Chapter Text
The first thing Caleb learned after surviving the explosion was how to obey.
Not because he wanted to, but because he had no choice.
The explosion had taken away everything from him in a single night.
His home, his grandmother, his future, the life he had been planning, his arm, and worst of all--
You.
Even now, nearly two years later, Caleb still woke up on some nights convinced that he could hear the explosion again.
He would jolt awake drenched in sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs as memories crashed over him.
The collapsing ceiling, the heat, the smoke, your terrified voice calling his name, the desperate feeling of reaching for you.
Then darkness, always darkness.
And when he opened his eyes again, he found himself with EVER.
For the first few months after waking up in EVER's care, he asked about you constantly.
Every doctor, every researcher, every technician that entered his room.
Where were you? Were you alive? Did you make it out? Were you hurt?
The answers never came immediately. Only more tests. More surgeries. More rehabilitation.
Until finally one day, someone casually informed him that you had survived.
The words should have brought relief. Instead, they left a hollow ache inside his chest. Because surviving wasn't the same as being okay.
He wasn't allowed to see you. Wasn't allowed to contact you. Wasn't even allowed to know where you were or how you were doing.
"She's safe," they always told him.
The phrase became a mantra. A leash. A promise dangled in front of him whenever he questioned too much.
She's safe. She's recovering. She's being protected. Focus on yourself. Focus on healing. Focus on becoming stronger.
Every time Caleb considered fighting them, he remembered those words.
She's safe.
And as long as they ensured your safety, then maybe, maybe he could ensure a little longer. Maybe he could survive one more surgery. One more month. One more year.
Until he could finally go find you himself.
For eighteen months, EVER rebuilt him piece by piece.
Every shattered bone. Every damaged organ. Every nerve destroyed by the blast.
They replaced what couldn't be repaired. Enhanced what remained. Experimented whenever they thought they could get away with it.
Sometimes, Caleb felt less like a patient and more like a project. A prototype. A machine they were trying to perfect.
The worst part wasn't the pain. The pain eventually became familiar. The worst part was the loneliness.
Before the explosion. Caleb had never truly been alone. You had always been there.
The two of you grew up together. Shared meals. Shared holidays. Shared dreams.
Even when you fought, he always knew where to find you. He always knew you would come back.
The silence was unbearable.
There were no more late-night conversations. No more teasing arguments over dinner. No more hearing your footsteps racing through the house. No more watching you fall asleep on the couch in his arms after insisting you weren't tired.
Every memory became a knife. Every quiet moment reminded him of everything he'd lost.
Sometimes he caught himself reaching for his phone before remembering he couldn't call you. Couldn't text you. Couldn't hear your voice.
The realization hurt him.
Every single time.
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His right arm wasn't his anymore. Neither were parts of his spine. Or the circulatory hidden beneath his skin.
The first time he saw himself after the reconstruction, he nearly punched the mirror.
Metal lines traced beneath his skin. Artificial joints moved where flesh once existed.
His body no longer felt like home.
Sometimes he would stare at his reflection for long periods of time. Studying the stranger looking back.
Wondering if you would recognize him. Wondering if you would be afraid. Wondering if you would still smile at him the same way.
Would you look at him and see Caleb? Or would you see the monster built from spare parts and desperation?
The thought terrified him more than any battlefield ever could.
Because Caleb could survive losing himself. What he couldn't survive was losing you.
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The researchers always gave the same answer.
"You survived."
As if survival justified everything. As if survival erased what they'd done to him. As if survival erased the night he screamed through surgeries. As if survival erased the pieces of himself they removed and replaced.
The only thing that kept him cooperating was the belief that you were safe. That you had escaped. That you were living somewhere beneath Linkon's blue skies.
Maybe grieving. Maybe angry.Maybe wondering why he left you behind.
But safe.
The thoughts haunted him. He often imagined what your life looked like now.
Do you still visit Gran's favorite bakery? Do you still leave dishes in the sink despite promising you'd wash them later? Do you still hum quietly when you thought nobody was listening?
Do you still smile the same way? Whenever you looked at him?
The questions followed him everywhere.
But there were never any answers.
