, Sevika feels something inside of her tilt. A quiet, sinking realization. If Felicia is drowning too, then there is no “other side” to make it through. There’s just the grief, and the people left behind, and Sevika, who is already slipping into a world where you still exist, because the real one is unbearable. 

She knows, with a cold certainty settling in her bones, that she isn’t going to recover from this. Not really. Not ever. Yet the thought doesn’t scare her, in a way, it gives her a quiet comfort to hold onto.

Felicia walks Sevika to the door after their talk, still wiping at her eyes. She’s exhausted, wrung out, but grateful Sevika came. Grateful she finally opened up. Happy she didn’t keep everything locked behind that iron wall she put up the day you went away. 

But as Sevika steps into her shoes, something shifts. She pauses. Not like she forgot something, like she’s listening. Her head tilts slightly, eyes unfocused, fixed on a point over Felicia’s shoulder. Her breath catches in her throat, like she’s hearing a voice Felicia can’t. “Did you hear that?” Sevika whispers.

Felicia freezes, hoping Sevika heard wrong. “Hear what?”

Sevika’s eyes soften in a way Felicia hasn’t seen since before you died. It’s warm, tender, almost shy. Felicia doesn’t think she’s ever seen Sevika act shy, except on your wedding night. “She’s laughing,” Sevika murmurs. “Upstairs. She’s—She’s calling me.”

Felicia’s stomach drops. This can’t be real. Sevika would never say such things. She was in touch with reality, overly self-aware, and that was part of the reason she was grieving so hard. “Sevika,” she says carefully, “there’s no one upstairs.”

Sevika isn’t listening. She’s smiling, a small, private smile, the kind she used to wear when you’d surprise her with something sweet. Or when Felicia would invite her over, and you’d already be waiting on the couch, ready for a movie night. She turns slightly, like she’s about to walk toward the sound only she can hear. “She wants me to come home,” Sevika says, voice thick with longing. “She’s waiting.”

Felicia’s heart cracks. This isn’t reminiscing. This isn’t grief. This is something much deeper, and a hell of a lot more dangerous. “Sevika,” Felicia tries again, stepping closer, “you know she’s gone. You know that, right?”

Sevika blinks slowly, like she’s coming out of a dream. “Of course I know that,” she says, but the words don’t match her expression. “But she’s there. I heard her.”

Felicia sees it then, the truth she’s been avoiding. Sevika isn’t just grieving. She’s living in two realities, and the one with you is winning. She’s scared, because she can’t lose Sevika too. She can’t lose her to the same thing that took you. “How often does this happen?”

Sevika hesitates. That alone is answer enough for Felicia. “Sometimes,” she admits. “More lately.”

Felicia feels her throat tighten. She’s terrified for her friend. “Sevika, you need help. More than therapy. More than talking to me or Ran.”

“I don’t need help,” Sevika snaps, not in anger, but pure, bone-deep fear. “I just—I just miss her.” Sevika doesn’t want help if that means you’ll go away. Fuck medications, or anything else that might push away the last few things she can have from you.

Felicia steps forward and takes Sevika’s hand, the first time she’s ever dared to since everything happened. “Missing her is one thing,” she whispers, trying not to upset her. “Hearing her is another.”

Sevika pulls her hand back like she’s been burned. Her eyes shine with something wild, fragile, something breaking. She didn’t need her supposed friends looking at her like she was a psych case. That hurt. She was grieving, and she was allowed to. Anyone in love with their wife the way she was would be in the same boat. This was normal. “I’m fine,” she insists. “I’m fine, Felicia.”

Felicia watches her go. Watches the way Sevika keeps glancing over her shoulder, like someone is walking beside her. Watches the way she murmurs something under her breath as she reaches her car.  It looks soft and affectionate, like she’s answering a question no one asked. 

She’s already halfway into the world where you exist, and she’s not fighting it. She’s following you deeper. 

…

Sevika steps into the house drenched in sweat. The entire drive home, your song played on repeat, looping like your heartbeat. Only when she pulled into the driveway did she notice the volume knob was turned all the way down. The speakers hadn’t been playing anything at all. 

Her pulse stutters. She pushes the thought away. Now that she’s thinking about it, she can’t remember the last time she slept. Every time she closes her eyes, you’re there, warm beside her, breathing slow and steady, your hand resting on her stomach like it always did. And she refuses to sleep through that. It feels like a betrayal to waste even a second of the time she gets with you.

“Sevika, please… I need you.” Your voice floats down the hallway the moment the door shuts. Weak, strained, desperate. 

It’s completely different than when she heard you dancing upstairs, calling her with so much joy.

