Chapter Text
The clock in the living room didn’t tick; it thrummed. A low, rhythmic vibration that felt like a heartbeat dying in the middle of a room they used to call home. It had been years of this—years of sharing a kitchen, a living room, and a hallway, yet living like strangers who happened to be occupying the same rented reality.
Will sat in the corner of the living room, his brushes dry. He was staring at a canvas that had been sitting half-finished for three weeks. The colors—dusty pinks, soft lavenders, a cream-colored base—were meant to evoke a sense of peace, but they only felt like a mockery of the life he was currently trapped in.
In another room, the faint, rapid-fire clack-clack-clack of Mike’s typewriter provided the soundtrack to their estrangement.
Will didn't had look, he could feel the exact moment Mike stopped typing, the exact moment he stood up to pace, the exact moment he decided to retreat further into his own head. It was a dance they had perfected. Don't look, don't ask, don't break the glass.
They had been living together since college. Leaving Hawkins with Mike felt like the only right option in Will’s mind. To walk across grief and college together, just as they had walked through the Upside Down and trauma.
Seven years side by side, only to spend the last two years drifting from best friends to whatever this was.
Will didn't know when it happened exactly. He didn't know when he started to hear only the chaos of cars and people from the busy streets outside their New York apartment instead of the comfort of Mike’s presence. He didn't know what happened for to Mike stop talking to him, sharing with him, caring if he existed at all, or when they had stopped eating at the same table, stopped walking to the grocery store together, or stopped watching movies late into the evening.
He knew it started around the same time he met Carlton—a cruel coincidence that left Will selfishly wishing it had been something more, rather than just bad timing.
He had met Carlton just after he graduated, at one of his art exhibitions—the only one Mike couldn't attend.
Will had been standing in front of one of his paintings, wishing he could just rip it from the wall. It was a portrait of Mike, bathed in the early afternoon sun—a sight Will had seen a thousand times since they moved in together, and one he was probably never going to tire of seeing. He had been anxious to show it to Mike, to see his reaction to such a foolish, transparent show of affection.
Now, he thought it was probably for the best that Mike hadn't been able to make it.
"This one feels like a confession, don't you think?" A voice said beside him.
Will wanted to laugh. Even a stranger could see right through him and his art. He wanted to scream, too, because he had promised himself he would stop loving Mike, and yet here he was, hearing a stranger describe exactly how he poured his heart into a painting of his best friend.
"He is just a friend," Will answered—a lie and a reality, all at once.
"Oh. You painted this? Sorry, I didn't—"
"It's alright, you couldn't possibly know it was me," Will smiled, because the stranger seemed like he was going to die of embarrassment.
"Yes, well… I'm sorry either way. My name is Carlton, and you are?" Carlton said, reaching out his hand to Will.
"I'm Will." Will took his hand.
And that was how he met his now-boyfriend.
Carlton took Will for a drink after the exhibition, and they talked for the rest of the evening. He was fun, sweet, kind, and—for starters—Gay.
It was almost three in the morning when Will finally got home.
"Where were you? I was worried sick. I called the studio, and they said you weren't there, and I was about to go search for you—" Mike said, the moment Will stepped through the doorway.
He was standing in the foyer, car keys in hand, his face etched with a frantic, sharp worry.
"Sorry, sorry, I…" Will was a little lightheaded. He didn't know if it was the booze, the lingering conversation with Carlton, or the way his heart tightened at the sound of Mike’s genuine concern. "I met someone."
Silence. Mike frowned, and Will couldn't quite read the expression shifting on his face.
"What?" Mike asked after a beat that felt like an eternity.
"I met someone. His name is Carlton. He was at the exhibition," Will repeated, confused by Mike's sudden stillness.
"Oh. And you were with him? Until now?" Mike asked. He sounded almost angry. Will told himself he must have imagined it.
"Yes, we were at a bar and he—"
"You were at a bar? With a stranger?" Mike’s eyes widened, his posture stiffening.
Thinking back on it, it was very out of character for Will to do something like that, so it made sense for Mike to freak out. Will even felt a little shocked by his own recklessness.
"Yes, but it's alright. He’s a nice guy," Will smiled at Mike, trying to ease the sudden tension.
Mike just watched him, his expression unreadable, guarded. For a moment, neither of them moved or spoke. The air felt heavy, charged with something Will couldn't name.
"If you say so," Mike responded coldly, before marching toward his room.
