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SHE IS HIS addiction.

He gazes down at her, fast asleep in his arms. She'd crawled into his bed in the middle of last night, and he'd been pleasantly surprised to see her. His other self had gone to bed early, exhausted by all the hours he'd pulled recreating Antigen V.

Besides, she'd added, she'd missed him. This him.

"Him and I are the same person, aren't we?" he'd teased, throwing her words back at her. But he'd welcomed her into his bed all the same, holding out his arms so that she could curl up against him. Something like possessiveness had flared to life with the realization that she'd come to him instead.

"Yes, and no," she'd admitted. "I love all of you. But he is the man I came to fall in love, and I've spent the past five years with him. You were the one I first fell in love with, and I've barely spent five days with you."

He'd dragged in a sharp breath at that. Five days. That was far from enough. Five days, five weeks, five years. He suspected that, when it came to her, it would never be enough.

Resolutely, he'd switched the subject. They talked through the night, and spoke about everything and nothing. She told him about her mother, her childhood and this town she'd grown up in. He'd asked her about his family, his job, his life before this one. Five years together with his other self and she knew everything there was to know about him. They'd talked until her voice began to trail off and her eyes fell shut. Then he'd wrapped his legs around hers, pulled her to his chest and urged her to go to sleep.

He lets out a quiet breath now. Up close, he can almost count the eyelashes fanning against her cheekbones, and the freckles on her face. There's a scar—a faint white line between her ear and jaw, and he hasn't a clue how she'd come to have that.

There is still so much I don't know about you, he thinks. Like the universe, I may never fully understand you. But that doesn't mean I won't spend the rest of my life trying to.

Even if you won't be with me.

He drags in a painful breath at that thought and flips onto his back, keeping an arm securely melded around her. In his peripheral, a strange but familiar object catches his eye. He reaches towards the dresser for it, then tilts it under the light to get a better look.

He freezes.

This...this is familiar. An odd contraption shaped like a thermometer, with a red button under the screen. In his mind's eye, he sees himself studying it, seconds before Namjoon had entered the room. His heart begins to pound. Everything—everything—is coming together. The Cypher, the Antigen, and now this. They're all bringing him one step closer to the future that he's lived in.

He's so distracted that he doesn't realize she's woken up, until she shifts in his arms. Immediately, he glances down, his arm tightening around her. She beams up at him in a way that makes his heart constrict in his chest, then her gaze slides to the device in his hands. The smile drops off her face; her eyes flit back to him. There is no hiding from her, he knows, no hiding the haunted expression etched into his features.

"I take it you recognize this?" she asks quietly.

"Where did you get it?"

"It was from you, actually. Your other self nicked it from the research facility two days ago. He said that it might come in useful someday."

"What is it?" he asks, even though he suspects, with a cold sense of dread, that he already knows the answer.

Gently, she takes the device from him and moves to sit up. "It's a memory wipe," she explains, then shifts her thumb to the red button. "You press this to activate it. It's not like the newer versions, where you can choose how much of the past you want to wipe. It's all or nothing, and you can't undo it. So you have to be sure that it's what you want."

His hands begin to shake; he curls his fingers into tight fists. That his other self had been the one who'd brought the memory wipe back is an irony not lost on him. "Why're you telling me this?" he asks, hoarsely.

"I—I thought it might help," she says, biting her lip. "Especially since your other self will be delivering the Antigen tomorrow, and I'm going with him. We won't know if something bad will happen and—"

"Nothing bad will happen! I won't let it!" Agitated, he shoves himself to the edge of the bed and drags his fingers through his hair. "Why would my other self want to forget everything? To forget his life, his family, you?" He whirls back around to face her; an almost maniac, hysterical expression on his face. "If we throw this memory wipe away, then the events of the future won't come to pass, right? If you stayed here with me until we caught up with the future, then everything will be fine, won't it? Won't it?"

The soft sympathy in her eyes is answer enough. It won't. He knows, even as the words leave his mouth, that nothing will change. From the beginning, it has always been this way. No alternate timelines; no parallel universes. No matter how much he tries to change the past, all his changes would have led to the future he's already lived in.

How do you fight a future that will inevitably come to pass?

I can't.

His features crumple; his body curls in on itself. He presses his hands to his face and finds hot tears on his skin. He brushes them viciously away, but more spill forth from beneath his eyelashes. He swipes at them again and again, but fuck it, he's crying and he cannot stop. His shoulders shake with the effort and he sobs soundlessly into his hands. He cries for all the things that have happened and would happen. All the things that came to pass and for all the things that would not come to pass. All of the should-have-beens and would-have-beens that would not be.

Gentle hands glide up his spine, curling around his shoulders. Slowly, she pulls him against her, allowing him to bury his face against her neck. He fists her shirt within his hands, clutching her desperately as he cries.

Don't go, don't go, don't go.

