Chapter Text
Night had now fully claimed the sky and stars had come out, offering little light they could onto the cemetary. Bill looked at his hands, the ones that had set Pacifica free. Maybe one day, he'd be gifted the same relief.
The blonde went back to Mabel's house and with a slight pang of sadness, saw the sign outside, marking the house as for sale. Much to his surprise, the door was unlocked and he could make his way back inside. Everything was still like the day he'd left, still with the same comforting smell of flowers and old people. Stepping into Mabel's bedroom he noticed the bookshelves next to her bed, she must've spend days to weeks unable to leave that bed. His hands stroked the bookspines, feeling the rich leather she had used for each and every one. Noticing a little red one, he pulled it out and opened it. The insides consisted of old fragile paper and golden lining. It was filled with pictures of her and Prescott when they were younger. Pictures of Mabel and Pacifica, the close friends they had once been. Of her children and after that her grandchildren as well. After browsing through most of the pictures, one made him stop his in motions. A picture of a beautifull brunette that looked so much like Mabel, she was holding onto the most round belly he'd ever seen and a lovely husband behind her.
Old echoes lingered in the night, a song of loss and longing that clung to Bill’s senses even after the light had fled. The wind carried only silence now, and the memory of their laughter was a faint pulse beneath his skin. He had chased, he had grasped, he had fallen short. The twin voices, bright and unyielding, had slipped through his reach once more. And in that emptiness, he understood something he had never felt before: the weight of time.
Time was no longer a mere tool, no longer a curiosity to manipulate. It was a tide, indifferent and relentless, washing over the bodies he could no longer claim, the moments he could no longer bend. Bill had sobbed, yes, had crumpled into the soil of that night, but in the wet darkness, a seed of patience planted itself deep within him. He would not let this go. He could not.
The years stretched, centuries folded into themselves. One life ended, and the next began, as it always had. The winds of mortality whispered names and dates, guiding the flow of existence with precision that mocked his frustration. Bill did not age as mortals did; he did not falter in the passing of decades. And so, he waited. Observed. Learned.
It was not immediate, nor was it hurried. For in the quiet, the world moved without care for grief or obsession. Families were born, lived, and faded. Kings rose and fell; empires crumbled into dust. Yet always, in the edges of perception, Bill moved unseen, tethered to the thread that would one day lead him back to them.
And so, the second cycle began—not with fanfare or announcement, but with the subtle turning of a wheel in a distant city. The first cries of a child, small and perfect, cut through the cold morning air. The mother pressed the infant to her chest, unaware of the shadow that lingered beyond the threshold. And somewhere, just beyond sight, Bill’s gaze fell upon him. Mason. His name whispered through the corridors of memory, carrying with it the echo of past lives, the promise of obsession, and the patient unfolding of a plan that spanned lifetimes.
From that day onward, Bill watched. Quietly. Patiently. Observing every movement, every gesture, every detail of life he could claim only through vision, for the laws of mortality had changed nothing for him. And in the patterns of mundane existence—the tilt of a child’s head, the careful way a mother hid a mark, the rhythm of daily routines—Bill began again, counting, calculating, waiting for the precise moment when fate would allow him to take another step closer.