Leaving Will standing in the dark—a little drunk and a little confused about his reaction.
One month later, he and Carlton were dating.
One month later, he and Mike were in the beginning of the end of their friendship.
Will stared at the ceiling, trying to tune out the sound of the typewriter, which now felt like a hammer nailing shut the coffin of what they used to be.
Remember this? a traitorous voice whispered in his mind.
He closed his eyes, and for a second, the living room didn’t feel so cold. He was transported back a few years. The afternoon sun was spilling through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing around Mike.
Mike was sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa, a battered comic book in his hands. He wasn't really reading; he was just there—close, observant, watching Will mix shades of blue and yellow on the canvas. Back then, Mike’s breathing was the metronome of Will’s life. Back then, the silence wasn't a wall; it was a bridge.
Sometimes it was Will who lay on the floor, keeping Mike company in his office, a book in hand and Mike’s typing as the soundtrack.
His mind sometimes would briefly show him this memories, it looked like it was another lifetime entirely, when he had his best friend.
Another memory found Will: The night Mike’s book, "Stranger Things"—the story of their lives, written as a coping mechanism for Mike’s trauma—finally hit the bestseller list, just one week before Will’s exhibition.
The apartment had been a mess, littered with the remnants of a cake Will had baked in secret and cheap wine they drank until their voices turned raspy.
Mike had been radiant, a spark in his eyes Will hadn't seen in years. In that euphoria, Will had joked, his voice slightly thickened by the alcohol, "You’re famous now, Mike. You’ll have more than enough money. You can finally move somewhere better—somewhere without me here to bother you."
Mike had stopped laughing. He reached out, his hand wrapping firmly around Will’s wrist, his gaze heavy with a sudden, jarring seriousness. "Never, Will. Never."
Will felt a sharp ache in his chest, a pang of longing that left him breathless. What changed? he wanted to scream. At what point did "never" turn into this void?
The change wasn't an earthquake; it was an erosion. It was a slow, agonizing death of a friendship, leaving Will to navigate the wreckage alone.
Will met Carlton. And the moment he brought Carlton home to meet Mike, the atmosphere in the apartment shifted from "comfortable" to "poisonous" in a matter of minutes.
The dinner had been a disaster. Will had spent the entire afternoon cooking, trying to bridge the gap between his past and his present. Mike had sat at the table with his arms folded across his chest, his eyes narrowed, barely touching his food. Every time Carlton made a joke or tried to engage Mike in conversation, Mike would offer a clipped, dry response that sucked the oxygen right out of the room.
Finally, just as Will was bringing out dessert, Mike had stood up abruptly, his chair scraping violently against the floor.
"I have work to do," Mike had said, his voice flat and dismissive. He didn't even look at Will. He just turned and walked into his office, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the frames on the walls.
Will had spent the rest of the evening apologizing to a confused Carlton, his cheeks burning with humiliation.
From that night on, the "erosion" turned into a landslide.
At first, it was subtle. Mike began trading their shared dinners for "deadlines" that, curiously, only seemed to pop up whenever Will suggested something outside their routine. Then, it was the looks. Mike started averting his eyes whenever Will entered a room, as if Will’s reflection were a reminder of something he preferred to forget.
Will remembered the night it stopped being subtle, a wednesday, weeks later, when he tried to break through the wall again. He had walked into the office, his heart trying to be hopeful, holding two mugs of tea. He’d barely stepped over the threshold before Mike’s chair screeched against the hardwood..
"I’m working, Will," Mike said, his voice stripped of all warmth, like a winter wind. He didn't even look up from the paper.
"I know, I just thought—"
"I didn't ask for tea," Mike interrupted, his fingers hovering over the keys. "And I didn't ask for company. Can you just... please? I need to focus."
Will stood there, the steam from the mugs curling into the air between them, feeling like an intruder in his own home. He looked at the back of Mike’s head, at the tension in his shoulders that always seemed to lock up the moment Will was near. He wanted to reach out, to place a hand on Mike’s shoulder, to ask what he’d done wrong. But the cold radiating from Mike was a physical barrier. Will had set the mug down on the far end of the desk and walked out, his throat tight, his chest aching with a rejection that felt sharper than any monster’s claw.
After that, the doors stayed shut. The silences grew longer, stretching into days that felt like weeks. Mike started responding in monosyllables, his voice losing the vibrant, unguarded tone he once kept only for Will, hardening into a dry, lifeless instrument of work. He stopped asking about Will’s art. He stopped pretending to care when Will came home late.
