So, hello again! I was up latest night writing this, but I didn't think it would go anywhere until this morning, when I wrote the second part. To NovaBlossom: I saw your review just as I was about to go to sleep, so it's your fault I was up until long past midnight writing this fic. I normally hate happy endings, but your review made me think what the hell, I might as well.

I need to get better at writing make-out scenes.

Enjoy.

"True love will always find a way to come back." -Tumblr user movewithtime

GoGo sees him out of the corner of her eye.

Logically, she knows it isn't true; she knows that he isn't there, that Tadashi perished in the explosion several months ago, that his body was incinerated to the point that there was nothing to bury.

(They had to have a closed casket. Because there was nothing to see, and that hurt. That had hurt more than if his body had been there. At least then GoGo could have said goodbye, to him. To the boy who had stolen her heart.)

But that doesn't stop GoGo from snapping her head to the side, eyes darting to that little corner pressed against the brick where she thought she's seen him. As she does this, her heart sinks, because she knows it's not going to be him. It's never going to be here — not again.

Ignoring the lump rising in her throat, GoGo takes a shaky breath and steps into the street, accidentally elbowing someone walking beside her as she does so.

"Sorry," she whispers before walking faster. She had to get out of there.

GoGo makes it to her apartment before she breaks down, slumping against the door as tears slip down her face and onto the wooden floor. She draws her knees towards her, pressing her face into her thighs as she sobs. She hadn't even sobbed at his funeral. She couldn't, because it hadn't been time. GoGo had never been an emotional person.

It just — it hurts.

It happens again. And again and again and again. She always thinks that she sees him, just barely in her vision, but every single time she looks he's not there. He's never there, and it causes her heart to sink and makes her want to cry again.

Eventually, she stops looking.

So when GoGo opens her door to a quiet knock around two a.m., she isn't expecting much. She's expecting maybe her neighbor, complaining that her lights were on too late again (she'd bee studying for a paticulary hard test) or maybe Honey again, looking to cheer her up.

She wasn't expecting desperate brown eyes and brilliant dark hair, looking up at her nervously. She wasn't expecting Tadashi Hamada, the boy she'd lost, to be standing there.

Her glass slips from her fingertips, smashing at her feet as she stumbles backwards.

He's alive, GoGo thinks, because that's all she can do as she stares, blank-eyed, at the lost boy before her, the boy she thought that had been ripped from this world far too early; she stares and she wants to scream, but she can't, because everything is falling apart yet coming together all at once and why can't she breathe?

"GoGo," he whispers, taking a step towards her. The boy looks like him and it sounds like him but it can't be him, it just can't. Her chest is tight and there's fingernails digging into her palms with every intention of drawing blood, because this cannot be happening. She'd dreamed of him coming back — she'd dreamed and prayed that he wasn't dead, that the lack of body had meant he had escaped, but GoGo had known that it would be foolish. It was foolish to wish for something that was gone; she had learned that lesson far too early in life.

But instead — instead, he was here, in her apartment, standing in front of her looking like himself; it's been six goddamn months and he shows up out of the blue, just looking utterly and perfectly normal, like nothing had ever happened.

There's glass still at her feet, clinking against her bare feet. But she can't focus on that because he's here, looking as real as flesh and bone and it hurts.

"Leiko," he murmurs, her given name slipping from his lips. This isn't real, she tells herself, catching a bit of skin between her nails and pinching. It's not real. It cannot be real, don't let yourself believe it's real. His eyes — oh god, those gorgeous eyes, how she'd missed those eyes — flicker down to the shards by her feet, his expression turning to one of concern.

It hurts.

"You're not real," she spits back shakily, because forgive her but she can't do this — she can't go through these hallucinations. Not again. "Don't — god, Tadashi, you're not real. You. Are. Not. Real."

He steps closer, shoes crunching against glass. Careful, GoGo wants to say. He's always been careless about his own safety.

Tadashi — it isn't him, it can't be — reaches a hand out. He's shaking too, she notices as his fingers slowly, carefully, brush against the side of her face.

She can feel him. She can feel him. There's skin and bones and he's touching her, and it's not a dream — and if it is, the universe must surely be against her.

"'Go," he whispers, using the shortened version of her nickname that only he had called her. "It's me. I'm here, alive. Professor — he sent the microbots to save me. He wasn't all bad."

He's cupping her cheeks with both hands now, her front pressed firmly up against his. The tightness in her chest hasn't dissipated, but it hasn't gotten worse either; GoGo's waiting to see what he will do. She's waiting, because she's imagined this moment a thousand times and now that it's actually happening she can't focus on anything other than the fact that his skin is warm and he's — alive. Alive.

And then he's lowering his lips to hers; he's hesitant at first and she's unresponsive, because it's impossible to believe that this is actually happening — he's warm and gorgeous and everything that she's missed, because she thought he was dead and it wasn't fair. But then her palm is shakily pressing itself to the crook of his neck, feeling his pulse beating in tandem with hers.

His tongue flickers between her lips and she closes her eyes, tilting her head as to allow him better access. His hands are still cupping her cheeks, his right thumb rubbing a pattern against the tip of her ear. His hands had always been big, just like the rest of him. Tadashi had always dwarfed her, but that was something she had liked; it had been something she had craved.

Now it's her turn as she grasps the tips of his collar, pulling herself on the tips of her toes as she bites on his upper lip, causing his grip on her face to press down just the slightest bit harder. She almost smirks, but there's no time because then one of his hands is slinking down, toying with the waistband of her jeans, his thumb just barely stroking the skin beneath there.

She's going to kill him. She is honestly going to kill him because there's a coil of heat in her belly as she gasps, pulling herself closer to him.

Tadashi pulls away then, dipping his forehead down so it's pressed against hers as they both catch their breath, with both of them trembling.

It's been so long, she thinks, eyes closing shut. This can't be a dream. It cannot be a dream, please, no.

As if he could read her mind — though, knowing him, he probably could — Tadashi brushes his thumb near the corner of her eye, where there's wetness there. He's crying too, so she mirrors the motion.

"Not a dream, GoGo," he whispers, his pulse quickening under her fingers. "'Go, I missed you."

"Asshole," GoGo chokes out, a lump rising in her throat. "You're an as—"

He captures his lips in hers again, firmly shutting her up.

And she was, for once, fine with it.

Because he's alive and he's here and he's kissing her like he never had before. The tightness in her chest is fleeing as she takes a deep breath, a full one, because it seems like she hasn't taken one in months.

There's a thousand questions brimming in her mind, but now is not the time. Now she's focusing on his fingers trailing across the skin beneath her shirt, sending a flicker of heat through her entire being.

He kicks the door shut with his foot.

I couldn't figure out what kind of ending I wanted, so this one was kinda abrupt. Sorry about that.