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Kate arrived at UNIT at 07:14, because she could not sit still in an empty house that still smelled faintly of hospital soap and stale coffee. The corridors were already awake—boots on concrete, clipped voices, the hum of machinery—but everything felt slightly out of focus, as though she were watching through glass.
She told herself, very firmly, This was good.
Routine. Control. Normality.
She expected Christofer to be there when the lift doors opened.
The thought was so natural it barely registered until the doors slid apart and there was no familiar figure leaning against the wall, tablet tucked under one arm. No quiet, “Morning, ma’am,” pitched just low enough to be for her alone.
The space where he should have been felt wrong. Too empty. Too loud.
Kate stepped out anyway.
People looked at her differently that day. Not openly—UNIT was very good at discretion—but there was a carefulness in the way greetings softened, in the way eyes flicked away too quickly. She returned nods automatically, posture immaculate, spine straight, expression perfectly neutral. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, back at her desk, back in command.
She made it three steps down the corridor before she saw him.
Or thought she did.
A man with the same dark hair, the same height, walking away from her toward Ops. Her heart lurched, a sharp, foolish surge of hope that made her breath catch.
“Christofer—”
The name left her mouth before she could stop it.
The man turned. He was not Christofer. His face was wrong in a dozen small ways—too young, eyes the wrong colour, smile apologetic instead of earnest.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said, clearly startled.
Kate recovered instantly. She always did. “Of course,” she replied coolly. “My mistake.”
She kept walking, heels steady against the floor, even as something inside her splintered.
He was everywhere after that.
In the empty chair at the briefing table where he always sat to her right. In the pause before someone answered a technical question, the space where his voice would usually cut in—helpful, precise, quietly confident. In the way her hand drifted toward her mug during a meeting, expecting him to have already topped it up without being asked.
She kept catching herself listening for his footsteps.
By mid-morning, it was exhausting.
Kate retreated to her office under the pretence of paperwork. The door closed behind her with a soft click that sounded far too final. She stood there for a moment, hand still on the handle, staring at the room as if it might rearrange itself if she looked hard enough.
His coat was gone from the hook.
She hadn’t realised she had been expecting it to still be there.
Kate moved to her desk and sat, fingers aligning the papers in front of her with unnecessary precision. She opened a report and read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a word.
At exactly 10:32, she looked up.
That was usually when he knocked.
A brief, polite tap. Then, without waiting for permission, Christofer would poke his head in and say something like, “I’ve got the updated telemetry, and—you’re not going to like this.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
The knock didn’t come.
The silence stretched, heavy and unyielding. Kate exhaled slowly, pressed her lips together, and stared at the door as if sheer will might summon him through it.
He’ll walk in, a treacherous part of her insisted. Any second now.
But seconds passed. Then minutes.
And Christofer did not walk in.
Kate lowered her gaze to the desk, one hand curling lightly into a fist. Her reflection in the darkened monitor stared back at her—composed, controlled, utterly alone.
She closed her eyes for just a moment.
Tomorrow, she told herself.
Tomorrow would be easier.
The war was over. Peace had been made.
There had been handshakes, exhausted smiles, relief carried on every breath. The world had survived, somehow, and everyone seemed ready to move on—to rebuild, to hope, to be happy again.
Everyone except Kate.
She stood among them, applauded alongside them, accepted congratulations with a composed nod and a practiced smile. But there was a hollow place inside her that none of it touched. Victory rang faint and distant when measured against the simple, devastating fact that Christofer was not there to see it.
When Tide approached her, she was still lost in that quiet absence.
“I have a parting gift,” he told her, voice gentle in that infuriatingly knowing way of his. “For the woman who understands grief—and still put the world ahead of her own heart.”
Kate frowned despite herself. “That’s unnecessary,” she said. “You’ve already—”
Tide only smiled, something ancient and kind in his eyes. He inclined his head, said his goodbyes to the room at large, and then he was gone—water retreating, presence fading, the UNIT floor suddenly too solid beneath her feet.
Kate exhaled, turning away, already bracing herself for the familiar disappointment of expectation unmet.
“Hello, Commander.”
The voice came from behind her.
For a single, terrifying second, she thought she had imagined it. Grief had been doing that to her for weeks—placing Christofer’s voice in empty rooms, conjuring him from the corner of her eye only to tear him away again.
Her breath hitched. Her heart thudded hard enough to hurt.
She turned slowly, afraid of how much it would cost to be wrong again.
Christofer was there.
Leaning against the wall, exactly as he always did—casual in a way that never quite hid his respect, eyes warm, posture familiar down to the smallest detail. Alive. Whole. Looking at her as though she were the only person in the room.
The world tilted.
“Chris?” she whispered, the name fragile and disbelieving, as though saying it too loudly might shatter him.
He smiled, just a little. “Hi.”
That was all it took.
She crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat, arms wrapping around him with a desperation she did not bother to restrain. Her face pressed into his shoulder, breath shaking, fingers curling into the fabric of his uniform as if anchoring herself to reality.
He held her just as tightly.
She felt him breathe. Felt the solid certainty of him beneath her hands. The impossible truth of his heartbeat against her cheek.
“I thought—” Her voice broke. She swallowed hard. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I know,” he murmured, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
The room seemed to remember itself then. The silence. The stares.
Christofer huffed a soft, almost-laugh. “You are aware,” he said gently, “that everyone is watching.”
Kate pulled back enough to look at him. Her eyes were bright, fierce, unapologetically alive in a way they hadn’t been since before the war.
“Screw them,” she said, without hesitation.
And then she kissed him.
It was not careful or restrained. It was relief and grief and love tangled together, poured into a single, defiant moment in the middle of the UNIT operations room. Gasps rippled outward; someone dropped something loudly, but Kate didn’t break the kiss.
For once, she didn’t care who saw.
When she finally pulled away, her forehead rested against his, her hands still fisted in his jacket as though letting go might undo everything.
“You were right,” she said quietly. “About all of it. You deserve more than being hidden away. More than being my secret.”
Christofer’s expression softened, emotion flickering unguarded across his face.
“Kate—”
She kissed his cheek, his temple, breathed him in like she was memorising him all over again.
“I won’t lose you again,” she said. “Not like that.”
And as the noise slowly returned, as the world resumed turning around them, the missing piece finally slid back into place—warm, solid, and real.