It reached a breaking point nearly a year after Will had started seeing Carlton.
One evening, Will finally snapped. He couldn't take the suffocating coldness anymore. He followed Mike into the living room, his hands trembling but his resolve finally firm. "Mike, stop," he said, his voice pleading. "Please, just tell me. What is happening? What did I do wrong? Tell me how to fix this, because I can’t keep living in this place with a stranger."
Mike stopped in his tracks. He didn't turn around immediately, and when he did, his face was twisted into an expression of cold, clinical disdain.
"Fix this?" Mike repeated, his voice dangerously quiet. He looked at Will as if he were a specimen he had long since lost interest in. "You really think I’m acting 'strange'? We aren't children anymore. Did you actually expect me to treat you like one William? to coddle you, to look after you for the rest of our lives?"
The use of his full name, spoken with such biting condescension, felt like a physical slap across his face. It was the first time Mike had ever called him like that, and it was meant to hurt. It was a clear, brutal demarcation line: Childhood is over, and your place in my life is expired.
Will felt the remaining fragments of his hope shatter. In that single sentence, the mystery of Mike’s behavior evaporated, replaced by a cold, numbing clarity. He realized then that he had been fighting a war Mike had already won, and that his attempts to "fix" things were only fuel for Mike’s resentment.
It was like Lenora all over again, only worse.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He just stepped back, his spirit folding in on itself like a wounded bird. He understood that whatever had happened between them wasn't his responsibility to repair. If Mike wanted a ghost to haunt his hallway, fine. Will would become the wallpaper. He would become the silent, invisible presence Mike clearly wanted him to be. He was done suffering for something Mike obviously didn't care to save.
After that night, the apartment became a tomb. They existed in parallel lines, never touching, never speaking, never acknowledging the memory of the boys they used to be.
And that "Never" Mike had promised felt less like a vow and more like a taunt, haunting the home they shared, occupying a space Mike no longer wanted to give.
We used to read together, Will thought, the memory stinging like salt on a wound. He used to laugh and ask my opinion while he wrote, and I used to paint until my fingers ached, and we were never this quiet. We were never this cold.
The anxiety, as always, began to creep in at the edges of his vision. It was a familiar, unwelcome guest.
The lights in the apartment seemed to flicker, the shadows in the hallway stretching and morphing into things that didn't belong in a 24-year-old’s life. Trauma was a patient thief; it waited until he was exhausted and silent to start whispering.
It’s just the shadows, Will reminded himself, his breath hitching in his chest. It’s just the fatigue.
Then, the knock came.
Three sharp, desperate thuds against the front door that vibrated deep in Will’s bones.
He didn’t move at first. The hour was impossible—2:00 AM. A time for ghosts, a time for the things he saw in the quietest, darkest corners of his mind. He pushed himself up from the chair, his legs feeling heavy, and navigated the space between the sofa and the door.
It’s not real. It’s an episode. It’s just another trick of the light, he chanted in his mind, his hand shaking as he gripped the lock.
He pulled the door open, just a crack.
There, bathed in the sickly yellow hue of the hallway light, stood Jane. She looked older, her face lined with an exhaustion that went deeper than skin, her hair a jagged mess. She was panting, her eyes seemed tired, and tucked against her chest was a small, bundled shape—an infant.
Will’s brain stuttered. A baby? Why would the hallucination be holding a baby? That doesn’t make sense.
The sight was too sharp, too visceral. It didn't feel like the monsters that usually haunted him; it felt like a mirror breaking in his face. A future his sister would never get to have.
Unable to process the dissonance, Will slammed the door shut, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps. He leaned his back against the wood, eyes squeezed shut.
Not real. Not real. Not real. She is DEAD.
He didn't move. He couldn't.
Behind him, he heard the creak of the office chair. Footsteps—heavy, deliberate, and entirely indifferent—approached. Mike walked right past him. He didn't ask what was wrong, he didn't ask why Will was standing by the door looking like he’d seen a specter, he didn't offer even a glance. To Mike, Will might as well have been part of the furniture.
Mike reached out, his hand steady and cold, and gripped the handle.
Don't, Will thought, a silent plea caught in his throat. If you open that door, the world changes. If you see her, I lose my grip on what’s real.
Mike pulled the door inward.