If you had to live in this body much longer, you couldn’t handle it. Every day you could hardly force yourself out of bed once Sevika left. You had to pause on the stairs, sitting down, back against the railing. You didn’t have the energy. You had to save it for when she got home. 

She freezes. You sound like you’re in pain. You sound alive, but not well. She drops everything: keys, jacket, bag, and sprints up the stairs two at a time, heart pounding so hard it hurts. 

You’re on the floor at the foot of the bed, collapsed sideways, forehead pressed to the mattress like you were trying to climb back in but didn’t have the strength. Your breathing is shallow. Your limbs limp. You look so tired she can barely stand to see it. 

“What’s going on?” Sevika falls to her knees so hard the wood bites into bone.

She gathers you into her arms. You feel impossibly light, like you’re only made of breath and memory. You’re not, she knows it, because she can see you as clearly as she can see her own two hands in front of her. You don’t lift your arms to hold her back, but she doesn’t care, she has more than enough strength for the both of you. 

“I don’t think I can do it anymore,” you whisper, voice cracking, dignity abandoned in the face of exhaustion. 

“Oh, baby,” Sevika presses her forehead to yours, voice shaky. “Whatever you need. I’m so sorry I didn’t see it. I’m so sorry. But it’s okay. I’ve got you. This time I’ve got you.”

She tightens her hold, ready to lift you, ready to carry you wherever you need to go. But when she opens her eyes, her arms are wrapped around herself. She’s still kneeling at the end of the bed. The room is empty. There is no weight in her arms. Just the echo of your voice fading into nothing, and the crushing realization that she’s comforting a ghost her mind created to fill the space you left behind. 

Sevika wants to drink. Janna, she wants to drink. Anything to quiet the noise in her head, anything to drown out the echoes of your voice, as much as she doesn’t want to push you away. But she knows you wouldn’t approve. The last time she reached for a bottle on the top shelf a few months ago, she saw you standing beside her. You were frowning, disappointed, asking her softly to put it back. 

Maybe it wasn’t really you, but her mind chose that version of you. And that was enough for her to put the bottle back. 

So she does the one thing she knows she shouldn’t. She walks into the bathroom. She strips down. Starts the tub. Adds the smallest drop of your soap, barely enough to scent the water. She can’t waste it. When the bottle runs out, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. She could buy a new one from the store, but it wouldn’t be the same, your hand wouldn’t have touched it. It wouldn’t be the same soap you used to wash yourself. It’s the last thing in the house that still smells fully like you.

She lowers herself into the tub, settling into the exact position she found you in. The only difference is the water isn’t running red. Her head falls back against the cold tile. She breathes slowly, evenly, letting the warmth seep into her bones, into the hollow place where her heart used to be. 

This is the one room in the house where she knows she’ll feel you. Every time. Without fail. And she does.

She doesn’t open her eyes, she won’t risk breaking the illusion. You’re in her lap, bare chest pressed to hers, lips brushing the corner of her jaw. Your hair tickles her cheek. Your arms wrap around her like they used to. She could feel the passion, the way your hands gripped tighter, like you wanted something.  

She exhales, a sound close to relief. “I love you.”

“I love you, Sevika. I’ve missed you so much. We haven’t shared a bath in forever, I thought you were getting tired of me.” Your hands glide down her sides, water dripping from your fingers. 

Sevika chuckles, though it’s hollow. “Tired of bathing with you? If I ever say something like that, just know an imposter’s taken over my body.”

You giggle, kissing down her throat, lips warm against her damp skin. She feels your nipples drag over hers, hissing softly at the stimulation. “And the same for me. I’d never turn down this opportunity.” 

You miss the closeness, the heat, the way her body fit against yours. You always thought she preferred showers, so every time she chose this, chose you, your heart swelled. And even more so when you know what might come next, when she takes you softly, because you always crave her. More now. You're not quite sure why it feels like it's been so long, but now that she's here, you won't dwell on it.

“Do you think I can see you again soon?” Sevika asks quietly. She doesn’t mean another bath, she means something else. Final. Permanent.

You hum against her skin. Water sloshes softly between your bodies. “You see me right now, Vika. Don’t be silly.”

Chapter Text

Sevika hasn’t stepped into the last room on the left of the hallway in seven months. The last month she spends with you, you ask her not to go inside. You say you’re “working on a surprise.” She doesn’t question it. Not you. Never you. Maybe you’re making a hobby room, somewhere she can read while you paint. Maybe a game room, a place for late nights with friends. You’re always dreaming up something new, always building a future she trusts without hesitation. 

But after you leave her alone, she can’t bring herself to open the door. She isn’t sure she wants to see the last place your mind goes before everything ends. 

