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I’m dreaming. I must be.
The thought crosses Gabe’s mind as he sits there in the snow, guns momentarily forgotten as he stares up at the shadowy thing looming above him. It’s roughly the size and shape of a man, but it’s form flickers and wavers in the harsh wind that whips the snow around them. It’s edges are fuzzy, trailing off into thin black wisps and dissolving into the frigid air.
Like smoke , he thinks.
But whatever it is, it’s not smoke. It’s too dark, seemingly sucking in the light around them and leaving nothing but a dark void, a scar in the air that doesn’t belong. Even as he watches its form solidifies, condensing in on itself. It takes the shape of a man in tactical armor, a long coat draping from his shoulders to pool near his feet. The creature’s face is shrouded by a large hood, but Gabe is able to catch a glimpse of chalk-white skin beneath. Several points of light, electric blue and easily more than half a dozen, watch him from the depths of the thing’s hood.
This is it. This is how I die. Killed by some freak in a back alley and my corpse left to freeze.
At least he’ll get see Jack soon.
Or so he thinks. But the creature doesn’t move. It simply stands there, studying him, like he’s a puzzle that needs to be worked out. There’s something familiar about the way it cocks its head in thought and Gabe has the sudden urge to yell in frustration.
“What are you? Some sort of omnic? Or maybe some new Talon freakshow sent to kill me? Well, you got me, so what are you waiting for? Do it!”
Gabe isn’t expecting the full-body flinch at the word ‘Talon’, or the gravelly laugh that rings out afterward. “You really think I’d work for Talon? I know it’s been a long time but I thought you knew me better than that.”
The voice strikes him right to his core. It’s rougher, deepened by age and whatever the fuck had been done to him. But there was no way he wouldn’t recognize it. Not when he still listened to those damned voicemails, reliving that awful moment almost every night for the past sixteen years.
“Everything will be alright.”
Gabe feels ice settle deep in his gut and it has nothing to do with the cold. “...Jack?”
The figure, Jack , crouches in front of him and lowers his hood. His face no longer bears the healthy farmboy tan that Gabe used to tease him for. Instead it has a ghastly grey pallor that is only a few shades away from the snow still falling around them. His hair, too, has lost it’s color and now frames his face in stark-white tufts. But these aren’t the details that have Gabe’s breath catching in his throat.
Two jagged lines cut through Jack’s face. Gabe thinks they are scars at first, but then Jack shifts and he can see the glint of teeth . Each line is a jagged maw bisecting Jack’s face and oozing the same black smoke from before. Jack’s eyes are still that vivid blue, but there are far too many of them on the left side of Jack’s face. All of them are focused on Gabe.
“Yeah, Gabe. It’s me.”
Gabe surges forward without thinking, taking hold of the front of Jack’s armor and shoving him backwards until he’s laying flat in the snow. He sits on Jack’s chest and pins him to the ground, fist raised for a blow he isn’t sure he can deliver. The rational part of his brain knows that Jack can escape whenever he wants with his smoke trick, but the fact that Jack is just laying there calmly staring at him makes his temper flare in a way that only Jack could.
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘it’s me’?! Sixteen years! You left me thinking you were dead for sixteen goddamn years! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put you in the ground for real this time!”
Jack sighs, and Gabe can see the little teeth moving in those hideous extra mouths.
“It wasn’t on purpose, Gabe. I am- I really was dead.”
Dead .
And Gabe remembers seeing Jack’s corpse laid out on a cold metal table. He remembers the irrational anger he felt at the thought of coroner touching Jack and cutting him open. There was no way it could have been faked. Gabe has seen enough corpses in his life to recognize one and no amount of wishful thinking would let him think otherwise.
His grip on Jack tightens and his fishes one of his guns out of the snow, pressing it to the wraith’s temple.
“This has to be some sort of trick! Dead men don’t come back to life! I saw Jack Morrison’s corpse, you can’t fool me!”
“It was three in the morning.”
“...what?”
“When I called you, the last time, it was three in the morning. I’d forgotten all about the time difference.”
Gabe’s heart stutters in his chest. The phone call. How the hell did this thing know about that? Gabe couldn’t remember telling anyone about it, not even Ana or Jesse.
“You were angry. You thought I was calling to chew you out about some mission or something. Can’t remember which. You were so angry with me, and I guess I deserved it. We weren’t exactly on good terms.” Jack chuckles sadly, a faraway look in his eyes. “I must have left you, what, five messages?”
“Six.”
“What?”
“You left six messages.” Gabe feels numb. Jack is watching him as if he’s afraid he might break. And he’s not so sure he won’t. The wound he thought had healed was now raw and open. “You said...you said…”
“Gabe. Please pick up. I don’t want to die alone…”
The sob that tears from his throat surprises them both. Jack finally moves, wrapping his arms around Gabe and pulling him tight against his chest. Gabe fights it at first, too overwhelmed by it all and ready to run. But it isn’t long before the fight drains out of him and he sags against Jack’s chest.
He’s warm. For a corpse.
“All you wanted...was to hear my voice before you died. To not be alone. And I cut you off.”
Jack hums softly. “You didn’t know. And it was unfair of me to put you through that. I didn’t think of how it would affect you.”
“No shit,” Gabe can’t help but snort. He always used to chide Jack for not thinking before he acted. So why would that be any different?
A question hangs heavily in the air.
“So, if you really died, how are you here? And what happened to you?”
Gabe can feel one of Jack’s fingers tapping against the backplate of his armor. It was a familiar tic, a sign that Jack was trying to think of the best way to answer. It was odd that such a small gesture could ease his nerves, even just a bit. A small sign that, no matter what had happened in the intervening years, he was still Jack.
“Angela did something. With that staff of hers, I think. I don’t really remember. It was... unpleasant . Took me years before I could make myself look passably human. Obviously there’s still some bugs to work out.”
The hint of humor in Jack’s voice had Gabe pushing himself up so that he could see his face properly. Jack’s mouth, his real one, was pulled into a familiar shit-eating grin. Before he can talk himself out of it, Gabe lowers his head to press their lips together.
There’s more they need to talk about. Why it’s taken Jack so long to show himself, how long Jack has been shadowing him on missions, if anyone else knows that Jack is alive. If there’s a possibility of fixing Jack. But for now it’s just the two of them and the snow.
“I didn’t get the chance to say it back then. I love you too.”