The harsh light from the hallway spilled into their dimly lit living room, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air like suspended debris. Mike stood in the doorway, his silhouette rigid, his back a wall that Will couldn’t find the courage to scale.
"Michael?" Will whispered, his voice cracking, but Mike didn't even acknowledge that he had spoken.
Mike just stepped aside, a mechanical gesture of hospitality that felt entirely out of place given the tension in the room.
Jane stepped over the threshold.
She looked smaller than the memory of her, yet infinitely more dangerous. She moved with a feline grace that suggested she was constantly listening for footsteps behind her. But it was the bundle in her arms—the shift of fabric, the faint, wet sound of a baby’s babble—that anchored the scene in a reality Will was desperate to reject.
It’s too real, Will thought, his hands gripping the hem of his paint-stained shirt. The sound. The weight of her steps. Hallucinations don't have weight.
He looked at Mike, waiting for a reaction, for a curse, for a scream. But Mike was a statue. His complexion had drained of all color, his face a hollow mask of shock. He was staring at the woman they both had mourned for years, his chest rising and falling in shallow, jagged motions. He didn't blink. He didn't move.
Will felt a cold sweat break across his neck. He needed an anchor. He needed to know he wasn't spiraling into the dark again.
"Michael?" Will’s voice was barely a breath, thin and brittle. "Tell me... tell me you can see her too. Please."
Mike didn't respond. He didn't even twitch. It was as if the air around him had frozen solid, trapping him in the doorway.
The silence stretched, agonizing and thick, Jane shifted the baby against her shoulder. The infant let out a soft, gurgling sound—a sound so pure, so jarringly innocent amidst the stale air of their apartment, that it felt like a violation.
Then, Jane did something that broke Will's heart in a way he didn't expect. She offered a smile. It was slow, tired, and deeply sad, a bit of the girl she used to be, trying to smooth over the wreckage of their lives.
She took a cautious step into the center of the living room, her eyes flickering from Mike's frozen face to Will's frantic, tear-rimmed gaze.
"I am real, Will," she said, her voice raspy, like she hadn't used it in a long time. She looked at him with an intensity that burned through the fog in his mind. "I am sorry. I know I shouldn't be here. Not like this. Not after so long."
She looked back at Mike, who still hadn't said a word, his hands clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles were white.
"I didn't have anywhere else to go," she whispered, the weight of the baby in her arms suddenly appearing very heavy. "I have nowhere else that is safe, and you two felt like the best option."
Will looked at Mike again, desperate for a sign, for a breakdown, for anything. But Mike remained a ghost among ghosts, his eyes locked on Jane as if she were the sun, too bright to look at, yet impossible to turn away from.
The apartment felt suddenly smaller, the walls closing in as the past demanded to be let in, right into the middle of the life they had spent two years trying to erase.
Jane's gaze drifted to the window, watching the rain streak against the glass. She hugged the baby tighter, the infant now quiet, her small fist curled around a strand of Jane’s hair.
The room remained deathly still. The only sound was the radiator hissing in the corner and the heavy, ragged breathing of two men who had spent two years burying their grief, only to have it walk back through the front door.
Mike finally exhaled, a sharp, jagged sound that broke the stillness like glass hitting a floor. "Fuck."
It was the first word he’d spoken, and it was raw, colored by a lifetime of resentment, and disbelief. He didn't look at Will, didn't look at the baby, just stared at the wall as if he were trying to punch a hole through it with his eyes.
"Sit down," Will managed, his voice firmer now that the initial shock was receding into a cold, clinical clarity. He didn't realize he was speaking until the words were out, but he motioned toward the sofa.
Jane sank onto the edge of the cushions, her movements stiff. She shifted the bundle, and for the first time, Will got a clear look at the baby’s face—tiny, pale, and fast asleep.
"Yours?" was the only thing Will could ask, whole sentences suddenly being too difficult to form.
"No! No, I— I found her in a facility," Jane began, her eyes darting between them. "There were five of them. Same as me, but... different. I couldn't save them all. I only got her out before the alarm triggered. I found the parents of the others, but hers..." She shook her head, a flash of agony crossing her features. "I couldn't find hers. And now, they’re hunting us both."
Mike dragged a hand down his face, his skin looking grey in the dim light. He seemed to be vibrating with the effort of holding himself together. "Wait, I’m not following. What the fuck is happening? Who are 'they'? And you... you were—"
"I was supposed to be dead," Jane interrupted, her voice hollow. "That was the lie. My sister... she created a final illusion. A massive shroud of psychic energy to make everyone believe the threat was over. I thought if they believed I was gone, they’d stop looking. They’d stop hurting people."
