Saturday arrives with a gray sky.
Ethan Cross is ready.
He has slept four hours in the last two days. The rest of the time has been spent constructing a safety net so intricate it could catch falling rain.
He is in his office at home, three monitors glowing in the dim light.
On Screen 1: The blueprints for the neurology wing at St. Jude's.
On Screen 2: A secure email thread with Dr. Amara Wells, subject line: Donation / Private Consult Request.
On Screen 3: Violet's social media footprint (which feels voyeuristic, but necessary for data verification).
"Sir?"
Ethan spins his chair. His housekeeper, Mrs. Garetty, stands at the door, holding a pressed shirt.
"You have a guest," she says, looking disapproving. "Your brother."
Ethan swears under his breath. "Tell him I'm busy."
"I heard you the first time," Sebastian says, pushing past Mrs. Garetty.
Sebastian Cross is older, broader, and wears his success like armor. Where Ethan is sharp precision, Sebastian is blunt force. He looks at the monitors.
"You're liquidating your position in the biotech merger," Sebastian says. It's not a question. "Are you shorting the market? Or are you just having a mental breakdown?"
"It's a reallocation of assets," Ethan says, standing up. He checks his watch. 1:00 PM. He has to pick Violet up in an hour.
"You're dumping eight million dollars into a hospital foundation, Ethan. You, who argues over a ten-cent variance in supply chain costs." Sebastian steps closer. "Who is she?"
Ethan pauses. He straightens his cuffs.
"She is the priority."
Sebastian laughs, harsh and dry. "Does she have a name? Or is she just a 'concept' you're obsessed with this week?"
"Her name is Violet," Ethan says. "And if you try to intervene with the board, I will trigger the golden parachute clause and bankrupt the Q3 projections. Do not test me, Seb."
The room goes cold. Ethan has never threatened the family business. It's their religion.
Sebastian stares at him, calculating. "You're serious."
"Deadly."
"Fine." Sebastian backs off, raising his hands. "But when she breaks your heart—or your bank account—don't come crying to me. You're flying without a parachute, kid."
"I don't need a parachute," Ethan says, turning off the monitors. "I'm flying the plane."
The Gallery Date, Version 2.0.
In Loop 0, this was magical. They laughed at bad art. They shared secrets. They kissed on the roof.
In Loop 1, Ethan is conducting a security operation.
"It's crowded," he notes as they walk into the gallery. He subtly positions himself between Violet and a guy carrying a large backpack.
"It's an opening, Ethan," Violet says. She's wearing the same overalls and yellow t-shirt combination (he notes the consistency—clothes loop too). "Crowds are the point. It's kinetic energy."
"It's a fire hazard and a breeding ground for airborne pathogens."
Violet stops. She looks at him, bewildered. "Okay. Who replaced Fun Coffee Guy with Safety Inspector Guy?"
Ethan forces a smile. It feels tight. "Sorry. Just... protective."
"I don't need a bodyguard," she says, brushing past him. "I need wine. Cheap, terrible gallery wine."
She grabs two plastic cups from a passing waiter. She hands one to Ethan.
"To art," she toasts.
"To health," Ethan counters.
She rolls her eyes. "You are such a dad. Seriously, are you twenty-three or forty-five?"
"Biologically twenty-three. Mentally... ancient."
They walk through the exhibit. Ethan barely looks at the art. He is watching her.
He's looking for the glitch. The tremble in the hand. The moment her eyes go unfocused.
"That's just a red square," Violet says, pointing to the same painting from the previous loop.
Ethan nods. "The artist, Markov, believes in the reduction of emotion to primary colors. It sold for fifty thousand last year."
Violet frowns. "You just sucked all the fun out of judging it. Last time—I mean, at the park—you seemed more..."
"More what?"
"Spontaneous." She sighs. She looks at her reflection in the sculpture of broken mirrors. "You're vibrating, Ethan. You're so tense. Is it me? Do I make you nervous?"
"Yes," Ethan admits. "You have no idea."
He steps closer.
"Violet."
"Yeah?"
"How is your head?"
She blinks. "My head? It's fine. Why do you keep asking about my head? Do I have lettuce in my teeth? Is my hair weird?"
"You rubbed your temple again."
"Because the lights in here are atrocious!" She gestures at the track lighting. "It's halogens. They buzz."
She sways.
It's tiny. A fraction of an inch shift in her balance.
Ethan lunges. He grabs her arm to steady her.
"Whoa!" She jerks back, wine sloshing out of her cup onto his expensive blazer. "Ethan! Back off!"
"You stumbled," Ethan insists. "You're dizzy."
"I tripped on the rug!" She points to the corner of the rug that is, in fact, slightly curled up. "Stop analyzing me!"
People are staring. Violet's face is bright red.