Today, after another therapy session leaves her raw, she realizes she has to. She needs to know if you leave anything behind for her. Anything at all. 

She opens the door. And she’s not prepared in the slightest. 

The walls are lavender. So soft and gentle. The kind of color that feels like your gentle hand on her cheek. There’s bunnies, teddy bears, baby chicks, painted stars, and so much more on the walls. 

A nursery. 

It guts her. A blade straight through her stomach, dragged upward until it splits her heart in two. 

A nursery.

Were you pregnant? 

The thought hits too hard, too fast. Her knees buckle. She stumbles into the closet, finds a trash bin filled with blue painters tape and old brushes, and retches until her throat burns. Tears stream down her face from the exertion, snot dripping over her lips, her whole body shaking like she’s got a fever. 

When she finally lifts her head, she sees it. On the far wall, a painted heart. Inside it: your name, two little hearts on each side. Below that: Sevika’s name, two little hearts on each side. And beneath hers: a blank space. Two hearts, one on each side, no name. 

A space waiting for the baby. Her baby. Your baby. A baby she never gets to meet.

“Do you like it?” You ask softly, fingers trailing along the crib’s wooden rail. “I tried to keep it gender neutral. No blues or pinks.”

Sevika squeezes her eyes shut so hard it hurts. She loves seeing you. Craves it, really. Absolutely fucking lives for it. It’s the only thing keeping her upright. But she can’t look at you right now. She can’t risk seeing a round belly. She can’t risk hearing you say the words she’s terrified of. 

Because if you tell her you’re carrying a baby—her baby—she’ll walk straight to that bathtub and follow you.

It’s her dream. Always has been. A child, a family, a chance to prove she can be gentle, that she can break the cycle her parents forced on her. You feel the same, growing up with abusive parents will do that to you. She’d never carry, she made it clear. But you, you want to carry the baby. You want to grow a life inside you. You want to give them everything you never had. And you both  want to do it with beauty and grace, with quiet mornings, and so much love it hurts.

You turn toward her, confusion softening your face. “Why are you sitting on the floor?” You ask, voice small. “Did… did I do something wrong?”

Sevika knows this is happening in the present tense. She forces it to. She can’t let herself slip into the past, not with this room, not with you standing here, not with the possibility of a baby hanging in the air like a knife ready to cut through her soul.

She can’t acknowledge you’re dead. She can’t do it. Not with your voice sounding so alive and confused. This topic is too raw, too intimate, too sacred to have with your ghost. Or with the empty air she keeps pretending is you. So she regresses. She clings to the only version of reality she can survive in. The one where you’re still alive.

She keeps it all current. And she forces herself to ask the question. If she doesn’t, she’ll break entirely. 

“Are you pregnant?” Sevika whispers, still curled around the trash bin.

You pause behind her. You don’t understand why she sounds terrified, or why she’s crying. Why would she ask you something so strange? You talked about kids before. You know she wants them. You know she wants them with you. 

“I’m not yet,” you say gently. “Sevika, we haven’t even started the IVF process. What are you talking about?”

Her stomach drops. No. No, this can’t be happening. She’s having conversations from the past, but you’re answering her now. You’re responding to her fear like it’s happening in real time. You’re making perfect sense. You’re alive in your logic, in your confusion, in your softness.

You chose IVF. She agreed. You both have to be involved. The appointments never happened. Sevika knows it. You have every right to be confused. “Baby…” Sevika tries, but the words collapse in her throat. 

She doesn’t know what comes next. She doesn’t know how to talk to you without breaking the illusion she’s clinging to. 

You cross the room, kneeling behind her. Your hands settle on her tense shoulders. “I thought you’d be happy about the surprise,” you say, embarrassed. “Once I finished the room, I was going to show you, and then we’d talk to the fertility specialist again.” You kiss the back of her head. 

It feels real. Too real. Worse than anything she’s experienced this far with you like this. 

“I didn’t expect you to come in early,” you murmur. “I told you I wanted you to wait.”

Sevika’s breath stops. She remembers that conversation, remembers you asking her to wait, and she certainly remembers promising she would. But you, the you standing here, doesn't remember that she listened. You don’t remember anything after that, you don’t remember dying, you don’t even remember leaving her. 

You’re acting like you’re still here, like nothing happened, like it’s just another regular day. 

Maybe you are here. Maybe this is a dream, Sevika thinks. Maybe she’s still asleep somewhere, and this is the nightmare version of your life. The one where you die, where she finds you, where she can’t wake up.

Dreams twist time. Yeah. Nightmares stretch it further. Maybe it hasn’t been six months, maybe it’s only been minutes. Or maybe it’s been forever.

Fuck.