Will sat on the ottoman across from her, his knees pulled to his chest while trying to process that the person who haunted their memories was sitting on their IKEA couch. He felt like he was twelve again, sitting in his living room in Hawkins, listening to something he couldn't possibly comprehend. "But they didn't stop," he whispered.
"They never stop," Jane replied.
Mike was standing by the window, his back to them, watching the dark street below as if expecting a convoy of black cars to turn the corner at any second. He was frozen in a posture of profound, agonizing disbelief.
"They think I'm dead, so they don't know it was me who took her, or who you guys are. It's the military. I think they're trying to recreate what I was…" she continued.
Will turned his gaze toward Mike, then back to Jane. "Where have you been?"
Jane looked at him, and for a second, her expression was so soft it felt like a betrayal. "I’ve been everywhere. Traveling. Trying to understand what I am when I’m not a weapon." She looked down at her hands. "I never really left. Not entirely. I... I watch, sometimes. In the quiet. I saw that Joyce and Hopper finally married. I saw you both graduate from college."
A muscle in Mike’s jaw twitched, but he remained by the window, his eyes still scanning the dark street.
"I saw that Max and Lucas got married, too," she continued, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "And Dustin… he’s working for NASA. They’re happy. All of them."
"And us?" Will whispered, the words slipping out before he could catch them. "Did you see us?"
Did you see what happened to us? What we became? Will thought miserably, praying very hard that she didn't see any of it.
Jane didn’t answer that, but her eyes held a profound sadness that told him everything he needed to know.
Suddenly, Will felt very embarrassed, because she was the only person who knew what he and Mike were now.
Jane shifted her focus back to the baby. "I found the facility by accident. I was in the mountains of Columbia. I was just passing through when I felt it—that familiar, rotting static in the air. Something hummed in my blood, pulling me toward it. Like a magnet. That’s where I found her."
Will felt a cold shiver crawl up his spine, the air in the room suddenly feeling heavy and suffocating. His heart began to race—a frantic, irregular beat.
It’s still out there, he thought, his chest tightening. The Upside Down. The shadows. If labs like that still exist, if that static is still in the world, then the monsters never really left. They’re just hiding, waiting for us to stop looking.
His breathing became shallow, his hands trembling as he stared at the shadows in the corner of the room, expecting them to elongate, to drip black bile, to reach for him.
Jane’s eyes snapped to his. She saw the shift in his posture, the way his eyes were darting toward the darkness, the way he was recoiling into himself. She didn't hesitate. She stood up, leaving the baby safe on the sofa, and crossed the room to kneel right in front of Will. She took his hands—her touch was cool, grounding, and steady.
"Will," she said, her voice commanding, stripping away the static in the room. "Look at me."
He forced himself to meet her gaze, his vision blurring.
"The Upside Down is gone," she said firmly, her eyes searching his. "It is dead, Will. It died when we closed the gate, and it stayed dead. Those monsters? They are just memories now. This... the facility, the hunters... it’s not that. It’s human greed, human cruelty. But it’s not the darkness that consumed our childhood."
She squeezed his hands, her grip surprisingly strong. "You are safe from that world. You don’t have to fight those demons anymore. I promise."
Will let out a long, shuddering breath, the tension in his shoulders finally beginning to ebb. *She’s right. It’s just people. Just men in suits.*
"Thank you," he whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears.
Mike, who had been listening from the window, finally turned around. His expression was still guarded, but the edge of his panic had softened. His eyes were fixed on Jane with a sharp, almost painful intensity.
"Why us?" Mike’s voice was low, heavy with a confusion he couldn't mask. "Why show up at our door, after everything? Why now?"
Jane took a steadying breath, her posture straightening as she looked from Mike to Will. "I wish I came here just to see you, but..." she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "I came back because I have this baby, and I can't keep her safe while I finish what I started. I need to go back out there, find the others, and get them home to their families. But I can't do that with her in my arms. I needed to leave her with someone I could trust with my life."
Mike stared at her, his jaw tight. "And you thought that 'someone' was us?"
"I thought about Hopper and Joyce," Jane continued. "I thought about them every single day. But Hopper is finally at peace. He and Joyce have built a life, a happiness that cost them too much. I can’t be the reason they lose it all again. I could never truly be in their lives without bringing the danger with me. I can’t make Hopper go through that mourning again."
