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Sometimes Lizzie’s grief is cruel to her- she wishes they had just found Joel’s body, instead of his sudden disappearance.
But no, he had kissed her cheek that morning, said goodbye with a cheeky grin, and was no more in her life.
Now she lives in limbo, waiting for someone she doesn’t know is ever going to come back. The years test her, her friends move on, but she can’t stop hoping today will be the day she receives good news.
How can she give up on her husband? She knows if he’s out there, that Joel will do anything to return. Lizzie cannot spite him like that, so she waits.
As time passes, though, she digs deeper into what the police told her. A train station, they said, an area where the camera didn’t catch anything.
That couldn’t be all to the story.
So she digs. Lizzie researches the train station, the camera they use there, and starts scrolling the internet for similar stories.
Through a friend of a friend and some sleight of hand, Lizzie gets access to a copy of the tapes from the train station. She’s certain the camera caught something- and she’s right, as she has to watch men in dark suits drag Joel away.
She’s both elated and disheartened to find people online in similar straits to her own. A man on the internet saying his husband was grabbed while going to the grocery store, ad another person saying their son disappeared from their university campus with no one believing her claims of secret agents being involved. Every time sudden, with the involvement of people in dark suits, and the police are always quick to shut the case down.
They tried to tell her that Joel chose to leave. They tried to blame her, but Lizzie knows part of the truth now. Her husband didn’t just disappear, he was taken from her.
Lizzie continues to reach out to other victims while reading into similar disappearances. She finds all kinds of stories, each one crazier than the last, like accusations of human experimentation and gladiator rings for the ultra-wealthy to watch and bet on.
It makes her turn and twist in bed at night with fear. Is that what Joel is going through right now? Is he suffering? Is he in pain?
Does he think she’s given up on him?
Lizzie notices more strangeness in the coming months. Cars trailing after her, people who stare at her for too long in the corner shop, and something activating the motion sensor lights on her back porch. By the time she gets up to see what set it off, there’s nothing there.
She becomes paranoid. Lizzie lives alone, and her family is a city away. Her friends check up on her, but if anything happened in the middle of the night, it’d take hours for anyone to notice. She stops sleeping, napping intermittently throughout the day, spending long evenings driving through the city while anxiously checking her rearview mirrors, taking care to stay in populated areas.
She’s being watched, she knows she is.
And it all comes to a breaking point- quite literally- when a man in a dark suit breaks down her bedroom door.
In her paranoia, she covered it with a dresser, but he seemed to toss the furniture aside without a care. Lizzie is already awake with a knife in her hand, and she screams at him.
He’s got pitch black hair and eyes that seem to glow. He doesn’t listen to a single threat she says, lunging at her.
She prepares her knife, aware of how useless it’ll be-
When something else crashes into the room, tackling the agent.
Lizzie watches slack-jawed as two super-humans fight it out, turning the surroundings into a shattered mess. It’s too dark to make out any details, but she can hear as the newcomer bites at the agent’s throat, something wet splattering to the floor.
The agent goes limp. When the newcomer moves towards her, she can’t help screaming again.
“Please- please stop,” his voice growls.
The hunched figure straightens out as best he can, and the moon reflects in his eyes like a dog’s does. Illuminated in blue, Lizzie can see his face clearly now.
There is blood dripping from his mouth, and his eyes are slitted like a predator's, but Lizzie would recognize this man anywhere.
“Joel…” Lizzie says, incredulous, “is it really you?”
He avoids her eyes, shuffling into the shadows again, “I- I didn’t want you to see this. But you were getting close to the truth, the people who took me were going to silence you, and I couldn’t-”
Lizzie steps forward, holding out a tentative hand.
Joel stands rigid but lets her rest her hand on his bloody cheek.
“You’re back,” she says as her tears fall from her eyes. Her Joel, returned to her. Lizzie has waited so long.
“I’m sorry. I’m… different,” Joel says in a distorted voice. It’s rougher now, rumbling and scratchy but she can hear the man she used to know.
She smiles, rubbing her thumb under his eyes, not minding the blood there. He finally turns his gaze back to hers, and it steals her breath away.
It really is him, this isn’t a dream.
“You could return to me a monster, a fiend, any manner of creature- and I would rejoice, because you are you. Different, but you, how could I feel anything but love?”
Joel’s shoulders shake, and he softly closes his eyes, sinking into her hold like a dog starved of affection.
Oh, the terrible things they did to him. She cannot begin to imagine the pain or horror- but can hold him and love him as he is. It’s a very easy task, when she’s been yearning to have her husband in her arms for years.
Lizzie hugs him tightly to her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
“... I got out. I’m home,” Joel says in disbelief.
“You’re home.”
Lizzie does not care about the destroyed furniture, the corpse bleeding out onto the floor, or however different Joel is now-
He’s home.