Page 44 of Evermore
He placed fresh flowers by the window where Finn liked to watch the tide pools, their colors bright against the glass.
Set up a tea service with the Earl Grey blend Finn favored, complete with the honey he stirred in when he thought no one was watching.
Created small domestic altars throughout the space—not shrines to what was lost, but welcome mats for what might return.
Every object was chosen not to control or monitor, but to say “you are loved as you are” rather than “you need to be fixed.” River was creating a space that celebrated Finn's TPD as part of what made him extraordinary, rather than treating it as a flaw requiring correction.
River looked around the transformed cottage with something that surprised him—compassion rather than anger toward his own past behavior. “I was trying to save us the only way I knew how,” he said quietly. “But love isn't about prevention. It's about presence.”
As evening fell, River completed his work by lighting the lighthouse beacon to its full brightness and propping open the cottage door. The beam swept across the darkening ocean in steady rhythm, neither urgent nor demanding, simply present and constant.
River understood that he couldn't call Finn back—that would be another form of control, another attempt to manage what couldn't be managed. Instead, he was creating a beacon of unconditional love, a signal that said “when you're ready, you have a home here that accepts all of you.”
The open door was an invitation, not a demand. A welcome mat, not a trap.
River settled into the reading chair by the window, prepared to wait with whatever patience love required. He had no timeline, no expectations, no research protocols to follow. Just faith that Finn was strong enough to find his way home when he was ready.
In the days that followed, River established routines that felt like prayers made flesh.
He woke with the sunrise and made coffee for two—not out of delusion, but out of hope.
He tended the cottage with meditative care, cooking meals that filled the house with welcoming scents, maintaining the small garden Finn had started behind the cottage.
Each task became an act of faith, a way of staying present with his love for Finn rather than trying to control its expression. He was learning that the act of loving could exist independently of being loved in return, that presence could be its own form of prayer.
Maya visited daily, her own healing intertwined with River's patient waiting.
At first she came bristling with barely contained anxiety, checking every corner as if Finn might materialize from his temporal displacement like a magic trick.
But gradually, she began to understand what River was creating—not a museum of loss, but a living space of faith.
“You're different,” she observed one afternoon, watching River arrange wildflowers with the same careful attention he'd once devoted to episode documentation. “More... grounded. Like you've found some kind of center I didn't know you had.”
During these visits, River shared stories about Finn that celebrated his gifts rather than lamenting his condition.
He told Maya about Finn's ability to sense a book's emotional history through touch, his uncanny intuition about which restoration projects would bring him joy, his gift for making customers feel truly seen and valued.
River spoke of Finn's TPD not as a medical condition but as part of his unique way of experiencing the world. “He doesn't see time the way we do,” River explained, his voice warm with affection rather than clinical assessment. “And that's not a limitation. It's a different kind of sight.”
Dr. Voss struggled more deeply with River's approach, her scientific training at war with what she was witnessing.
She arrived periodically with new theories and experimental treatments, offering to fund search and rescue missions into temporal displacement that sounded more like science fiction than medicine.
“You're not fighting for him,” she accused during one particularly heated visit. “You're giving up when he needs you most.”
River met her anger with steady calm that had taken him weeks to develop. “I'm not giving up on Finn,” he explained. “I'm giving up on trying to make him something he's not. There's a difference between supporting someone and trying to fix them.”
Dr. Voss left frustrated, but her visits became less frequent as she began to question her own need to turn every mystery into a problem requiring solution.
Weeks passed with no sign of Finn's return, but River maintained his commitment to acceptance over action.
Well-meaning friends suggested he should “do something,” that his patience was really abandonment disguised as love.
But River had found something deeper than the need to act—he'd found peace in uncertainty itself.
Some evenings, especially when the lighthouse beam swept through the cottage at just the right angle, River swore he could feel Finn's presence.
Not as a ghost or temporal echo, but as the warmth of being truly loved by someone who was learning to love without conditions.
He was creating space for a love that existed beyond linear time, beyond the need for guarantees or control.
After three weeks of patient waiting, River discovered a bottle among the rocks near his old research station during his dawn walk. His heart leaped, but he approached with careful calm, understanding that desperation would be a return to his old patterns of grasping and controlling.
This bottle was different from the mysterious messages that had started their relationship—clearly fresh, containing a single sheet of paper covered in Finn's careful handwriting.
River's hands trembled as he broke the seal, but his breathing remained steady.
He'd learned to receive gifts without demanding more, to hope without demanding guarantees.
Finn's letter described his experience in temporal displacement with vivid detail—how he'd been visiting every moment of their relationship but experiencing it in perfect chronological reverse, seeing their love story from ending to beginning.
I started with our fight and worked backward to our first meeting. I'm seeing our love story from the ending to the beginning, understanding how we got to where we are.
River's eyes filled with tears as he read Finn's account of witnessing their relationship's deterioration in reverse, seeing how love had gradually transformed into fear and control. But Finn's words carried no blame, only growing understanding of the forces that had driven them apart.
I'm not broken. I'm different. And that difference is what let me find you in the first place.
River sobbed as he read these words, recognizing the acceptance he'd been struggling to achieve reflected back in Finn's growing self-love.
My TPD isn't a barrier to our love—it's the reason our love transcends ordinary limitations. I'm learning to see it as a gift rather than a curse.
The letter expressed deep gratitude for River's willingness to wait rather than chase, to accept rather than fix.
I can feel your peace from here. I can sense that you've stopped trying to rescue me and started trusting me to find my own way home. That changes everything.
River understood that his acceptance had created a different kind of anchor—not one that held Finn in place, but one that gave him a reason to choose return.
You're not trying to change me anymore. You're just loving me. And that love is what's guiding me back to you.
River responded immediately, writing with steady hands and clear heart about his journey toward acceptance, about learning to love Finn's TPD as part of who he was rather than despite it.
I'm not waiting for you to be cured. I'm waiting for you to come home as yourself—all of yourself, including the parts that experience time differently than I do.
He sealed the letter in a bottle and placed it gently in the tide pool during high tide, no longer trying to control the timing or guarantee a response. He'd learned to trust the ocean, time, and love to carry his words wherever they needed to go.
Walking back to the cottage, River felt something he hadn't experienced in months—genuine peace. Not the peace of certainty, but the peace of trust. Not the peace of control, but the peace of love that asked for nothing in return except the chance to exist.
The lighthouse beam swept across the water behind him, steady and constant, neither demanding nor pursuing. Just present. Just loving. Just waiting for whatever came next with infinite patience and faith.