"Let's go," Ethan says. "The air quality in here is poor. I'll drive you."
"No," Violet says. She puts her wine cup down on a pedestal. "No. I'm going home. Alone. Because this date? It feels like a medical exam."
She turns and storms toward the exit.
Ethan stands frozen.
Failure.
He optimized too hard. He squeezed the butterfly, and he crushed it.
But he can't let her go. Not when the timer is ticking. He knows what happens if she gets in a cab. Or a subway. Or walks home alone.
He chases her.
"Violet!"
He catches her on the sidewalk outside. It's starting to rain again.
"Go away, Ethan," she snaps, marching down the street. "You're rich and you're handsome, but you're frantic. And I don't do frantic. I do chill."
"I know you're sick," Ethan yells.
She stops.
The world seems to pause. A taxi honks nearby. The rain begins to fall harder, drumming on the hoods of parked cars.
Violet turns around slowly. Her face is pale under the streetlights.
"What did you say?"
Ethan walks toward her. He drops the pretense. He drops the charm.
"You stumble because your proprioception is failing," he says, listing the data. "You rub your temple because of intracranial pressure. You like vanilla because your sense of taste is dulling from the radiation you had two months ago. You have a sister named Eleanor who you don't want to worry."
Violet backs up until she hits a brick wall. Her eyes are wide, terrified saucers.
"How do you know that?" Her voice is a whisper. "Did you... did you hack my files? Did you talk to Dr. Wells?"
"I know," Ethan says, stepping into her space, sheltering her from the rain. "Because I care. And because you are terrified, and you're doing it alone."
"You're a stalker," she breathes.
"I am the only person on this planet who sees the clock ticking besides you," he counters. "You have glioblastoma, grade four. You stopped treatment six weeks ago because it made you sick. You are pretending to be fine, but you're not. You're dying, Violet."
Violet slides down the wall. She creates a shield with her knees, hiding her face. She begins to cry—harsh, ragged sobs.
"Who are you?" she weeps. "How do you know?"
Ethan kneels in the puddles. He ruins his Italian trousers. He doesn't care.
"It doesn't matter how I know," he says softly. "What matters is that we have money now. We have options."
"There are no options!" she screams at him, looking up. "It's terminal! Do you not understand English? Terminal!"
"Variables change," Ethan says stubbornly. "I have an appointment set up. Tonight. An MRI. We need to see the growth rate."
"I don't want to go back there."
"I know. It smells like bleach and death. But if you go... I will take you to the ocean. I'll take you to see a lighthouse. I promise."
She wipes her eyes. "Why do you care? We met yesterday."
Ethan looks at her. He sees the girl who died in his arms in the twisted metal of the Mustang.
"Because," he says, "I missed my chance once. I won't miss it again."
She searches his face. She's looking for the lie. She doesn't find one. She finds only a terrifying, burning determination.
"You're crazy," she decides. "Actually clinically insane."
"Probably." He offers his hand. "Come with me. One scan. If it's the same, I back off. I let you live your life. I'll just be the guy who buys you coffee."
"And if it's different?"
"Then we fight."
Violet stares at his hand. The rain plasters her hair to her face. She looks so small.
She reaches out.
"Okay," she whispers. "One scan."
The hospital at night is a kingdom of silence and beeping machines.
Because Ethan is Ethan Cross, there is no waiting room. Dr. Wells meets them at the private entrance. She looks confused to see Violet again so soon—but she processes Ethan's aggressive email and the sizeable donation alert on her phone.
"Mr. Cross," Dr. Wells says carefully. "And... Violet."
"He knows," Violet says flatly. "Don't ask me how. He just knows."
Dr. Wells glances at Ethan, then nods. "Very well. The MRI suite is prepped."
Ethan waits in the observation room. He watches through the glass as Violet lies down on the table. She looks like a child in the massive machine. The tech slides her in.
Thump. Thump. Whirrr.
The magnetic rhythm begins.
Dr. Wells stands at the monitors, clicking through the slices of the brain as they appear in monochrome.
Ethan stands behind her, holding his breath.
He's hoping for a miracle. He's hoping that because he caught it "early"—four months earlier than the crash in the last loop—it's smaller. Manageable.
"There," Dr. Wells points.
The white mass appears on the screen.
Ethan leans in.
"Compare to her last scan from eight weeks ago," he commands.
Dr. Wells pulls up the side-by-side.
Ethan is an analyst. He understands trend lines. He understands volume.
The mass on the right (today) is significantly larger than the mass on the left (two months ago).
It hasn't shrunk. It hasn't stalled.
"It's grown," Ethan says, his voice hollow.
"Yes," Dr. Wells confirms, her voice grave. "Faster than anticipated. The aggression rate has doubled."
"Why?" Ethan demands. "She hasn't had any trauma. She's just..."
