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The bar smelled the same.
Cheap beer. Old wood. A jukebox that had survived several economic collapses and at least one stabbing. Neon light buzzing like it was tired of its own existence.
She leaned over the machine, squinting at the buttons, hair falling forward as she dug coins from the little pile in her palm.
Across the room, he watched her like this was the most dangerous situation he’d ever been in.
Twenty-five years of bioterror, guns, and dying cities.
This was worse.
She slapped the button with unnecessary confidence.
“Trust me,” she said.
He didn’t.
He remembered the first time.
A different bar. Smaller. Dirtier. He’d been two weeks into the job and still wearing the look of a guy who thought life might actually work out if he followed the rules.
She’d been leaning over the jukebox exactly like this.
He’d asked what she was playing.
She’d grinned over her shoulder like it was a dare.
“Art.”
Then the beat had started.
Praise You.
Loud. Ridiculous. The bass line wobbling through the bar like someone tripping over their own feet.
She’d immediately started dancing.
Not cool dancing. Not sexy dancing.
Unhinged dancing.
Arms loose. Shoulders bouncing. Zero self-consciousness.
The kind of dancing that made half the bar stare and the other half wish they had her courage.
He’d been sitting there with his beer thinking two things at once.
First: this song is objectively stupid.
Second: I’m going to fall in love with her.
He didn’t know it yet.
But something in his chest had already tipped forward.
Back in the present, the jukebox clicked.
The same beat rolled through the bar.
He groaned.
“Oh no.”
She turned with that exact same grin, older now but somehow sharper.
“Told you.”
“Twenty-five years,” he said, rubbing his face. “You’re still doing this to me.”
She walked toward him with that loose, easy sway she’d always had after a couple drinks.
The song hummed through the speakers.
We’ve come a long, long way together.
He watched her like a man looking at the ghost of his entire life.
Because it was.
1999 again.
She grabbed his hand and yanked him out of the chair.
He resisted out of principle.
“You’re married now,” he said. “Act like it.”
“You’re married now,” she shot back. “Act like it.”
She spun once, the way she used to, arms up, laughing.
Back then he’d thought she was fearless.
Later he’d realized she was just good at pretending.
He’d learned the difference slowly.
Hospitals.
Funerals.
Waiting rooms that smelled like bleach and coffee.
Long missions where every goodbye felt like it might be the last one.
The song bounced through the room.
I have to praise you like I should.
She danced in front of him like the last twenty-five years hadn’t tried to kill them repeatedly.
He stared at her.
Same stupid song.
Same ridiculous grin.
Different rings on their hands.
He finally gave up and stepped into it, hands landing automatically on her waist like they’d rehearsed it for decades.
She looked up at him, breath warm from cheap whiskey.
“You hated this song,” she said.
“I hate a lot of things you do.”
“Liar.”
He pulled her closer.
The bar blurred into neon and noise around them.
For a second he could see both timelines at once.
Her hair shorter. His jacket too big. The world still naive enough to think monsters were fictional.
She’d been dancing alone that night too.
He’d eventually stood up.
Walked over.
Put a hand on her waist like he had every right to be there.
She’d looked at him like she’d been expecting him the whole time.
Back in the present she leaned her forehead against his collarbone, laughing softly as the beat kept wobbling along.
“You remember the first time?” she asked.
He did.
Too clearly.
The way he’d thought this would be a fling.
A few nights.
Maybe a few months.
Instead it had turned into a lifetime of almosts.
Almost losing her.
Almost telling her.
Almost walking away.
He rested his chin against the top of her head.
“Yeah,” he said.
“You thought it was stupid.”
“It is stupid.”
She tipped her head back to look at him.
“So why did you fall in love with me right after it started playing?”
He blinked.
“You knew?”
She smirked.
“You’re not subtle.”
The chorus rolled through the speakers again.
We’ve come a long, long way together.
He huffed a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
They had.
The wars.
The lies.
The years they spent orbiting each other like gravity was optional.
The times they left.
The times they came back.
The nights they thought the other one was dead.
The fact they were standing here at all.
She slid her arms around his neck.
“Still hate the song?” she asked.
He looked down at her.
Twenty-five years older.
Still the same reckless girl who danced in bars like the world wasn’t ending.
Still the only person who ever made him feel like it might be okay if it did.
He tightened his arms around her waist.
“Yeah,” he said.
She waited.
He sighed.
“But I guess,” he added, voice rough with reluctant affection, “it grew on me.”
She laughed, bright and warm.
Then she kissed him right there in the middle of the stupid song.
And for the first time since 1999—
He finally stopped worrying about how it would end.