Gravity Between Stars (Caleb x F!reader)

Echo

Light.
Soft, golden, and wrong.

You gasped awake, clutching the sheets. For a second, no, an eternity, you expected to feel metal beneath your hands, the hum of engines, the steady rhythm of someone's heartbeat beside yours. Instead, there was silence. The faint hum of your bedroom fan. The distant sound of a train sliding through the city.

Your chest rose and fell in uneven breaths.
Home.

You were home.

Your walls were exactly as they'd always been: posters on the far side, the half-finished mug of tea on the desk, your phone charging beside the bed. The familiar smell of rain through your open window drifted in, Linkton's autumn air, clean and cool. The kind of morning that should've felt safe.

But your heart didn't believe it.

You sat up slowly, pressing a hand to your ribs. A dull ache throbbed there, deep, like a bruise that shouldn't exist. You looked down and froze. Beneath the hem of your shirt, faint traces of a scar glimmered, almost silver in the light before fading away when you blinked.

A dream, you told yourself.
A dream that went too far.

And yet... the sheets beneath your hand were damp, streaked faintly where tears had fallen. You hadn't realized you'd been crying.

You swung your legs over the edge of the bed, your body heavier than you remembered. The morning light spilled through your curtains, scattering dust motes that shimmered like distant stars. Somewhere in the city, a siren wailed and faded.

Everything was ordinary again.
Too ordinary.

When you opened your phone, muscle memory guided your thumb to the app that should've been there. Love and Deepspace.
It wasn't.

You searched. Nothing. No history. No record of downloads. Even the screenshots you swore you'd saved were gone.

For a long moment, you just stared at the blank home screen, your reflection trembling faintly in the glass. Then, quietly, you whispered his name.

"Caleb..."

The word left your lips like a secret, and the room shivered. The light flickered once, like a heartbeat in the walls. You blinked, and it was gone, leaving only the steady hum of the city below.

You dressed automatically, unable to shake the emptiness pressing behind your ribs. Outside, Linkton was alive with motion: trams humming past, street vendors calling out, people hurrying under umbrellas. Normal. Completely normal.

And yet...

When you passed a shop window, your reflection caught in the glass, and for the briefest second, there was another silhouette behind you.
Tall. Familiar.
Silver eyes watching you, soft and sad.

You turned sharply. Nothing. Just the street.

Your pulse raced. You pressed your fingers against your wrist, grounding yourself and felt warmth there. Like someone's hand was still wrapped around it. You rubbed the spot and exhaled shakily.

That night, you couldn't sleep.
Every time you closed your eyes, you saw flashes, silver light through darkness, the sound of your name spoken like a promise, a hand reaching for yours through the void.

Each time you woke, you told yourself it wasn't real.

But in the quiet moments before dawn, when the city fell still, you swore you could hear it again, the faint hum of an engine somewhere deep beneath the world. A whisper threading through the static.

"I'll find you."

You opened your eyes. The stars above Linkton were still faint, dimmed by the glow of the skyline. But one shone brighter than it ever had before, steady, silver, and pulsing softly.

Your fingers curled against the blanket.

And somewhere, deep in your chest, your heart answered.