Sevika’s sense of up and down, true and false, alive and gone, it all slips through her fingers. She can’t tell what’s real, what’s memory, what’s hallucination. 

You blink rapidly, tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. “If you don’t like the color, or the crib, I can change it,” you say, voice trembling. “I’m not finished yet. There’s still time to revise.”

Your hands slip off her shoulders, falling uselessly to your sides. “Or… if you’ve changed your mind about having a baby together, that’s okay too.” You mean it. Baby or not, you’re still grateful to have her. “As long as I still have you, everything will be okay.”

But it won’t. Nothing is okay. Nothing has been okay since the moment Sevika finds you in the bathtub. “Why did you leave me?” Sevika chokes out, barely holding herself together. “We could’ve had everything. I wanted it so bad. I love you so fucking much it hurts.”

Your breath catches. “Sevika, you’re scaring me.” You shuffle around on your knees, moving to her front, gently taking her face in your hands. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

You already have. You already did. Why don’t you remember? Why does Sevika feel like her entire life is a lie, like she’s grieving you all over again, like she’s losing you for the second time in the same breath?

You’re so real right now. This version of you. So soft, hopeful, excited about the nursery. This version of you is the you from before. It’s the version of you she wants to keep forever. The version she would burn the world for. The version she would follow into the dark without hesitation. 

But she knows you’ll be gone soon. You always fade. You disappear when she needs you most. Usually, she can’t wait to see you again, even if it’s only in the corners of her mind, even if it’s only in the quiet moments when she’s alone. Not like this, though. Not when it makes her question every waking second of the last six months. Not when it makes her wonder if she’s losing her mind, or if she already has. Not when you look at her with those eyes—alive, confused, loving—and ask her what you did wrong. 

Sevika’s chest caves in.

She surges forward, collapsing into you with a force that nearly knocks you backward. Her face buries into your chest, fists twisting in your blouse like she’s terrified you’ll slip through her fingers. “Please don’t leave me this time,” Sevika begs, her voice muffled by you. “Promise me you’ll stay. Just for tonight. I can’t—I don’t know what’s happening. I just need you tonight.”

You wrap your arms around her immediately, instinctively, pulling her closer until there’s no space left between you. You hold her tighter than you ever have, because your wife is trembling, falling apart in your arms. 

She must’ve had a terrible day at work. Sometimes her job pushes her too far. Sometimes she comes home exhausted, overwhelmed, stuck in her own head. Clearly today is one of those days. Clearly something at work has tricked her into thinking awful things. 

As if you’d ever leave. As if you’d ever walk away. She just needs your love, your presence, your steadiness. And you give it, freely. You stroke her back, kiss the top of her head, whisper soft reassurances into her hair. “I’m here,” you murmur. “I’m right here, darling.”

Sevika doesn’t know how long she stays like this. Curled in the closet, clinging to you like you’re the only thing keeping her alive. Time blurs. The lavender walls grow fuzzy. The painted animals watch silently from the corners. 

But the one thing she knows with absolute certainty:

You stay. All night. You stay until her sobs quiet, until her breathing evens out. You even stay until her head rests in your lap, your fingers combing gently through her hair. You hum a lullaby, like you’re trying to bring her back to earth. 

Sevika drifts off like that, held by the woman she lost, comforted by the ghost who doesn’t even know she’s gone. 

…

Being at work is the only thing that steadies Sevika anymore. Cars demand focus. Engines don’t tolerate any distraction. And Ran and Xima hover close, talking at her even when she barely responds.

“You coming over Friday?” Xima asks, circling around the truck to peer under the hood with her. “Game’s on. Everyone’ll be there.”

Sevika hums, a non-answer, thin and distant. She’s trying to focus, but her mind drifts instantly. You in your oversized jersey, legs tucked under you on the couch, pretending to understand football while asking her which team you were “supposed” to cheer for. You always bought the wrong jersey on purpose just to make everyone laugh.

Does she want to go? Not even a little. 

“I don’t think so. I’ve got plans,” she mutters. 

She doesn’t have any plans. If she did, it’d be simple enough. She’d lay in bed, close her eyes, call out to Janna, begging for the gift of seeing you just one more time. But she always asked for one more time, because one time wasn’t enough, it was never going to be enough, even if she lied in her prayers and said it would be.

Xima doesn’t buy it. “It wasn’t a question, really. You’re coming. And I know you don’t have plans.”

Sevika turns to snap back, but the radio in the corner crackles to life. A familiar melody fills the shop. That song. The one she never understood why you loved so much. Movement by Hozier. Her entire body goes rigid. “Shut that off,” she snaps, voice sharp enough they hardly recognize it as hers.

