Expedition 33 AU. Gustave remembers. He remembers arriving to the paintress’ world, fighting the nevrons and befriending the gestrals and growing as close of a bond with his adopted daughter, Maelle, as possible. He remembers resting at the camp at night with Maelle and Sciel and Lune, and writing in a journal at night, and dreaming of a handsome man with black and grey hair. He even remembers meeting the stranger, who calls himself Verso, late in a few occasions and dancing with him to soft music playing, talking about being stranded in the foreign and hostile land. Gustave insists that the beautiful stranger joins them and stays in safety. He is denied, which is a little strange and sad, but the two always grow closer and closer at night. Verso is defensive and so beautiful and defeated, where Gustave is optimistic and chatty and bubbly and kind with the stranger. He tells the group about the mysterious man. No one believes him. Gustave is only 32. Was 32. He remembers the beach, the panic in seeing the man who killed the whole expedition, Renoir, approach them. He remembers fighting so hard to keep everyone alive, only for Renoir to stab him and kill him. The last thing he sees is Maelle screaming and crying in grief as the light leaves his eyes. He died. And he should have stayed dead. But no. He is resurrected. Alive and well. Sort of. Lumiere is fixed, and Maelle is safe and crying and so scared and traumatized and alive and happy to see him. Gustave is bewildered and disoriented, and he hugs Maelle with heavy tears. And then he sees Verso, the handsome man, and there is a strange tension between them now. It’s made worse when Maelle told Gustave the truth of Verso’s life, how he is a sort of the painter world just like they all are, and how he is the so. If the man who killed him, and he didn’t want to save him out of selfishness and fear, and he’s so sorry. Which is sad, because Gustave and Verso began to get so close and now Gustave wants nothing to do with him. And Verso is hurting and apologizing and trying to make up for the pain he’s inflicted.

Chapter 5: The Real Verso's Confession

The window in the air never closed. It was a wound, and Gustave was condemned to watch it bleed the slow, daily life of the people he’d left behind.

He saw them travel. The camp dissolved, packed away with a quiet efficiency that spoke of Sciel’s organization and Lune’s paranoia. They moved as a unit now, a tight diamond formation through landscapes that shifted from dense, murmuring forests to plains of silver grass. Maelle took point more often, her movements less frantic, more assured. She was learning to carry the weight instead of being crushed by it. Sciel walked at her side, not behind her, their conversations low and ongoing. Lune covered the rear, her eyes never still, but her posture when she looked at Sciel’s back was less like a guard and more like a partner.

And Verso. He floated in the center, their fragile heart. Gustave watched him try to make himself useful, to earn his place. He saw Verso hand Maelle a wild apple, his gesture tentative. Maelle stared at it, then at him, and after a beat that lasted an eternity in Gustave’s field, she took it. She didn’t smile, but she took a bite. It was a start.

They argued. He saw Lune snap at Verso for lagging behind, her voice sharp. “Keep up, princess. Or are those pretty skirts too heavy?”

Verso’s cheeks flushed, but his voice was calm. “They’re easier to move in than you’d think. Would you like to trade trousers, Lune? I’m sure they’d suit you.”

Sciel choked back a laugh. Maelle’s lips twitched. Lune just scowled deeper, but the tension broke. They kept walking.

They found solace in small things. A hot spring where they rested, the women bathing while Verso discreetly kept watch. A grove of peach trees where they ate until they were sticky and laughing, even Maelle, a real, startled giggle escaping her as Sciel got juice on her nose. Gustave ached with a love so profound it felt like his ghostly bones would splinter. They were healing. They were becoming a family. A team. Without him.

He saw the moment they found the path. It was Verso who saw it first—a trail of luminescent paint dripped like sap on ancient stones, leading up a mountainside towards a peak wreathed in perpetual, soft-looking cloud. The Paintress’s domain. Renoir’s prison. Verso went very still, his hand drifting to his own throat. Maelle followed his gaze, her expression hardening into resolve.

“That’s it,” she said, her voice carrying through the window clear as a bell. “The end of the road.”

Gustave pressed his palm to the barrier. “Don’t go,” he whispered, though he knew they had to. “Just… stay here. Be happy.”

They didn’t hear him. They exchanged looks, a silent conversation passing between the four of them. A nod from Sciel. A grunt of assent from Lune. A slow, deep breath from Verso. Maelle hefted her pack.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s go get some answers.”

They started the climb, unified in purpose. The window followed them, a silent, grieving satellite. Gustave watched until they were specks against the mountain, until the strange, beautiful light of the peak swallowed them whole. The image in the window swirled, clouded, and then faded to the muted colors of the poppy field, reflected back at him.

He was alone.

Truly, utterly alone. The last tether, the last voyeuristic thread, had been cut. They had moved on. They were going to finish their story. He was a ghost in a fragrant field, a footnote. The weight of it descended, not as a sharp pain, but as a vast, hollow stillness. The hum of the flowers seemed to grow distant. The perpetual twilight dimmed.

He felt it then. A draining. A softening at the edges.

