The grass is damp. The sun is too bright. The air smells like spring in a way it hasn't in your world for years.

A crowd has gathered—students in clothes that look almost right, except for the details. Phones in holsters instead of pockets. A newspaper under someone's arm with a date that makes your chest go tight.

Behind him, Kaine crosses his arms, tattoos shifting, watching you with those impossible blue eyes—alive and bright and nothing like the cold, absent man you've spent a decade learning to ignore.