She looked at Mike and Will, her smile sad but filled with an old, enduring gratitude.
"I thought about Max and Lucas, too, but they’re building a family of their own, and I couldn't put this kind of responsibility on them. Dustin wasn't an option, either, he’s never in the same city for long, and his work attracts too much attention, too many people who would be far too interested in this child."
She paused, her eyes shining with piercing sincerity.
"I came here because I know you. I know who you are. I know how kind you both are, and I know that even with the world falling apart, you would exhaust yourselves to keep this baby safe and loved. You did that for me, when I was just a terrified stranger who knew nothing about the world. I’m trusting her life to you because I know you both still hold that kind of goodness inside."
The silence that followed was heavy, laden with a truth neither of them was prepared to face.
Mike ran a hand through his hair, clearly shaken. He looked at Will, and for a split second, the invisible wall between them seemed to tremble.
Will’s chest tightened, a familiar, desperate panic clawing at his throat as he realized she was preparing to step back into the fire.
"Wait—what do you mean?" Will’s voice broke, raw and pleading. "You’re leaving again? No, El, please... don't. Please don't leave us again."
Jane didn't hesitate. She stepped forward and pulled him into a fierce, grounding embrace. It felt like coming home—a fragile, fleeting warmth amidst the cold reality of their lives.
"I have to, Will," she whispered into his hair. "But this time is different. I’m finishing this. As soon as I find her parents, I’ll come back for her. And this time, I won't just disappear. I’ll make sure I stay in touch. I promise."
Will clutched the back of her jacket, his knuckles white. "But what if something happens to you? Why do you keep putting yourself in danger? What if this time... what if this time you really die?"
Jane pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, her expression calm, radiating a quiet strength that transcended her years. "Nothing is going to happen to me, Will. We’ve faced worse than this—monsters, gates, things that shouldn't exist. Nothing will ever compare to that. I’m going to be fine."
Before Will could respond, Mike’s voice cut through the air, sharp and incredulous. He had been standing off to the side, his brain finally catching up to the gravity of her request.
"Wait, wait—hold on," Mike interrupted, his face pale as he gestured vaguely at the sleeping infant. "You want us to take care of a baby? I’ve never even held one! I don’t know how to do that, and I highly doubt William has any idea either."
The use of his full name hit Will like a physical blow. It was cold, distant, and felt like a wall being slammed into place between them. It stung just as much as the first time Mike had started calling him William instead of Will, just as it did every time they were forced to refer to each other in such a formal way.
Will felt a flush of humiliation creep up his neck. He hated that Jane had to witness this—the hollowed-out version of the bond they once shared. He felt small, exposed, and deeply embarrassed that she had to see how much they had fallen apart.
Jane turned her gaze from the baby to Mike, her expression softening into something uncharacteristically patient. She saw the fear in his posture—not the fear of monsters, but the raw, unfiltered terror of responsibility.
"I didn't know how to do it either," Jane said, her voice steady and surprisingly gentle. She let go of Will and stepped closer to Mike, her presence cutting through the suffocating tension in the room.
"The first few days were… difficult. I made mistakes. I was scared. But I learned, Mike. I learned because I had to, and because I realized that keeping her alive was more important than my own fear."
She looked at Will, who was still staring at the floor, before returning her attention to Mike.
"I have watched you both for years, even from a distance," she continued, her eyes searching his face. "I know who you are. And if I could learn, you can too."
She moved toward the sofa, picking up the small bag she had brought with her, and placed it on the cushion beside the baby.
"She is just a child. She needs warmth, she needs to be fed, and she needs to know she is safe." Jane reached out, briefly brushing her hand against Mike’s arm. "You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be there."
Mike stayed silent, but his shoulders dropped just an inch, the rigid wall of his panic softening into something more fragile.
"I’m not asking you to do this because it’s easy," Jane added, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I’m asking because you are the only people in this world I trust to keep her soul intact."
She stood there for a moment, letting the weight of her words sink into the space between them. For the first time, the apartment didn't feel like a tomb of their failed friendship. It felt, for a fleeting, terrifying moment, like a place where they might actually have a future—if they were brave enough to take it.
Will hated this feeling, the same one he had felt for years and lost completely two years ago: hope.
