[Coldsaturn]

yeah, Caleb's predator would howl.

i have to admit i was thinking about how that would even play out, because they couldn't know each other in order to set up that dynamic but then i thought..  chip wipe, mebbe?

-- what if, instead of inserting Caleb into the Fleet, they did something else with him? what if he's doing some sort of other double agent thing (i dunno, hand wave the details i guess) and the brain section that is currently guarding his memories of her is deeply buried / hidden to avoid actual wipe so when she turns up, he really has no idea who she is but is immediately Switched On by her presence?
-- in that case, does she recognise him as her dead brother? is she a Hunter / in the current timeline and just thinks this new singer that Tara has showed her social media images of just resembles him? so she.. she has to go check in some sort of fixation that she knows is unhealthy but Tara has tickets and what could it hurt? it won't be him but maybe once she gets close, she'll know it in her heart as well as her head?
-- or maybe she's the one that doesn't remember at all, too young when they were finally broken apart after the Tunnel and he never found her again, yet here she is right in front of him and Caleb goes feral as she unwittingly wanders into his orbit again.

i have THOUGHTS.

- "what if he's doing some sort of other double agent thing"
I mean, we already have both Sylus and Raf bringing us to clubs where shady things happen, why can't this be another one?

- "the brain section that is currently guarding his memories of her is deeply buried / hidden to avoid actual wipe"
Obsessed with this idea, and also I'm doing a rewatch of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and I hit the part where a character had his body hijacked by someone else who's now inhabiting it, and from the outside it 100% looks like this character is now either gone or completely unable to access his body, but then the protagonist mentions a girl who's very important to him and you can see the hijacker visibly react to it.
I don't think I even want Caleb to remember MC in this scenario (not so soon, anyway), let him be confused by how his body is reacting to her for no apparent reason.

- MC I believe would have to recognize him once she sees him up close, but what's easier to believe, that your dead gege who would never leave you isn't dead and just decided to never come back to your side, or that this is a cruel twist of fate and you've just found his doppelganger? So you'd have Caleb going "who IS she???" and MC going "Nah can't be him" and both just really want to get into each other's pants and it's fucked up either way.

- "or maybe she's the one that doesn't remember at all"
This is another wild route, considering how big the chunk of their life together we would have to cut down. They've only known each other (or Caleb only, since MC wouldn't remember) from the lab, which also implies that they haven't had the chance to be happy together for more than a handful of hours. Ouch. This might make Caleb even more obsessive than he already is, if he's clinging to a few hours of happy childhood memories.


P.S. the way Raf is looking at MC!!!