Page 83 of Never Quite Gone

“He was trying to contain the power that still lingers there.” My voice roughened as understanding deepened. “Will's memories first surfaced in that operating theater. Something aboutwatching you perform surgery there, seeing your hands move with knowledge from other lives... it triggered everything.”

I helped Eli navigate a dark corridor as I continued. “The space remembers too - holds echoes of every life, every healing, every moment when past and present blurred together. That's why Will kept coming back there in this life, why he was so obsessed with the hospital's history. His soul recognized it as the place where reality first cracked.”

“And now he's gone back.” Eli's hands were steady despite everything. “With Vale's blood and all that stolen power.”

“Of course he has.” The words tasted bitter. “Where else would my brother go, now that he had the power he'd spent lifetimes reaching for? The hospital where everything had converged in 1893, where patterns older than time itself had begun to repeat.”

The historic wing of Presbyterian felt different at midnight – older somehow, like the modern veneer had worn thin enough to show the centuries beneath. Every step echoed with memory as I tracked Will through empty corridors, following the trail of disturbed energy. His new power pulsed like a wound in reality, drawing us inevitably toward the original operating theater.

Eli moved silently beside me, his surgeon's grace making him at home in these halls even at this strange hour. We didn't need words to understand that this had to end where it started – in the room where a doctor with his face had once tried to save a patient with mine, while Will watched and remembered and reached for power that shouldn't exist.

The operating theater stood preserved like a museum piece, its antique equipment catching moonlight through high windows. Will waited in the center, magic crackling around him like dark lightning. The partial immortality he'd claimed using Vale's blood had changed him – his eyes glowed with ancient power, his movements too fluid to be human.

“I wondered when you'd find me,” he said, his voice echoing strangely off century-old tiles. “You always do,don't you? Find what you're looking for?” The words carried double meaning, making my heart ache for the brother I'd already lost. His gaze shifted between Eli and me, centuries of watching us find each other visible in his expression.

“Will, please,” I started, but his laugh cut me off – not the warm sound I remembered from family dinners, but something older and more terrible.

“Still trying to save me, big brother?” Power crackled around his hands as he moved closer. “Some things can't be saved. Some choices can't be undone.” His smile held edges sharp enough to cut. “But that's the point, isn't it? Why I had to become this. So I never have to watch you die again.”

His attack came without warning, magic tearing through the air with killing intent. I barely managed to push Eli clear, taking the blast across my shoulder. The pain was extraordinary – not just physical damage, but something deeper. Soul-deep. Like Will's power was trying to unmake me across all my lifetimes.

“I'm stronger now,” Will said, advancing with terrible purpose. Ancient tiles cracked beneath his feet as power continued building around him. “Strong enough to keep you this time. To keep you both.”

His next strike brought me to my knees, centuries of memories flickering like dying stars behind my eyes. I saw him as he'd been in every life – the loyal brother, the watching guardian, the soul that loved us enough to break reality itself just trying to keep us safe.

“Will,” I gasped through pain that transcended physical limits, “this isn't you. This power – it's changing you.”

“This is exactly me!” The windows rattled with force of his shout. “This is what I've always been, what I was meant to become. Strong enough to protect what's mine. Strong enough to stop death from winning.”

Eli moved with healer's grace, trying to reach me, but Will's magic held him back. “You can't save him,” my brother said, almost gently. “That's the point of all this. No more saving, nomore healing, no more watching everyone die while I remember everything.”

“The remembering was your choice,” I reminded him, struggling to my feet despite how reality itself seemed to waver around us. “In that first life, before the temples. You chose to carry that burden.”

“Because someone had to!” Power flared brighter around his hands. “Someone had to remember, had to keep the pattern strong. Had to watch over everyone since none of you could be trusted to stay alive!”

The last word cracked with pain older than civilization, and for a moment I saw my brother clearly through the ancient power that had claimed him. Saw the soul that had loved us too much, that had reached for impossible things just trying to keep his family safe.

“Let us help you,” I tried again, though blood dripped from where his first attack had landed. “Whatever this power is doing to you, however it's twisting you – we can face it together. Like we always have.”

“Together?” His laugh held centuries of watching from the sidelines. “Like all those lives where you chose him over me? Where I had to stand back and watch you throw everything away for love?”

Another blast of power, this one catching me square in the chest. More memories flickered and died – lives where Will had been my brother, my friend, my guardian through time. Lives where he'd helped me search for Eli, knowing exactly where to look but pretending not to understand why it mattered.

“Do you know what it's like? To love someone that much and still have to watch them die? Over and over and over again?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, making him flinch. “I do know. Because I remember everything now too. Every death, every loss, every time fate or circumstance kept us apart.” I managed another step forward despite how his power tried to hold me back. “But that's the point, isn't it? Love means accepting that loss is part of thepattern. That holding on too tight just breaks what we're trying to protect.”

Then his gaze fell on Eli again, and something hardened in his expression. “No,” he said softly, raising his hands as power gathered like storm clouds. “Love means sacrifice. Means becoming strong enough to keep what's precious safe.” His smile held centuries of secrets as magic crackled around him. “Even if that means becoming something terrible in the process.”

The operating theater watched with century-old eyes as Will's power built to impossible levels. Everything we'd been to each other in this life – brothers, friends, protectors – it cracked like the tiles beneath his feet, revealing something ancient and hungry beneath.

My brother. My betrayer. My eternal guardian.

The operating theater doors burst open with enough force to crack century-old wood. Marcus entered first, power gathering around his hands like storm clouds. But before anyone could move, Will's voice cracked with recognition.

“The circle,” he said. “Our circle. That's what this was always about, wasn't it?”

“You remember,” Sofia said softly. “The temple, the healing circle we formed. Before the wars, before the rituals. When we were just... family.”

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