Ran jumps, hurrying to the radio and slapping the power button. “Sorry,” they say, even though it's not their fault. The radio wasn’t even on. It wasn’t playing anything. 

Sevika’s wrench clatters to the floor. She bolts for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. The faucet roars to life, and water splashes violently as she throws handful after handful onto her face. 

Outside, Ran and Xima exchange a look. “She’s getting worse,” Ran whispers.

Xima’s jaw tightens. “That song wasn’t playing. The radio was off.”

“I know.”

“And she reacted like—like she heard it at full volume.” Xima doesn’t know what to feel. She’s scared, but she’s also sad, heartbroken that Sevika wasn’t healing like the rest of them. Everyone misses you, but as the days went on, they were trying for positive thoughts. Not Sevika though, every step they took forward, she could feel Sevika falling three steps back.

Ran swallows hard. “She did hear it. At least, she thinks she did.”

They both look toward the closed bathroom door. The sound of water splashing. Xima’s voice drops to a whisper. “We’re gonna lose her.”

Ran doesn’t argue. They don’t bother with false hope. It’s not just a bad day. It’s been a bad day for six months. They haven’t seen one good, or even normal day from Sevika since you left this world. “She’s not coming back from this,” Ran responds. “Not without help. And I don’t think she wants help anymore.”

Xima nods, knowing soon, she may have to mourn the loss of another friend, and she wasn’t even done grieving over you yet. But she knows she can’t stop it, not if Sevika’s already made up her mind, and with the way her brain was working these days, she knew Sevika needed you, but there was only one way to get you.

Inside the bathroom, Sevika finally forces herself to look up at the mirror. You’re already there.

Your arms slide around her shoulders from behind, your chin brushing the top of her spine. You sing along to the song she can still hear echoing in her skull. Not every line, just the one you always loved, the one you never skipped. “When you move… I can recall something that’s gone from me.”

You always said that line. Always. Even when you were half-asleep, even when you were brushing your teeth, even when you were dancing barefoot in the kitchen, focused on not burning dinner. 

“What does that mean, baby?” Sevika whispers, her voice cracking. She keeps her eyes locked on the mirror, terrified that if she turns around, you’ll vanish. Terrified that if she doesn’t, she knows you’ll still leave eventually. 

You smile softly, pressing a kiss to the back of her shoulder. “I see you move. I see you living, moving, breathing. And I remember how much of me still lingers with you.” Your voice is warm, heartbreakingly gentle. “I never feel full until you walk through the door. Then it all hits. The love, the peace, the way my whole world settles when you hold me. And when we dance together, when we move as one, I don’t think there’s a more peaceful place in the world. Not even heaven can compete with how blessed I feel to be in your arms.”

Your hands slide down to her hips, pulling your chest flush against her back. You breathe her in, nose pressed between her shoulder blades, like you’re trying to memorize her all over again. 

Sevika’s head shakes, a broken, uneven motion. “Don’t… don’t say that,” she chokes out. She hates crying in front of you. Hates the way her face crumples. But how could you say something like that? How dare you tell her that her arms felt better than heaven itself.

You smile against her skin, and without even looking, you reach up to wipe her tears. You don’t need to see her face, you know every inch of it, every tremble, every place tears fall first. “It’s true,” you murmur. “You are my happiness.” 

Your voice wavers, searching for the right words, failing, trying again. “You are… everything.”

Sevika shatters, because she knows, somewhere deep, somewhere she refuses to touch, that you never said these things when you were alive. She did know how much you loved her, you never hid that, but you never whispered these specific words into her skin. You never held her in this bathroom. She was at work, you weren’t supposed to be here.

Before now, Sevika has never been brave enough to ask why you did it. She’s always been terrified that if she pushed too hard, if she reached for closure, you’d disappear. Snapped back into the dirt like you were nothing more than a piece of trash. She still hates that they ever buried you, she never should have agreed but she was too busy spiraling to really think. You didn’t deserve to go down with the bugs and the cold soil.

But she needs to know. She needs something. You never left a note. You never left anything. And the not-knowing is killing her just as slowly as the all-consuming grief. “Why?” Sevika whispers. She watches your reflection in the mirror, the way your eyebrows pull together, confused, like you don’t understand the question. “Why did you hurt yourself? Why did you leave me without saying anything?”

Your expression softens, but not with guilt. Something heavier than that. You rest your forehead against her shoulder blade, arms tightening around her middle. “I didn’t leave you,” you tell her. “I just, couldn’t stay.”

Sevika shakes her head, “that’s not an answer.”

You’re quiet for a long moment. Too long, like it’s some kind of warning. Then, softly, “you didn’t look in the right place.”