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Every morning, he checked the reports they allowed him to see.
Civilian databases. Residency records. Routine monitoring reports. Anything connected to your name.
Nothing unusual. No incidents. No warnings.
But alive. The words became his religion. As long as you were alive, he was willing to do anything. Even if it was for EVER. No matter how much he hated them.
He hated them with bitterness so deep it had long since become part of him.
The hatred started long before the explosion. Long before the surgeries. Long before the metal buried beneath his skin.
It had started when he was a child. Back when he didn't fully understand why certain adults always seemed interested in you.
Why strangers occasionally appeared in your lives only to disappear again. Why certain files vanished whenever he tried to access them. Why people looked at you differently.
Like you weren't a person. Like you were a project. An opportunity. A specimen.
As he grew older, the pieces slowly began fitting together. EVER's fingerprints were everywhere.
Around the experiments. Around the missing records. Around the unexplained incidents that seemed to follow the two of you throughout your childhood.
The realization filled him with a fury he could never quite put into words.
Because you deserved normal. You deserved birthdays and school dances and embarrassing family photos. You deserved arguments about what to eat for dinner and complaints about work and lazy weekends spent sleeping in.
Instead, people like EVER had spent years deciding your future for you. Treating your life like something they owned. Like something they could shape however they pleased.
Caleb hated them for it. Hated them for every tear you shed. Every nightmare. Every unexplained injury. Every memory that seemed incomplete.
Every time he caught you staring into the distance with confusion in your eyes, trying to remember something that had somehow slipped away.
And then the explosion happened. And somehow EVER found a way to take even more.
They took his body. His freedom. His future. And now he belonged to them whether he liked it or not.
That was the part Caleb hated most. Not the surgeries. Not the pain. Not the metal.
The helplessness.
Because despite everything, he couldn't leave. Not yet. Not while they controlled every aspect of his recovery.
Not while they controlled his medical treatments. Not while they monitored every communication. Not while they still held enough information to make him wonder what would happen if he disobeyed.
Every time he considered escaping, the same thought stopped him.
What if they retaliated? What if they went after her? What if they were still watching her?
The possibility was enough to keep him trapped.
EVER knew it too. They always knew exactly which strings to pull. Exactly which fears to exploit.
They never had to threaten him directly. They only had to remind him that she existed. And Caleb would fall back into line.
Because he could survive almost anything. But he couldn't survive being the reason she got hurt.
So he obeyed. He completed the evaluations. Attended the briefings. Followed orders.
All while quietly promising himself that one day he would be strong enough to break their hold over him.
One day he would find her. One day he would make them answer for everything they'd done.
To him. To her. To both of them.
The promise became another thing he carried through the long nights. A small flame burning beneath years of anger. A reminder that survival wasn't the same thing as surrender.
He hadn't forgiven EVER. Not even close.
He was simply waiting.
Waiting for the day he could finally stop being their weapon.
And become their reckoning.
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After seasons, seasons of building back his life without you, seasons of missing you. He finally was stationed at his current position. Colonel.
He has been briefed for his mission for months now, prepping for EVER's first ever launch of what they claim to be the ultimate weapon.
The final briefing arrived on a cold winter morning.
Caleb stood in front of the mirror fastening the collar of his new uniform.
The black military jacket fit perfectly. The insignia of the Farspace Fleet gleamed beneath the lights.
Most people would've been proud. The title. The rank. The prestige.
But Caleb? He felt nothing.
Because none of it mattered. Not really. Every accomplishment felt incomplete without you there to see it.
He found himself imagining your reaction anyway.
You'd probably laugh first. Tell him the uniform made him look old. Then spend the next ten minutes fixing his collar because it wasn't sitting properly.
The image appeared so vividly around the edge of the sink.
God. He missed you. He missed you so much it physically hurt.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Colonel."
The title felt strange. Like it belonged to someone else. Someone stronger. Someone colder. Someone who wasn't the boy who grew up beside you.
"Director Hargrove is waiting."
Caleb grabbed his gloves.
"Let's get this over with."
Shortly, he arrived at the base.
The lab's briefing chamber he was led to sat deep beneath the research facility. Far below the levels shown to visitors. Far below the laboratories investors toured.
