SIX MONTHS AND SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE DEATH OF OLIVER SALLOW

Nine days.

Nine days, Oliver is gone.

Nine days, Finn wonders if he imagined the whole thing.

Nine days, Finn calls the number Oliver gave him and doesn't get through. He keeps trying regardless: calling, leaving messages, recording long voice messages that disappear into the ether.

Right now, he's doing the latter.

"Hey, Ollie. I'm at school. Today's the first day of A-Levels. Bio." He gives a little kick to the wall bordering the school's premises. "I don't know if you'll hear this, but... I guess I wanted to tell you I'm thinking of you. Wish me luck."

He slips his phone back into his pocket and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper in exchange. On it are notes from his last few study sessions with Aarun and James. It's been difficult, trying to revise these last few days while his thoughts kept straying to Oliver. He doesn't think that it's much use now, either, but he feels like he should at least try to hammer two or three bullet points into his short-term memory.

Around him, others are doing the same. The courtyard behind the wall is buzzing like a bee hive, a frantic energy in the air that makes the back of his neck prickle. He tries to ignore the chaos and breathes in deep like Samira taught him while he waits for his friends to arrive.

His eyes scan his notes without his brain processing any of the information contained in them. Something something Krebs cycle. Respiratory chain. An equation he has no recollection of writing. What is allosteric regulation again? There is literally no way he'll—

His phone buzzes, and he scrambles for it so quickly he drops his notes. He unlocks the screen, silently chanting Please be from Oliver, please be from Oliver.

It's not from Oliver. It's his mum wishing him good luck via a pixelated gif of a cat hugging another cat. Finn responds with a heart and bends down to pick up his cheat sheet, but before his fingertips can even graze it, it's being carried off by a sudden gust of wind.

The perpetrator is a motorcycle passing by in a blur of motion. Finn's heart skips a beat at the sight, but he firmly tamps down on the feeling. Twenty minutes before the exam that will potentially determine his entire academic future is not the bloody time to go back to the thinking-Oliver-is-just-around-the-corner stage.

Except the motorcycle returns.

And slows down.

And slides neatly into the spot where Lucretia always stood. Honestly, it looks a bit like Lucretia, but all motorcycles look the same to Finn when it comes down to it, and—

And then the biker gets off, and Finn's world tilts sideways.

Long legs that end in a pair of scuffed Doc Martens. A leather trench coat unbuttoned over a dark red blouse. Metal glittering on pale hands.

It's impossible. He's hallucinating. Maybe he fell out of bed and bonked his head. Maybe his body isn't taking his anxiety meds as well as he thought it was.

Whatever the reason, he resorts to the same thing he did the first time Oliver appeared in his bedroom: he closes his eyes and keeps them shut, unwilling to give in and hope for the impossible. Even as he hears steps nearing him. Even as he hears a voice say his name.

"Finn."

"No," he simply says.

"Finn."

"No."

A laugh, soft and predictably exasperated. "Finn O'Connell. Open your goddamn eyes."

He opens his goddamn eyes.

In hindsight, he doesn't know what gives it away. Maybe it's the grin on Oliver's face, broad and uninhibited and filled with a vicious kind of triumph. Maybe it's the fact that he's in different clothes. Or maybe Finn just feels, intrinsically, that there's something different about him. Something solid. Something that feels like a centre of gravity restored, steering planets back into their orbits and bringing the universe back in order.

"No," he says again, fainter this time.

"Yes," Oliver argues, still laughing. He's laughing, his chest rising and falling, his eyes glittering, and Finn is suddenly so dizzy he has to brace against the wall behind him for support.

"You're here," he breathes.

"Yeah," Oliver says.

"You're alive."

"Feels like."

"I... how?"

Oliver pauses for a moment as a strange look of fondness plays out on his face. "Let's just say," he says, "that I have friends in high places."

Finn blinks up at the sky. "Like... like up there?"

"No." Oliver snorts a laugh. "It's more in that direction." He rather ominously points a thumb over his shoulder. South, the part of Finn's brain that was online during his Geography class provides. That's right. Oliver was in Dover. "There was blackmail involved. And I think I'm now a test subject in some strange celestial one-person experiment?"

Finn feels his hands shake with giddiness, but he isn't ready to give into it yet. Around the lump in his throat, he dares to ask: "How long?"

"Indefinitely, I think," Oliver says. "Or, well. Until the next time I'm stupid enough not to wear my contacts."

It's all Finn really needs to know. He doesn't care about how or why or why now. All he cares about is that Oliver is here, alive and an arm's reach away and—why the fuck is he still standing there?

Oliver gasps into his mouth when they collide. A heartbeat later, his hands come up to cup Finn's face, finding their familiar place at the hinge of his jaw, rings cool against Finn's skin, and Finn doesn't even care that they're standing in front of the school gates and that half the town can see them. He doesn't care about anything but the feeling of Oliver grinning against his lips like somehow Finn is the thing worth marvelling at.