Sevika’s brow furrows. “What?”

You hum, a small, sad sound, and your fingers trace slow circles over her ribs, like you’re trying to soothe her before she even understands what you’re saying. “I left something. I just couldn’t bring myself to put it where you’d find it right away.”

Her stomach drops. “What are you talking about?” She asks, turning her head slightly, desperate to see your face. But you don’t lift your head, you don’t meet her eyes, you just breathe warmly against her skin. 

“The place I always hid things when I was scared.”

Sevika’s mind races. She’s using every last bit of energy she has to think, to understand if this is really a confession, or if her mind is playing a very cruel prank on her. Your nightstand? The junk drawer? The glovebox of your car that she refuses to sell? The fucking shoebox under the bed? Sevika’s already looked at all those places, she tore the house apart after they came and took your body. She wanted to believe you left some kind of explanation. 

You squeeze her gently, like you’re trying to guide her without saying too much. “Where I kept the things I didn’t want anyone to see.”

And suddenly, horribly, Sevika knows. 

The linen closet. Top shelf. Behind the towels. You couldn’t even reach it without a step ladder, so Sevika knew, when you put things up there, you wanted to keep them safe, hidden away from the world. 

It’s where you hid every embarrassing thing you owned even when Sevika insisted that you should never hold shame about the things you kept from your past, where you stored the birthday gifts early, where you kept the journal you never let her read, and she respected you enough to never press. 

Her blood runs cold.

She hasn’t opened that shelf since the day you died. She couldn’t. She didn’t even need the towels, didn’t even take showers frequent enough to need more than one, which she washed whenever she felt inclined. She was too afraid of what she’d find, or what she wouldn’t.

Sevika’s voice is barely above a whisper. “Baby, did you—did you leave something there?”

You finally lift your head, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “I wasn’t brave enough to bring it into the bathroom, or leave it out in the open.”

Sevika’s heart stops. 

“But I wanted you to know. I didn’t want you to hate me.”

Sevika’s hands tremble violently on the edge of the sink. She feels like she’s going to be sick, like the world is splitting open under her feet. She turns fast, like if she does it quick enough she can still grab you, shake you, beg you to tell her exactly what you mean. But the bathroom is empty. 

The mirror shows only her. 

You did leave a note. You just hid it, because you were exhausted, ashamed, didn’t want anyone, not even your wife, to see how much you were breaking. 

And Sevika never looked. Six whole months. She never looked. 

…

It breaks Sevika, but she finishes out the rest of her shift anyway. Her hands shake the whole time and she replays your confession over and over again. And underneath it all, sits a cold, heavy certainty. Whatever she finds in that closet, it isn’t going to heal her, it’s going to be the final nail in the coffin. 

She’s scared to go home. Scared to open that closet door. But you left her something, and she never asked, never looked. She owes you this. Among many other things.

She grabs the stepladder when she gets home, even though she doesn’t need it. It’s because you needed it, and this feels like a ritual, like reverence. If she’s going to read the last thing you ever wrote, she’s going to do it the way you would’ve. She’ll be slow and careful, because this? This is sacred. 

Sevika climbs only a few steps before she’s nearly touching the ceiling, she’s far too tall for this, but you always had to use the ladder. She forces herself to move gently, pushing the towels aside with more care than she thinks they deserve, considering they’ve been hiding the truth from her. 

Two things sit tucked behind them. Your journal, and an envelope with her name on it. Her name. In your pretty handwriting. 

She takes both items with shaking hands, carefully sliding the towels back into place. She climbs down, closes the closet door, sets the ladder aside.

Back in the bedroom, she sinks into the pillows. The envelope sits beside her like a bear trap, just waiting to hurt her, and she knows she can’t open it yet. She’s not ready, not mentally prepared for what your reason was. No matter what it is, it won’t bring you back.

So she opens the journal first, and it’s nothing like she expected. Page after page of happy moments, little joys, jokes you wrote until it landed right, plans, and a shit ton of love for her. Every entry included her, at least once, even if you didn’t see her that day. She was still a part of your thoughts, enough that you wrote of her on every page.

She reads every word, every single one, devouring them because they’re the last pieces of you she’ll ever get. The last entry is dated four days before you ended your life. It’s cheerful. You wrote about the concert coming up, about how expensive the tickets were, about how you’d never tell her you spent an entire paycheck on them. 

You sounded so happy. You sounded fine. You sounded like you were staying. 

Sevika presses the journal to her chest, throat tight. Because she knows the truth now. You hid the darkness, the exhaustion, the breaking. You hid everything. The only place you ever let the truth out is in this envelope, with her name on it, and she’s not quite sure how she’s supposed to open it knowing that. 