The lower levels felt different. The air was colder. The hallways quieter. The shadows deeper.
Every instinct Caleb possessed told him something wasn't right. Something was very, very wrong.
But he ignored it. Because he was almost free.
One final briefing. His first mission. Then he could leave. Then he could find you.
Then maybe he could finally start living again.
Director Hargrove stood behind a reinforced security door. The old man's smile never changed.
Caleb hated it. It was the smile of someone who viewed people as numbers. Varibles. Experiments.
"Today is a big day."
Caleb remained silent.
Your first deployment."
"I know."
"You're ready."
"I know."
"There's one final thing before we begin."
Something twisted in Caleb's stomach.
"What?"
The director gestured toward the vault.
"Your partner."
Caleb frowned.
"Partner?"
"The Fleet's first integrated weapons system."
The words felt wrong.
Like a puzzle piece forced somewhere it didn't belong.
"Come see."
The laboratory was beyond enormous. Rows of researchers moved between glowing monitors. Machines hummed beneath the floor. The scent of antiseptic filled the air.
At the center of the room stood a massive tank. Blue liquid churned behind reinforced glass. Dozens of cables disappeared into the ceiling.
Caleb took one step forward. Then another. Then stopped.
His world ended.
Inside the tank floated a girl.
Inside the tank was you.
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For one impossible moment, Caleb thought he was hallucinating. His brain refused to understand what his eyes were seeing.
It couldn't be you. You were safe. They told him you were safe. For two whole years, they told him you were safe. He endured everything because they told him you were safe.
And yet.
There you were.
Suspended inside a tank like some laboratory specimen. Like some monster. Like some weapon.
"No..."
The word escaped him.
Nobody reacted. Nobody looked shocked. Nobody looked guilty.
Because everyone else in the room already knew. Everyone except him.
His legs carried him forward before he realized he was moving. Closer. Even closer.
Until the details came into focus. Until each new detail shattered something inside of him.
The cables. The restrains. The scars. The cuts. The machinery.
His breathing became uneven. His heart pounded so violently he thought it might tear itself apart. The blood rushed to his ears.
"No...!"
The mechanical framwork wrapped around one side of your body. Artificial plating followed your ribs. Energy conduits glowed beneath your skin. The modifications spread down your arm. Across your shoulder. Up your neck.
Exacrtly like him. Exactly.
His stomach turned. Everythig suddenly made sense.
The surgeries. The research. The endless delays. The secrecy.
The two of you were back to square one. They had been building him. And while they built him--
They had been building you too.
"What did you do to her?"
His voice edged and broken.
No one answered. The room remained silent. Then Hargrove answered.
"We saved her."
The same lie. The same excuse. The same justification. Something inside Caleb cracked.
Weighted gravity exploded across the room. All the researchers dropped to the floor instantly. Monitors flickered. Alarms chirped warnings.
Caleb couldn't hear any of it. All he could see was you. All he could think was that you were here.
That you were here the whole time.
While he suffered. While he healed. While he dreamed about finding you again. You had been here.
Alone.
And he hadn't known.
Then you moved. Just slightly. A twitch of your fingers. A tiny shift in the water.
Caleb froze.
Slowly--
Painfully slowly--
Your eyes opened.
And for the first time in two years. For the first time since the explosion stole the world from the two of you, Caleb looked into them again.
Everything inside him stopped. The laboratory disappeared. The researchers disappeared. The world disappeared. There was only you.
Alive. Real. Beautiful. And utterly broken.
The sight nearly destroyed him until he saw it. Because for one brief second, he saw it.
Recognition. You knew him. You remembered him. After everything. You remembered him.
Then fear flooded your expression. Not for yourself. But for him.
And Caleb realized with growing horror that whatever had happened to you in this place--
Whatever they had turned you into--
You were still trying to protect him.
Even now.
Even after all this time.
Your lips moved. A single word. Small enough that nobody saw it.
But Caleb saw it.
"Run."
And in that moment. Caleb understood one terrible truth. EVER had never intended to give him his first mission. They were giving him his first weapon.
And that weapon was the girl he spend two years trying to get back.