The brownstone was quiet, the only sound the crackle of the fireplace and the distant hum of Seattle rain. Christopher sat on the leather sofa, his head resting on Jack's shoulder. The ring on his finger felt heavy—a physical anchor in a reality he had spent years treating like a simulation.
"You've been staring at that flame for twenty minutes, Chris," Jack whispered, pulling him closer. "Derek is back in surgery, Lexie is starting rehab, and the NTSB closed the file. You won. Why do you look like you're waiting for a ghost?"
Christopher pulled back, his face pale in the firelight. The sarcasm that usually served as his armor was stripped away, leaving only the raw, terrifying intellect of a man who knew too much.
"I need to tell you something, Jack. And if you ever repeat it, I'll have to fake our deaths and move us to a country that doesn't have extradition treaties," Christopher said, his voice low and urgent.
Jack straightened, his lawyerly instincts sharpening. "You're serious. This isn't a medical joke about cadaver labs?"
"I'm a transmigrator," Christopher blurted out. He watched Jack's confusion and pushed forward before he could lose his nerve. "I didn't just 'predict' the fuel leak or the bus crash or Derek's accident. I knew they were coming. In the world I'm from, your life—this hospital, every tragedy I've stopped—is a television show. A drama. And I was sent here with the script in my head."
Jack stared at him, his mouth slightly open. "A... TV show? You're telling me my fiancé is a time-traveling fan of medical procedurals?"
"I'm telling you that in the original story, George O'Malley is hit by a bus. Mark and Lexie die in the woods. Derek dies on a roadside because a surgeon didn't order a Head CT. I spent three years cutting the brake lines of destiny because I couldn't stand the writing." Christopher leaned forward, his eyes burning. "I saved them, Jack. I broke the world to keep them alive. And I need to know if you can marry a man who isn't just a genius, but a walking glitch in the universe."
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Jack looked at Christopher's hands—the hands that had performed miracles that shouldn't exist yet. Then, he reached out and took them in his own.
"I don't care if we're in a TV show, a novel, or a simulation, Chris," Jack said, his voice steady and fiercely protective. "I care that you're the man who chose to save people instead of just watching them fall. If you're a glitch, you're the best thing that ever happened to this timeline. Your secret is safe with me. I'm a lawyer—I'm literally paid to keep secrets."
Christopher felt the last of the tension bleed out of him. He let out a long, shaky laugh. "Good. Because if Meredith Grey ever finds out I knew about her Drowning Incident beforehand, she'll never let me hear the end of it."
He leaned into Jack, finally at peace. He didn't know what happened in "Season 12" anymore. He had deleted the file. He was just Dr. Christopher Wright, a twenty-one-year-old surgeon with a husband-to-be, a razor-sharp tongue, and a life that was finally, blissfully, unscripted.
"One more thing," Christopher muttered as they drifted toward sleep.
"Yeah?"
"If a man named Andrew DeLuca ever joins the hospital... remind me to tell him to stay away from human traffickers. I'm tired of doing surgery on my days off."