Even amidst his tears, guilt stabs at him as he realizes how utterly selfish he's being. Here she is, the one with the ambiguous future, still comforting him because he's not strong enough to come to terms with that.

It's that thought which makes him drag in a deep breath and pull himself together. His sobs subside; he eventually looks up to find her own tears staining her cheeks. Of course, she must be terrified, dreading the future even more than he does.

He straightens and plucks the memory wipe out of her hand. He sets it down on the dresser, then reaches over to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. Framing her delicate face within his hands, he presses his thumbs to her cheeks to catch her tears.

"I'm sorry," he says. "Can we forget about it all for awhile?"

Her eyes still glistening, she nods and offers him a brave smile. "I'd like that."

Giving in to his impulses, he leans down to press his lips to the corner of her mouth. He's always wanted to do that whenever she smiles, to see if he could make her smile even more. She does. The corner of her lips twitch up a fraction higher, and her breath hitches at the unexpected kiss.

He closes his eyes and breathes her in. Roses, coffee, apples, soap and her, her, her. "Imagine that all this didn't exist," he says quietly. "Imagine that today is a good day. Imagine that the sky is bright, the weather is fine, and all is right with the world. Where do you think we'll be?"

Even in her voice, he can hear her smile. "I think we'd still be here. There would be you, and there would be me, and we would be here together."

He opens his eyes to look at her. "Really?"

"Yes," she says. "You—the other you—once taught me about the Many-Worlds theory. It goes something like this: all alternate histories and futures must be true. In one reality, the sky wouldn't be bright. In another reality, the weather wouldn't be good. But there are some things that stay constant no matter what. And I believe that in whatever reality we're in, you and I would find each other."

He is struck, humbled, by the confidence she has in him. In them. Unable to find the words to say—perhaps no words are necessary at all, he leans forward and kisses her.

It's not a soft or sweet kiss. It's frantic and demanding and needy. He bites down on her bottom lip, swallows her gasp, and sweeps his tongue in. Powerful, relentless, consuming. He pours every ounce of himself into that kiss. Every clash of lips and teeth, every exhale against her mouth, every groan ripped from his throat is his way of telling her how he feels about her. With his actions, he creates a new language—one that only she understands.

Don't go—

One hand comes around the nape of her neck, keeping her securely melded to him. He presses his other hand to her cheek, flushed skin under his fingertips, then feels her heart race when he holds his thumb to the pulse point on her neck.

—Don't leave me.

I don't want to—

Her response is immediate, if not just as passionate. She clings to him, hands fisted around his shirt to drag him down to her. She kisses him deeply; he makes a choked sound when she sucks on his tongue, and feels her satisfied smile against his lips. But it's over in a flash—she presses even closer to him until not a hairsbreadth separates them.

—If only you knew how much I don't want to.

Then stay—

He inhales sharply at the feel of her breasts pressed against his chest. His hands move on their own accord to her bare thighs, covered only by an oversized t-shirt borrowed from his other self. He feels her shiver beneath his palms, and urges her forward until she is straddling him.

—Stay a little longer.

Of course.

Her arms come around his neck; her legs lock around his hips. It is his turn to shiver when her warm heat settles over his arousal. Beneath her, he feels deliciously powerless. She has him wrapped around her finger; she can ask the world of him and he will give it.

But she seems just as powerless beneath his hands. She shivers and gasps and whimpers and arches into his touch like she has never been with him before. And he realizes, with a start, that she really hasn't been with him before. Not this him—not the man she first fell in love with.

His fingers brush her thighs, just beneath her shirt. He pauses, pulls back briefly to look her in the eyes. Can I?

Her lips twitch up into a smile as nervous as he feels, but her gaze is warm with affection. She brings her hands down to cover his, encouraging him to slide his fingers up. While he revels in the softness of her skin, she leans up to kiss him again.

"Yes," she breathes, against his lips. "Always."

He makes another choked sound at that, then drags in another sharp breath when she helps him pull off her shirt. He swallows, his throat dry. She is kneeling in front of him in nothing but a black bra and matching panties—this goddess, this beautiful creature, this woman who even time could not take away from him. And he is struck by the knowing that you and I—we have been here many times, and yet never before.

But this—this—I will remember.

So he memorizes everything. Everything.

He remembers the weight of her breasts in his palms, her slick heat against his fingertips, and the way she tenses and gasps as she falls apart under his mouth.

He remembers the salty tang of her skin as he kisses the juncture between her neck and shoulder, the anticipatory shiver of her body when he maps every inch of her with his hands, and the flush on her cheeks when he whispers words he would never tell anyone else—gentle, filthy, worshipping, needy, all at once.

He remembers that moment, seconds after she's reached that peak, where he gazes down at her. That instant where he stops, still hard and buried inside her, loving her so much that it feels like his heart may explode with the sheer amount of love he has for her.

I need you. I will only ever need you. You today and you tomorrow and you always.

You, you, you.