Cara stayed. She didn’t get it at first. She’d only ever seen the show on catch-up, compressed and artifact-ridden, or on late-night repeats. But then episode 112 played—the one where Toadie’s world tilted on a single line of dialogue. In the Web-DL, the shadow under his eye was a bruise of grief, not a pixelated smudge. The silence after his line stretched for a perfect, horrible second.

Leo stared at it on his screen. Outside his flat, the real world was rain-smeared and indifferent. Inside, it was 2012. Or rather, a perfect, stolen slice of 2012.

That was the moment.