"Glioblastomas are unpredictable, Ethan. They develop their own vascular systems. They feed."
Dr. Wells turns to him.
"You said you wanted to know if there were options," she says.
"Yes."
"At this rate of growth..." She hesitates. "Surgery is off the table. Radiation is palliative. Ethan... even with aggressive treatment, we aren't looking at six months."
Ethan feels the floor tilt.
"How long?"
"Three months," Wells says. "Maybe four."
Ethan stares at the screen.
It's the same. It's exactly the same timeline as the previous loop. Even here, months earlier, the timer is fixed.
He hasn't saved time. He's just discovered how little of it there is.
"There must be a trial," Ethan says. "Zurich. Tokyo."
"She isn't a candidate for Zurich," Wells says. "Her white blood count is too low."
"Then we boost it."
"Ethan," Wells says sharply. "Look at the patient. Not the screen."
Ethan looks through the glass.
Violet is sliding out of the machine. She sits up. She puts her head in her hands, rubbing her temples. She looks small. Defeated.
"You can drag her across the world," Wells says softly. "You can put her in hospitals for the next ninety days. You can chase a 1% chance. But is that for her? Or is it for you?"
Ethan swallows the bile in his throat.
Inefficiency. The universe is inefficient. It builds beautiful things just to break them.
He walks out of the observation booth. He enters the scan room.
Violet looks up. She tries to read his face.
"Bad?" she asks.
Ethan forces the best poker face of his career. He smiles. It hurts physically to do it.
"Complex," he lies. "But we have data. Data is good."
Violet hops off the table. Her hospital gown flutters.
"You're a terrible liar, Shiny Shoes," she says. "It grew, didn't it?"
Ethan nods. He can't lie to her direct question.
"Okay," Violet says. She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Okay."
She walks over to her pile of clothes.
"So, the coffee offer," she says, her back to him. Her voice trembles, just a little. "Is it still valid? Or does the expiration date make the investment unwise?"
Ethan walks over. He wraps his arms around her from behind, burying his face in her violet hair. She stiffens, then melts against him.
"The investment is valid," he whispers fiercely. "The investment is the only thing that matters."
"I'm scared, Ethan," she admits.
"I know. Me too."
"But..." She turns in his arms. She looks up at him with those heterochromatic eyes—defiant, sad, beautiful. "I don't want to spend my summer in a machine. If I have three months, I want three months. Not ninety days of treatment that fails."
Ethan grips her shoulders. "If we treat it, we might get five months. Or six."
"At what cost?" She taps his chest. "I want to eat waffles. I want to see the ocean. I want to paint until my hands stop working. I choose life, Ethan. Not just survival."
She is asking him to give up. To stop solving. To accept the unacceptable.
In Loop 0, he didn't have a choice. In Loop 1, he has all the choices, and none of them work.
"Fine," Ethan says. The word tastes like ash. "No hospitals. Unless you're in pain."
"Deal."
She smiles. It's a genuine, relieved smile.
"Take me out of here," she says. "I need fresh air."
They walk out of the hospital at 2:00 AM.
The city is asleep. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets slick and black, reflecting the neon signs.
They walk to the car. Ethan opens the door for her.
"Where are we going?" she asks.
"To my place," Ethan says. "I have a guest room. You shouldn't be alone tonight."
She looks at him. "You just want to monitor my vitals."
"Yes."
"And make sure I don't fall."
"Yes."
"Okay," she says. She gets in.
Ethan walks to the driver's side. He pauses, looking up at the sky.
No stars. Just city haze.
He has failed his primary objective: Cure Violet.
But the loop hasn't reset.
Which means the mission isn't over. The loop triggers on death or relationship failure.
He can't stop the death. Not yet. He doesn't know how.
But he can master the relationship. He can give her the perfect three months. The perfect ending. Maybe that's the test. Maybe the universe just wants her to be happy before she goes.
He gets in the car.
"Violet," he says as he starts the engine.
"Yeah?"
"We're going to the beach next weekend."
"The beach?"
"And we're driving to the desert to see the stars. And we're buying every flavor of gelato in the city to find the best one."
She looks at him, surprised. "That's a lot of plans."
"We're going to fill the spreadsheet," Ethan says. "We're going to maximize the utility of every single day."
Violet reaches across the console. She covers his hand on the gear shift.
"Okay, Ethan," she whispers. "Let's maximize."
Ethan drives.
He is terrified. He is heartbroken. But he has a new strategy.
The Perfect Summer.
If he can't save her life, he will save her soul.
And in the back of his mind, a dark, cold voice whispers: And when she dies, I'll just try again. And again. Until I find the timeline where she stays.
The loop counter feels heavy in his skull.
Loop 1.
Time Remaining: 90 Days.