Mike’s posture, which had been so rigid and defensive only moments ago, finally crumbled. He took a hesitant, shaky step toward the sofa, his eyes locked on the infant. His face, usually a fortress of guarded indifference, was wet with tears he probably hadn't even realized he was shedding.
He looked up at Jane, his gaze raw, searching her face for the girl who had vanished from their lives seven years ago. The distance between them, the years of grief, the "William" and "Michael" formalities—it all evaporated in the face of this impossible, heartbreaking reunion.
"Please, El," Mike whispered, his voice trembling, barely audible over the sound of the city coming from the window. "Don't go. Stay."
The plea was naked, stripped of all pretense. It was the voice of a boy who had been mourning a living person, now begging the universe not to take her back into the dark.
Will watched them, and a sharp, familiar ache bloomed in his chest. It hurt—a quiet, twisting sting—but he didn't pull away. He understood. He knew that for Mike, Jane wasn't just a friend; she was the love he had lost. Will remembered the way Mike had looked at her back then, the way he had fought for her. He knew how hard it had been for himself to lose the person he saw as a sister, but he could only imagine the depth of Mike’s devastation over losing the girl he had loved.
Will felt a bittersweet pang of empathy. He saw the pain, and that was enough to make him want to offer Mike comfort, even from the sidelines—even if Mike would never do the same for him, at least not anymore.
Jane stepped toward Mike, her own eyes glassy. She reached out and pulled him into a desperate, clinging embrace. She didn't hold him like a soldier anymore; she held him like the girl who had once loved him with everything she had.
"I’m sorry," she sobbed softly into his shoulder, her voice cracking. "Mike... I am so sorry. For everything. For leaving, for the silence, for the pain."
She pulled back just enough to look at him, her hands cupping his face, her thumbs brushing away his tears with a tenderness that made Will look away, feeling like an intruder in a moment that had been seven years in the making.
"I can't stay," she whispered, her heart clearly breaking, as was everyone's in the room. "But I am not gone. Not anymore. I promise you, Mike... I am not gone."
She held him there for a long moment, the two of them anchored together in the dim light, while Will stood back—a silent observer in his own apartment.
The moment of tenderness didn’t last. Jane pulled away, her expression hardening back into that of the survivor.
She turned to Will, who was still hovering near the ottoman, his heart feeling like it had been carved out and put back in the wrong place. She walked over, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder and plant a kiss on his cheek.
When realization that she was leaving them alone with the baby hit the room, Jane had already moved toward the door when she paused, her hand gripping the edge of the frame. She looked back at them, her expression filled with a fleeting, desperate apology.
"I don't have a name for her," Jane admitted, her voice low. "I searched the facility, the records, everything—there was nothing. I've just been calling her 'baby'. Maybe... maybe it's better if you two give her one, for now. Just until it’s safe. There are a few diapers in the bag, and a bottle. Enough for a day. And again, I'm so, so sorry."
"El, wait—" Mike started, taking a step forward, but the door was already opening.
A gust of cold, predawn air rushed into the apartment, smelling of damp concrete and the approaching city morning. Jane stepped out into the hallway, and with a soft, final click, the lock slid home.
She was gone.
The silence that rushed back into the room was deafening. It wasn't the comfortable, numbing silence they had lived in for the past two years; it was a heavy, suffocating weight. The apartment felt different now.
Mike remained standing by the doorway, his hand still outstretched as if he could still feel the phantom pressure of the door handle. He looked completely shattered, a statue of grief left behind by a departing train.
Will didn't know what to do with his hands. He looked at the sofa, where the small, bundled shape of the baby was stirring. A soft, high-pitched whimper echoed in the room, cutting through the stillness like a blade.
"She's... she's waking up," Will whispered, his voice trembling.
Mike didn't move. He didn't turn around. He just stood there in the dark, the reality of the situation finally settling into his bones.
They were barely two acquaintances, drifting in a life that had been fundamentally dismantled in the span of an hour. They were twenty-four, and suddenly responsible for a life that wasn't theirs.
"Michael?" Will called out, his voice cracking. "What do we do?"
Mike slowly lowered his hand. He turned, his face shadowed, unreadable. For a long, agonizing moment, he looked at Will—really looked at him—for the first time in years. But there was no recognition there, only a shared, desperate fear.
"I don't know," Mike breathed out, his voice hollow. "I have absolutely no idea."
The baby let out a sharp cry, and in the dim light of the living room, the two men stood paralyzed—two strangers trapped in the dark with the only living, breathing thing in their world.