Elara's apartment was a mirror image of his own in layout, but worlds apart in spirit. Where his was a Spartan cell, hers was a lived-in home. Books were stacked on every available surface—medical texts, thick novels, books on art history. A comfortable-looking sofa was draped with a soft-looking blanket. The air smelled of tea and faintly of lavender.
"Please, sit," she said, gesturing to a small dining table by the window as she moved to the kitchenette to put the kettle on. "Make yourself at home."
Karl sat, his posture unconsciously perfect, his eyes taking in the room with a tactician's speed while maintaining a facade of polite interest. A photograph on a bookshelf showed a younger Elara, smiling between an older couple—her parents, he assumed. There were no signs of a partner. The space was entirely, comfortably hers.
She brought over two steaming mugs of tea and a tin of butter biscuits. "So, Matthias," she began, sitting opposite him. "What brings a technical writer to our quiet little corner of the world?"
He launched into the prepared backstory—a freelance contract, a desire for a quieter pace, the charm of the old city. He spoke easily, the lies flowing with a practiced smoothness. But as they talked—first about the city, then about books, then about the quirks of old buildings—the conversation began to feel less like an interrogation and more like… a conversation. She was sharp, witty, and possessed a calm empathy that was utterly disarming.
At one point, she gestured to the medical journal she'd been reading. "It's a far cry from technical writing, I'm sure. Sometimes I miss the straightforwardness of it. Medicine is so often a fog of uncertainties."
"You must see… a great deal," he ventured carefully, sipping his tea.
"You could say that," she said, a thoughtful, slightly distant look entering her eyes. "Highs and lows. The human body is a miraculous, fragile thing." She paused, then seemed to decide to share something. "You know, years ago, I was part of a team that brought a man back. A trauma patient. He'd… well, he'd been through something terrible. We lost him on the table. Flatlined. But we got him back."
Karl's blood went cold. He kept his expression neutral, interested. "That must have been… intense."
"It was," she said softly, her gaze fixed on her tea as if seeing the memory in its depths. "I'll never forget the shock of it. The sheer will to live he must have had. For a few days, it was all we talked about on the ward. A miracle case."
She looked up at him, a faint, wistful smile on her face. "And then I was transferred. A hospital in another city needed senior staff. I never knew what happened to him. Never even knew his name. He's just… a face I sometimes wonder about. If he lived. If he's well."
The confession hung in the air between them. She had given him a piece of the puzzle, handed it to him freely. A face I sometimes wonder about. And here he was, sitting across from her.
A powerful, almost overwhelming urge seized him. To tell her. To lean forward and say, It was me. The face you wonder about is mine. I'm here. I lived because of you.
The words burned on his tongue. The need to connect the two halves of his existence—the man she saved and the man she now knew as Matthias—was a physical ache. To be truly seen by her, not as a ghost or a fabrication, but as the living result of her skill and compassion.
He looked at her—at the kindness in her eyes, the intelligence, the profound normalcy that surrounded her. To tell her would be to drag her into his nightmare. It would be the most selfish act of his life.
The moment passed. The Ghost reasserted control, smothering the impulsive need of the man.
"He's lucky to have had you there," Karl said, his voice a little rough. He offered a small, grateful smile. "Whoever he is."
Elara's smile returned, pulling her from the memory. "Thank you for saying that." She seemed to shake off the melancholy. "More tea?"
He nodded, the chance for revelation gone, leaving behind a bittersweet echo of what might have been, and the cold, hard certainty that it could never be.