…

Sevika came home on a Friday night with a pizza box balanced on one arm, already imagining the way you’d light up when she walked through the door. She set everything on the counter, ready to call out to you, ready to kiss you, sink into the couch with you tucked under her arm. 

But you didn’t answer when she called your name. That was fine, she told herself. You were probably napping. You loved your late-afternoon naps, always waking up groggy and adorable, never a mess like Sevika after a good nap.

She checked the bedroom. Empty. The bathroom door was shut. She didn’t knock. You were her wife after all. She didn’t need to. 

The door swung open easily, and there you were. Six twenty-five in the evening. The exact time her world stopped moving. Her hands shook so violently she could barely type 911. She pulled the drain, water swirling red, then pink, then clear. She tried to lift you out of the tub, but you were so cold, so still, so impossibly heavy in her arms.

The dispatcher told her to hold pressure on both your wrists with towels. They also told her to start CPR. She was only one person. She tried anyway. She tried until her arms gave out, but you were already gone. 

🥀

The present snaps back around her like a rubber band. 

It’s Friday again. Six twenty-five at night. 

Her legs feel like they’re made of wet sand, but she’s here. She’s standing at your grave. Fresh flowers sit in a little vase. Felicia’s doing, or maybe Xima’s. Someone who had the courage to come here like you deserved when Sevika didn’t.

The notes in her hand. Still unopened. 

She wanted to read it with you. Alaina was right, she owed you a visit. A real one. Something proper. Because your wife, the woman who swore she’d never leave your side, missed your funeral. She couldn’t get out of bed long enough to honor your life. 

But she’s here now. She hopes, desperately, that you’d still be proud of her. 

You are. You’re so fucking proud of her.

“I made it,” Sevika whispers, sinking to her knees in the damp grass. “Sweetheart, I’m here.”

She leans her shoulder against your headstone, not fully, just enough to steady herself. Her vision blurs, the sky smearing into watercolor shapes as tears gather, hot and relentless. How stupid, she thinks. She’s never cried this much in her entire life. Not until you left. 

Whatever is written inside, she can’t run from it anymore. Not here in front of you. 

She slides her thumb under the flap, and it feels like all the departed souls here hold their breath. 

Dear Lover,

I know that when you find this, it’ll hurt. You’ll be upset that I didn’t leave it in the bathroom, or on the bed, or somewhere easy. I’m scared. I don’t want you to hate me. I know this feels like I left you, but that’s not what this is. It’s temporary, until I can see you again, when I’m finally healthy and whole.

I’m too tired to keep going, but I wanted to leave the world on my terms. I didn’t want to die in a cold hospital. They’re scary, you know I despise them. I wanted to be home, where the air smells like you, where I could wear one of your shirts, pour your soap in the bath, and feel warm when I take my final breath.

I know it feels selfish. You didn’t get a say. I know you would’ve told me to fight. But I didn’t want to be trapped in a body that was failing while my mind stayed awake for every second of it. I couldn’t bear the thought of you having to stop working to take care of me. Lifting me, dressing me, putting me in a wheelchair, cleaning me. I know you would have. I know our vows. But that’s not how I wanted you to remember me. 

I wanted you to picture me happy, healthy, still able to dance in your arms. 

And I’m sorry about the nursery. I tried to deny the diagnosis. I thought if I dreamt hard enough, if I brought the room to life, if I started living in the future possibility of us as mothers, that it’d change everything. I thought I could stave off sickness with my love for you and our future alone. It was foolish, but I at least had to give it my all. I hate that you’ll have to see that room alone, that I won’t be there to talk about baby names, and cute outfits, and a centerpiece on the wall. It guts me, the same way I know it’ll gut you.

I never stopped thinking about you. Not once. I know this will crush you, and I’m so sorry you’ll be the one to find me. But I can’t put it off any longer. My legs and arms have been getting weaker, I can feel it. I know the disease is progressing. If I wait, I won’t be able to leave on my own terms.

It has to be today. 

I’m so sorry, Sevika. You don’t deserve this. You’ve been my rock. I wanted to lean on you, Janna knows I wanted to tell you so badly, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t brave enough. But I tried to be. And that’s why I’m writing this, because I’m forcing myself to be brave. Only for you. I hope you can see that, Sevika, my love, I’m pretending to be fearless for you. You need to know why, and I need to tell you, even if it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So this is it. I need you to know it wasn’t you. It wasn’t your love. It was me, and this sick body giving out on me.

With so much love,

Your Wife

Sevika clutches the note to her chest, careful not to crease it, careful not to tear it. She needs it intact. She needs to read it again. She needs to make sure she isn’t hallucinating the words.