He had died once, violently, paint and blood and Maelle’s scream. This was different. This was a quiet unmaking. He wasn’t being torn apart; he was being forgotten, even by himself. The memory of Verso’s touch blurred. The sound of Maelle’s voice grew faint. The love, the rage, the conflict—it all began to seem like a story he’d read once, about other people.

He lay back into the lavender. It didn’t cradle him now. It accepted him, like earth accepting a body. He stared up at the indecisive sky. He didn’t fight it. What was there to fight for? He had done his job. He had protected her. They were a family now. They had each other.

He closed his eyes. He let the scent of the flowers become the only thought. He felt himself dissolving, not into nothing, but into everything—into the pollen on the air, the moisture in the soil, the faint melody on the wind. A second death. Peaceful. Final.

A touch on his shoulder.

It was solid. Warm. Real in a way nothing in this field had been since his resurrection.

The poppies and lavender beside his head scooted aside with a soft, rustling sigh, making space.

Gustave’s eyes fluttered open. He looked up, the world watery and faint.

He saw… Verso?

But it wasn’t him. The man kneeling beside him had the same face, the same structure of heartbreaking beauty—the sharp jaw, the full lips, the pale arch of his brows. But there were no scars. No silver streaks marring the night-black hair. His eyes were the same icy blue, but they held a different kind of sorrow, one less sharpened by guilt and more softened by a patience Gustave had never seen. He was younger. Untouched by paint and monsters.

“Hello,” the man said. His voice was Verso’s, but the cadence was off. Lighter. Less weighted down by centuries of silent penance.

Gustave could only stare, his dissolution paused, confusion a cold anchor in his fading chest.

“I’ve been walking for a while,” the man said, settling down in the space the flowers had made. He moved like Verso, a certain graceful economy. “This place… it pulls you in if you let it. I saw you. You looked like you could use the company.”

“Who…” Gustave’s voice was a rasp, barely audible.

“My name is Verso,” the man said gently. “Though I suppose that’s confusing for you. I’m not… his. I’m from before. The real before.”

Gustave pushed himself up on trembling elbows. The world snapped back into a cruel, sharp focus. “The real world.”

“Yes. I died there. A house fire.” He said it simply, looking out over the sea of flowers. “My younger sister, Alicia, was trapped. I got her out. I didn’t make it.” He looked back at Gustave, a sad, knowing smile on his perfect lips. “Alicia, as it happens, is Maelle. She suffered severe burns on her arms and back. In her mind, after… she must have thought if she could save everyone in here, in this painted story, she could bring us all home again. Rebuild the family that burned.”

The information crashed into Gustave’s mind, chaotic and devastating. Maelle’s fury, her desperation to save everyone, her singular drive—it wasn’t just about expedition loyalty. It was a child trying to rewrite a tragedy. Alicia. Her name was Alicia.

“Why are you telling me this?” Gustave whispered, tears welling, hot and sudden.

“Because you protected her,” the real Verso said, his own eyes glistening. “You were there for her when I couldn’t be. You died for her. I watched some of it, from… wherever I was. So thank you. From her brother. Whatever happens from here, for her… it will all be okay. Because of you.”

Gustave broke. A sob racked his body, deep and shuddering. He buried his face in his hands. “I miss her,” he wept, the words torn from him. “I miss my Verso. I don’t… I don’t understand any of this. Is any of it real? Was I real? Was any of the love, the… the dancing… was any of it worth it, or was it all just paint and someone else’s tragedy?”

The real Verso was quiet for a long moment. He plucked a poppy stem, twirling it between his fingers. “I think so,” he said finally, his voice soft. “I have to believe the love we feel is real, wherever we are. Otherwise, what’s the point of waiting?” He sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to wait. I was secretly married. To a man. A kind, chatty teacher who loved bad wine and loud music. We had two years. I have to wait so long to see him again.

“Funny, seeing you. You remind me so much of him. You two grieve and love the same. It makes me more excited to see him when he’s ready.”

The confession hung in the air, a shared layer of grief. Gustave lifted his head, wiping his face with the back of his hand. His conflict was still there, a tangled knot, but it was now mixed with a staggering, painful empathy. This man had lost everything too. And he was here, offering thanks. Offering company.

“I’m sorry,” Gustave stammered. “I’m so sorry. For your loss. For… for monopolizing the grief. It’s just… it’s so loud in here.” He tapped his own temple.

The real Verso smiled, a genuine, gentle thing. “It’s alright. Grief isn’t a competition. Would you… would you mind if I sat with you for a while? It’s quiet here. But it’s a very lonely quiet.”

Gustave looked at this ghost of the man he loved, this root of all the beauty and pain in his world. He wasn’t his Verso. He was a stranger. And yet, he was the only one who could possibly understand.

“Yes,” Gustave said, his voice firming. “Please. Stay. We can… we can wait together.”

The real Verso nodded, settling more comfortably into the flowers. They didn’t speak further. They sat side by side in the perfumed twilight, two ghosts from different stories, sharing the same vast, sad silence. The poppies hummed around them. The sky shifted, imperceptibly, towards gold.

It was not joy. But it was, for the first time since he’d opened his eyes in this field, not utter solitude.