"That's it, then?" Finn asks as they part. It's less a leaning back than it is a swaying, his fingers still holding on tight to the lapels of Oliver's coat. "I'm officially fixed?"

Oliver shakes his head. "It's not about you needing to be fixed, Finn. It never has been."

Finn doesn't know how to respond to that, so he presses another kiss to Oliver's lips, and then another, and another. Something occurs to him. "Wait, so are we—"

"Yes."

"You didn't even let me—"

"Yes."

"Ollie, can I finish the bloody—"

Oliver's face, as he shushes Finn, is utterly determined. "Finn O'Connell," he says, pronouncing every syllable with the gravity usually reserved for Shakespeare quotes, "you are a fool if you think I am going to waste another lifetime pretending to be anything but completely, disastrously in love with you."

"Oh." Finn doesn't think he has ever smiled wider in his entire life. He actually has to hide his face against Oliver's shoulder for a moment because he's so overwhelmed. "You know," he says, muffled into the leather, "if entertainment was the end goal, I think the angels got their money's worth just for that one line. Did you practice that?"

Oliver's hand sneaks between them to pinch Finn's side. "I was trying to be romantic, you ungrateful—"

"Oi, Finn! Quit snogging your boyfriend and get moving, our exam's in ten minutes!"

They jump apart in an instant. Behind Oliver's shoulder, Finn finds Aarun and James grinning at him. The first thing his overwhelmed brain can produce is: "You guys can see him?"

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" Aarun asks, unimpressed. "Yes, Finn, we can see the six feet goth in vampire clothing." He squints a little at Oliver. "Feels like it's been ages, though. Is that piercing new?"

In a daze, Oliver lifts his hand to his septum. "Uh. Yeah."

"Wait," Finn says, not ready to move on. "Do you guys remember what we talked about last week?"

"Are you taking the piss right now?"

"No, I—What do you remember about that talk?" Finn presses.

"We remember you coming out, Finn," James mildly says. "Is this supposed to be a prank?"

"Yeah, I came out, but—weren't you sad about something?"

James frowns. "Huh. Yeah, I think I was sad that you two didn't get together sooner. I honestly have no idea why you didn't." He shrugs, eyes clearing. "Doesn't matter now though, does it? You two figured it out. Love wins!"

Finn and Oliver exchange a look, Finn's saying something along the lines of What the fuck?, Oliver's communicating a silent Let's just agree not to question angel logic and also I love you.

"We really have to go now," Aarun says. "You know I'm a nervous pee-er. I need to snatch a desk close to the door."

"Fine, fine!" Finn says. "Let's go. We'll get you your pee seat."

He's about to let go of Oliver's hand, but his fingers hold stubbornly onto Finn's.

"Ollie." Finn shakes their intertwined hands. "Are you going to let me go?"

"No," Oliver says, matter-of-fact. "I'm heading in that direction too."

"What? Why?"

"English Lit exam," Oliver simply says.

While Aarun and James start heading towards the building, Finn gapes at Oliver, incredulous. "You're seriously taking that exam right now? You haven't even studied!"

Oliver raises a brow. "It's English Lit," he says, like that explains everything. "It's Shakespeare."

And honestly? That does explain everything.

Together, they cross the courtyard, their hands firmly laced together. When they reach the school building, Oliver holds the door for Finn, who drops into a small curtsy, a delighted laugh bubbling up from somewhere deep inside his chest. It's so mundane, the two of them holding hands in the school corridor, but at the same time it feels monumental because they're holding hands in the school corridor. Oliver and Finn from two years ago would lose their minds.

They only let go once they've made it to the first floor. Finn digs through his backpack for a moment to find a spare pen since Oliver isn't carrying anything beyond his keys. Handing it to him, he says, "See you on the other side."

Still grinning like a fool, Oliver tucks the pen behind his ear. "Indeed."

Finn turns around, eyes already on the door to his classroom, but only makes it a few steps before a hand closes around his wrist and he's pulled into another short kiss.

Oliver leans back, wisps of dark hair tickling Finn's face. "For good luck," he explains. There it is again: that little forehead bump. Finn has missed it so much he could cry for joy.

Behind them, Finn's teacher clears her throat, eager to close the door. Oliver lifts a hand at her in apology, cheeks a vivid red, looking nothing less than utterly alive. Finn almost doesn't want to leave him, but it's easier now that he knows with bone-deep certainty that he'll see Oliver again. And again. And again and again and again.

Once he's inside, his teacher closes the door and commands silence. Finn slides into the seat next to Aarun's and grins down at his desk until his cheeks hurt.

With the phantom touch of Oliver's very non-phantom lips still lingering, Finn completely forgets to be nervous. It feels like the best exam he's taken all year.

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it took us a while, but we got there in the end :,)

i cannot BELIEVE how many of you thought there would be a tragic ending. when have i ever done that to you??

what are your thoughts on this chapter!! how are we feeling!!!

next up will be the epilogue, which is probably one of my favourite chapters in the entire book <3

p.s. today's song is this love by taylor swift!!! this love is good this love is bad this love is alive back from the dead!!!