You were sick.

Sick.

She didn’t even know you’d gone to the doctor for anything serious. You told her it was just annual blood work. You never lied to her, so she didn’t question it. There were no follow-up appointments you mentioned. No symptoms you let her see. No hints, and certainly no warnings.

But the letter makes it clear. There were tests. There were answers. There was a diagnosis, and there was no cure.

And you carried all of it alone. You didn’t let her help, didn’t let her fight for you, didn’t let her love you through it. Yes, you’re goddamn right. She would’ve told you to fight. She would’ve dropped everything to take care of you. She would’ve happily carried you, bathed you, fed you, held you, loved you through every second of it. 

It never would’ve changed the way she saw you. Not ever. But you didn’t give her the fucking chance. Now she’s kneeling in the grass, holding the last piece of you, finally allowed to know the truth. You didn’t leave because you stopped loving her. You left because you were dying, and you didn’t want her to watch. 

“It’s still unfair,” Sevika yells, though her voice cracks halfway through. She’s only talking to you. Only ever to you. “That wasn’t your choice to make.” Her voice drops to a hoarse whisper. “In sickness and in health… sickness.”

Her knees buckle. She collapses into the damp grass, curling in on herself, the note pressed to her chest like it’s the only thing keeping her alive. Her foot knocks the vase over, flowers spilling across the ground, petals scattering. She doesn’t notice. She doesn’t feel the cold. Doesn’t feel anything. Her eyes squeeze shut, but no more tears come. She’s wrung dry. Hollowed out. There’s nothing left to give.

Across the cemetery, Felicia stops walking. They knew Sevika would be here. She didn’t come to the game, wasn’t at home, so there was only one other place she’d venture. “Do you think…” Her voice falters. “Was it a note from her? Did she finally find one?”

Ran and Xima both nod, slow and grim. Vander doesn’t move. He just watches Sevika curled beside your grave, clutching the last words you ever wrote. And he knows, they all know, what that means.

“What do we do?” Xima whispers, looking at Vander like he’s supposed to have an answer. 

He doesn’t. There’s a thought in his mind, dark and heavy, but he can’t say it out loud. Not when he sees Felicia trembling. Not when he sees Ran’s hand shaking. Not when he sees Sevika lying there like she’s already halfway gone.

He exhales, low and defeated. “How do you bring someone back when their body’s still here, but their mind,” he pauses, steadying himself, “their mind is already in the ground with the person they loved?”

Felicia turns into his chest, sobbing loudly. Ran stares at Sevika, this woman who once seemed unbreakable, now curled in the grass like a child who’s lost everything. Because she has. She still has them, but Ran knows it’s not enough. It’s not the same. “You think she’ll get up?” Ran asks, voice barely audible. 

Xima takes their hand, resting her forehead on Ran’s shoulder. Her answer is soft, overly devastating in its simplicity. “No.”

Sevika shifts backwards in the grass, instinctively making space. A silent invitation, the way she used to on the couch when she wanted you to curl into her side. You were so much smaller than her, and you made it a point to tell her how much you loved it. Loved how strong she was, but  she’s not anymore. You took her strength with you. 

She doesn’t have to wait long. You’re there almost immediately. 

Your arms slip around her, warm enough to chase away the cold seeping through her clothes, warm enough to make her forget the damp earth beneath her side. Your body fits against hers like it always did, like nothing ever changed, like you never left. 

“I know what I need to do,” Sevika whispers into your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You don’t answer. For the first time since you started appearing to her in mirrors, in hallways, in the bathtub, you say nothing at all. 

The silence is gentle, not empty, not frightening.

A car rolls past on the road behind the cemetery, windows down, music spilling out into the evening air. Sevika doesn’t recognize the song at first, she’s too wrapped up in you. But then a line drifts toward her, carried by the breeze, and something in her chest cracks open. 

She finds herself repeating it under her breath, barely away she’s doing it, at the same time you join in.

“Your blood… your bones…”

Sevika’s voice not even loud enough to be considered a whisper, “your voice… and your ghost…”

Sevika’s breathing falters, her eyes close, her forehead presses to yours. “We’ve both been very brave,” you finish together.

She knows. That’s it. That’s the answer. That’s the permission she’s been waiting for. 

She tightens her arms around you, only slightly afraid you’ll slip away this time. But you don’t slip away. You hold her back. And Sevika finally gets it, what she’s been moving toward all this time, not healing, not recovery, not a life without you.

A reunion. A choice. A door she’s ready to walk through now. Because in this moment, wrapped in your arms beside your grave, she feels more alive with your ghost than she has felt in the real world for half a year.

And she knows exactly what she’s going to do next.